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What are the odds he reinstates trump as one of his first acts in office? 🤔 I'd guess 100% which will be followed by a small fraction of employees walking out and a quitting wave possible... he'll need a genius product idea or two to make up for that
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Biden doesn't mention Tesla anytime he talks EVs/climate due to non-unionization (which is pretty petty), so musk has been pissed about that, so there's no way that doesn't factor into the calculus. "You won't acknowledge Tesla, I'll unmuzzle your nemesis."
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Worst case he tries to run it himself in a spacex way… try to blow up a lot of rockets to learn to launch them well. As in let lots of twitter conflicts blow up. The problem is you can keep people a safe distance from trial and error rocket experiments but not social ones
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Jack wanted to let anybody write their own feed algorithm against the api iirc. That’s really the big potential win here. If I can make (or more likely, select from a marketplace) a feed algorithm to suit me, I kinda don’t give a shit what the free speech crowd does.
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It will also take the wind out of the sails of free speech posturing by creating a meaningful exit option. Right now the best in-platform exit option is protected tweets and that is no good. As it stands only crude mute/block mechanisms exist and they don’t scale.
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Replying to @vgr
If he says that he’s going to open source the algorithm it’ll be unprecedented In the history of social media.
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For “free speech” I’ve lately started mentally substituting “remove all ddos protection and sibyl resistance.” If you’re an internet-of-beefs knight with enough mooks at your command, you can swamp you’re opponents ability to hold a mute/block perimeter.
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There are asymmetrically more (and more powerful) mechanisms available today to amplify reach than there are ways to tune people out *at scale*. I’d like, for instance a learning algorithm on my side, like a spam filter, that learns from *my* blocks, mutes, and muted words
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And I’d like to share and merge my filters in useful ways with those set up by trusted people. Unfortunately every bit of user control over filters (“free tuning” perhaps, like “free speech”) erodes advertising potential, or we’d have all this already.
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For the longest time, I foolishly held to a “free speech” standard and almost never used the mute or block buttons on principle. But at some point I realized that was a dumb posture. I now mute at the drop of a hat. Blocks are still very rare for me.
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I also unfollow relatively easily and don’t take it personally if people unfollow me. I realized that genuine free-speechers have a combat model of speech I just don’t share. “Debate” is a combat model. I basically don’t debate. I just chat with friends so long as it isn’t combat
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Killer feature that is unlikely to be implemented: ability to share mute/block lists with friends on a 1:1 basis. That’s really valuable input to a feed algorithm. If 2/3 of my trusted friends have blocked someone I do so automatically. Maybe I can even weight their lists.
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My basic point, and what I’ll be watching for, is if the “free tune” tooling keeps pace with “free speech” tooling. It’s an arms race, and anyone who doesn’t get that is either stupid, combative, naive, or some combination thereof.
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Free speech got amplified into algorithmically gameable reach (with mook armies, ad money, or both) But “listening” didn’t get similarly technologically augmented. Speech got public square rock-concert speaker technology, ears got cotton wool.
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I like twitter in its present form and it works well for my style of usage even at decent scale (54k). But I get that my experience is not typical. Plenty of people get targeted for harassment for who they are/what they do. And many don’t have the choice to avoid “combat” speech.
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There are also people for whom twitter doesn’t work because their idea of it “working” is destruction of enemies through combat speech, including p2p algorithmic war. I’d like it to continue not working for them, but get that the platform may now decide policing is not their job.
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And so we’re off… Place your bets. I’d bet 30-40-30 this unravels in flames vs stays roughly the same modulo cosmetic changes vs evolves technically to a more powerful level of arms race
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