Social Media & Big Tech news and discussions

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caltrek
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Re: Social Media & Big Tech news and discussions

Post by caltrek »

ººº wrote: Mon Dec 19, 2022 12:54 am
raklian wrote: Sun Dec 18, 2022 11:38 pm Guys, vote if you have a Twitter account.

There must be a catch:
He said "as head of Twitter", not "from Twitter"
Could be he will retain ownership but appoint somebody else as CEO while he tends to other matters, such as SpaceX and Tesla.
At any rate, an interesting comment from from Common Dreams
As of this writing (on December 19, 2022) the results were approximately 58% in favor of him stepping down and 42% saying he should stay on...

If Musk steps down as CEO there's no telling who he would choose to replace him.

As he ominously tweeted subsequent to posting the user survey, "As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it."
A possibility is that he will reverse course and turn Twitter into a publicly held corporation. This could involve issuing stock in order to pay off some of the debt incurred in buying the company. As I understand it, currently massive payments are coming due periodically to pay off the debt and or interest payments on loans taken out as part of his purchase of Twitter. He could be trying to cut his losses and either unburden himself of Twitter completely or surrendering some control in exchange for a sharing of the benefits of Twitter ownership. He could also sell off the corporation as a privately held to some other entity.

He has also floated the possibility of a declaration of bankruptcy. Such a move would unburden him from payback of debt or at least restructuring his debt to make it more manageable. Whether Twitter would keep operating under this option is in question. I would think a complete shut-down would represent a tremendous loss to him and his backers given how much was paid for the purchase of Twitter, so I don't think the actual shutting down of Twitter is highly likely. Still, this all has the marks of being such a fiasco...
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weatheriscool
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Re: Social Media & Big Tech news and discussions

Post by weatheriscool »

U.S. lawmakers to include ban on TikTok on government devices
Source: Reuters

U.S. lawmakers will include a proposal to bar federal government employees from using Chinese app TikTok on government-owned devices in a key spending bill, sources told Reuters on Monday.

The Senate last week voted on a bill sponsored by Republican Senator Josh Hawley to bar federal employees from using the ByteDance-owned short video app on government-owned devices. It was the latest action by U.S. lawmakers to crack down on Chinese companies amid national security fears.

The ban is set to be included in a massive omnibus measure to fund U.S. government operations that is expected to be voted on this week, the sources said.

The proposal last week won the backing of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... r-AA15tf16
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ººº
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Re: Social Media & Big Tech news and discussions

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Why would you use TikTok at work?
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caltrek
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Re: Social Media & Big Tech news and discussions

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Wasn’t Elon Musk Supposed to Quit by Now?
by Shirin Ghaffary
December 20, 2022

Introduction:
(Vox) It’s been over 36 hours since people voted overwhelmingly for Elon Musk to step down as CEO of Twitter (out of some 17 million votes, 57.5 percent were in favor of Musk resigning). But instead of immediately and publicly accepting the results, which he said he’d do, Musk is now casting doubt on the validity of his poll after Musk himself launched it on Twitter, a platform that he owns.

It’s not just anonymous Twitter users who may want Musk to step down. Outside investors are also calling for Musk to focus less on Twitter and more on Tesla. They see the Twitter drama as distracting Musk from his more lucrative business at Tesla, which has seen its stock price fall precipitously in recent weeks. Musk has long said he eventually wants to step down as Twitter CEO, so it’s unclear why he seems so unwilling to accept the results of the poll calling for him to end his chaotic reign as head of the company.

The recent poll debacle demonstrates Musk’s self-destructive attachment to running Twitter, despite the fact that it has jeopardized his reputation and business success since he took over in October. It’s also another example of how Musk can’t seem to handle criticism — from debating the percentage of people in the crowd who were booing him at a comedy show to firing employees who criticized him, and now, dismissing the legitimacy of the Twitter users who voted him out of the company he just bought.

Rather than comment on the results of the poll directly, Musk took to Twitter on Monday morning and encouraged questions about whether the results were legitimate. He engaged in a Twitter thread by a user suggesting that a “deep state” bot army was rigging the poll against him. Musk replied to another user in the same thread who suggested that only paid subscribers to Twitter Blue should be able to vote in polls: He said, “Twitter will make that change.”
Read more here: https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/12/20/ ... it-resign
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weatheriscool
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Re: Social Media & Big Tech news and discussions

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I'd be fucking floored if he stepped down because of this poll.
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Re: Social Media & Big Tech news and discussions

Post by weatheriscool »

Facebook parent Meta to settle Cambridge Analytica scandal case for $725 mln

Source: Reuters

Dec 23 (Reuters) - Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) has agreed to pay $725 million to resolve a class-action lawsuit accusing the social media giant of allowing third parties, including Cambridge Analytica, to access users' personal information.

The proposed settlement, which was disclosed in a court filing late on Thursday, would resolve a long-running lawsuit prompted by revelations in 2018 that Facebook had allowed the British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to access data of as many as 87 million users.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs called the proposed settlement the largest to ever be achieved in a U.S. data privacy class action and the most that Meta has ever paid to resolve a class action lawsuit.

"This historic settlement will provide meaningful relief to the class in this complex and novel privacy case," the lead lawyers for the plaintiffs, Derek Loeser and Lesley Weaver, said in a joint statement.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/legal/facebook- ... 022-12-23/
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caltrek
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Re: Social Media & Big Tech news and discussions

Post by caltrek »

In The Far Future of Space Travel and Humanity an interesting conversation about bots has come up. We have also recently been discussing the need to keep comments more confined to the most relevant threads. So, I thought I would present a slice of the conversation below in this thread:
erowind wrote: ↑Fri Dec 23, 2022 2:43 am
Cyber_Rebel wrote: ↑Thu Dec 22, 2022 11:47 am
It still kind of amazes me how we're even at the point to where bots can post on forums with coherent responses, sometimes more so than their human counterparts. @R8Z is correct in saying that at some point, we truly won't be able to tell the difference, or said A.I. would be "conscious" enough to truly add to any discussion, being just as valid as any other person.

As for space, I think the potential promise of unlimited resources and having new frontiers is obviously worth it, whether it be by augmented humanity or full-on AGI.
I hope we figure out a countermeasure for this forum specifically tbh. As much as Yuli predicted future people being able to live out their own personal digital realities as AI gets better I do like talking to real people mostly about the future, specifically all of the lovable and argumentative people on this forum myself much included.

A few bots are more than welcome, I hope they don’t outnumber us at any point though :shock:
caltrek wrote: Also, if said bots do "participate" it would be nice to know that they are bots, for reasons articulated by Erowind.
Maybe something for some future version of this forum, or by some other commercial (or nonprofit) social media platform with the human (and computer) resources to pull it off.
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Re: Social Media & Big Tech news and discussions

Post by Time_Traveller »

Numerous Strategies Have Failed To Get Advertisers Back On Twitter
Dec 24, 2022,07:15pm EST

With Elon Musk agreeing to resign as CEO after he conducted a Twitter poll asking whether he should step down and 57.5% of the 17 million respondents said yes, the question is who should run the troubled company and how he will entice anyone to do it.

One potential candidate who told Musk in April that being CEO of Twitter was his “dream job” tech investor Jason Calacanis sent out his own Twitter poll—with emojis showing it was in jest—asking whether he, investor and former technology David Sacks, or “Other” should be named CEO. Ironically, the majority of respondents voted for “Other.”

He later tweeted, perhaps in jest, “Who would like the most miserable job in tech AND media?! Who is insane enough to run twitter?!?!” Another user tweeted that technology investor Joe Lonsdale should get the job, he responded, “Lol, no thanks.” There does not appear to be overwhelming interest in the job from people who would have the skill set to run the company.

Shares in Tesla fell 18% this week and are down more than 60% since Musk announced his plans to buy Twitter Inc. Clearly shareholders in Tesla believe he is spending too much time on Twitter, being CEO of multiple companies at the same time nearly always ends badly. Musk now owns shares in Tesla worth $52 billion.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/derekbaine ... 0862625ef5
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Re: Social Media & Big Tech news and discussions

Post by Nanotechandmorefuture »

Don't think they'll ban it for civvies since that Chinese connection is just too valuable. Hell even Disney has Disneyland in China :lol: Not surprised these sorts of changes are gov employee related as usual.
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