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Nov 9, 2022

From ‘Chief Twit’ to ‘Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator’

Posted by in categories: big data, computing, Elon Musk, evolution, futurism, innovation, internet, machine learning, Mark Zuckerberg, robotics/AI
Photograph: Shutterstock

Elon Musk doesn’t follow the same standards that most entrepreneurs do. He’s different, he likes to be different!

And when you’re different, and you’re not afraid to be, it’s okay to test a cigar (or should I say ‘joint’?) of tobacco mixed with marijuana, on Joe Rogan’s famous podcast. But if you look closely, Elon was just nice (polite) and followed Rogan’s elaborate script. Before trying it, Musk even asked him if it was legal.

Then all those facial expressions of Musk, which photojournalists love to catch, go viral as if he’s there promoting some soft drug or passing abroad that his office at Tesla (or SpaceX) is enveloped in a large cloud of smoke.

Quite the opposite. The expressions themselves spoke for themselves, as if to say, “This is nothing special, Joe. Why do you waste my time with these scenes”? Musk even claimed that weed is not good for productivity at all, but it has nothing against (as I do, by the way).

Joe Rogan was far too cheeky and presumptuous to think that Elon Musk would be such a creative and quick guy at what he does, thanks to weed or any other drugs, light or hard. He responded promptly and directly, politely and very lucidly.

However, the media preferred to extol the “non-content” of the interview and highlight the least interesting just because he was nice to test a “cigar” that generated a huge cloud of smoke to the real content.

Well, people see more of what they’re focused on!… Musk is definitely more focused on other things.

Elon Musk likes to do useful things for other people. He said it himself, believe it or not. Although the acquisition of Twitter was a burning desire of Musk, he realized long ago that he could do better than was done with a machine as powerful as this microblogging. He dealt with the “cleaning” like that, wasting no time. He, by the way, even prepared people with the ‘Easter egg’ (sink) that he carried to Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco.

The same needs to be done in relation to Facebook, which is terrible. Super slow; full of patches; many features that do not work properly; very little, or not at all, intelligent algorithms — or rather, they even have intelligence, but for a world of ignorant people (yes, Facebook, or its “master” algorithm, judges its users as ignorant); instability and incongruity in engagement; etc.

The union of all Meta platforms — Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, mainly — made the entire system become anything but practical and not at all user-friendly.

Facebook (the social network itself) urgently needs change if it wants to survive the new future ahead. And I’m not referring to the future that Mark Zuckerberg wants (metaverse) but to the real future of the Internet, the new Internet, whether we call it Metaverse or whatever.

Mark’s elephant is old and tired. It looks more like a mammoth trapped in prehistory. It may be massive and heavy, but what good is a huge footprint far away in the time of the mammoths?

The Facebook glory days are long gone, and it’s time to refresh the new world! It is not with retrograde concepts that the new and demanding society remains active in this already obsolete and worn out network.

Coming back to Twitter, it took a super brave and visionary man — love it or hate it — to, necessarily, move and shake the entire structure of the organization.

I wouldn’t want to be fired so on short notice either, but if you look at the ‘Big Picture’, it doesn’t seem dramatic. Jack Dorsey, co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, who no longer has any voice in the organization, says the company’s employees are resilient and will survive change. And, in my humble opinion, he’s right!

The reactions are felt all over the Internet, ridiculously by all those who have always enjoyed Twitter without paying a penny. Now, with the change, they think they are masters of reason without having any reason at all.

Naturally, this type of “cleaning” is strange, especially for those who are outside and do not see the inside of the heavy “machine”. Strangeness that, if they let the ‘Chief Twit’ work, it will ingrain and end up becoming mainstream.

(Usually, people who do little, perhaps because of idleness, do not have the patience to wait for the result of the hard work of those who actually do things.)

Countless people say that Elon Musk is the demonstration of the power of doing ‘whatever the f*ck he wants’. I think it’s not like that. He even listens to people! He is tired of asking for opinions in order to be more useful to people. However, Elon Musk’s power is legitimate.

When he claims that the $8 monthly “Blue Twitter” plan, which includes the ‘Verified Badge’, is to pay, he is within his rights to do so. After all, he paid $44 billion for the platform, for God’s sake.

Who are the offended people who have always enjoyed Twitter and the ‘Verified Badge’ for free? Yes, because having a ‘Verified Badge’ on Twitter (and other social networks) is like having a social status and, whether we like it or not, they are seen with different eyes. That’s why I use the word “enjoyed”.

Twitter’s (as well as Facebook and Instagram’s) account verification policy is completely ridiculous and uneven when one of the requirements for doing so is being a “notable person” or having a “notable account”. Come on! Really? Give me a break. There are many (too many, even) verified accounts of people who are anything but notable. Where is the equality, then?

If it is to empower the people, as Musk himself claims, the necessary changes must be made, and he is making them. Only those who do not see beyond their aura of selfishness do not realize what these (necessary) measures bring.

Now, what Elon Musk wants here is to praise free speech, freeing the shackles of other people who, not fitting into the social status of the old Twitter, did not have the ‘freedom of expression’ to be heard. A fairer and more democratic system is needed.

Twitter remains free, of course, but those who want Premium accounts pay a tiny monthly fee of 8 dollars (7.99, to be more precise). In that monthly fee, account verification is included, and current verified accounts need to adhere to this plan to maintain the “status of notable person”, called ‘Verified Badge’. Whoever does not pay, is without the seal. What’s the drama about it?

Whether we like it or not, Elon Musk is a force of nature that has proven his resolve.

Those who complain the most about his irreverence, if they are Twitter users and do not agree with his policy, have a solution, which is, of course, to leave.

Those who stay on Twitter for free and complain about the slightest thing, I don’t think they should do it if they are part of that social house.

Those who pay can complain about the paid services if they do not conform to what was sold to them. Otherwise, they shouldn’t make big waves either.

Let the man work and give it time. Twitter was created in 2006, and it took 16 years to be the colossus it is today, creating many vicious circles that are difficult to get out of at the expense of anything that goes against those same circles.

We have to change to remain dynamically innovative!

© 2022 _Ӈ_

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