Musk vs Media Matters

Never forget that Internet news may be inaccurate. Short of reading actual court filings and transcripts, everything else (including this post) should be treated with caution.

Source: Musk files lawsuit claiming Media Matters manipulated X by scrolling down | Ars Technica

According to Musk's complaint, Media Matters allegedly "manipulated data" by evading X's content filters for new users and "using an account that had been in existence for more than 30 days" to conduct its research. With this account, Media Matters allegedly followed only 30 users that "were either already known for posting controversial content or were accounts for X’s advertisers."

"This functioned as an attempt to flood the Media Matters account with content only from national brands and fringe figures, tricking the algorithm into thinking Media Matters wanted to view both hateful content and content from large advertisers," X Corp.'s complaint said.

Next, Media Matters allegedly began scrolling and refreshing this curated feed, generating "between 13 and 15 times more advertisements per hour than would be seen by a typical user, essentially seeking to force a situation in which a brand ad post appeared adjacent to fringe content."

What X described as Media Matters' manipulations, though, arguably is how the platform would function if a user was going to follow only white nationalist accounts and their favorite brands, . . .​

In 1993, NBC was sued because of a report about exploding GMC pickups. GMC had relocated gasoline fuel tanks on the side, like semi-trailer cabs. The NBC team thought to show an accident that spilled the gasoline and created a fireball. But they enhanced the vehicle with an ignition source to ensure the video showed the fireball. NBC was sued and settled because it was a staged accident reported as news.

IMHO, the NBC report highlighted a poor GMC engineering decision that moved a fuel tank from inside the body to an exposed, side. But it is harder to gather timely accident data showing the problem. Had NBC shown the pool of gasoline after the staged test with spilled gas on the pavement, perfect. They could have then shown the effect of igniting the spilled fuel as a separate part of the report. It was concealing the igniter in the report that made it a staged event.

It is common for those who dislike another organization to focus on the income sources of that organization. A boycott is an effective tool. But has Media Matters created a synthetic or staged report to attack Twitter/X advertisers? Have others attacking Twitter/X done similar acts?

This is an issue for the court(s) to decide where evidence is presented, argued, evaluated, and judgement passed. But I am also reminded that some States have passed laws restricting criticism of products like meat or vegetables.

Bob Wilson

ps. I have a Twitter account that was used 2-3 times per year in the vain hope there was some value. When Musk reformed Twitter/X, I even paid $8/mo for three months only to find there was no value in Twitter/X for my interests. Twitter/X could disappear tomorrow and it would have no effect on my life.

 

After 1:17, the video ran over my bullish*t tolerance limit.

Bob Wilson

 

After 1:17, the video hit my bullish*t tolerance limit.

Bob Wilson

 

This is bizarre:

“Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them,”​

The only Jews I've known have been white. So doing the substitution for "Jewish":

“Whitish communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them,”​

Substituting "Whitish" for "Jewish" reminds me of:

Well that certainly applies to the MAGA right-wingers who want to kill Americans. What did Trump call his enemies, "Vermin."

I would not have said it was true unless we discussing Malcom Nance's book. The right-wing killers want to kill brown and black people but also whites who oppose their criminally murderous goals.

Bob Wilson

 

Well said!

As for suing ‘Media Matters’, I don’t have a dog in that fight. Calling Musk antisemitic, easy to call, hard to prove. Far as I’m concerned, Twitter/X is his hobby and fun.

When Twitter/X seriously replaces YouTube, I’ll look again. So far, no value to me.

Bob Wilson

 

I read the +600 page, Elon Musk biography by Walter Isaacson and there was nothing to suggest antisemitism.

Bob Wilson

 

I read the +600 page, Elon Musk biography by Walter Isaacson and there was nothing to suggest antisemitism.

Source: Transcript: Walter Isaacson, Author, “Elon Musk” - The Washington Post

MR. IGNATIUS: Do you think there's any merit in the questions about anti-Semitism, for example?

MR. ISAACSON: Well, Jonathan Greenblatt, who runs the ADL, says he doesn't think Musk is anti-Semitic, but I do think that by allowing people who say anti-Semitic things on the platform and allowing them to be amplified, that has the same effect, and of course, I don't like that. I'm worried about it. I'm worried about it. I think it's bad.

I think that there's a whole conspiracy, as you put it, a mindset, and a lot of my book is sometimes what Maye Musk, his mother, said, which is the danger of Elon is he becomes his father. His father lives in South Africa. He's a very--he thinks the election was stolen from Biden. He thinks if you get vaccinated, you're going to die right away or something.

So if you talk to Musk, you say, well, a lot of those conspiracy theories, whether it's--I don't know--lab leak or whatever--turned out to have some merit to them. So there are times when he gets into this--what you might call fringe or conspiratorial mindset.

But one thing I have to emphasize in this light--the book is a narrative--is that there are times he's not that way. He snaps out of it, where he's very rational, where he's trying very hard to make it an environment in which hate speech is not amplified. So you have a mercurial, complicated person which is, in my mind, if you're going to ask a question, probably not the best use of his time to be running what used to be called Twitter.
​

I bolded the section that talks about Elon's father.

Bob Wilson