arquebus_x

Bots aren’t a “problem” for Twitter unless the advertisers think there are more of them than there are real users. But if you can convince advertisers that you’re reducing bots, while also not actually reducing bots, you’ve got a winning formula. Bots are reliable posters, they contribute a lot more than a regular user, and they make high-engagement tweets/posts/tweex that end up getting a lot of views, aka advertising opportunities.

In other words the idea might have the opposite effect - keeping potential new human users out, but allowing the bots in

The galaxy brain shit here is that I suspect the bot problem actually doesn’t concern Musk in the way he claims. If he can make it seem like there are fewer bots (because of these policies) while at the same time not actually getting rid of them, the engagement level stays up and the advertisers are happy in their ignorance. Bots are better users: they’re not fickle, they don’t go to sleep, they can be reliably expected to be posting more regularly than normal users. The trick for Musk is convincing everyone they’re gone.

They’re going to try to pull a Microsoft: embrace, extend, extinguish.

Once Selig announced that he could not keep Apollo going after June 30, I was done with Reddit. That was days before Huffman said anything publicly - even before the AMA in which he pasted prefab answers to 14 questions.

The Beeple sale got a lot of press. That was the extent of the novelty, but then the money-eyed scammers figured they had a new grift in the making. But it started with the media surprise and interest over how big the Beeple sale was.

Oh man, your “least favorite” #1 makes it a total no-go for me. “My hands don’t really like the matte finish of the deck.” My whole body was repulsed by the feel of the touchpad surfaces of the Steam Controller. Like I got physically ill putting my fingers across them. However good Valve might make their devices, they are absolutely shit at picking surface textures.

I’m treating the blackout like a strike, and I don’t cross picket lines, and neither should anyone else. No scabs. No one should be agreeing to moderate a sub that has lost all of its moderators to forcible removal.