If you remember Elon back in Paypal mafia days, he initiated a hostile takeover after the board forced out Peter Thiel. After gaining control of the company he fired the CEO and handed the reigns back to Peter Thiel to run the company. It's possible he could do something similar with Twitter and Jack Dorsey. History doesn't necessarily repeat itself but tends to rhyme.
There are algorithm biases that are not focused on bringing people the content that they want to watch. Instead of purely bringing the content the algorithm thinks you want to watch, that would generate the most watch time or views or other metrics, they put the content that they want you to see. For example on RUclips the preference towards "trusted" "news" "journalism", "elevating authoritative sources" they call it. A lot of poor quality, extremely biased, and outright untruthful content that spews hate towards certain people or groups of people, gets preferential treatment in search, just because it's from an "official" source like a news channel or TV show. These sorts of biases are the algorithms that need to be eliminated.
I'm a little surprised that you're taking this "equal twitter" thing to mean it won't still try to promote relevancy and quality. It seemed more like that the line would be transparent and vetted by the public, to show that it isn't throttling people based on ideological bounds, not that you would suddenly have low quality content be weighted equally with high quality. I don't know if this was just bait for me to comment, but I think it's an important distinction. Great video and discussion though.
When forums existed long ago I though "so much trashy posts" a system with up/down votes is surely the way. Fast forward to now and forums dont exist, only reddit exists and twitter, platforms centered around only upvotes and downvotes. And the result? only the extremes exist and the extremes get more extreme and more exposure the more extreme they are. It was then I realize that we need the not-so-perfect posts to keep things grounded and that sorting by just votes (centering everything around votes) is a bad idea in the long term.
I personally stopped using Twitter because of it's hostile political environment (from both sides) almost a year ago. I don't see Elon taking it over changing the overall hostility but now both sides will be fairly equal in representation in hostility. It has been increasing hard to find entertaining content that isn't based around flaming people for their political beliefs. I now exclusively use Instagram and RUclips for entertainment and even then it's harder and harder for me to enjoy Instagram. I think we are at a tipping point in internet culture where we may just have to have mainstream platforms that are "uncensored" for the most part (like what Elon wants) and others that focus purely on entertainment. The biggest factor in the success of the "information war" is teaching people how to learn and not regurgitate. How to make a personal conclusion on information they sought out. I think it could be beneficial for the lack of "censored" content on Twitter so people can see other views. I am under the personal belief that the combination of ideas will lead to a better idea. But I also find it incredibly unlikely. But like I said I don't use Twitter nor have an attachment to it so if Elon's experiment burns to the ground I won't be disappointed
Reading between the lines a bit, it appears Jack and Elon have been working together for this for a while. Just based on their tweets, and some of Jack's previously stated goals. And I don't think he's ditching the algo, he said he's open sourcing it - which could be one of the most interesting things to happen in the social media space in ages. It's also not just apple and google, payment processors like Visa et al are increasingly enforcing their own views as to what content is acceptable. There are a lot of layers to this. I think some people are underestimating Musk a bit in all the hoopla. He's certainly flawed, but I don't think he would roll the dice on something like this on a whim. Certainly a ton of challenges ahead. My nightmare is that he finds a way to tie this to Neurolink and jack us all in forever.
I've been a Twitter poweruser for nearly a decade and I think the quality has gone down in years, specifically for opposite reasons you say made it good. You say it was good for content creators, but it was similar "good" for content creators the way Twitch is good for RUclips. Before it was easier to see organic humans and conversations on twitter, now it seems to be just pushed creators and algorithms and in fact the only way to ever get any clout on the website is from importing it from other places. Twitter was always a way I could just tweet a joke and get a couple hundred or thousand likes, but as the algorithms started rolling in, my discoverability went down. Furthermore, the lack of monetization on Twitter brings people who care more about their voices rather than "content creating as a career" and is why Twitter works as a public forum better than other sorts of social media. I also don't think any of the "flood gates" will get opened, at least not in the way you propose they will. Overall, not much will change, but minor changes will make big improvements.
I think that Twitter is already as bad as it can conceivably be without actually driving everyone to other platforms. The trolls, hate, etc. Either Elon makes a bunch of stupid changes that crater the company, or he accidentally makes it better. Either way is a win.
Twitter being the toxic cesspool of the internet has been a recurring thought for years though. And what with the rise in toxicity with covid, QAnons, and then Jan 6., perhaps its our imaginations that are lacking in how bad it could conceivably get. Couple that with modern business practices that have companies operating in the red for decades on end in the hopes of cornering the market, and its possible whatever new form of nightmare gets conceived could stick around for years yet. "What could possibly go wrong!" (not to say that Elon fucking up is a sure thing, I've no flipping clue. But I could easily conjure up a bunch of scenarios where we all collectively lose from this venture)
Accidentally? His stated goal is to make it better, so it seems like you just aren't willing to give him credit if he succeeds. And the only way I see the platform imploding is if the changes he makes cause a mass temper tantrum and exodus of lefties. But I agree Twitter dying is still worth every penny of that 44 billion, and it's not physically possible for it to get any worse then it is pre-Musk. It's a win/win unless nothing really changes at all.
I made it to the 26:30 mark, and I plan to finish too. Good take so far, very hard topic to have a "good take" about and your way of describing being cautious was very well stated!
Excellent video as always (I never comment but I'm always in the callout gang) but I'm afraid I need to be that engineer that calls out the AI section of your video lol. Tesla's ability to detect humans starts and ends with the cars' sensors - they can detect objects and people to avoid hitting them and possibly to detect people inside the car (I'm not a Tesla expert) but I can guarantee the AI has absolutely nothing in it to help determine a human from a non-human via some written text. It's certainly possible to use patterns to detect some bots, but the vast majority are going to be undetectable. Even as a human, if you see a tweet that says "Wow, really screwed up", can you tell whether a person or a bot posted this? The best we have is probably some form of required CAPTCHA before every tweet, but sometimes these are beatable by bots and either way, there's no way they're ever going to add such a big barrier to entry (if I'm not mistaken, you've mentioned this once before when talking about Twitch signups or something). Elon Musk is excellent at marketing, but I doubt he's the brains behind any of the algorithms at play.
I don't think Elon is planning on making it all civil discourse and clean family fun. I think its the opposite. I think he knows that people are toxic by nature and humanity is in need of a wake up call. We treat people with "love" but most of the time its just for the benefit for ourselves. I think Elon wants to expose that in people and show them that if we want to have all this free speech and free thought, we need to retrain ourselves to be nicer to one and other.
I’m sorry, but allowing everyone a voice is a net positive. Twitter should just stop or prohibit what they are legally required to do. You don’t silence bad speech. You beat bad speech with better speech.
From the moment the news broke the FIRST thing that came to mind was the Return of Jack 😂 Like you said, who knows how likely but that door is definitely open
you say that about the algorithms is good but Twitters is not my wall has nothing that I am interested in most of the time. so I am not sure your right there on it just a thought. I am a special member cause I watch your whole videos lol.
26:30 which honestly is a no brainer. Devin Nash videos I watch start to finish without fail. I started watching you because I’m intrigued with streaming/influencer business model. This type video is your bread and butter and why I truly love this channel. No where else have I found anything like what you offer. Thank you.
The key to understanding this issue is accepting no solution will appease the overwhelming majority AND the phrase 'town square' itself as filtered through USA's 1st Amendment. If x nefarious actors congregated at a physical town square and executed y heinous act, should the engineers and construction workers be held accountable that helped build the town square? Seems kind of silly right? Absurd even. The key difference between actual town squares and online town squares is permanence; what is said in real life vanishes into the air or someone's memory while online rhetoric is permanent. Would our founding fathers change the 1st Amendment based on permanence? No. I don't think they would. They had books, libraries, and newspapers which were just precursors to the internet. The exceptions we have is 'don't yell fire in a crowded theater' as even our Amendment recognizes that speech can cause harm. So where do you draw the line? Firstly I don't think any company that identifies as a 'town square' should be held accountable for anything its users upload, say, or do UNLESS their speech falls into the 'don't yell fire in a theater category'... kind of giving a buff to the Safe Harbor legislation. Secondly, we run into the 'who watches the watchers' issue you brought up but a possible solution is what FB has done and has users use their real name. This can be something people have to opt into; they can remain anonymous if they so wish to everyone else on the site but by letting Twitter verify who they really are, they enjoy increased power/features on the site. Who are you more likely to talk to at a town square? Someone who conceals their identity with a garbage bag over their entire body with a face mask or someone who's not trying to hide who they are? This way if someone does end up spitting wildly damaging misinformation welp... Twitter knows who you are even if everyone else doesn't. Additionally Twitter can employ a rotating 'what are the facts/science' jury. Juries are how we determine innocence or guilt. For important things like Covid, is the earth flat/round, etc I do appreciate what RUclips does by providing links to vetted sources. Just have it rotate so no one group gets too powerful. Finally I'm going to take a page out of Andrew Yang's playbook and let users control their data and share in the profit of its sale. It's OUR data. If Twitter is going to sell our data we should also share in those profits. This is also a subtle way to keep people in check; those who want to make $ from Twitter have to verify and once they verify and start making some $ do they are less likely to risk their gains by spouting some 'the earth is flat/stop the steal' nonsense. I'm a libertarian progressive and approach policy from a game design perspective so I'm not part of this red/blue circus. We desperately need a change to shake things out of this tribal nonsense and I'm hoping Elon's move gets us closer to that direction. We'll see.
26 minutes. If you have an authoritarian mind set you would think the way you are. I was one of the people in the 90s that had a completely unfettered or censored chat rooms. Depending on the way the authenticates "Real People" for people being harassed it would end up being as simple as blocking the user. We have put to much on the managers of the platform. One can be excommunicated from the town square by being ignore by enough people that is to ez. The issue with having a centralized authority deciding what is and is not good speech you must adhere to the individuals incharge and have the same attitude as them in order to be allowed to speak. It has already become one sided and has already become a place for people with extreme political views on one side to sit back and agree with each other over and over so ideas are not challenged. The best example of this is twitter banning a sitting president (agree with him or like him or not is not my point here) the fact is he was the republican president that received the most votes ever and the second highest in any of our elections(behind the current president ofcourse) His views reflect about 50% of the population and social media has decided to silence that 50% that is not a healthy discourse.
A little ironic that you are concerned about misinformation then immediately suggest a verification process for all users equates to Verified status with a blue check which has already been stated to not be the intention. A verification process for all users is merely about being able to identify humans compared to bots, nothing more.
I am all into the utopian idea of everyone can say whatever they want and it doesn´t get censored. On one hand we will have alot of trolls, hatespeech etc but... fact is, this is just a minority but it gets scaled out of proportian by everyone else. If people would smarten up just a tiny bit and just not react to those things, there wouldn´t be such a problem. But again, that is naive utopian thinking by me. On the other hand however... i am one of those people who loves a good troll and i am not ashamed of saying that i love the dumb reactions and anger comming out of the troll posts. And i am saying this as someone who has been trolled and i did get angry. I am human and people get me. This is life but i learned to deal with it. If you put everyone in bubblewrap then people won´t learn that. "But what about racism and hatespeech and all kinds of phobias bla bla bla?" Again, ignore it. Don´t give it the attention it doesn´t deserve aslong as it stays on social media. Obviously if something happens irl then call the police and not blame twitter for not handling online pixel writing correctly. What i am actualy worried about is that you can edit your messeges. I´ve always hated the idea of you being able to edit your messeges. Obviously if you made a typo then yeah that makes sense but you can write just another line and be like "messages*". However you can argue that people abusing this system is also a minority and people most likely already screenshot the message anyway so there goes this argument of mine. I do hope... that it will be better... but thats all i can do. Hope that in some form or another my naive utopian thinking gets rewarded.
There are a total of 1.3 billion Twitter accounts, but only 330 million are active users... and we are almost 8 billion people, so... you can just leave Twiter and being a functional human being... like the other 7/8 rest of the world...
I'm a 26:30 hero. I think you're more right than your are wrong. Everything is a balancing act, and we all carry different scales. Thanks for all the great content, as well as pretty reliable information 😁
In Elon we trust. Just to be honest, Elon comes form the private sector and people from the private sector actually deliver results. Also just replacing politically hyper left biased engineers with a more politically unbiased engineers will improve the company tenfold, at least.
nyeh nyeh nyeh disinformation nyeh nyeh nyeh science C'mon man, be honest. You're upset because a significant blow has been dealt to the power of those with whom you agree. Good video!
Here for the secret call out at 26 minutes. I appreciate the candid logical analysis of what this could mean without being overly inflammatory. It can get very tiring very quickly when it's just passionate fans arguing with other passionate fans. I agree that social media can never be perfect and pointing that out nowadays can be very controversial.
Question: If Twitter made different design decisions would they be able to solve, or at least significantly quell the content moderation problem? I think that recommendation algos increase confirmation bias and elevate the most frictional content, which leads to more radical thinking on platform, which translates to off-platform harm. If they suggested new users to use 'Latest Tweets' over 'Home', maybe they could make a difference. People say that Twitter is worse to use on Latest Tweets, but I've been using it this way for years and it's just better. I also think that they can do other things like putting a cap on retweets, making it so someone can share something into my feed, and I can share it to my audence, and then after that anyone seeing my RT of it would have to draft something original, making highly viral content be less important. Currently Twitter will suggest you to click through a link before sharing it, what if it forced you to, making you think twice before spreading potentially harmful content? I'm extremely apprehensive toward content moderation and I REALLY want a better alternative. I don't know how they solve these problems.
I think it's going to be interesting to see what happens if those changes do happen. Maybe they won't work, so he'll have to take a few steps back. Since Facebook started devouring other companies, I feel like everything started to feel the same and that's kinda boring. I HOPE great things happen in the future. I mean, I don't use Twitter because it feels like everyone is fighting with each other over there and that's annoying. Meanwhile, Facebook kinda got super boring while Instagram is 90% ads all the time.
Devin I think this is one of the only times I have seen you overreact, and be very pessimistic. Not sure what you have been watching , or where your deep thoughts during meditation have taken you. I think the negative connotation of "inmates" is a bit extreme , we are assuming these people did the most despicable things to end up in twitter jail , I think more so they may have just had idealistic views that were different. I assume 99% of people are good , and the 1% on both sides of the isle unfortunately can make each other look bad. Love is the answer , and less censorship is always better. Open and transparent are for trust. This will be a good thing for twitter.
26 minutes! Woohoo! All of this definitely exists above my head. It’s hard to really wrap my brain around the implications, and how it’ll impact my day to day life. Appreciate you taking the time to break this down!
I love this take on ads and been saying the same for a long time. I 100% would plug myself into the matrix if it means a better quality of life. If algorithms know what I'll buy I don't have to look for stuff anymore
Watched the whole video past 26:30. I disagree with some of your comments on Twitter. You seem to think that there is no censorship. Or algorithm dialing. Or shadow bans.
Hey Devon, I understand you thinking that algorithms are good because they show you what you want to see, and i do agree (I love watching content tailored to me), BUT on the flip side it’s also serving a lot of misinformation to people or sometimes extreme information. This type of stuff causes division in our society. I know a few family members who are just being served this type of content and it’s brutal. It’s like they live in a different world than me.
Got past 26:30 and was in total agreement. Funny enough I had went back to re-read that tweet from Yishan earlier today, I was thinking about how inline your views are with his 👍
Great video as always. I humbly disagree with your take on the free speech issue. I posit the premise that not all algorythms are going to be removed. Just the ones that ostensibly favor certain types of speech over others. That would leave content creators mostly unaffected. And furthermore it enables for a discourse on the platform that has a multitude of different viewpoints represented. That would be a good thing. It is true that there will be spots on twitter that will devolve into a sesspool of degeneracy. I deem that a price that is ok to be payed. Especially because one can opt out of these discussions. I presume the "block" feature is going to stay of course, we have no reason to believe it will be removed. Thanks for reading the rant and sorry for my english, its not my native tounge.
There are forums that require a real name before posting. When you do post there are people behind it checking your 1st few post to see if you are using your real name and what you are posting. The forum is better for it.
I disagree with you on the fact that videos with 0 views suck. I don't think quality is the problem here but accessibility. I have seen a lot of videos with less than a thousand views that have shared extremely precious information with me. The problem is that these videos are usually very niche and not that accessible to mainstream due to scarce or no editing, and for that reason they don't work well with the algorithm. Sure, there are also 0 views videos that blow, but I definitely don't believe that everything that isn't massively viewed is necessarily like that. On the same note, a lot of the mainstream content that I've seen is always great in presentation and accessibility and is very entertaining to watch, but it is very rarely sharing quality information.
I’m surprised a person who can acknowledge Elon’s success of helping innovating/streamlining online payment systems (PayPal), revitalizes space exploration (SpaceX), then streamlines electric cars (Tesla), and more (Nueralink, Starlink, etc) but yet when comes to big tech/social media… he essentially says Elon should stay in his lane(s). Devin’s insights are usually very interesting and well thought out, but this one seems closed minded. This reminds me of someone in the automobile industry in the 2000s. True innovation often comes from outsiders with different perspectives. I’m excited to see what Elon can bring to the social media and online human behavior space.
If you look at human history our reliance on science has always been muddle by morals and religion. So the idea that we need to protect "science" isn't optimal. Empowering people to be more self sufficient and independent on proper research methods is optimal and just requires better education. Most stuff taught in school is BS unless you want to get into it professionally so you could argue cutting a portion of it out to teach life skills would go a long way for all of humanity. Like a lot of times kids don't know what taxes are or how to do them lol.
26 minute gang :-) I'm a big proponent of free speech but I think everything you brought up are definitely valid points to think through. There was certainly a political direction bias for how content was policed on Twitter in the past, but if it was more equal against left and right parties to not allow to radical opinions, that would probably be better than what they had before.
26:30 I agree with you on most of this. I agree with freedom of speech but most people aren’t intelligent enough to form a valid opinion. They listen to the voice of others and they tell them what to think. It’s a thin line, like the right to bear arms it’s a great thing to have the right but some aren’t qualified to do so based on mental health, past violent history, etc.
I think the best thing to do on a personal level is to just not engage with twitter at all. I deactivated my twitter a long time ago and my overall mood improved and I waste less time. I even find it funny and sad to know that people are out there spending hours on twitter debating wasting so much energy and time being angry. Also 26:30 ;)
1. I agree that not everyone should have a voice, some people are idiots and there are also highly educated idiots. In some areas I'm also an idiot and try to stay quiet in those. However I think someone making negative (factual) criticism should not be banned nor silenced. Even if it's about something sensitive. 2. If Elon shakes things up, even if he fails for a while, breaking things usually helps in having a deeper understanding in that area. 3. Twitter, and many social medias ban with a political agenda and not objectively. Perfect example is twitter's bias during the election period. I think that blatant political bias can be improved, practically. 4. Overall, I wouldn't be surprised if almost everything remains the same. A well oiled machine was created in twitter. Besides upgrading a few parts, realistically, most of the machine will remain. So I won't get my expectations too high. I could say a lot more but this is only a comment, not the video. Which was an enjoyable watch.
26:30 here lmao, its obviously impossible to make something perfect, there will always be pros and cons. I do agree with your position on this 100%, but it will be really entertaining to see where Elon takes it.
I'm always around at the secret call out! I think it's fine to put your thoughts and feelings out on something like this, even if you don't consider yourself an expert on many of the details. There is no doubt that the entire thing is still very relevant to you and all of your clients that you represent professionally. No one can reasonably claim that you don't have a lot of skin in the game here.
I don’t think anyone could actually know what he is going to do with twitter (or what is going to happen to it). My interest comes from the social experiment aspect of this event. Will this event create a shift in the social mindset about what social media’s role in society is (kind of how Tesla created a shift in the mindset of what a car is and how it should function). How fast, if any, would a shift in mindset happen? (As fast as his ability to make this deal happen. Proportionally). And one troll thought I had was; I kinda want to see the aftermath of twitter burning to the ground. Where will ppl run to? Where would ppl go, tweet/ bitch about it? Where would they go to cancel/expose ppl? I think it would be fascinating to see this (I don’t even remotely believe this will happen. Just a fun thought). Realistically I want to see a shift, how big will it be and how fast will it move. Thanks for the video Devin!
I don't think unbanning everyone on twitter is an equivalent case to unbanning everyone on a twitch channel. There's one big difference, and that is the bigness of twitter. A working theory is that the moment you unrestrict a platform it becomes a "Nazi bar" because a lot of problematic people finally have a place they can go and instantly overwhelm that community. This phenomena relies on said community being a small part of the world though, so with a really big platform they would still flock there but maybe they won't overwhelm it. It is uncharted waters, and therefore an interesting experiment.
If you remember Elon back in Paypal mafia days, he initiated a hostile takeover after the board forced out Peter Thiel. After gaining control of the company he fired the CEO and handed the reigns back to Peter Thiel to run the company. It's possible he could do something similar with Twitter and Jack Dorsey. History doesn't necessarily repeat itself but tends to rhyme.
Yall just copy paste the same nonsense under every post about this, seen this exact thing word for word in like thirty places
There are algorithm biases that are not focused on bringing people the content that they want to watch. Instead of purely bringing the content the algorithm thinks you want to watch, that would generate the most watch time or views or other metrics, they put the content that they want you to see. For example on RUclips the preference towards "trusted" "news" "journalism", "elevating authoritative sources" they call it. A lot of poor quality, extremely biased, and outright untruthful content that spews hate towards certain people or groups of people, gets preferential treatment in search, just because it's from an "official" source like a news channel or TV show. These sorts of biases are the algorithms that need to be eliminated.
I'm a little surprised that you're taking this "equal twitter" thing to mean it won't still try to promote relevancy and quality. It seemed more like that the line would be transparent and vetted by the public, to show that it isn't throttling people based on ideological bounds, not that you would suddenly have low quality content be weighted equally with high quality.
I don't know if this was just bait for me to comment, but I think it's an important distinction.
Great video and discussion though.
Watched past 26:30 Love the informative content and the behind the scenes look and understanding of the business world.
When forums existed long ago I though "so much trashy posts" a system with up/down votes is surely the way. Fast forward to now and forums dont exist, only reddit exists and twitter, platforms centered around only upvotes and downvotes. And the result? only the extremes exist and the extremes get more extreme and more exposure the more extreme they are. It was then I realize that we need the not-so-perfect posts to keep things grounded and that sorting by just votes (centering everything around votes) is a bad idea in the long term.
I personally stopped using Twitter because of it's hostile political environment (from both sides) almost a year ago. I don't see Elon taking it over changing the overall hostility but now both sides will be fairly equal in representation in hostility. It has been increasing hard to find entertaining content that isn't based around flaming people for their political beliefs. I now exclusively use Instagram and RUclips for entertainment and even then it's harder and harder for me to enjoy Instagram. I think we are at a tipping point in internet culture where we may just have to have mainstream platforms that are "uncensored" for the most part (like what Elon wants) and others that focus purely on entertainment. The biggest factor in the success of the "information war" is teaching people how to learn and not regurgitate. How to make a personal conclusion on information they sought out. I think it could be beneficial for the lack of "censored" content on Twitter so people can see other views. I am under the personal belief that the combination of ideas will lead to a better idea. But I also find it incredibly unlikely. But like I said I don't use Twitter nor have an attachment to it so if Elon's experiment burns to the ground I won't be disappointed
Reading between the lines a bit, it appears Jack and Elon have been working together for this for a while. Just based on their tweets, and some of Jack's previously stated goals.
And I don't think he's ditching the algo, he said he's open sourcing it - which could be one of the most interesting things to happen in the social media space in ages. It's also not just apple and google, payment processors like Visa et al are increasingly enforcing their own views as to what content is acceptable. There are a lot of layers to this. I think some people are underestimating Musk a bit in all the hoopla. He's certainly flawed, but I don't think he would roll the dice on something like this on a whim. Certainly a ton of challenges ahead. My nightmare is that he finds a way to tie this to Neurolink and jack us all in forever.
Ghost in the shell vibes.. now I'm unsure about life lol
yep thats the key neurolink most forgot but its the plan
I've been a Twitter poweruser for nearly a decade and I think the quality has gone down in years, specifically for opposite reasons you say made it good. You say it was good for content creators, but it was similar "good" for content creators the way Twitch is good for RUclips. Before it was easier to see organic humans and conversations on twitter, now it seems to be just pushed creators and algorithms and in fact the only way to ever get any clout on the website is from importing it from other places.
Twitter was always a way I could just tweet a joke and get a couple hundred or thousand likes, but as the algorithms started rolling in, my discoverability went down. Furthermore, the lack of monetization on Twitter brings people who care more about their voices rather than "content creating as a career" and is why Twitter works as a public forum better than other sorts of social media.
I also don't think any of the "flood gates" will get opened, at least not in the way you propose they will.
Overall, not much will change, but minor changes will make big improvements.
I think that Twitter is already as bad as it can conceivably be without actually driving everyone to other platforms. The trolls, hate, etc. Either Elon makes a bunch of stupid changes that crater the company, or he accidentally makes it better. Either way is a win.
Twitter being the toxic cesspool of the internet has been a recurring thought for years though. And what with the rise in toxicity with covid, QAnons, and then Jan 6., perhaps its our imaginations that are lacking in how bad it could conceivably get.
Couple that with modern business practices that have companies operating in the red for decades on end in the hopes of cornering the market, and its possible whatever new form of nightmare gets conceived could stick around for years yet.
"What could possibly go wrong!"
(not to say that Elon fucking up is a sure thing, I've no flipping clue. But I could easily conjure up a bunch of scenarios where we all collectively lose from this venture)
This has been my stance on it. Im all for Elon buying it, because either the crap platform dies, or gets better because it can only go up from here.
What do you mean by accidentally? His intention is to make it better
Staying the same is also an option
Accidentally? His stated goal is to make it better, so it seems like you just aren't willing to give him credit if he succeeds. And the only way I see the platform imploding is if the changes he makes cause a mass temper tantrum and exodus of lefties. But I agree Twitter dying is still worth every penny of that 44 billion, and it's not physically possible for it to get any worse then it is pre-Musk. It's a win/win unless nothing really changes at all.
Elon said free speech as defined by the law. Not total free speech of any kind.
I made it to the 26:30 mark, and I plan to finish too. Good take so far, very hard topic to have a "good take" about and your way of describing being cautious was very well stated!
Excellent video as always (I never comment but I'm always in the callout gang) but I'm afraid I need to be that engineer that calls out the AI section of your video lol. Tesla's ability to detect humans starts and ends with the cars' sensors - they can detect objects and people to avoid hitting them and possibly to detect people inside the car (I'm not a Tesla expert) but I can guarantee the AI has absolutely nothing in it to help determine a human from a non-human via some written text. It's certainly possible to use patterns to detect some bots, but the vast majority are going to be undetectable. Even as a human, if you see a tweet that says "Wow, really screwed up", can you tell whether a person or a bot posted this?
The best we have is probably some form of required CAPTCHA before every tweet, but sometimes these are beatable by bots and either way, there's no way they're ever going to add such a big barrier to entry (if I'm not mistaken, you've mentioned this once before when talking about Twitch signups or something).
Elon Musk is excellent at marketing, but I doubt he's the brains behind any of the algorithms at play.
I don't think Elon is planning on making it all civil discourse and clean family fun. I think its the opposite. I think he knows that people are toxic by nature and humanity is in need of a wake up call. We treat people with "love" but most of the time its just for the benefit for ourselves. I think Elon wants to expose that in people and show them that if we want to have all this free speech and free thought, we need to retrain ourselves to be nicer to one and other.
I’m sorry, but allowing everyone a voice is a net positive. Twitter should just stop or prohibit what they are legally required to do. You don’t silence bad speech. You beat bad speech with better speech.
From the moment the news broke the FIRST thing that came to mind was the Return of Jack 😂 Like you said, who knows how likely but that door is definitely open
you say that about the algorithms is good but Twitters is not my wall has nothing that I am interested in most of the time. so I am not sure your right there on it just a thought. I am a special member cause I watch your whole videos lol.
26:30 which honestly is a no brainer. Devin Nash videos I watch start to finish without fail. I started watching you because I’m intrigued with streaming/influencer business model. This type video is your bread and butter and why I truly love this channel. No where else have I found anything like what you offer. Thank you.
Free Speech is an absolute.
26 min gang. IF the algorithm was removed, hashtags would make a huge comeback.
I’m sure it won’t be completely removed. It will destroy the platform.
I disagree with your view Devin but I understand your point and I have learned a few things from this video. Thank you
So by this methodology it seems that you believe that every single Ban that was carried out on Twitter is correct and justified?
@26:30 right now. Well said, Devin. Looking forward to more of your insights.
Hi Devin.
Why you don't stream any more on Twitch?
Great video so far (secret CTA!!), keep up the great work Devin!!
So you anti free speech and pro fascism, did I get that right?
i think you underestimate the damage of allowing people to decide what is true and give them ability to limit what is seen as true.
The key to understanding this issue is accepting no solution will appease the overwhelming majority AND the phrase 'town square' itself as filtered through USA's 1st Amendment.
If x nefarious actors congregated at a physical town square and executed y heinous act, should the engineers and construction workers be held accountable that helped build the town square? Seems kind of silly right? Absurd even. The key difference between actual town squares and online town squares is permanence; what is said in real life vanishes into the air or someone's memory while online rhetoric is permanent.
Would our founding fathers change the 1st Amendment based on permanence? No. I don't think they would. They had books, libraries, and newspapers which were just precursors to the internet. The exceptions we have is 'don't yell fire in a crowded theater' as even our Amendment recognizes that speech can cause harm. So where do you draw the line?
Firstly I don't think any company that identifies as a 'town square' should be held accountable for anything its users upload, say, or do UNLESS their speech falls into the 'don't yell fire in a theater category'... kind of giving a buff to the Safe Harbor legislation.
Secondly, we run into the 'who watches the watchers' issue you brought up but a possible solution is what FB has done and has users use their real name. This can be something people have to opt into; they can remain anonymous if they so wish to everyone else on the site but by letting Twitter verify who they really are, they enjoy increased power/features on the site. Who are you more likely to talk to at a town square? Someone who conceals their identity with a garbage bag over their entire body with a face mask or someone who's not trying to hide who they are? This way if someone does end up spitting wildly damaging misinformation welp... Twitter knows who you are even if everyone else doesn't.
Additionally Twitter can employ a rotating 'what are the facts/science' jury. Juries are how we determine innocence or guilt. For important things like Covid, is the earth flat/round, etc I do appreciate what RUclips does by providing links to vetted sources. Just have it rotate so no one group gets too powerful.
Finally I'm going to take a page out of Andrew Yang's playbook and let users control their data and share in the profit of its sale. It's OUR data. If Twitter is going to sell our data we should also share in those profits. This is also a subtle way to keep people in check; those who want to make $ from Twitter have to verify and once they verify and start making some $ do they are less likely to risk their gains by spouting some 'the earth is flat/stop the steal' nonsense.
I'm a libertarian progressive and approach policy from a game design perspective so I'm not part of this red/blue circus. We desperately need a change to shake things out of this tribal nonsense and I'm hoping Elon's move gets us closer to that direction. We'll see.
26 minutes. If you have an authoritarian mind set you would think the way you are. I was one of the people in the 90s that had a completely unfettered or censored chat rooms. Depending on the way the authenticates "Real People" for people being harassed it would end up being as simple as blocking the user. We have put to much on the managers of the platform. One can be excommunicated from the town square by being ignore by enough people that is to ez. The issue with having a centralized authority deciding what is and is not good speech you must adhere to the individuals incharge and have the same attitude as them in order to be allowed to speak. It has already become one sided and has already become a place for people with extreme political views on one side to sit back and agree with each other over and over so ideas are not challenged. The best example of this is twitter banning a sitting president (agree with him or like him or not is not my point here) the fact is he was the republican president that received the most votes ever and the second highest in any of our elections(behind the current president ofcourse) His views reflect about 50% of the population and social media has decided to silence that 50% that is not a healthy discourse.
A little ironic that you are concerned about misinformation then immediately suggest a verification process for all users equates to Verified status with a blue check which has already been stated to not be the intention. A verification process for all users is merely about being able to identify humans compared to bots, nothing more.
I am all into the utopian idea of everyone can say whatever they want and it doesn´t get censored. On one hand we will have alot of trolls, hatespeech etc but... fact is, this is just a minority but it gets scaled out of proportian by everyone else.
If people would smarten up just a tiny bit and just not react to those things, there wouldn´t be such a problem. But again, that is naive utopian thinking by me.
On the other hand however... i am one of those people who loves a good troll and i am not ashamed of saying that i love the dumb reactions and anger comming out of the troll posts. And i am saying this as someone who has been trolled and i did get angry. I am human and people get me. This is life but i learned to deal with it. If you put everyone in bubblewrap then people won´t learn that.
"But what about racism and hatespeech and all kinds of phobias bla bla bla?" Again, ignore it. Don´t give it the attention it doesn´t deserve aslong as it stays on social media. Obviously if something happens irl then call the police and not blame twitter for not handling online pixel writing correctly.
What i am actualy worried about is that you can edit your messeges. I´ve always hated the idea of you being able to edit your messeges. Obviously if you made a typo then yeah that makes sense but you can write just another line and be like "messages*".
However you can argue that people abusing this system is also a minority and people most likely already screenshot the message anyway so there goes this argument of mine.
I do hope... that it will be better... but thats all i can do. Hope that in some form or another my naive utopian thinking gets rewarded.
Cabbage Brain Takes:
Okay.
This is the worst setup sm7b I have ever heard. How is this even possible.
There are a total of 1.3 billion Twitter accounts, but only 330 million are active users... and we are almost 8 billion people, so... you can just leave Twiter and being a functional human being... like the other 7/8 rest of the world...
I'm a 26:30 hero. I think you're more right than your are wrong. Everything is a balancing act, and we all carry different scales. Thanks for all the great content, as well as pretty reliable information 😁
Always here man!
great stuff as always
26:30 club!! Let the hot takes loose!! I'm here for thought provoking ideas and statements.
In Elon we trust.
Just to be honest, Elon comes form the private sector and people from the private sector actually deliver results.
Also just replacing politically hyper left biased engineers with a more politically unbiased engineers will improve the company tenfold, at least.
what is your setup?
very interesting and insightful take on all this
nyeh nyeh nyeh disinformation nyeh nyeh nyeh science
C'mon man, be honest. You're upset because a significant blow has been dealt to the power of those with whom you agree.
Good video!
Here for the secret call out at 26 minutes. I appreciate the candid logical analysis of what this could mean without being overly inflammatory. It can get very tiring very quickly when it's just passionate fans arguing with other passionate fans. I agree that social media can never be perfect and pointing that out nowadays can be very controversial.
Question: If Twitter made different design decisions would they be able to solve, or at least significantly quell the content moderation problem? I think that recommendation algos increase confirmation bias and elevate the most frictional content, which leads to more radical thinking on platform, which translates to off-platform harm. If they suggested new users to use 'Latest Tweets' over 'Home', maybe they could make a difference. People say that Twitter is worse to use on Latest Tweets, but I've been using it this way for years and it's just better.
I also think that they can do other things like putting a cap on retweets, making it so someone can share something into my feed, and I can share it to my audence, and then after that anyone seeing my RT of it would have to draft something original, making highly viral content be less important. Currently Twitter will suggest you to click through a link before sharing it, what if it forced you to, making you think twice before spreading potentially harmful content?
I'm extremely apprehensive toward content moderation and I REALLY want a better alternative. I don't know how they solve these problems.
Latest Tweets is by far the most healthy way to interact with Twitter.
Comment 26:30. Bring on the controversy! Great Video!
I think it's going to be interesting to see what happens if those changes do happen. Maybe they won't work, so he'll have to take a few steps back. Since Facebook started devouring other companies, I feel like everything started to feel the same and that's kinda boring.
I HOPE great things happen in the future. I mean, I don't use Twitter because it feels like everyone is fighting with each other over there and that's annoying. Meanwhile, Facebook kinda got super boring while Instagram is 90% ads all the time.
Devin I think this is one of the only times I have seen you overreact, and be very pessimistic. Not sure what you have been watching , or where your deep thoughts during meditation have taken you. I think the negative connotation of "inmates" is a bit extreme , we are assuming these people did the most despicable things to end up in twitter jail , I think more so they may have just had idealistic views that were different. I assume 99% of people are good , and the 1% on both sides of the isle unfortunately can make each other look bad. Love is the answer , and less censorship is always better. Open and transparent are for trust. This will be a good thing for twitter.
26 minutes! Woohoo!
All of this definitely exists above my head. It’s hard to really wrap my brain around the implications, and how it’ll impact my day to day life. Appreciate you taking the time to break this down!
im here at the call out part and im still with u Devin haha i agree with u!
I love this take on ads and been saying the same for a long time. I 100% would plug myself into the matrix if it means a better quality of life. If algorithms know what I'll buy I don't have to look for stuff anymore
Advertisements suck
I'm not against algorithms but having essentially a computer run your life is not something I'm interested in.
Watched the whole video past 26:30. I disagree with some of your comments on Twitter. You seem to think that there is no censorship. Or algorithm dialing. Or shadow bans.
26:30, we should definitely know how these algorithms work!
I laughed at the Jack Dorsey = Dr Strange bit, great comparison
That kid that was tracking his flights is shitting his pants right now
More Devin Nash takes on things please!
26:30 gang here and i have question. Do you see Elon ever bothering with buying Twich? Would be good or bad?
Hey Devon, I understand you thinking that algorithms are good because they show you what you want to see, and i do agree (I love watching content tailored to me), BUT on the flip side it’s also serving a lot of misinformation to people or sometimes extreme information. This type of stuff causes division in our society. I know a few family members who are just being served this type of content and it’s brutal. It’s like they live in a different world than me.
26:30 Sqaud where you at?????
Got past 26:30 and was in total agreement. Funny enough I had went back to re-read that tweet from Yishan earlier today, I was thinking about how inline your views are with his 👍
Skipped to 26:00 to get the summary. Thanks!
your inner 'snowflake' is showing - Free Speech is ofc a Very Good thing, get educated.
Great video as always. I humbly disagree with your take on the free speech issue. I posit the premise that not all algorythms are going to be removed. Just the ones that ostensibly favor certain types of speech over others. That would leave content creators mostly unaffected. And furthermore it enables for a discourse on the platform that has a multitude of different viewpoints represented. That would be a good thing. It is true that there will be spots on twitter that will devolve into a sesspool of degeneracy. I deem that a price that is ok to be payed. Especially because one can opt out of these discussions. I presume the "block" feature is going to stay of course, we have no reason to believe it will be removed. Thanks for reading the rant and sorry for my english, its not my native tounge.
I stuck with you to the end. I'm a small Twitch creator and have already taken heat over on Twitter about this.
There are forums that require a real name before posting. When you do post there are people behind it checking your 1st few post to see if you are using your real name and what you are posting.
The forum is better for it.
I disagree with you on the fact that videos with 0 views suck. I don't think quality is the problem here but accessibility. I have seen a lot of videos with less than a thousand views that have shared extremely precious information with me. The problem is that these videos are usually very niche and not that accessible to mainstream due to scarce or no editing, and for that reason they don't work well with the algorithm.
Sure, there are also 0 views videos that blow, but I definitely don't believe that everything that isn't massively viewed is necessarily like that.
On the same note, a lot of the mainstream content that I've seen is always great in presentation and accessibility and is very entertaining to watch, but it is very rarely sharing quality information.
Thank you. Very informative! Made it to the ultra secret call out that I wont say between 25 and 27 minutes
"Think of how stupid the average person is and then realize half of them are dumber than that!"
26 30 shout-out
26:30 poggies we made it
I’m surprised a person who can acknowledge Elon’s success of helping innovating/streamlining online payment systems (PayPal), revitalizes space exploration (SpaceX), then streamlines electric cars (Tesla), and more (Nueralink, Starlink, etc) but yet when comes to big tech/social media… he essentially says Elon should stay in his lane(s).
Devin’s insights are usually very interesting and well thought out, but this one seems closed minded. This reminds me of someone in the automobile industry in the 2000s.
True innovation often comes from outsiders with different perspectives. I’m excited to see what Elon can bring to the social media and online human behavior space.
I thought you were joking until you showed the pictured and yep, that's Dr. Strange
RUclips knows I am going to immediately click on a Devin Nash video. To save me time it just auto played it after my Linus Sebastian hot take.
We're gonna have to invent a new word to describe Twitter because 'dumpster fire' isn't gonna cut it anymore.
As a European who is on record saying Bernie Sanders is the US's last hope:
Twitter is too damn left
Hard agree with you Devin
26:30 in and i am STILL here!
=O
If you look at human history our reliance on science has always been muddle by morals and religion. So the idea that we need to protect "science" isn't optimal. Empowering people to be more self sufficient and independent on proper research methods is optimal and just requires better education. Most stuff taught in school is BS unless you want to get into it professionally so you could argue cutting a portion of it out to teach life skills would go a long way for all of humanity. Like a lot of times kids don't know what taxes are or how to do them lol.
The green eyed woman that flashed on the screen at 15:33?
Hey, Devin! 🤘😀🤘
26 minute gang :-)
I'm a big proponent of free speech but I think everything you brought up are definitely valid points to think through. There was certainly a political direction bias for how content was policed on Twitter in the past, but if it was more equal against left and right parties to not allow to radical opinions, that would probably be better than what they had before.
26:30 thank you for calling me a hero 😂
You should title this video "Buying Twitter Is Wrong".
26:30 hero
26:30 AND BEYOND! hot takes indeed.
This is getting interesting
26:30 I agree with you on most of this. I agree with freedom of speech but most people aren’t intelligent enough to form a valid opinion. They listen to the voice of others and they tell them what to think. It’s a thin line, like the right to bear arms it’s a great thing to have the right but some aren’t qualified to do so based on mental health, past violent history, etc.
26:30 lol, love you man
26:30. Great fucking video. Don't stop.
Trump rn 👀👀
I dont watch a lot of your videos but when I do, I watch it all
26:30 gang
I think the best thing to do on a personal level is to just not engage with twitter at all. I deactivated my twitter a long time ago and my overall mood improved and I waste less time. I even find it funny and sad to know that people are out there spending hours on twitter debating wasting so much energy and time being angry.
Also 26:30 ;)
26:30 I was there, man
26:30 bro
1. I agree that not everyone should have a voice, some people are idiots and there are also highly educated idiots. In some areas I'm also an idiot and try to stay quiet in those. However I think someone making negative (factual) criticism should not be banned nor silenced. Even if it's about something sensitive.
2. If Elon shakes things up, even if he fails for a while, breaking things usually helps in having a deeper understanding in that area.
3. Twitter, and many social medias ban with a political agenda and not objectively. Perfect example is twitter's bias during the election period. I think that blatant political bias can be improved, practically.
4. Overall, I wouldn't be surprised if almost everything remains the same. A well oiled machine was created in twitter. Besides upgrading a few parts, realistically, most of the machine will remain. So I won't get my expectations too high.
I could say a lot more but this is only a comment, not the video. Which was an enjoyable watch.
26:30 here lmao, its obviously impossible to make something perfect, there will always be pros and cons. I do agree with your position on this 100%, but it will be really entertaining to see where Elon takes it.
I'm always around at the secret call out! I think it's fine to put your thoughts and feelings out on something like this, even if you don't consider yourself an expert on many of the details. There is no doubt that the entire thing is still very relevant to you and all of your clients that you represent professionally. No one can reasonably claim that you don't have a lot of skin in the game here.
I don’t think anyone could actually know what he is going to do with twitter (or what is going to happen to it). My interest comes from the social experiment aspect of this event. Will this event create a shift in the social mindset about what social media’s role in society is (kind of how Tesla created a shift in the mindset of what a car is and how it should function). How fast, if any, would a shift in mindset happen? (As fast as his ability to make this deal happen. Proportionally). And one troll thought I had was; I kinda want to see the aftermath of twitter burning to the ground. Where will ppl run to? Where would ppl go, tweet/ bitch about it? Where would they go to cancel/expose ppl? I think it would be fascinating to see this (I don’t even remotely believe this will happen. Just a fun thought). Realistically I want to see a shift, how big will it be and how fast will it move. Thanks for the video Devin!
I watched the whole video (as usual), so I reached the 26:30 mark and just one minute earlier I had to grin and agree a lot.
Here at 26:30, still going...
….Devin ….26….. is trying to tell us……30 ….something….
I don't think unbanning everyone on twitter is an equivalent case to unbanning everyone on a twitch channel. There's one big difference, and that is the bigness of twitter. A working theory is that the moment you unrestrict a platform it becomes a "Nazi bar" because a lot of problematic people finally have a place they can go and instantly overwhelm that community. This phenomena relies on said community being a small part of the world though, so with a really big platform they would still flock there but maybe they won't overwhelm it. It is uncharted waters, and therefore an interesting experiment.
26:30 and still here.