Social Media: the good, the bad, the wierd

[CaptainEurope]

Pretty soon, Muskie will have more court cases against him than Trumpie:

Elon Musk‘s erratic posting on X, formerly Twitter, has come back to haunt him once again as a 22-year-old Jewish man pursues a defamation case over tweets in which the tech mogul baselessly suggested the recent college graduate was an undercover federal agent posing as a neo-Nazi during a street fight between far-right groups. Musk’s excruciating March 27 deposition in the matter, which a judge ordered released to the public over the objections of the CEO’s lawyer, reveals the extent to which he has continually sabotaged both himself and the social media platform he owns.

X is “the most accurate, timely and truthful place on the internet,” Musk said during his questioning about a false statement he made on the site that has been viewed by over a million users and has yet to be retracted or deleted almost a year later.

The lawsuit, brought in October by Ben Brody of California, concerns one of the many false conspiracy theories that Musk has fallen for and amplified since acquiring Twitter.

Brody’s attorney, Mark Bankston, who previously won Sandy Hook parents $45 million in damages from Alex Jones in a suit over the conspiracy kingpin’s false claims that the deadly school shooting never happened, has argued that Musk defamed Brody in this last post, with the college grad and his family doxxed and harassed to the point where they were forced to flee their home.

Musk dropped the name of a second burner account as well, though it may have been recorded incorrectly in the transcript of the deposition, which has it as “baby smoke 9,000.” There is no active X profile with that handle, though a verified account called @babysmurf9000 interacts with many of the same accounts that Musk follows and engages with, retweets official X company accounts, and posts in an emoji-laden style similar to Musk’s. It can also be found disparaging billionaire Mark Cuban, whom Musk has routinely criticized of late, as “an idiot.” That post came as Musk feuded with Cuban via his main account over DEI programs in early January.

Musk Admits He Doesn’t Fact-Check Himself and Has Two Burner Accounts on Twitter

[Tami]

Follow up to CE's Post

Best Moments From Elon Musk's Deposition He Doesn't Want You to Read

This deposition is related to Musk’s tweets on the X platform, specifically pertaining to a 22-year-old Jewish man Ben Brody who is suing the billionaire. Brody alleges Musk contributed to a conspiracy theory about him. However, this public deposition explored wide-ranging topics about Musk’s life.

Brody’s attorney, Mark Bankston, peppered Musk and his longtime lawyer, Alex Spiro, with questions for nearly two hours. In the deposition, Musk confirms some of his strange alt accounts on X. Spiro specifically asked at one point to make this deposition confidential, though it clearly was made public this week.

Musk revealed in his deposition that he’s never read Walter Isaacson’s biography on him. Later on, Musk says he may have done more financial harm than good to the X platform. These quotes from Musk, who often comes up as “A” or “WITNESS” in the transcript, come alongside several heated exchanges, all occurring over Zoom.

To start off, Elon Musk’s lawyer Alex Spiro wouldn’t even let the plaintiff get the first question off. Spiro threatened to end the deposition before it started.

Here we see Elon admit to using an alt as a “test account.” HuffPost revealed this account to be @ermnmusk. Musk references “baby smoke 9,000" as well, which appears to be a typo for @babysmurf9000. Those two appear to be Elon’s alternate X accounts.

Elon Musk appeared to be confused about who Mr. Brody, the man suing him, actually is. Bankston asked Musk if he understood that he was a lawyer.

Bankston kept reading a rule about what types of objections a defending lawyer can make. Spiro didn’t care and continued to interrupt the whole time.

Musk says he “may have done more to financially impair the company than to help it” at one point in the deposition. He’s defending that he doesn’t start controversy to boost engagement.

Things got heated pretty early on. Bankston yelled at Musk (the witness) and Spiro to follow his rules. The defense had to remind Bankston to stay calm.

(my note, there are specific rules that have to be followed during a deposition. Usually a judge, if not there then is on call to deal with conflicts between attorneys, but not following the rules is never a good idea.)

Musk reveals that, based on the advice from Walter Isaacson, never read his own biography.

Musk just started talking at one point, when no question was asked of him. The plaintiff asked Musk to wait for a question, and Spiro asked that Musk just be allowed to speak.

(my note, Depositions are supposed to be strictly Q and A. Most Attorneys usually instruct witnesses to answer the question at hand and nothing more, sometimes going as far as simple yes or no responses. Its not smart to allow a witness to ramble on as they might undermine the case.)

[Agent Z]

Tom Taylor has been receiving death threats.

[ed2962]

Move to ban Tik Tok if they don't sell picks up steam

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/mark...us/ar-AA1nmtxT

[Kirby101]

Move to ban Tik Tok if they don't sell picks up steam

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/mark...us/ar-AA1nmtxT

AFAIK, it passed the House and will pass the Senate. I am all for this. Tik Tok is a primarily a data collection app controlled by the Chinese Government that also has videos. It is the most invasive app out there. More than FB or X.

[ed2962]

So, You Tube has changed their rules again?

I noticed that maybe in the last couple of weeks, my home page was recommending me things different than usual even though my viewing habits haven't changed. But I just figured that they changed that algorithm. No big deal.

However, I have a channel where I occasionally talk about comics. Ok, they demonetized that a few years ago like right before COVID ( cuz of COPA, amount of views, etc )...and fine, I'm not popular and didn't care...I just do it for fun. However, I was thinking about different clips I could upload presently, and was going through my stuff from the last couple of years and stuff that wasn't monetized is now monetized?! And it's not super popular stuff...me talking about Punisher w/300 plus is not monetized. Me talking about Black Widow with half the views is...? Me talking about Black Panther vs the KKK gets commercials? I have clips from years ago that have over thousands views but this recent stuff they think is commercially viable? I'm not complaining, I just think it's odd...