Musk said Twitter would open source its algorithm – then fired the people who could Like so many of his promises, it's probably one he can't keep https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/10/elon_musks_twitter_opensource_foulup/ On February 21, Twitter god-king Elon Musk proclaimed "our algorithm is made open source next week." He added it wouldn't work well at first, "but it will improve rapidly!" That hasn't happened. Musk has been claiming he wanted to open source Twitter's algorithm even before he took over the social network and again when he announced his intention to acquire it in April 2022. Here we are, and nothing's changed. <Sarcasm>I am so surprised.</Sarcasm> Well, actually, some things have changed. You see, the Twitter algorithm we're talking about is the rules that rank content on the platform. Each post has a value determined by a set of rules. If you think of it as Twitter's version of Google PageRank, you won't be far wrong. However, if you criticize Musk on Twitter, strange things happen. In my case, I've gone from average posts having hundreds to thousands of retweets to dozens. In the meantime, Musk has put a big thumb on the algorithm to make sure you see his tweets. Funny that! But those kinds of changes are easy. Open sourcing the code is hard. (More at above url)
Musk will allow anyone on Twitter including criminals. He really doesn't give a f@ck about the harm he is doing. Whenever you hear about Americans being killed by narco gangs in Mexico... just keep in mind that Elon Musk enabled this. Murderous Mexican Drug Cartels Are Thriving On Elon Musk’s Twitter “Twitter shouldn’t provide a platform for Mexican cartel members to spread their hate and incite violence," an official for the organization behind a new report said. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/mexican-drug-cartels-twitter-elon-musk-report Prominent members of Mexican drug cartels are using Twitter to recruit new members, send warnings to rival gangs, post gory images and videos, and glorify the narco lifestyle. Some of these accounts were banned by Twitter’s safety team between 2012 and 2015, but they have been reinstated since Elon Musk bought the company last year. These are the conclusions of a new report released on Thursday by the Alliance to Counter Crime Online, a coalition of organizations that research online crimes including drug trafficking, child sexual abuse, and romance scams. Now, the ACCO is calling on Twitter to block and remove narco content and to once again suspend the accounts that spread it. The group’s report comes days after Mexico’s Gulf cartel killed two of four American citizens whom they had kidnapped after the Americans crossed the border. On Thursday, the cartel reportedly apologized for its actions. (Much more at above url)
Once again Musk failed to pay a bill. Twitter’s privacy-preserving Tor service goes dark https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/08/twitter-tor-service-goes-dark/ Twitter’s Tor service, a version of the site that could be accessed even in countries where the social network is banned, has gone dark after the company failed to renew its certificate. The certificate for Twitter’s onion site expired on March 6, just days before the site was set to mark its one-year anniversary. Pavel Zoneff, director of strategic communications at the Tor Project, the nonprofit organization behind the anonymous global network, told TechCrunch that the site “is no longer available seemingly with no plans to renew.” Twitter’s Tor site now shows visitors a warning that its certificate has expired and proceeding past that point, which is not recommended, displays a Twitter error page. “The Tor Project has reached out to Twitter to look into bringing the onion version of the social media platform back online,” Zoneff added. “People who rely on onion services for an extra layer of protection and guarantee that they are accessing the content they are looking for now have one fewer way of doing so safely. Let’s be clear, the need for onion services, use of privacy-focused browsers that protect people’s anonymity, and other forms of encryption still persist.” Twitter launched its now-defunct Tor service days after the social network was blocked in Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. Tor is also known as “The Onion Router,” as it encrypts internet traffic through many layers and routes it through thousands of servers around the world, allowing its users anonymity and the ability to skirt censorship systems. While Twitter would not say if the launch of its Tor service was directly related to the block in Russia, a spokesperson for the company told TechCrunch at the time that making its service more accessible was an “ongoing priority” for the company. Twitter has since dismantled its communications department, and as such the company was unreachable for comment for this story.