Social Media Companies: Tell it to Earth

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Social Media Companies: Tell it to Earth

How much longer is Twitter going to last?
	A few weeks
	A few months
	A few years
	About as long as the rest of humanity

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Eric Cantonese posted:

Wow. That took them a really long time.

Is Threads gained any traction in the US? It seemed like a pretty premature launch.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/25/23932473/mark-zuckerberg-threads-100-million-monthly-users-earnings

They have 100 million active users, according to Zuckerberg. Twitter has around 250m.

# ? Dec 1, 2023 07:20

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# ? Jun 3, 2024 12:14

That Italian Guy: Jul 25, 2012; We need the equivalent of the shrimp = small pastry avatar, but for ambulances and their mysteries now.

SimonChris posted:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/25/23932473/mark-zuckerberg-threads-100-million-monthly-users-earnings

They have 100 million active users, according to Zuckerberg. Twitter has around 250m.

That doesn't sound bad, considering that there are 750k people in Europe.

# ? Dec 1, 2023 08:57

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

That Italian Guy posted:

That doesn't sound bad, considering that there are 750k people in Europe.

Opening up to Europe should also make non-Europeans more likely to join since they can reach more people. It will be interesting to see the effect.

# ? Dec 1, 2023 09:28

Dick Trauma: Nov 30, 2007; God damn it, you've got to be kind.

https://twitter.com/thomas_violence/status/1730347512140325354?s=20

# ? Dec 1, 2023 10:24

Nervous: Jan 25, 2005; Why, hello, my little slice of pecan pie.

Name Change posted:

Musk rapidly progressing to the stage of billionairitis where his eternal youth treatments just make him look like a rubber mask stretched over a skull.

Elon Mask

# ? Dec 1, 2023 11:49

Teratrain: Aug 23, 2007; Waiting for Godot

That Italian Guy posted:

That doesn't sound bad, considering that there are 750k people in Europe.

Yeah but according to Musk, Europe is on the verge of civil war so maybe it's not a good metric

# ? Dec 1, 2023 15:52

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Dick Trauma posted:

https://twitter.com/thomas_violence/status/1730347512140325354?s=20

Julian the Apostate has an X.com account?!?!?

# ? Dec 1, 2023 16:04

Dick Trauma: Nov 30, 2007; God damn it, you've got to be kind.

Eric Cantonese posted:

Julian the Apostate has an X.com account?!?!?

japos93442712 followed by lots of flag icons.

# ? Dec 1, 2023 16:14

Agents are GO!: Dec 29, 2004

Name Change posted:

Musk rapidly progressing to the stage of billionairitis where his eternal youth treatments just make him look like a rubber mask stretched over a skull.

# ? Dec 1, 2023 19:41

OneEightHundred: Feb 28, 2008; Soon, we will be unstoppable!

Anchor Wanker posted:

I see they embed threads in my ig feed. I do not have a threads account. Seems p desperate

The embeds will continuously advertise the existence of it to Instagram users, which is probably one of their better strategic ideas for it right now. It's certainly a better idea than calling it "Threads by Instagram" and not being integrated.

It was seriously hurt by being launched in an obviously-undercooked state though. The technical issues it had at launch are gone and it has a web client that works fine now, if they had just held off and launched in this state instead of trying to get ahead of competitors that haven't caught on either then maybe it'd be doing pretty good right now.

# ? Dec 2, 2023 02:05

FlamingLiberal: Jan 18, 2009; Would you like to play a game?

OneEightHundred posted:

It was seriously hurt by being launched in an obviously-undercooked state though. The technical issues it had at launch are gone and it has a web client that works fine now, if they had just held off and launched in this state instead of trying to get ahead of competitors that haven't caught on either then maybe it'd be doing pretty good right now.

Yeah rushing it out the door was a bad idea and I just don't know if it will recover from that

# ? Dec 2, 2023 02:30

Pakistani Brad Pitt: Nov 28, 2004; Not as taciturn, but still terribly powerful...

OneEightHundred posted:

The embeds will continuously advertise the existence of it to Instagram users, which is probably one of their better strategic ideas for it right now. It's certainly a better idea than calling it "Threads by Instagram" and not being integrated.

It was seriously hurt by being launched in an obviously-undercooked state though. The technical issues it had at launch are gone and it has a web client that works fine now, if they had just held off and launched in this state instead of trying to get ahead of competitors that haven't caught on either then maybe it'd be doing pretty good right now.

Can I create a Threads account without an Instagram account yet?

# ? Dec 2, 2023 22:58

OneEightHundred: Feb 28, 2008; Soon, we will be unstoppable!

Pakistani Brad Pitt posted:

Can I create a Threads account without an Instagram account yet?

I don't think so, but not sure what the downside is to making an Instagram account for it and then just not using Instagram.

Aside from the fact that their current web UI flow doesn't lead you to a signup link which is kinda dumb.

# ? Dec 3, 2023 02:03

Mercury_Storm: Jun 12, 2003; *chomp chomp chomp*

Do they still have that thing where if you use an existing Instagram account to sign up you can never disconnect it from Threads?

# ? Dec 3, 2023 05:44

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

Do remember that IG is owned by Meta, so signing up to that and Threads will put you in the Zuckercorn Panopticon more than you already are.

# ? Dec 3, 2023 14:47

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

Harvard admins may have hosed over a researcher working on harmful effects of social media, very shortly aftergetting $500 million from Zuckercorn's foundation. Probably just a coincidence, because it is well-known that university admins are purely dedicated to academic freedom and objective truth.

Ousted propaganda scholar Joan Donovan accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/12/04/joan-donovan-harvard-dismissal-complaint/

quote:

A prominent disinformation scholar has accused Harvard University of dismissing her to curry favor with Facebook and its current and former executives in violation of her right to free speech.

Joan Donovan claimed in a filing with the Education Department and the Massachusetts attorney general that her superiors soured on her as Harvard was getting a record $500 million pledge from Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg�s charitable arm.

quote:

As research director of Harvard Kennedy School projects delving into mis- and disinformation on social media platforms, Donovan had raised millions in grants, testified before Congress and been a frequent commentator on television, often faulting internet companies for profiting from the spread of divisive falsehoods.

Last year, the school�s dean told her that he was winding down her main project and that she should stop fundraising for it. This year, the school eliminated her position. The surprise dismissal alarmed fellow researchers elsewhere, who saw Donovan as a pioneer in an increasingly critical area of great sensitivity to the powerful and well-connected tech giants.

quote:

As the main attraction at a Zoom meeting for top Kennedy School donors on Oct. 29 that year, Donovan said the papers showed that Meta knew the harms it was causing. Former top Facebook communications executive Elliot Schrage asked repeated questions during the meeting and said she badly misunderstood the papers, Donovan wrote in a sworn declaration included in the filing.

Ten days after the donors meeting, Kennedy School dean Doug Elmendorf, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, emailed Donovan with pointed questions about her research goals and methods, launching an increase in oversight that restricted her activities and led to her dismissal before the end of her contract, according to the declaration. Donovan wrote that the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative�s $500 million gift for a new artificial intelligence institute at the university, announced Dec. 7 that year, had been in the works before the donor meeting.

quote:

At one point, Elmendorf told Donovan that she did not have academic freedom because she was staff rather than faculty, she recounts. Officials confirmed that position to The Post.

But Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig said that stance should be limited to traditional staff work, not research papers, other publications and teaching.

�When you�re doing what looks like academic work as one of the most prominent people in an academic field, the university ought to award that person the protections of academic freedom,� said Lessig, an expert on corruption who made inquiries to Harvard�s administration on Donovan�s behalf. �When she was presenting herself to the world, there was no asterisk at the bottom of her name saying, �As long as what she says is consistent with the interests of Harvard University.��

Really telling on themselves there...

quote:

Donovan says in her complaint that Elmendorf emailed her after the October donors� meeting and asked to discuss her Facebook work and �focus on a few key issues drawn from the questions raised by the Dean�s Council and my own limited reading of current events.�

He wrote that he wanted to hear from her about �How you define the problem of misinformation for both analysis and possible responses (algorithm-adjusting or policymaking) when there is no independent arbiter of truth (in this country or others) and constitutional protections of speech (in some countries)?�

Donovan said in the filing that Elmendorf�s use of the phrase �arbiters of truth� alarmed her because Facebook uses the same words to explain its reluctance to take actions against false content.

She explained to Elmendorf that rather than making moral judgments about politics or proclaiming that a vaccine is good or bad, she looked for provable manipulation of platforms, as with fake accounts.

quote:

Donovan then alerted colleagues with whom she was starting to work on the Facebook Archive of leaked documents that she was drawing heat. Both suggested that they take the name of Donovan�s Technology and Social Change Research Project off the archive project�s website.

�Let�s remove the explicit listing of TASC, minimally, or of all three groups, when the website updates later today,� Kennedy School professor Latanya Sweeney wrote in an email included in Donovan�s filing. �No reason to put a target on the project that allows FB to claim bias before we even do anything.�

Donovan�s project remained listed on the page until this year, according to copies preserved by the Internet Archive.

Sweeney said her role was twisted by the Donovan filing. �The number and nature of inaccuracies and falsehoods in the document are so abundant and self-serving as to be horribly disappointing,� she told The Post. �Meta exerted no influence over the Facebook Archive or any of our/my work.�

Elmendorf met with Donovan again in August 2022 and told her that her project at the Kennedy School would end in the coming year, the filing says.

Though Donovan�s contract was supposed to keep her on the job through the end of 2024, her superiors took away her ability to start new projects, raise money or organize large events, she alleges. They kept the money she had brought in, including more than $1 million from Craigslist founder Craig Newmark that he wanted specifically to go to her research project, according to documents quoted in the declaration. Newmark declined to comment.

# ? Dec 4, 2023 19:59

OgNar: Oct 26, 2002; They tapdance not, neither do they fart

The World Wide Web has left the shitter.

# ? Dec 7, 2023 03:54

That Italian Guy: Jul 25, 2012; We need the equivalent of the shrimp = small pastry avatar, but for ambulances and their mysteries now.

OgNar posted:

The World Wide Web has left the shitter.

The elders of the Internet have spoken.

# ? Dec 7, 2023 09:36

Boris Galerkin: Dec 17, 2011; I don't understand why I can't harass people online. Seriously, somebody please explain why I shouldn't be allowed to stalk others on social media!

Isn�t that organization irrelevant? Haven�t kept up but iirc there were 2 html groups and the one without a number in its name was the authoritative group that browsers actually follow?

# ? Dec 7, 2023 13:40

LifeLynx: Feb 27, 2001; Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time; Grimey Drawer

Boris Galerkin posted:

Isn’t that organization irrelevant? Haven’t kept up but iirc there were 2 html groups and the one without a number in its name was the authoritative group that browsers actually follow?

WHATWG is the HTML group. W3C develops literally everything else that makes websites work. CSS, SVG, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, etc. All very relevant.

# ? Dec 7, 2023 14:35

Kavros: May 18, 2011; sleep sleep sleep
fly fly post post
sleep sleep sleep

LifeLynx posted:

WHATWG is the HTML group. W3C develops literally everything else that makes websites work. CSS, SVG, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, etc. All very relevant.

every day i'm picketing outside WHATWG's homes with a sign that says bring back blink and marquee you cowards

# ? Dec 7, 2023 15:39

Mercury_Storm: Jun 12, 2003; *chomp chomp chomp*

So much for that Alex Jones xitter ban I guess:

https://nitter.net/MattGertz/status/1732520758432215367

# ? Dec 7, 2023 18:13

That Italian Guy: Jul 25, 2012; We need the equivalent of the shrimp = small pastry avatar, but for ambulances and their mysteries now.

Mercury_Storm posted:

So much for that Alex Jones xitter ban I guess:

https://nitter.net/MattGertz/status/1732520758432215367

Gaetz is right, Jones does look like a big bald purple faced villain.

# ? Dec 7, 2023 18:31

Mercury_Storm: Jun 12, 2003; *chomp chomp chomp*

Don't confuse Matthew Gertz with Matthew Gaetz

He gets that a lot!

# ? Dec 7, 2023 18:33

I AM GRANDO: Aug 20, 2006

Even when Jones was young he looked old. Guy�s been balding since age 12.

# ? Dec 7, 2023 19:29

Angepain: Jul 13, 2012; what keeps happening to my clothes

Boris Galerkin posted:

Isn�t that organization irrelevant? Haven�t kept up but iirc there were 2 html groups and the one without a number in its name was the authoritative group that browsers actually follow?

You might be thinking of W3Schools, which has nothing to do with W3C but has used their official-sounding name to get people to click on their questionable tutorials

# ? Dec 7, 2023 19:32

haveblue: Aug 15, 2005; Toilet Rascal

Official-sounding name and viciously effective SEO

# ? Dec 7, 2023 19:33

That Italian Guy: Jul 25, 2012; We need the equivalent of the shrimp = small pastry avatar, but for ambulances and their mysteries now.

Mercury_Storm posted:

Don't confuse Matthew Gertz with Matthew Gaetz He gets that a lot!

I was a bit confused by that, thanks!

# ? Dec 7, 2023 19:46

koolkal: Oct 21, 2008; this thread maybe doesnt have room for 2 green xbox one avs

All time classic

# ? Dec 9, 2023 22:25

Mercury_Storm: Jun 12, 2003; *chomp chomp chomp*

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67673623

The most cursed headline I've seen in years, maybe ever. Also when does Andrew Tate get sent back to prison already

# ? Dec 10, 2023 22:33

johncraig: Jul 26, 2023

that headline is so messy, consider a rewrite

# ? Dec 10, 2023 22:52

Kavros: May 18, 2011; sleep sleep sleep
fly fly post post
sleep sleep sleep

What a galling way to make twitter dumber and worse in every possible way.

Tate is a sex trafficker, being his surrogate should end your account. Especially if you just got your account back after an incredibly valuable, approvable vacation.

# ? Dec 10, 2023 22:54

OgNar: Oct 26, 2002; They tapdance not, neither do they fart

All that stupid in one place and then Matt Gaetz shows up to chat.

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1733945776869392446

# ? Dec 10, 2023 22:56

That Italian Guy: Jul 25, 2012; We need the equivalent of the shrimp = small pastry avatar, but for ambulances and their mysteries now.

OgNar posted:

All that stupid in one place and then Matt Gaetz shows up to chat.

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1733945776869392446

I can't believe Matthew Gertz is doing this!

# ? Dec 10, 2023 23:48

I AM GRANDO: Aug 20, 2006

Can�t believe the heir to the GURPS fortune is doing this.

# ? Dec 11, 2023 00:01

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

I had no idea the WSB guy(s) were doing this kind of thing. I mean I�m not surprised at all and it 100% tracks, but I didn�t know.

# ? Dec 11, 2023 00:05

Agents are GO!: Dec 29, 2004

I AM GRANDO posted:

Can’t believe the heir to the GURPS fortune is doing this.

Matthew Gurps

# ? Dec 11, 2023 00:42

FlamingLiberal: Jan 18, 2009; Would you like to play a game?

I think Tate is under house arrest awaiting trial. He had been in jail but that got overturned by the courts in Romania.

# ? Dec 11, 2023 04:28

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

Threads is available in Europe now :toot:

# ? Dec 14, 2023 16:47

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# ? Jun 3, 2024 12:14

Deuce: Jun 18, 2004; Mile High Club

FlamingLiberal posted:

I think Tate is under house arrest awaiting trial. He had been in jail but that got overturned by the courts in Romania.

I hope he still has ghosts to punch

# ? Dec 16, 2023 01:37

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