Beep boop - this is a robot. A new show has been posted to TWiT…
What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!
When I started work in the 1980s, I worked for a large UK conglomarate, which had divisions doing all sorts of things, from radar, through nuclear power stations to guided missiles. At the interview, they actually stated that I would possibly have to work with people who produced weapons and whether I had a problem with that. (i.e. if I had a problem with that, I was looking to work at the wrong company.)
If you weren’t one of the first dozen or so employees at Microsoft and probably not one of the first few hundred at Google, than it was obvious that they had the US military as one of their customers (and most certainly other governments, if not their militaries directly), so you know before you go to work at a company whether they have military contracts and if you don’t agree with that, you shouldn’t work at those companies.
To be honest, I’d have few compunctions to go and work at a company that provided services to my (non-US) government or military than I would to work at a company that collected personal data and sold it…
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During the show, there was some discussion about Cloudflare and Perplexity, with Cloudflare claiming that Perplexity isn’t following the rules. Somehow the discussion came down to whether or not Cloudflare should be the rule master.
While I don’t think Cloudflare should be making the rules, if they are in the mix for access to a website, then it’s because they are getting paid to protect a website from undesirable traffic. It is known that Perplexity is breaking the rules. My own company’s website was taken offline because another website on the same server we are hosted on was getting DDos’d by a Perplexity bot, and the protections we were supposed to have didn’t kick in because Cloudflare didn’t recognize it as an attack.
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Regarding using Twitter and Lou’s comments that it’s still the best place to go for news.
The problem I have is that Twitter. to borrow a phrase from the hosts, has become a Nazi bar. I would not go to a Nazi bar for thoughtful commentary on science or even politics or news. If I had important information I wanted to share. I would not go to a Nazi bar to do it. I would not engage with patrons of a Nazi bar because that kind of person is not someone who’s opinion I value. The only thing to go to a Nazi for is Nazi discussions - and I have no desire to sink to that level.
So, to my mind - it is no longer the best place to go for news, if it ever was the *“*best”, because of what it has become. The kinds of people who frequent such establishments are not the kind of people with whom I want to be associated.
I may be painting in broad strokes and over-generalizing. But the fact remains that Twitter has changed, and not for the better. And that’s saying something for the place that has enabled GamerGate and similar incidents. It was never “good” - but it was tolerable under some circumstances, provided you weren’t a target. That is no longer the case.
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To apply Cory’s vocabulary, what’s to say that Twitter wasn’t already “inshidified” while Jack Dorsey was still running things? Does he think the widespread censorship, banning, and shadow-banning of old-Twitter was a good thing? Did he value hearing from contributors that advocated raising Vitamin D levels during the pandemic? Was he dismayed that such messages were culled from Twitter by the small group of individuals that knew the “right” approach to mitigating the virus?
The dogmatic and dramatic “Nazi bar” label sounds preposterous. I follow a diverse bunch of individuals on Twitter. I learn tons from them. I have never seen evidence of a “Nazi bar” in any of the messages that show up on my feed. I’ve never gone actively searching for that environment – just like I never poke AIs to see what sort of “Nazi” answers I can get in reply to my prompts. I just don’t go there. Where exactly would I go on Twitter to locate a “Nazi bar” – what would I search on to find that? I’m willing to do that – for the point of this discussion.
If the “fact” is that Twitter has changed, please show us the receipts. I don’t know what was good about a Jack Dorsey Twitter that practiced wholesale censorship with no transparency whatsoever. Do you know a single person anywhere that liked that world? I can’t imaginge how Cory Doctorow would have liked that “inshidified” Twitter. Is censorship OK if only people you disagree with are censored?
I’m sorry @floatingbones - this isn’t a court or a lawsuit. I don’t have to bring receipts for my opinion. I never said Twitter was great before - if anything I question how great it supposedly was. I merely state that it has gotten worse - and I concede I could be over-generalizing.
On a forum where we express opinions, this is mine and I do not have to substantiate it to you. There will be those with differing perspectives, like yours, and those who’s point of view resonates with mine.
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Nobody is forcing you to actually back up your opinion with rational thought – the receipts.
The fact that you can’t apply critical thinking to your conjecture isn’t particularly interesting. The fact that nobody can rationally back up the sensationalized conjecture that Twitter/xAI is actually a “Nazi bar” is spectacularly interesting.
I didn’t know why the phrase popped up in the TWiT #1047 conversation with Cory. The archives explained: the term was discussed in Cory’s earlier appearance on TWiT #1002.
”Nazi bar” was an anecdote shared by Michael Tager in July 2020. The story was supposedly about a real bar, but Michael also failed to provide any receipts. Last November, Michael shifted the story to transfer his talking point to the entirety of X/Twitter. The counterpoint to Michael’s declaration is noteworthy; such discussion is exactly the thing that works well on Twitter.
”Nazi bar” is a sensationalist tripe, and sensationalism is never a substitute for evidence.
By using the conclusion without reasoning, Doctorow has “inshidified” rational discourse on the Internet. Simply conjecturing that some social media service is a “Nazi bar” is not good enough. IMHO, Cory needs to do better.
Thanks for the feedback. I’ll look it over and get back to you.
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Let’s keep the discussion focused on ideas, not individuals. Comments that imply another user lacks critical thinking can be interpreted as personal attacks, even if that’s not the intent. Please ensure your contributions remain respectful and address the topic, not the person.
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I was a glad to hear Leo bring up the FCC vs the NAB (broadcasters), though I was hoping the topic of ATSC 3 transition would come up. Although niche, and nothing new, the FCC seems to be at least listening to regular people and not just the industry in regards to adding DRM to the airwaves and privately regulating, rather than the FCC setting the regulations. Lon and Tyler have been killing it on the topic.
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Interesting discussion about the alternative to Twitter, Bluesky from a man of the left.
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