Twitter Trends and Elon Musk

On April 14 Elon Musk announced a $54.20-a-share, or $44 billion, bid to acquire the social-network Twitter.

Immediately he became a target of attacks from people on the left wing of the political spectrum who speculated, some predicting, he will open a barrage of hate, bullying and misinformation on the platform. At least in part, that anger was generated when Musk indicated he would lift the ban on Donald Trump.

From what I’ve been able to glean, Musk is not a Trump supporter – nor a fan of Biden.

“Even though I think a less divisive candidate would be better in 2024, I still think Trump should be restored to Twitter,” the billionaire on May 12 wrote to his almost 93 million followers.

Those of us concerned with the principles of free speech, are happy to hear Musk wanting a platform that “… will be open to everyone as long as the comments made do not violate the law of the country where they are made. As long as users stay within the law there is no reason to exclude them.”

Frankly, it’s a breath of fresh air when a successful and gifted entrepreneur like Elon Musk expresses those sentiments in support of a free society – which the US is supposed to be. It’s also heartening to see Musk put up a big chunk of his fortune inside the storm of culture canceling social media platforms to people with differing opinions.

There have been several attempts to develop and put online other social media platforms that are open to everyone, including conservative points of view. But those attempts have failed. The most recent example is Parler (spelled with an “e”) which tried to launch operations in 2021 but failed when Google (YouTube) and Apple took the app for it out of its stores and Amazon denied it by shutting down its massive servers to access by the company.

Musk’s attempt is different. By jumping right in the middle of the Big Tech, social platform oligarchy he is playing the game from the inside, not the outside. In other words, his offer to take over Twitter puts a major player of said oligarchy in play.

Musk has recently put his offer on hold while demanding solid information on the number and percentage of Twitter users who are not real people. The value of the company for advertising revenue obviously depends on those ‘real’ numbers. He was not satisfied by the considered too quick calculations and response by Twitter of an estimated 5% of its users were phony.

For practical purposes, those numbers are important for everyone to know – here’s the reason why. Many of our national news networks rely on something they call “Twitter Trends.” Based on the number of Tweets, Twitter uses an algorithm – hashtags – that shows the topics getting the most attention in each country worldwide.

Musk now estimates the number of phony Twitter users approach 25%. The Twitter CEO admitted it might be close to 20%. An independent study claims that fake users as a percentage of all users could be nearly 20%. Political accounts, including Musk’s own have been said to exceed 40%. So, a few people with lots of phony accounts can affect the Twitter Trends that so many news outlets rely on for what people are thinking and saying.

While not being a tweeter myself, I can understand that the social network platforms are generally used by people in this country – almost 80% by last count. It’s an easy way to express oneself to numbers of others not possible otherwise.

The power now held by the big, social media companies brings us to Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act.

Section 230 makes internet service providers, like Google, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter immune from lawsuits based on claims related to content published by third parties using their service.

The intent of the section was and is worthy. What it did not intend was any of those now dominate social media platforms taking sides in the political arena, disallowing certain information posts based on ‘fact checking’ and labeling them as dis-misinformation, or canceling the accounts of people with whom their executives and employees disagree. Therefore, members of both political parties are talking about the revision or even revoking of Section 230.

That’s why the current ray of hope in restoring free speech shines with the potential purchase of a major platform, Twitter, by an individual whose motives are apparently to support the goal of free speech, Elon Musk.

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Have a great and prosperous week.

Hug somebody.

References:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/elon-musk-makes-a-choice-for-2024-presidential-election/ar-AAXeBCE?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=3a046f29be0e415bba8410efbc4d6039https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/06/09/what-happened-to-parler-could-happen-to-you-former-ceo-mark-meckler-warns/https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/05/17/musk-threatens-to-walk-away-from-twitter-deal-over-high-fake-user-counthttps://nypost.com/article/what-is-section-230-and-why-was-it-created/

SPIDER Bites

NOAA predicts another active 2022 hurricane season. Officially it starts next Wednesday. It’s Florida – almost perfect all the time. I pay little attention to the predicted numbers because it’s mostly crystal ball, tarot card, horoscope stuff.

Another mass shooting. 19 small Texas school children slaughtered by an evil, obviously psychotic killer whose spree last week started with his grandmother. Our hearts go out to the parents, families, friends and teachers dealing with the tragedy. It would seem we need to do a better job in getting, and keeping, potential harm doers in institutions/prisons, off our streets and out of our faces. One possible action, more States might consider ‘red flag laws’ like we’ve had in Florida since Parkland -2018 whereby anyone who believes a firearm owner is a risk to themselves or anyone else can petition the court to issue an emergency order. This order prevents the person, who is allegedly a risk, from having access to firearms, even if they own one or more. A hearing with the parties is held within two weeks to determine the permanence of the order. 3,500 such orders have been initiated in FL the last 2 years.

Michigan has joined CA and TX in warning residents there could be rolling blackouts this summer because of the subjectively required percentages of electrical generation via solar and wind in those states, which in turn do not now have the capacity to meet projected summer demand. Oh, and the cost of current batteries to store electricity is far outpacing traditional power generation sources such as relatively clean burning natural gas – despite it doubling in cost.

According to Michael Barnard, Strategist for Agora Energy Technologies – a CO2-based redox flow startup, a member of the Advisory Board of ELECTRON Aviation, and Chief Strategist at TFIE Strategy – it takes 363 wind turbines to replace one coal-fired generation plant currently generating at 50% capacity – because they’re being retired and replaced with natural gas. But no immediate CO2, sulfur or mercury emissions. At last count there were 381 coal plants. To replace our 1,900 natural gas plants? – an estimated 650,521,333 wind turbines would be needed.

President Biden warned us about monkey pox last week, indicating a new vaccine may be necessary. It so happens the smallpox vaccine apparently is effective in preventing it. The ‘old’ virus, rarely fatal, is spread primarily by sex between male homosexuals, and the US now has two confirmed cases with 12 more under investigation, according to the CDC.