Musk / Moderation / Algos

[TTX1]

The old joke re: "moderation is only good if you don't overdo it" seems no longer funny.

Meta thinks I live in CA, ME, NC, PA.

I am routinely served ads for businesses and political candidates that I cannot possibly support. There is nothing in my profile, activity, travel that would give Meta a reason to serve me local content from these areas. And I steadfastly refuse to engage any political content on Meta whatsoever - yet it still comes.

Perhaps campaign owners have poorly configured their targets, and Meta has no incentive to improve their targeting? More likely, Meta is glad to take revenue from any advertiser - and, with the exceedingly poor reporting they provide to advertisers, the only thing they need to do is serve the ad, i.e., deliver a certain number of views.

I'm sure you all have a similar experience: "why am I seeing this?"

Meta's valuation is falling - not because Zuck wants to open new (unproven) markets - but because the core ad business is softening.

Which brings me to Twitter... Musk wants free speech. OK, that's great. But advertisers don't want anything to do with an environment that alienates their consumers.

How to balance these interests? i.e., I don't think Kanye's fortunes rise on Twitter while they fall with Addidas.

And big tech has yet to devise an algo that actually balances the interests of the audience and the advertiser in a mutually delightful way.

Which is why we all are served content that we find mildly disinteresting to outright repulsive - on a regular basis. When it happens this consistently, it's not a flaw - it's the design.

It's the same problem with Meta and Twitter.

How long until one of these platforms truly implodes?

I'm not super excited about the prospect of Microsoft or News Corp taking over, either...

[jimcav]

I don't have an answer, but am hopeful that content will be heavily influenced by major business--in the sense that the demographic of those spending the most $ are more middle-of-the-road types that support basic ideas of equality and civility. I hope it gets more like old TV ads--where major products are services are what is generally advertised/propagated, and if there is any weird crap, it is at 2am.

My inbox gets dozens to scores of spam emails per day--companies, organizations, and most I've never done direct business with. I think companies I have done business just sell my info along with everyone else's. I don't think it costs anything ore for them to email everyone on the list versus figuring out a more targeted approach.
I don't use FB, but keep an account to link things my wife wants me to have on the page for friends to see.
Of course, I'd have not worn a uniform for 28 years if I didn't really believe in the constitution, so agree with free speech, but only in the sense of the gov't not limiting it. I'm all for common sense and decency limiting it on facebook, twitter, in the local coffee shop etc.

[j44ke]

I think the whole argument re: free speech on social media is just I-am-god-speech to pimp the ego of whichever majordomo runs that particular service. They aren't the government. They have no role in governing what is or is not free speech. There is no opportunity to be some kind of savior. Just more amoral marketing to get more suckers to sign up so they can pay off their investors.

Elon Musk can go to hell.

I vote Zuckerman most likely to end up like Howard Hughes with over-grown fingernails and sterilized bedsheets.

[Too Tall]

Jorn going dark. I like it ;0

Without fanfare I think Mon-sewer Musk seeks to play mumbly peg with the USA Democracy and that'a bout as close to the line as I will discourse. Y'all can have it.

I'm not on twitter except that one time I posted by accident and maybe a few more times trying to be thorough(ly) incompetent.

I'm with Dark Jorn, eff' em.

[vertical_doug]

I think this will be interesting.



He borrowed 25.5 billion in a rising rate environment. He has probably pledged 25billion in tesla stock for his margin loan. I do not know what assets twitter pledged for the 13billion in loans against the company.

I haven't seen the loan docs suspect rates are 7% or higher. That's $1.785 billion per year in interest in a company that has never thrown off more than 600mm in free cash flow. A lot of these tech companies are all equity heavy, debt light because they do not generate enough cash flow.

If tesla stock continues to decline in value, he eventually gets a collateral call for more stock. He is going to hate that.

(Bezo's only paid $250mm for WAPO)

He cannot turn Twitter into a complete sewer because he needs to hire first rate computer talent to improve the system. If first rate computer talent doesn't want to work for you because they hate your politics, you eventually have to really pay up. This is what happened to Zuckerberg and META. New Grads and talent hated Facebook so he had to offer large premiums to entire workers.

If Musk manages to turn everything around, his out is to IPO the company but a complete sewer will be hard to do.

Moreover, there are only so many times he can tweet Taiwan belongs to China to get Chinese perks for his Chinese Tesla sales.

First read here will be 4th quarter earnings for Morgan Stanley since they will probably disclose the loss on Twitter loans.

[Too Tall]

Thanks Doug, you make complicated things much easier to understand.

Am I wrong that he must turn Twitter into a cash cow asap?

[robin3mj]

Is MS’s loan really material though? They will do everything they can to avoid discussing it if possible, and I doubt with a 10/27 transaction date they’ll announce marking the loan down so soon.

I checked and I never made one tweet, but I did use Twitter to follow a bunch of news/sports accounts. Deactivated it on Friday and apparently it gets permanently deleted in 30 days. I won’t miss it.

[vertical_doug]

Is MS’s loan really material though? They will do everything they can to avoid discussing it if possible, and I doubt with a 10/27 transaction date they’ll announce marking the loan down so soon.
.

Markets think the banks take a $500mm hit on twitter loan to sell it off.
On the post earnings call, some analyst will ask the question. They always do. It will be Jan 19th/

[NYCfixie]

One more reason for me to get off social media. It has so little value to me personally. If I want to be in touch with "real" friends, I find myself calling them more often these days. And, I don't really care about my "Facebook" friends that I am not willing to call on the phone.

I (finally) joined Facebook in 2017 because there was a grad school group I needed to follow. When I realized there was nothing for me there because I was 25 years older than the average grad student, I started adding to my friends list. Soon thereafter was a barrage of cat videos, food pics, and family photos of nieces and nephews. I enjoyed the family photos but not much else. Now that most of those nieces and nephews are in high school or college, I am left with cat videos, food pics, and useless advertising. I think my Facebook experiment has finally come to an end.

Along the way, someone said that Facebook was only for old people and I should join Instagram so I did. Started building followers only to learn that I was now going to see the same pictures of animals, food, and relatives on both FaceBook and Instagram so where is the value? The ADs were so irritating I only used IG on my computer so that my AD blocker could save me from the incessant stream of ADs. Unfortunately, my ADs blocker is no longer able to block most ADs so I might be done with Instagram as well.

I never bothered to join twitter. I get my news via the paper version of NYT or the nightly news on TV.

For me, I really never found the value in FB and IG but maybe because I am a closeted luddite living and working in a tech world. Either way, I'm done.

/rant over

[Mabouya]

If real, this is yet more proof that Musk is an idiot:

[TTX1]

If real, this is yet more proof that Musk is an idiot:

For those who don't have an account, Musk has cited a well known fake-news site in his post. The same site claimed that Hillary Clinton was dead prior to the 2016 election, and a doppleganger was in her place - for example. Idiot.

This thread has some substance for those attempting to follow the plot:

https://twitter.com/alexstamos/statu...-KTeRVO-Eyu9zA

[Marvinlungwitz]

It looks wackos don’t need 4chan and Q anymore, they have the new and improved Twitter and Elon.

[j44ke]

….if his daddy episode with whatshername musician, drugs and their kid 37’f$&294@-/ or whatever its name is wasn’t enough to clinch it for you….

[Chik]

Meta's advert algorithm is really broken. It doesn't matter how precisely you define the audience.

Even though they know my gender, they completely ignore it in serving up adverts. I appreciate the difficulties arising from the beefed up privacy shield introduced for iOS, but the failure goes well beyond that bit of inconvenienc.

I've found a little corner of Twitter that I find useful: keeping up with what arts organisations' activities. I find it much better than subscribing to email newsletters that inevitably clog my inbox at their convenience, not mine. And I follow precisely one friend, an old classmate who runs an official account on behalf of his employer (and lives some distance away from me), because he has no other digital footprint but the account gives me a hint of what's going through his mind.

[bcm119]

Twitter is a cesspool in the political arena. But if you have a well curated list of follows, it is super useful for niche interests and tracking things like weather events, viruses, and especially wildfires. When something is happening, twitter offers real time insight into what experts are thinking - virologists, meteorologists, geologists, fire scientists, social scientists... It's the only platform that offers that. Leaving/staying is a tough decision for me.

[theflashunc]

I think this will be interesting.



He borrowed 25.5 billion in a rising rate environment. He has probably pledged 25billion in tesla stock for his margin loan. I do not know what assets twitter pledged for the 13billion in loans against the company.

I haven't seen the loan docs suspect rates are 7% or higher. That's $1.785 billion per year in interest in a company that has never thrown off more than 600mm in free cash flow. A lot of these tech companies are all equity heavy, debt light because they do not generate enough cash flow.

If tesla stock continues to decline in value, he eventually gets a collateral call for more stock. He is going to hate that.

(Bezo's only paid $250mm for WAPO)

He cannot turn Twitter into a complete sewer because he needs to hire first rate computer talent to improve the system. If first rate computer talent doesn't want to work for you because they hate your politics, you eventually have to really pay up. This is what happened to Zuckerberg and META. New Grads and talent hated Facebook so he had to offer large premiums to entire workers.

If Musk manages to turn everything around, his out is to IPO the company but a complete sewer will be hard to do.

Moreover, there are only so many times he can tweet Taiwan belongs to China to get Chinese perks for his Chinese Tesla sales.

First read here will be 4th quarter earnings for Morgan Stanley since they will probably disclose the loss on Twitter loans.

My undertanding is this financing outline is outdated given this was in the Spring, and a number of these banks walked.

Reuters has the revised financing agreement here. Largest outside equity investor is....the Saudi Sovreign Wealth Fund run by MBS.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/w...er-2022-10-07/

[SlowPokePete]

If real, this is yet more proof that Musk is an idiot:

More info here...

https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk...gn=position_07

SPP

[Too Tall]

#squirrel

[72gmc]

I vote Zuckerman most likely to end up like Howard Hughes with over-grown fingernails and sterilized bedsheets.

Was “jars of urine” edited out of this post? I thought that was required for references to HH. Perhaps it’s being saved for later.

[Mabouya]

Largest outside equity investor is....the Saudi Sovreign Wealth Fund run by MBS.

Known as long-time supporters of free speech...