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“Flaming Dumpster”: Musk May Need To ‘Tear Down’ Twitter Code And ‘Start From Scratch’

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Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Journalist Dave Rubin was allowed into Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters recently, where owner Elon Musk opened the kimono and allowed him vast access to the company’s operations.

When asked what he could share, Musk replied “anything that’s true.”

Below is Rubin’s Twitter thread detailing his findings:

Continued…Accounts aren’t just hit with labels that are obvious to insidersThey now found more “secret” labels which are causing shadowbans. My account was hit with all three; “Recent abuse strike,” “Recent misinformation strike”, “Recent suspension strike.” It’s unclear so far what these strikes actually do, but for sure they suppress views and recommendations, they are trying to figure out to what extent. I also had many innocuous tweets labeled NSFW or NSFA (not safe for ads) which affect visibility in the timeline. Also, there’s an entire KeyWord database so that machine learning makes sure not to promote violence, porn etc., but it’s a mess of overreaching words. Literally the word “gay” was on the KeyWord list which would make you not advertiser friendly and harm the tweet in the algo.  Backing up for a sec, they found the “recent suspension strike” on my account most interesting because it was fro July 2022, when I was suspended for calling out @jordanbpeterson’s unjust suspension. So though suspension was reversed the action on the account remained.

So I assure you they are aware of the problems and Elon and engineers are there all night trying to untie this crazy knot. Some changes they’ve made, like the “For You” tab, have confused people and hurt engagement for accounts who have gotten the NSFA label without knowing.

They also don’t know for sure why things got so much better once Elon made the acquisition and why it seems far worse now. Some is probably related to excitement around Elon himself, which also coincided with World Cup, but that doesn’t explain why it feels so off right now.

Will share more in bit but have to catch a flight.

Closing remarks

On a personal note Elon is funny as hell, laughs a ton and it’s just really obvious he cares about Twitter because he cares about free speech and the bigger problems facing the world. He doesn’t need this headache, he chose it.

Also huge shout out to @DavidSacks who is helping Elon clean up this mess because he believes in the fight for free speech as much as Elon does. And massive thanks to the engineers who opened up their computers, showed me literally everything I asked for, and were total pros.

Oh, one either thing for now…

Elon really lit up when we talked about the shifting political landscape and how anyone non-woke is now “far right.”

That notion is deeply connected to how screwy thing got at Twitter and he’s working to fix it despite the huge challenges ahead.
And frankly they gotta get that company out of SF…

What’s also really crazy now having seen under the hood is that Jack Dorsey repeatedly said they don’t shadowban.The entire machine behind Twitter is designed to shadowban. It’s almost as if that was the primary goal rather than the product itself.

Perfect illustration of how crazy things are. A friend just sent the to me, watch the RT’s go up and then suddenly go down. And as Musk himself says, this is an:

This post was originally published at Zero Hedge

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Is Google Rigging The 2024 Election? The Controversy Over Invisible Republicans

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Zero Hedge

Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

A new report from the right-leaning Media Research Center concludes that Google is burying search results for 2024 presidential candidates, but an expert in search engine optimization has suggested it’s unlikely.

According to various tests conducted by MRC and Just the News, the online visibility of these sites in generic searches for the GOP’s 2024 bench is practically nil, and not significantly better for RFK Jr., Biden’s primary challenge on the left.

Google’s search engine failed to produce even-handed results in multiple searches performed by MRC Free Speech America over the course of a week prior to today’s Republican presidential primary debate. Researchers broadly searched for “presidential campaign websites” as well as two additional searches specifying the party affiliation of the candidates. When MRC searched for “republican presidential campaign websites,” only two candidates’ websites appeared on the first page in the search results — a Democrat candidate and a Republican who is polling at less than half a percent. -MRC

Both MRC and Senator Ted Cruz claim this is unambiguous proof of Google’s bias.

Google is either the most incompetent search engine on the planet, or it is intentional. This is not a coincidence,” states Dan Schneider, MRC Free Speech America Vice President, following the group’s extensive analysis of search tests conducted between September 20 and 25.

This is ABSURD.

Blatant election interference. #GoogleCensorship https://t.co/qfcSfk1cHx— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 27, 2023

In 2018, Trump accused Google of “rigging” search results against him.

Google responded at the time, saying that “Search is not used to set a political agenda and we don’t bias our results toward any political ideology.”

In 2021, the Daily Mail sued Google for ‘illegally building its dominance in ad tech industry by harming rivals, bid-rigging on ad auctions and manipulating news search results.”

And of course, former Alphabet Chairman Eric Schmidt – who said the Trump administration would do “evil things” – was an advisor to the 2016 Clinton campaign.

A simple matter of SEO?

While the evidence certainly looks damning, Just the News spoke with Eric Goldman, an SEO researcher and co-director of Santa Clara University’s High Tech Law Institute, who proposed several benign possibilities to explain these search anomalies. Goldman argues for the necessity of a comprehensive academic study into search engine indexing and ordering, terming MRC’s tests an “advocacy stunt”.

“Search engine indexing and ordering is the kind of topic that would benefit from a proper academic study, not an advocacy stunt,” he said.

Yet, Google also told Just the News that it couldn’t explain the replicated results until Friday.

Meanwhile, Google, the world’s dominant search engine, is grappling with a Justice Department antitrust trial. The company’s explanations of its search dominance have raised eyebrows, bringing more scrutiny upon its practices. With accusations flying, former Psychology Today editor-in-chief Robert Epstein states, “Google poses a serious threat to democracy.”

This post was originally published at Zero Hedge

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Elon Musk Has Fired Most Of Twitter’s ‘Election Integrity’ Team

Says they were “undermining election integrity”

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Steve Watson

Nathan Howard/Getty Images

Twitter/X owner Elon Musk has fired most of a team at Twitter that was supposedly in charge of maintaining ‘election integrity’, stating that in reality they were doing the exact opposite.

Musk commented on a post from X News Daily, noting that the head of the team was fired, stating “Oh you mean the “Election Integrity” Team that was undermining election integrity? Yeah, they’re gone.”

According to reports some of the U.S. election integrity team were based in Dublin.

A recent blog post with regards to election integrity states “You may not use X’s services for the purpose of manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes, such as posting or sharing content that may suppress participation, mislead people about when, where, or how to participate in a civic process, or lead to offline violence during an election.”

It adds that “Any attempt to undermine the integrity of civic participation undermines our core tenets of freedom of expression and as a result, we will apply labels to violative posts informing users that the content is misleading.”

It appears that Musk believed the election integrity team were promoting the opposite of integrity at X.

Musk has downsized X’s workforce by a whopping 80% since he took over, meaning that there are no more latte sipping TikTok trendies with made up job titles working there.

The post added that “Not all false or untrue information about politics or civic processes constitutes manipulation or interference. In the absence of other policy violations, the following are generally not in violation of this policy: inaccurate statements about an elected or appointed official, candidate, or political party; organic content that is polarizing, biased, hyperpartisan, or contains controversial viewpoints expressed about elections or politics; discussion of public polling information; voting and audience participation for competitions, game shows, or other entertainment purposes; using X pseudonymously or as a parody, commentary, or fan account to discuss elections or politics.”

Meanwhile, Musk posted a link to a video earlier this week that highlights Fauci and others making false claims about the COVID 19 vaccine:

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    EU Chief Boasts About Vaccine Passports, Calls For More Global Digital Collaboration – Paving The Way For Digital IDs

    Von der Leyen audaciously proclaimed our collective future to be digital.

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    Ken Macon | Reclaim the Net

    Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

    With an ominous call for increased global collaboration and centralization, European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen at a G20 Summit session, dubbed “One Future,” today appealed for an international regulatory body for Artificial Intelligence and digital ID systems similar to coronavirus vaccine passports.

    Von der Leyen audaciously proclaimed our collective future to be digital, hence the implied necessity for global entities to draw boundaries and enforce regulations.

    Von der Leyen, in her position as the EU Commission President, touched on AI and the digital landscape in her address. She acknowledged the potential dangers and gargantuan opportunities linked with advancing AI technology and emphasized the importance of channeling such explosive technology.

    “Today I want to focus on AI and digital infrastructure. As it has been described, AI has risks but also offers tremendous opportunities. The crucial question is how to harness a rapidly changing technology.

    “In the EU, in 2020, we presented the first-ever law on artificial intelligence. We want to facilitate innovation while building trust. But we need more. What the world does now will shape our future. I believe that Europe — and its partners — should develop a new global framework for AI risks,” von der Leyen said.

    Von der Leyen praised the European Union’s move in 2020 to introduce the first legal framework on AI, a step taken with the intent of fostering innovation alongside trust. However, she insisted that this wasn’t sufficient. She suggested a multinational adoption of a coping mechanism for managing AI risks.

    The EU Chief also stressed that globally accepted standards must be created under the purview of the United Nations, akin to their Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Humanity stood to benefit, she argued, if an international authority could clarify the risks and rewards related to AI, akin to the IPCC for climate concerns.

    Concurrently, von der Leyen championed the concept of digital public infrastructure similar to the coronavirus passport system – a system developed by the EU as a response to the Covid saga. The World Health Organization embraced it with open arms as a global standard for combating health threats.

    “Many of you are familiar with the COVID-19 digital certificate. The EU developed it for itself. The model was so functional and so trusted that 51 countries on 4 continents adopted it for free. Today, the WHO uses it as a global standard to facilitate mobility in times of health threats,” von der Leyen continued.

    Alarmingly, von der Leyen praised the EU’s strides towards a bloc-wide digital identity app capable of storing a citizen’s personal information, including credit cards, driver’s license, and passport data.

    These developments ring alarm bells for individuals and nations valuing free speech and privacy.

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