It turns out Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter for a whopping $44 billion had a really interesting underlying reason. Apparently, his motivation stemmed from a personal situation involving his daughter, who came out as transgender. Elon seemed to attribute this to what he called Twitter's "woke mind virus". Quite intriguing, isn't it? It's fascinating to see how personal factors can shape business decisions.
Speaking of transgender individuals, perhaps it's worth mentioning that there are various other social networks available to them. I wonder if Elon had considered this or even anticipated that transgender folks can create their own Fediverse servers, which allows for a more decentralized social media experience. It's incredible to think about how transgender people have actively contributed to the development of protocols like ActivityPub, which enables true social media decentralization. This reminds us that social media is much more than just a platform – it acts as a means for us to connect with one another through the powerful tool of the internet.
I can't help but ponder if Elon truly believed that acquiring social media platforms would somehow prevent his daughter from fully embracing her identity. In reality, no amount of money can alter someone's true nature. It's quite something, isn't it? It must be quite frustrating for Elon to grasp that human beings cannot be controlled like assets or investments. People simply cannot be bought or owned – they are individuals with their own unique journeys, including Elon's daughter finding her true self as a woman.
Reddit's new API pricing is completely unhinged. @christianselig, maker of the popular iOS Reddit client Apollo is being asked to pony up $2 million per month to keep the lights on for his app. Even if he restricted access to just his subscribers, the API cost per average user is more than he charges. Reddit promised reasonable pricing, but now it feels like a rug pull.
Can someone convince him to adapt Apollo for @LemmyDev instead?
On this subject, @paul, the former developer of third-party Twitter-client Tweetbot who pivoted to launch the Mastodon-client @ivory, posted this earlier:
"Reddit is totally pulling a Twitter.
I'd say a Reddit client is at least technically possible, unlike Twitter, but pricing would have to be around $10/month which really reduces the # of users that would be willing to pay to where it may just not be financially viable."
The pessimist in me wants to speculate that #Reddit knows that this move is bad and is doing it anyways because natural growth just ain’t cutting it anymore. When you take the VC money you have to deliver VC returns, so unless you’re the unicorn that prints money you have to find more creative ways of generating revenue.
This is the future big tech was always headed for. We have to help people get to the fediverse ASAP!
@atomicpoet@socialmedianews And what if people have already downloaded TikTok? Will they not be able to get security updates? And TikTok on the web? ISPs are not allowed to block any traffic to Montana, by state law. What a mess!
@atomicpoet@socialmedianews was an interesting article though. kinda wild that, in general with many of the confirmed ones, things that are likely an issue that can be a reasonable conclusion to make by just sitting on it for more than thirty seconds get the same “conspiracy theory” label as people who think there are giants in the center of the earth or ones originating from Nazi dogwhistles
@atomicpoet@socialmedianews that’s the gag, though. They’re ALL toxic. The toxicity might be ideologically and directionally palatable for you personally. I’ve yet to see non-toxic social media. Even Mastadon has calls for violence on it regularly.
We have to decide that we, as a society, want to be stronger, smarter, and nicer at the expense of regular dopamine hits, and there MIGHT be a world where social media adds value to our lives.
I don’t see it.
@atomicpoet wow, social media has really become a scapegoat for everything. OTOH...
Corrupting the youth? Social media's fault.
I think this is rather correct. The mainstream social media uses all kinds of tactics and algorythms to keep us glued to the screen and to foster "engagement" - which is mostly negative reactions. All for more user data monetization.
@atomicpoet@socialmedianews
Elon Musk is a horrible human being. This is far from being limited to antisemitism. He is the worst humanity has to offer. We all need to be on the same page with regard to this. Instead of picking apart the sums that make him bad, we need to keep the tapestry stitched and stand together against Everything he is.
Goldman Sachs -- yes, the #finance company -- is entering the social media industry with their own LinkedIn competitor.
They specifically describe it as "A.I.-powered LinkedIn on steroids".
Most will probably scoff at this. But I'm telling you that if Goldman Sachs is to start a new social media platform, going after #LinkedIn is probably a good idea. This is because to certain people on LinkedIn saying the name "Goldman Sachs" is equivalent to saying "New York Yankees".
Now I don't think this will go anywhere because social media is simply not Goldman Sachs' core business. Nevertheless, a bunch of finbros will probably hype this up.
@atomicpoet@socialmedianews
AI + Social Media is a combination I avoid, especially one run by a criminal organization.
Fediverse for professional relationships is growing albeit slowly. One of the lovely features of Calckey is the ability to easily switch between accounts in the same screen. I prefer to call them facets rather than accounts. I think everybody should have at least three accounts/facets for the different parts of their lives: A real name personal facet for friends and family to find you and follow personal activities, a professional facet, and others for other areas of interests such as political that may be anonymous.
I did work for GS for a few years, so not at all surprised: they have a way of doing various research spin-off projects, and if they somewhat work, turning them into commercial projects. They are an investment bank but the largest share of their workforce are programmers, precisely because they are an investment bank that also happens to create investments rather than just sit and wait for ones.
Months ago, I looked through Lemon8's site, fooled around, and came to the same conclusion as the reviewer. But I'm also nowhere near Bytedance's targeted demographic for this, so reading from someone who is bring clarity.
That said, I am a big fan of the Instagram and Pinterest experience, but those apps have been enshittified long ago, and I've been hoping for good Fediverse contenders for awhile. This is why I can continue to run my #Pixelfed server since this is such a critical app.
I hope can all collectively build something more compelling than Lemon8.
@atomicpoet I'm a fan of the ephemeral nature of Instagram stories that are visible for 24h and then they're gone (well, soft-deleted, at least). I enjoy posting some nonsense that's gone in a day, it makes me post stuff I wouldn't bother with otherwise because it's too silly for me to want it sticking around forever.
But I totally agree about the enshittification, especially the "no links for you ever" policy where I have to screenshot a post and use the iPhone's text recognition to cut'n'paste it out of the image.
@atomicpoet@socialmedianews I would love a Fediverse alternative to Pinterest. It’s the only big social thing apart from LinkedIn that I’ve been unable to quit because it’s actually useful to me.
Twitter's announcement of so-called "end-to-end encrypted" direct messages is complete garbage and an exercise in gobbledygook. Here's the major caveats:
It's not available to all Twitter users -- you must be subscribed to Twitter Blue
It must be deliberately opt-in for use
You can only send encrypted messages to people who follow you
Does not work with groups
Only works with text or links -- don't even think of encrypting photos!
Where are these messages being stored?
With all those caveats, why use Twitter's end-to-end encryption at all?
Even Elon Musk doesn't trust this feature right now. He's said, "try it, but don’t trust it yet.”