A lawsuit says Twitter failed to pay a $1,092,000 invoice in a software contract that doesn't expire until late 2024, and that the Elon Musk-led company apparently intends to stiff the vendor on another $7 million worth of payments.
Imply Data, Inc. sued Twitter in California Superior Court in San Francisco County, alleging breach of contract. The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday (see complaint) and reported by Bloomberg today.
"For over four years, Imply has licensed its proprietary software to Twitter, and Twitter has paid Imply over $10 million," the lawsuit said. "Twitter has always been very pleased with Imply's product and its related maintenance and support services, so, in mid-2021, the parties extended the term of their software license and service agreement for an additional three years from October 1, 2021, through September 30, 2024."
In May, a few weeks after Musk struck a deal to buy Twitter, the company notified Imply Data that it would not renew the contract again but "acknowledged the License agreement would 'continue in full force and effect' until the end of its term on September 30, 2024," the lawsuit said.
Twitter continued making quarterly payments on the contract until Musk completed the purchase in late October. "However, shortly after Musk's purchase of Twitter closed, Twitter refused to pay the outstanding quarterly invoice, which was due on November 30, 2022, and Twitter disclaimed any obligation to pay any future invoices from Imply, despite the unambiguous language in the software license and service agreement requiring Twitter to do so," the lawsuit said.
Imply makes a database based on Apache Druid open source software as well as products for managing and monitoring Druid clusters.
Imply says Twitter "also uploaded an internal email chain to the vendor portal to support those actions." The lawsuit said this email chain included a message from Martin O'Neill, head of global strategic sourcing at Twitter, that stated, "A heads up that we will not be paying Imply any longer. If we can flag them in our AP system to not route any of their invoices for approval that would be great, thank you!"
The Twitter executive who received the email, Kristena Bravo, "forwarded that email to other Twitter employees and wrote: 'Can you please cancel all invoices for Imply currently pending in Oracle (if any) and deactivate the supplier using the email below as evidence?'" the lawsuit said.
After reviewing these emails, Imply asked Twitter about the status of the payment due November 30. "Twitter's account payable department notified Imply that the invoice had been 'cancelled' and that, if Imply had any concerns, Imply should 'reach out to [Imply's] Twitter business partner.' Imply has reached out to Twitter to discuss the cancellation of the invoice; however, Twitter has not yet responded in substance to that outreach," the lawsuit said.
Imply is seeking financial damages for breach of contract. "Imply anticipates that Twitter's breach will continue, with the amount in default increasing each quarter until the end of the License Agreement's term... Twitter's breach has damaged and will damage Imply in an amount that will be proven at trial, but which will likely be in excess of $8 million," Imply told the court.
Musk sets up Twitter poll asking if he should step down as head (Guardian) Link to poll: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1604617643973124097 Also from the article:
Elon Musk has asked Twitter users whether he should step down as the head of the company, promising to abide by the results of his poll.
Musk assumed the role of CEO at the end of October after firing a host of senior executives and dissolving its board of directors. Within minutes of posting the poll, more than one million people had voted.
After 20 minutes of polling, when the yes vote gained a double-digit lead, Musk responded to a suggestion that he had already picked a new CEO, saying: “No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor.”
He also walked back the site’s latest policy controversy, after Twitter announced that it would remove accounts that offered “free promotion of certain social media platforms”.
Musk said the policy would be adjusted to affect only accounts whose “primary purpose is promotion of competitors, which essentially falls under the no spam rule”.
Some personal thoughts on this that are mostly just noise and that I’ve been mulling over with no real conclusions (feel free to mark as noise so actual news will be above this): A feeling: I...
Some personal thoughts on this that are mostly just noise and that I’ve been mulling over with no real conclusions (feel free to mark as noise so actual news will be above this):
A feeling: I strongly dislike both Musk and Twitter. I’ve disliked both of them for a while now, well before this started.
An outcome: As a result of that feeling, I will admit to gleefully hate-watching parts of this whole mess as it has played out.
A concurrent feeling: Part of the reason I have disliked Twitter for so long is its penchant for gleefully hate-watching people. Twitter is like the crowd at a stadium that shows up explicitly to heckle whomever is on the field, except they also throw people on the field themselves just so they can have more people to heckle.
A concurrent outcome: I feel bad for hate-watching. Legitimately bad. I don’t want to do it. I’ve at times been able to step away from Musk/Twitter news for a few days, and my life is legitimately better when I do.
A question: If I think hate-watching is wrong and I genuinely do feel better when I don’t do it, then why do I keep doing it?
Assuming you are being serious (as opposed to rhetorical), you have discovered perhaps the reason why you hate twitter so much. Hate watching (amd other twitter stuff) triggers-as in an almost...
why do I keep doing it?
Assuming you are being serious (as opposed to rhetorical), you have discovered perhaps the reason why you hate twitter so much. Hate watching (amd other twitter stuff) triggers-as in an almost inescapable biological stimulus response-human feelings and behavior, and it does it to no good end. Addiction is a real thing, and has to do with far more than chemical dependence, at least external chemicals (as we can make all kinds of cool molecules inside). Addiction is problematic for many reasons, but an important one is the discord it sows among fellows.
Fully serious. I’ve been mulling over this hypocrisy in myself for roughly a full month now. What I believe in and what I want are at odds; what I should do and what I actually do are at odds....
Fully serious.
I’ve been mulling over this hypocrisy in myself for roughly a full month now. What I believe in and what I want are at odds; what I should do and what I actually do are at odds. There’s a root there that I want to pick at but it also seems impervious to change.
Like, it would be easy enough for me to block this thread on Tildes so it leaves my feed and I don’t have to look at it, but then I know would just actively seek out the information elsewhere instead of stopping my search entirely. Addiction simultaneously feels like too strong of a word for what I’m experiencing but also probably the exact right diagnosis here.
Are you being too hard on yourself? I can certainly understand wanting to "doom scroll" less but at the same time, I think the Twitter disaster is often an interesting and suspenseful news story...
Are you being too hard on yourself? I can certainly understand wanting to "doom scroll" less but at the same time, I think the Twitter disaster is often an interesting and suspenseful news story and it's understandable to be curious about what's happening. Though, hopefully in moderation and with some detachment, since you don't have any direct stake in it.
So, a piece of the draw for me is, like you identified, that it's an interesting and suspenseful unfolding of events. If I'm being genuinely honest though, that's only a small, tiny piece, and I'm...
So, a piece of the draw for me is, like you identified, that it's an interesting and suspenseful unfolding of events. If I'm being genuinely honest though, that's only a small, tiny piece, and I'm lacking the moderation and detachment you mention. The majority of this news' pull (and what has me mulling this over in the first place) is that it activates a sort of smug and spite-filled sense of superiority in me (that alliteration wasn't intentional or me trying to be poetic).
It's the exact thing I have hated about Twitter for so long -- that it seemed to be THE space where people went to in order to be smug, spite-filled, and superior.
I know there's more to Twitter than just that, and I know that many people see a lot of good in the platform, but, to me, Twitter is primarily responsible for an internet culture that has cemented dunks, dismissals, and the airing of misdeeds of others as a way of fostering "justified" grievance in ourselves. I believe it normalizes negative and outright abusive social norms both online and in-person.
My problem with myself is that I look at all of that with genuine disgust but also wow do I love being able to dunk on, dismiss, and witness Twitter's downfall. The same goes for Musk. He's shown himself to be such an awful person in this process that I take delight in his terribleness.
I haven't done or said any of this publicly. I've stayed out of these threads here, and I'm not active in other spaces where I might discuss it. I don't talk about it with my friends or coworkers. It only came up with my husband after we'd been drinking this past weekend and I, under the honesty that often only comes after one too many, said something to the effect of "I fucking love watching Musk and Twitter shit the bed." Up until that utterance, all of this has been something that has just lived in my own head. I'm not doing it for likes or social cred or anything like that. In some ways that would make it better! It'd almost make things easier if I could say I was feeling this way for external validation -- that feels like a better explanation than just my own unfiltered intimate ugliness.
I don't think this mess is something I should delight in. This mess has had real consequences. Lots of people have lost jobs. Families have been uprooted. Dreams have been crushed. For as much as I dislike Twitter, I have to acknowledge that there has been a genuine human toll to its ongoing implosion. Musk's nearly pathological apathy and thinly-veiled cruelty are doing real damage to real people, and he's laying the groundwork for worse in the future.
The opposite I should feel about all this is happy -- so why am I smiling, joyfully, with each refresh of the news feed? Why do I find myself hoping each time to find a shiny new news item detailing even more damage?
Is it hypocrisy to enjoy watching twitter implode, when it brings out the worst of us? How is it hypocrisy to hate the hatred inside all of us, just waiting to come out in some pithy one liner,...
Is it hypocrisy to enjoy watching twitter implode, when it brings out the worst of us?
How is it hypocrisy to hate the hatred inside all of us, just waiting to come out in some pithy one liner, and be retweeted?
I mean, it's obviously not healthy for you to focus on this too much, but the twitter saga is just so dramatically interesting, it should probably become a movie at some point.
And it's not like we are going to be happy if Musk fails and twitter implodes.
If Twitter survives, it will likely get a lot worse. Initial feedback from more experienced users, is that this has already happened.
If Twitter is damaged or does not survive, it will get replaced, probably by something much worse. In a world where success equals attention, nothing grabs attention like hate mongering.
I'll be honest, I am enjoying the story. Even though the story has no redeeming qualities in itself, it's entertaining, and it's the defining story of our age. A third of USA has suddenly started cheering Musk on while a third of the country is falling out of love with Musk. There is really no longer any middle ground. You either love the hate filled demagogues, you don't pay attention because it's all politics, or you hate the hate filled demagogues and the tools that enable them.
I've tried to empathize with my conservative relatives. Now I just try to accept that they are addicted to hate filled narratives, and all I can do is quietly enjoy the schadenfreude as each hate filled demagogue eventually implodes, and they move on to the next one. Or not. Musk has done amazing things in the past. Perhaps he surprises all of us.
But I hope Musks hatred and vitriol is either his downfall or his epiphany that he needs to change, because I don't really want to live in a world where baseless accusations of pedophilia are rewarded with success.
I don't see this as hypocrisy, as I don't hate the person, or the religion, or the political beliefs, I simply hate the hatred. I know I'd be happier if I ignored all the hatred, but I find that unconscionable.
Much like ignoring intolerance would be healthier for me, but also unconscionable.
Or as christians put it, hate the sin, not the sinner.
Addiction is a term fraught with baggage. As I see it, it's a very wide umbrella, to include at its most tragic fringes behaviors like those from victims who keep returning to their perpetrators....
Addiction is a term fraught with baggage. As I see it, it's a very wide umbrella, to include at its most tragic fringes behaviors like those from victims who keep returning to their perpetrators. Which your description of your behavior kinda reminds me of (although hopefully far less traumatic). It also explains Musk and Trump fans, at least the ones who aren't just there for the money.
I'm not here to indict, I myself am in multiple prongs of recovery. Now I need to go check reddit . . .
Sidenote : @kfwyre you are always so insightful and thoughtful, this feels a bit like preaching to the choir, but you ask an honest question so I'll try and help as best I can Forgive me if I...
A question: If I think hate-watching is wrong and I genuinely do feel better when I don’t do it, then why do I keep doing it?
Sidenote : @kfwyre you are always so insightful and thoughtful, this feels a bit like preaching to the choir, but you ask an honest question so I'll try and help as best I can
Forgive me if I misuse some terms in here (or just get this wildly wrong), I'm very much an armchair psychologist and armchair philosopher. Everything I know I learned from reading popsci articles and watching The Good Place.
Personally for me this kind of behavior breaks down into 2 parts of myself that are fighting each other.
Part one is the "lizard brain", the part of me that thrives on dopamine loops caused by social media, infinite scrolling, provocative headlines, and the desire for stimulation (outrage OR delight). This to me has always been the thing that I try and identify first when I'm looking to change my own behavior. Any behavior that I tend to repeat (aka a "habit") usually either has a dopamine feedback loop forming it's basis, or it used to. This is neither inherently good nor inherently bad, it's just a biological mechanism that can eventually rewire my brain.
The second part is the part that can actually reason and think about things long term, and consider consequences and effects outside myself (the ethical self). Doom-scrolling during the pandemic yielded no negative effects in the immediate or biological sense. However once my reasoning self started to consider the longer-term effects on my own behavior and the larger societal contribution (giving them clicks) I felt bad because it conflicts with my self-image of my ideal self (the person I strive to be).
Pretty quickly the delayed reaction gets less delayed, and so I simultaneously feel good while doom-scrolling (because dopamine) while also feeling bad about it (the ethical self). And because things with dopamine loops also make for excellent coping mechanisms, and I just made myself feel bad, I.... go do it again!
I wish I'd read this before I posted my other response here because you captured way better than I could what's going on, especially the part where the two reactions spiral together. Thanks for...
I wish I'd read this before I posted my other response here because you captured way better than I could what's going on, especially the part where the two reactions spiral together.
Thanks for this insight. You've given me a lot to chew on. Now you've got me thinking that maybe my self-flagellation over this is actually a cause of the hate-watching, rather than an effect.
Also, maybe this is a sign that I should finally get around to watching The Good Place...
I cannot recommend that show highly enough. It is brilliantly written, and funny, and sad, and meaningful, and the greatest trick every played by a philosophy professor to trick people into...
Also, maybe this is a sign that I should finally get around to watching The Good Place
I cannot recommend that show highly enough. It is brilliantly written, and funny, and sad, and meaningful, and the greatest trick every played by a philosophy professor to trick people into learning about philosophy. I think you in particular will find it very enjoyable.
Seconding The Good Place. It's easily my favorite show of the last decade, and I have watched it several times already as a result. It's that good. And I'm genuinely surprised to hear you haven't...
Seconding The Good Place. It's easily my favorite show of the last decade, and I have watched it several times already as a result. It's that good.
And I'm genuinely surprised to hear you haven't watched it yet, @kfwyre. I think it would be right up your alley, since it's incredibly heartfelt, uplifting, comforting, insightful, and thoughtful (which are all words I would also use to describe you!). :)
Hah, if there is one thing I've learned over the years, it's that you're faaaaaar from being a judgmental asshole. Just because you enjoy the occasional bit of schadenfreude when it comes to Musk...
Hah, if there is one thing I've learned over the years, it's that you're faaaaaar from being a judgmental asshole. Just because you enjoy the occasional bit of schadenfreude when it comes to Musk doesn't make you a monster.
Twitter hacked, 200 million user email addresses leaked, researcher says (Reuters) p.s. If Troy Hunt has looked into it and says it's true, it's very very likely true. That man's reputation in the...
Hackers stole the email addresses of more than 200 million Twitter users and posted them on an online hacking forum, a security researcher said Wednesday.
The breach “will unfortunately lead to a lot of hacking, targeted phishing and doxxing,” Alon Gal, co-founder of Israeli cybersecurity-monitoring firm Hudson Rock, wrote on LinkedIn. He called it “one of the most significant leaks I've seen.”
Twitter has not commented on the report, which Gal first posted about on social media on Dec. 24, nor responded to inquiries about the breach since that date. It was not clear what action, if any, Twitter has taken to investigate or remediate the issue.
Reuters could not independently verify the data on the forum was authentic and came from Twitter. Screenshots of the hacker forum, where the data appeared on Wednesday, have circulated online.
Troy Hunt, creator of breach-notification site Have I Been Pwned, viewed the leaked data and said on Twitter that it seemed “pretty much what it’s been described as.”
There were no clues to the identity or location of the hacker or hackers behind the breach. It may have taken place as early as 2021, which was before Elon Musk took over ownership of the company last year.
Claims about the size and scope of the breach initially varied with early accounts in December saying 400 million email addresses and phone numbers were stolen.
A major breach at Twitter may interest regulators on both sides of the Atlantic. The Data Protection Commission in Ireland, where Twitter has its European headquarters, and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission have been monitoring the Elon Musk-owned company for compliance with European data protection rules and a U.S. consent order respectively.
Messages left with the two regulators were not immediately returned on Thursday.
p.s. If Troy Hunt has looked into it and says it's true, it's very very likely true. That man's reputation in the web security industry is sterling.
The arbitration demands accuse Twitter of sex discrimination, breach of contract and illegally terminating employees who were on medical or parental leave.
Twitter Inc on Tuesday was accused by 100 former employees of various legal violations stemming from Elon Musk’s takeover of the company, including targeting women for layoffs and failing to pay promised severance.
Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer for the workers, said she had filed 100 demands for arbitration against Twitter that make similar claims to four class action lawsuits pending in California federal court.
The workers all signed agreements to bring legal disputes against the company in arbitration rather than court, Liss-Riordan said, which means they will likely be barred from participating in the class actions.
Twitter laid off roughly 3,700 employees in early November in a cost-cutting measure by Musk, who paid $44 billion to acquire the social media platform, and hundreds more subsequently resigned.
The arbitration demands accuse Twitter of sex discrimination, breach of contract, and illegally terminating employees who were on medical or parental leave.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The pending class action lawsuits claim Twitter laid off employees and contractors without the 60 days’ notice required by law, disproportionately laid off women, and forced out workers with disabilities by refusing to allow remote work.
Twitter is also facing at least three complaints filed with a U.S. labor board claiming workers were fired for criticizing the company, attempting to organize a strike, and other conduct protected by federal labor law.
The company has denied violating the law requiring advanced notice and has not yet responded to the other claims.
Twitter Inc. was sued for failing to pay $136,250 in rent for its office space in San Francisco.
The landlord, Columbia Reit - 650 California LLC, says it notified Twitter on Dec. 16 that it would be in default on its lease for the 30th floor of the Hartford Building in five days unless the rent was paid. The tenant failed to comply, Columbia Reit said in the complaint, filed Thursday in state court in San Francisco.
Twitter hasn’t paid rent on its headquarters, or any of its other global offices, in weeks, the New York Times reported on Dec. 13. The company was also sued earlier this month for refusing to pay for two charter flights.
Twitter, which doesn’t have a media department, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Twitter Inc removed a feature in the past few days that promoted suicide prevention hotlines and other safety resources to users looking up certain content, according to two people familiar with the matter who said it was ordered by new owner Elon Musk.
After publication of this story, Twitter head of trust and safety Ella Irwin told Reuters in an email that "we have been fixing and revamping our prompts. They were just temporarily removed while we do that."
"We expect to have them back up next week," she said.
The removal of the feature, known as #ThereIsHelp, had not been previously reported. It had shown at the top of specific searches contacts for support organizations in many countries related to mental health, HIV, vaccines, child sexual exploitation, COVID-19, gender-based violence, natural disasters and freedom of expression.
Eirliani Abdul Rahman, who had been on a recently dissolved Twitter content advisory group, said the disappearance of #ThereIsHelp was "extremely disconcerting and profoundly disturbing."
Even if it was only temporarily removed to make way for improvements, "normally you would be working on it in parallel, not removing it," she said.
The sources with knowledge of Musk's decision to order the removal of the feature declined to be named because they feared retaliation. One of them said millions of people had encountered #ThereIsHelp messages.
Henry Ford’s life took a grim turn toward bigotry. In 1918 Ford bought a local newspaper, the Dearborn Independent. At a time when hundreds of thousands of Jews were fleeing pogroms in Europe, the paper published a torrent of vicious antisemitism, such as the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion and a series titled “The International Jew: The World’s Problem.” According to Steven Watts’ book The People’s Tycoon, the resulting backlash included condemnation from former presidents William Taft and Woodrow Wilson and at least one Ford dealership (in Iowa) ending its relationship with the company.
Workers at Twitter Inc.’s Singapore office were told to empty out their desks and vacate the premises, said people familiar with the situation, as Elon Musk continues to pare expenses around the globe.
Twitter staff were informed via email Wednesday that they had until 5 p.m. to leave the CapitaGreen building and resume their duties remotely from Thursday, one of the people said, asking not to be named discussing private information. Singapore-based staffers have now been reassigned as remote workers in Twitter’s internal system until further notice, the person added.
Representatives for Twitter didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for CapitaLand, the owner of its Singapore offices, said Twitter remains a tenant at CapitaGreen without elaborating.
Musk’s cost-cutting efforts have included not paying rent on its global headquarters, and it was sued over that issue last month by the landlord of its San Francisco offices. Casey Newton of Platformer first tweeted about the Singapore office clearout, adding that the reason for it was failure to pay rent on the facility.
Off-topic, but could the title of this thread get updated to distinguish it from the previous one? Right now they’re identical which makes it a bit confusing at first glance.
Off-topic, but could the title of this thread get updated to distinguish it from the previous one? Right now they’re identical which makes it a bit confusing at first glance.
Twitter stiffs software vendor with $8 million left on contract, lawsuit says (Ars Technica)
He’s going to have a lot of fun trying to overcome the skepticism and uneasiness of investors for future business ventures after this stunt.
Musk sets up Twitter poll asking if he should step down as head (Guardian)
Link to poll:
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1604617643973124097
Also from the article:
And the results are in:
I hope the meeting with Jared Kushner over the weekend isn't foreboding...
Some personal thoughts on this that are mostly just noise and that I’ve been mulling over with no real conclusions (feel free to mark as noise so actual news will be above this):
A feeling: I strongly dislike both Musk and Twitter. I’ve disliked both of them for a while now, well before this started.
An outcome: As a result of that feeling, I will admit to gleefully hate-watching parts of this whole mess as it has played out.
A concurrent feeling: Part of the reason I have disliked Twitter for so long is its penchant for gleefully hate-watching people. Twitter is like the crowd at a stadium that shows up explicitly to heckle whomever is on the field, except they also throw people on the field themselves just so they can have more people to heckle.
A concurrent outcome: I feel bad for hate-watching. Legitimately bad. I don’t want to do it. I’ve at times been able to step away from Musk/Twitter news for a few days, and my life is legitimately better when I do.
A question: If I think hate-watching is wrong and I genuinely do feel better when I don’t do it, then why do I keep doing it?
Assuming you are being serious (as opposed to rhetorical), you have discovered perhaps the reason why you hate twitter so much. Hate watching (amd other twitter stuff) triggers-as in an almost inescapable biological stimulus response-human feelings and behavior, and it does it to no good end. Addiction is a real thing, and has to do with far more than chemical dependence, at least external chemicals (as we can make all kinds of cool molecules inside). Addiction is problematic for many reasons, but an important one is the discord it sows among fellows.
Fully serious.
I’ve been mulling over this hypocrisy in myself for roughly a full month now. What I believe in and what I want are at odds; what I should do and what I actually do are at odds. There’s a root there that I want to pick at but it also seems impervious to change.
Like, it would be easy enough for me to block this thread on Tildes so it leaves my feed and I don’t have to look at it, but then I know would just actively seek out the information elsewhere instead of stopping my search entirely. Addiction simultaneously feels like too strong of a word for what I’m experiencing but also probably the exact right diagnosis here.
Are you being too hard on yourself? I can certainly understand wanting to "doom scroll" less but at the same time, I think the Twitter disaster is often an interesting and suspenseful news story and it's understandable to be curious about what's happening. Though, hopefully in moderation and with some detachment, since you don't have any direct stake in it.
So, a piece of the draw for me is, like you identified, that it's an interesting and suspenseful unfolding of events. If I'm being genuinely honest though, that's only a small, tiny piece, and I'm lacking the moderation and detachment you mention. The majority of this news' pull (and what has me mulling this over in the first place) is that it activates a sort of smug and spite-filled sense of superiority in me (that alliteration wasn't intentional or me trying to be poetic).
It's the exact thing I have hated about Twitter for so long -- that it seemed to be THE space where people went to in order to be smug, spite-filled, and superior.
I know there's more to Twitter than just that, and I know that many people see a lot of good in the platform, but, to me, Twitter is primarily responsible for an internet culture that has cemented dunks, dismissals, and the airing of misdeeds of others as a way of fostering "justified" grievance in ourselves. I believe it normalizes negative and outright abusive social norms both online and in-person.
My problem with myself is that I look at all of that with genuine disgust but also wow do I love being able to dunk on, dismiss, and witness Twitter's downfall. The same goes for Musk. He's shown himself to be such an awful person in this process that I take delight in his terribleness.
I haven't done or said any of this publicly. I've stayed out of these threads here, and I'm not active in other spaces where I might discuss it. I don't talk about it with my friends or coworkers. It only came up with my husband after we'd been drinking this past weekend and I, under the honesty that often only comes after one too many, said something to the effect of "I fucking love watching Musk and Twitter shit the bed." Up until that utterance, all of this has been something that has just lived in my own head. I'm not doing it for likes or social cred or anything like that. In some ways that would make it better! It'd almost make things easier if I could say I was feeling this way for external validation -- that feels like a better explanation than just my own unfiltered intimate ugliness.
I don't think this mess is something I should delight in. This mess has had real consequences. Lots of people have lost jobs. Families have been uprooted. Dreams have been crushed. For as much as I dislike Twitter, I have to acknowledge that there has been a genuine human toll to its ongoing implosion. Musk's nearly pathological apathy and thinly-veiled cruelty are doing real damage to real people, and he's laying the groundwork for worse in the future.
The opposite I should feel about all this is happy -- so why am I smiling, joyfully, with each refresh of the news feed? Why do I find myself hoping each time to find a shiny new news item detailing even more damage?
Is it hypocrisy to enjoy watching twitter implode, when it brings out the worst of us?
How is it hypocrisy to hate the hatred inside all of us, just waiting to come out in some pithy one liner, and be retweeted?
I mean, it's obviously not healthy for you to focus on this too much, but the twitter saga is just so dramatically interesting, it should probably become a movie at some point.
And it's not like we are going to be happy if Musk fails and twitter implodes.
If Twitter survives, it will likely get a lot worse. Initial feedback from more experienced users, is that this has already happened.
If Twitter is damaged or does not survive, it will get replaced, probably by something much worse. In a world where success equals attention, nothing grabs attention like hate mongering.
I'll be honest, I am enjoying the story. Even though the story has no redeeming qualities in itself, it's entertaining, and it's the defining story of our age. A third of USA has suddenly started cheering Musk on while a third of the country is falling out of love with Musk. There is really no longer any middle ground. You either love the hate filled demagogues, you don't pay attention because it's all politics, or you hate the hate filled demagogues and the tools that enable them.
I've tried to empathize with my conservative relatives. Now I just try to accept that they are addicted to hate filled narratives, and all I can do is quietly enjoy the schadenfreude as each hate filled demagogue eventually implodes, and they move on to the next one. Or not. Musk has done amazing things in the past. Perhaps he surprises all of us.
But I hope Musks hatred and vitriol is either his downfall or his epiphany that he needs to change, because I don't really want to live in a world where baseless accusations of pedophilia are rewarded with success.
I don't see this as hypocrisy, as I don't hate the person, or the religion, or the political beliefs, I simply hate the hatred. I know I'd be happier if I ignored all the hatred, but I find that unconscionable.
Much like ignoring intolerance would be healthier for me, but also unconscionable.
Or as christians put it, hate the sin, not the sinner.
Addiction is a term fraught with baggage. As I see it, it's a very wide umbrella, to include at its most tragic fringes behaviors like those from victims who keep returning to their perpetrators. Which your description of your behavior kinda reminds me of (although hopefully far less traumatic). It also explains Musk and Trump fans, at least the ones who aren't just there for the money.
I'm not here to indict, I myself am in multiple prongs of recovery. Now I need to go check reddit . . .
It's like picking a scab. You know it will bleed eventually, but right now it kinda feels good.
Sidenote : @kfwyre you are always so insightful and thoughtful, this feels a bit like preaching to the choir, but you ask an honest question so I'll try and help as best I can
Forgive me if I misuse some terms in here (or just get this wildly wrong), I'm very much an armchair psychologist and armchair philosopher. Everything I know I learned from reading popsci articles and watching The Good Place.
Personally for me this kind of behavior breaks down into 2 parts of myself that are fighting each other.
Part one is the "lizard brain", the part of me that thrives on dopamine loops caused by social media, infinite scrolling, provocative headlines, and the desire for stimulation (outrage OR delight). This to me has always been the thing that I try and identify first when I'm looking to change my own behavior. Any behavior that I tend to repeat (aka a "habit") usually either has a dopamine feedback loop forming it's basis, or it used to. This is neither inherently good nor inherently bad, it's just a biological mechanism that can eventually rewire my brain.
The second part is the part that can actually reason and think about things long term, and consider consequences and effects outside myself (the ethical self). Doom-scrolling during the pandemic yielded no negative effects in the immediate or biological sense. However once my reasoning self started to consider the longer-term effects on my own behavior and the larger societal contribution (giving them clicks) I felt bad because it conflicts with my self-image of my ideal self (the person I strive to be).
Pretty quickly the delayed reaction gets less delayed, and so I simultaneously feel good while doom-scrolling (because dopamine) while also feeling bad about it (the ethical self). And because things with dopamine loops also make for excellent coping mechanisms, and I just made myself feel bad, I.... go do it again!
I wish I'd read this before I posted my other response here because you captured way better than I could what's going on, especially the part where the two reactions spiral together.
Thanks for this insight. You've given me a lot to chew on. Now you've got me thinking that maybe my self-flagellation over this is actually a cause of the hate-watching, rather than an effect.
Also, maybe this is a sign that I should finally get around to watching The Good Place...
I cannot recommend that show highly enough. It is brilliantly written, and funny, and sad, and meaningful, and the greatest trick every played by a philosophy professor to trick people into learning about philosophy. I think you in particular will find it very enjoyable.
Seconding The Good Place. It's easily my favorite show of the last decade, and I have watched it several times already as a result. It's that good.
And I'm genuinely surprised to hear you haven't watched it yet, @kfwyre. I think it would be right up your alley, since it's incredibly heartfelt, uplifting, comforting, insightful, and thoughtful (which are all words I would also use to describe you!). :)
You are too complementary. This is supposed to be a thread about how I’m a judgemental asshole! 😆
Hah, if there is one thing I've learned over the years, it's that you're faaaaaar from being a judgmental asshole. Just because you enjoy the occasional bit of schadenfreude when it comes to Musk doesn't make you a monster.
Twitter hacked, 200 million user email addresses leaked, researcher says (Reuters)
p.s. If Troy Hunt has looked into it and says it's true, it's very very likely true. That man's reputation in the web security industry is sterling.
Elon Musk says he will step down as Twitter CEO — once he finds a replacement
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/20/tech/elon-musk-twitter-ceo/index.html
Twitter is hit with dozens of legal complaints by ex-employees (NBC)
Twitter Sued for Nonpayment of Rent on San Francisco Office (Bloomberg)
Exclusive: Twitter removes suicide prevention feature, says it's under revamp (Reuters)
Elon Musk Went From Being Like Henry Ford in a Good Way to a Bad Way
Twitter Orders Workers at Asia HQ to Clear Desks, Work From Home (Bloomberg)
My condolences to internal IT, trying to break down the office systems and give people the tools for a WFH office in less than a week.
Off-topic, but could the title of this thread get updated to distinguish it from the previous one? Right now they’re identical which makes it a bit confusing at first glance.
Sorted.