[Continuation] Musk buys Twitter II - Page 4

Gulliver Foyle · 11th July 2023, 05:19 AM

Originally Posted by dudalb

Unless they have swiped stuff directly from Twitter, nothing illegal about their working for Meta. In fact, Stealing talent from other tech companies has been SOP in the Tech business since day one.

And given that Musk fired the engineers (or at the very least constructively dismissed them) wouldn't any putative gardening leave clauses in their contracts be null and void?

TurkeysGhost · 11th July 2023, 05:25 AM

Originally Posted by Gulliver Foyle

And given that Musk fired the engineers (or at the very least constructively dismissed them) wouldn't any putative gardening leave clauses in their contracts be null and void?

all noncompetes are null and void in California.

Quote:

Attorney General Bonta Reminds Employers and Workers That Noncompete Agreements Are Not Enforceable Under California Law

California Attorney General Rob Bonta today issued an alert reminding employers and workers that noncompete agreements are not enforceable in California. Noncompete agreements generally require workers to refrain from accepting new employment opportunities in a similar line of work or establishing a competing business, usually for a specified period of time and within a geographic area. Although frequently found in high paying, highly technical jobs, these provisions are also found in lower-paying, less technical jobs and can have an adverse impact on labor market mobility and worker compensation. For example, a 2019 study estimates that 53% of noncompete workers are non-salaried, hourly wage employees, 14% of whom earn less than $40,000 a year. Attorney General Bonta reminds both employers and employees that noncompete agreements are prohibited in the state of California, and urges individuals who are wrongfully presented with a noncompete agreement to know their rights.

https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releas...agreements-are

Straight up not lawful and will not be enforced by a California court.

Gulliver Foyle · 11th July 2023, 05:42 AM

Originally Posted by TurkeysGhost

all noncompetes are null and void in California.

https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releas...agreements-are

Straight up not lawful and will not be enforced by a California court.

Thanks.

tyr_13 · 11th July 2023, 07:39 AM

Originally Posted by TurkeysGhost

Noncompetes are unenforceable in California anyway, where both companies are headquartered. "Poaching" is just boss speak for the normal functioning of the at-will labor market. Twitter would have to demonstrate some outrageously bad behavior by former employees (like ripping off proprietary code or other trade secrets) to have any kind of claim, which seems extremely dubious since Threads seems to be a text-based ripoff of Instagram more than anything else.

Good catch. I should have put 'poaching' in scare quotes.

TurkeysGhost · 11th July 2023, 08:35 AM

In the great Twitter/Threads Sorting, Twitter retains a top talent:

Puppycow · 12th July 2023, 11:43 PM

Twitter owes ex-employees $500m in severance, lawsuit claims

Quote:

Twitter allegedly refused to pay at least $500m in promised severance to thousands of employees who were laid off after Elon Musk acquired the company, a lawsuit filed on Wednesday claims.

The Don · 13th July 2023, 12:45 AM

Originally Posted by Puppycow

Twitter owes ex-employees $500m in severance, lawsuit claims

I doubt that the terminated employees will see a penny.

arthwollipot · 13th July 2023, 12:50 AM

Originally Posted by The Don

I doubt that the terminated employees will see a penny.

I can see Elon as the kind of person who will fork out the $500M just to make the problem go away.

Mashuna · 13th July 2023, 01:23 AM

Originally Posted by arthwollipot

I can see Elon as the kind of person who will fork out the $500M just to make the problem go away.

I agree, especially as he originally forked over billions to make the problem appear.

jeremyp · 13th July 2023, 02:22 AM

Originally Posted by arthwollipot

I can see Elon as the kind of person who will fork out the $500M just to make the problem go away.

No. He’ll fight against it for two reasons

1. His ego.

2. Twitter can’t afford to give anybody $500 million.

The Great Zaganza · 13th July 2023, 02:34 AM

Originally Posted by jeremyp

No. He’ll fight against it for two reasons

1. His ego.

2. Twitter can’t afford to give anybody $500 million.

it's not like it's HIS problem - it's Twitters.

Wudang · 13th July 2023, 05:09 AM

Originally Posted by arthwollipot

I can see Elon as the kind of person who will fork out the $500M just to make the problem go away.

I can see it go either way. He makes decisions on a whim apparently.

TurkeysGhost · 13th July 2023, 05:11 AM

Originally Posted by arthwollipot

I can see Elon as the kind of person who will fork out the $500M just to make the problem go away.

The whole problem exists because he refuses to pay his bills.

All he had to do was pay his severance agreements when firing these people. The US is already ridiculously boss friendly and Musk still managed to **** it up.

My prediction is this is going to end up costing way more than just doing the right thing from the start, and these people are still going to end up with their severance, plus maybe a bit of annoyance pay and their legal bills covered. Another genius gambit by Musk.

Gulliver Foyle · 13th July 2023, 05:52 AM

Originally Posted by TurkeysGhost

The whole problem exists because he refuses to pay his bills.

All he had to do was pay his severance agreements when firing these people. The US is already ridiculously boss friendly and Musk still managed to **** it up.

My prediction is this is going to end up costing way more than just doing the right thing from the start, and these people are still going to end up with their severance, plus maybe a bit of annoyance pay and their legal bills covered. Another genius gambit by Musk.

And because of this and other idiocies on Musk's part; both Twitter and Musk's Tesla shares* are soon going to be owned by his creditors.

* Which have massively increased recently because Galaxy Brain Elon isn't paying attention and the company can concentrate on being a car manufacturing company and not an Elon placating one.

jeremyp · 13th July 2023, 09:47 AM

Musk is now suing four alleged web scrapers for degrading its servers.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...ser-experience

That probably tells us all we need to know about the gradual degradation of Twitter's infrastructure.

TurkeysGhost · 13th July 2023, 09:55 AM

Originally Posted by jeremyp

Musk is now suing four alleged web scrapers for degrading its servers.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...ser-experience

That probably tells us all we need to know about the gradual degradation of Twitter's infrastructure.

Odds of these scrapers, if they are ever identified, being in a jurisdiction where they can actually be sued?

Scraping seems like the kind of grey area where people doing it don't operate in the US. pure speculation on my part though.

Puppycow · 14th July 2023, 02:16 AM

Quote:

The defendants, known only by their IP addresses so far, allegedly "engaged in widespread unlawful scraping of data from Twitter" by "flooding Twitter's sign-up page with automated requests."

I wonder who it might be? And why?

Would Meta have some sort of reason? I think it's know that search engines like Google and Bing do something like this, otherwise the search engines would not be able to find new tweets. Although presumably they only search the new stuff as it comes out, not "every tweet ever made in a short period of time" (because they already have the old tweets that haven't changed recently)

jeremyp · 14th July 2023, 03:41 AM

Originally Posted by TurkeysGhost

Odds of these scrapers, if they are ever identified, being in a jurisdiction where they can actually be sued?

There's speculation in the comments on the story that the IP addresses belong to Twitter.

Quote:

Scraping seems like the kind of grey area where people doing it don't operate in the US. pure speculation on my part though.

No, lots of people do web scraping. Search engines do web scraping all the time. I've done it in the past in situations where the web site from which I wanted information didn't have a proper API available externally.

Twitter recently closed its free API which means that a lot more people are going to be doing web scraping.

lobosrul5 · 15th July 2023, 06:30 PM

Anyone know if ads via Twitter are passed thru the thread reader app? I'm now boycotting Twitter after elons latest bs, pushed me over the cliff. I don't want one red cent of mine going to him via ad views.

Orphia Nay · 15th July 2023, 09:45 PM

Originally Posted by lobosrul5

Anyone know if ads via Twitter are passed thru the thread reader app? I'm now boycotting Twitter after elons latest bs, pushed me over the cliff. I don't want one red cent of mine going to him via ad views.

I read a thread reader app unrolled thread and it had ads, and I think those are to monetise threadreaderapp.com, not sucked in from Twitter. There was no text in the thread that sounded like an ad.

jeremyp · 16th July 2023, 04:30 AM

Originally Posted by lobosrul5

Anyone know if ads via Twitter are passed thru the thread reader app? I'm now boycotting Twitter after elons latest bs, pushed me over the cliff. I don't want one red cent of mine going to him via ad views.

Does Twitter get money just for showing you the ad? Does it get money for carrying the ad or does it only get money for click throughs?

Only in the first of those three cases would Twitter get money for you viewing its pages and then an ad blocker would probably fix it.

lobosrul5 · 16th July 2023, 08:45 AM

Originally Posted by jeremyp

Does Twitter get money just for showing you the ad? Does it get money for carrying the ad or does it only get money for click throughs?

Only in the first of those three cases would Twitter get money for you viewing its pages and then an ad blocker would probably fix it.

https://business.twitter.com/en/help...aigns-101.html

In some cases, yes. Note they use the term "impression". That generally means the ad was displayed to someone.

dirtywick · 16th July 2023, 09:19 AM

i say hopefully he takes some ad companies down with him

TurkeysGhost · 17th July 2023, 04:15 AM

Originally Posted by lobosrul5

Anyone know if ads via Twitter are passed thru the thread reader app? I'm now boycotting Twitter after elons latest bs, pushed me over the cliff. I don't want one red cent of mine going to him via ad views.

Adblocker on your browser (on PC or smartphone) and using the web version blocks all ads and promoted tweets, but you'll need to have a Twitter account. If you're using on PC, the "Block the blue" plug in works really well to improve the experience by automatically blocking blue check accounts you encounter, eventually leading to less low quality junk getting boosted to the tops of the comments section you see.

jeremyp · 18th July 2023, 06:34 AM

Latest from Elon Musk: advertising revenue is down 50%.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...venue-down-50/

Darat · 18th July 2023, 06:48 AM

Originally Posted by jeremyp

Latest from Elon Musk: advertising revenue is down 50%.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...venue-down-50/

That's much better than I'd have thought.

ETA: "....50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load..."

Hmmm... I wonder why that is?

TurkeysGhost · 18th July 2023, 07:06 AM

Originally Posted by jeremyp

Latest from Elon Musk: advertising revenue is down 50%.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...venue-down-50/

Considering that ad sales is almost solely responsible for Twitter revenue, this is monstrously terrible for their business.

But hey, they have like ~600k twitter blue subscribers paying $8 a month bringing in like 60 million a year, which isn't even enough to cover Twitter's yearly debt burden.

Business genius Musk.

newyorkguy · 18th July 2023, 07:29 AM

Originally Posted by Puppycow

Twitter owes ex-employees $500m in severance, lawsuit claims

I like this from the link:

Quote:

The company responded to a request for comment from Reuters with a poop emoji.

Puppycow · 18th July 2023, 07:32 AM

Originally Posted by jeremyp

Latest from Elon Musk: advertising revenue is down 50%.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...venue-down-50/

Let that sink in Elon. Negative cash flow.

8enotto · 18th July 2023, 07:52 AM

Not negative cash flow exactly. Much like pillow boy they have effectively blocked cash flow where it doesn't shut the whole works down.
Debt building and simply ignoring the uncomfortable stuff will work for a while but he doesn't have the luck to hold this forever.

jeremyp · 19th July 2023, 01:22 AM

Originally Posted by Darat

That's much better than I'd have thought.

ETA: "....50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load..."

Hmmm... I wonder why that is?

I find it hilarious when Musk talks about saving Twitter from its enormous debt. I think he’s actually trying to gaslight people into believing it was there before he took over.

jimbob · 19th July 2023, 04:54 AM

This will end well for Musk

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/07/elon...lion-fee-.html

Musk Sue's law firm that forced him to buy Twitter as he says their $90M bill was too much and shouldn't have been paid by the previous board before he took ownership.

Puppycow · 19th July 2023, 06:20 AM

Originally Posted by jimbob

This will end well for Musk

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/07/elon...lion-fee-.html

Musk Sue's law firm that forced him to buy Twitter as he says their $90M bill was too much and shouldn't have been paid by the previous board before he took ownership.

He could have saved a lot of money by just buying a sports team instead of Twitter.

In this case he's just going to add to his legal expenses. Maybe he's so rich that he doesn't care.

TurkeysGhost · 19th July 2023, 06:50 AM

Originally Posted by jeremyp

I find it hilarious when Musk talks about saving Twitter from its enormous debt. I think he’s actually trying to gaslight people into believing it was there before he took over.

You can bet that when this thing finally gives up the ghost, Elon will try to save face by claiming that Twitter was already doomed before he took over.

That still makes him look like a moron that overpaid for a lemon. No way to slice this failure that doesn't make Musk look like a fool. He never should have bought this thing to begin with, and every decision after that has been wrong.

jeremyp · 19th July 2023, 07:37 AM

Originally Posted by Puppycow

He could have saved a lot of money by just buying a sports team instead of Twitter.

In this case he's just going to add to his legal expenses. Maybe he's so rich that he doesn't care.

No, it's going to add to Twitter's legal expenses. It's Twitter suing, not Musk (personally).

TurkeysGhost · 19th July 2023, 07:42 AM

Advertisers will surely be running back now that Musk has given accused and arrested sex trafficker Andrew Tate $20k as part of the new twitter blue monetization program.

Quote:

Self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate says he was paid $20,000 under Elon Musk's content-creator plan

https://www.businessinsider.com/andr...or-plan-2023-7

A bit of discontent even among the Elon fanboys because it seems that the small number of people selected to receive payouts was largely arbitrary. Catturd2, important right wing social media personality (lol) and previous Elon booster, was noticeably miffed by the snub.

Quote:

Right-Wing Influencers Are Furious Elon Didn’t Pay Them to Tweet
Musk is being accused of playing favorites as he hands out cash payments to certain creators

https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...rs-1234789808/

Not really seeing how a one-off payment to an arbitrarily selected set of right wing clout-chasers is going to have any real lasting impact on how the site operates, but I'm not a genius like Musk.

lobosrul5 · 19th July 2023, 07:43 AM

Originally Posted by Puppycow

He could have saved a lot of money by just buying a sports team instead of Twitter.

In this case he's just going to add to his legal expenses. Maybe he's so rich that he doesn't care.

But, how would he have personally saved free speech if he had done that? /s

The Great Zaganza · 19th July 2023, 08:07 AM

Originally Posted by TurkeysGhost

Advertisers will surely be running back now that Musk has given accused and arrested sex trafficker Andrew Tate $20k as part of the new twitter blue monetization program.

you make it sound like a bad thing.
But that's only if you are a Democrat.

Puppycow · 19th July 2023, 10:10 PM

Originally Posted by jeremyp

No, it's going to add to Twitter's legal expenses. It's Twitter suing, not Musk (personally).

A distinction without a difference. Musk is the owner of Twitter. Twitter's money is Musk's money.

The Great Zaganza · 19th July 2023, 10:38 PM

Originally Posted by Puppycow

A distinction without a difference. Musk is the owner of Twitter. Twitter's money is Musk's money.

BIG difference.

Musk can let Twitter sink under a mountain of debt without going under himself.

11th July 2023, 05:19 AM	#121
Gulliver Foyle Master Poster Join Date: Dec 2014 Location: Cork baaaiii Posts: 2,833	Originally Posted by dudalb Unless they have swiped stuff directly from Twitter, nothing illegal about their working for Meta. In fact, Stealing talent from other tech companies has been SOP in the Tech business since day one. And given that Musk fired the engineers (or at the very least constructively dismissed them) wouldn't any putative gardening leave clauses in their contracts be null and void?
	__________________ Ceterum autem censeo Factio Republicanus esse delendam

11th July 2023, 05:25 AM	#122
TurkeysGhost Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Apr 2018 Posts: 35,043	Originally Posted by Gulliver Foyle And given that Musk fired the engineers (or at the very least constructively dismissed them) wouldn't any putative gardening leave clauses in their contracts be null and void? all noncompetes are null and void in California. Quote: Attorney General Bonta Reminds Employers and Workers That Noncompete Agreements Are Not Enforceable Under California Law California Attorney General Rob Bonta today issued an alert reminding employers and workers that noncompete agreements are not enforceable in California. Noncompete agreements generally require workers to refrain from accepting new employment opportunities in a similar line of work or establishing a competing business, usually for a specified period of time and within a geographic area. Although frequently found in high paying, highly technical jobs, these provisions are also found in lower-paying, less technical jobs and can have an adverse impact on labor market mobility and worker compensation. For example, a 2019 study estimates that 53% of noncompete workers are non-salaried, hourly wage employees, 14% of whom earn less than $40,000 a year. Attorney General Bonta reminds both employers and employees that noncompete agreements are prohibited in the state of California, and urges individuals who are wrongfully presented with a noncompete agreement to know their rights. https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releas...agreements-are Straight up not lawful and will not be enforced by a California court.
	__________________ Previously known as SuburbanTurkey

11th July 2023, 05:42 AM	#123
Gulliver Foyle Master Poster Join Date: Dec 2014 Location: Cork baaaiii Posts: 2,833	Originally Posted by TurkeysGhost all noncompetes are null and void in California. https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releas...agreements-are Straight up not lawful and will not be enforced by a California court. Thanks.
	__________________ Ceterum autem censeo Factio Republicanus esse delendam

11th July 2023, 07:39 AM	#124
tyr_13 Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 17,872	Originally Posted by TurkeysGhost Noncompetes are unenforceable in California anyway, where both companies are headquartered. "Poaching" is just boss speak for the normal functioning of the at-will labor market. Twitter would have to demonstrate some outrageously bad behavior by former employees (like ripping off proprietary code or other trade secrets) to have any kind of claim, which seems extremely dubious since Threads seems to be a text-based ripoff of Instagram more than anything else. Good catch. I should have put 'poaching' in scare quotes.
	__________________ Circled nothing is still nothing. "Nothing will stop the U.S. from being a world leader, not even a handful of adults who want their kids to take science lessons from a book that mentions unicorns six times." -UNLoVedRebel Mumpsimus: a stubborn person who insists on making an error in spite of being shown that it is wrong

11th July 2023, 08:35 AM	#125
TurkeysGhost Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Apr 2018 Posts: 35,043	In the great Twitter/Threads Sorting, Twitter retains a top talent: Taliban Leader Endorses Elon Musk’s Twitter Over New Rival Threads https://www.thedailybeast.com/taliba...-rival-threads
	__________________ Previously known as SuburbanTurkey

12th July 2023, 11:43 PM	#126
Puppycow Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Yokohama, Japan Posts: 28,687	Twitter owes ex-employees $500m in severance, lawsuit claims Quote: Twitter allegedly refused to pay at least $500m in promised severance to thousands of employees who were laid off after Elon Musk acquired the company, a lawsuit filed on Wednesday claims.
	__________________ A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool. William Shakespeare

13th July 2023, 12:45 AM	#127
The Don Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Sir Fynwy Posts: 37,271	Originally Posted by Puppycow Twitter owes ex-employees $500m in severance, lawsuit claims I doubt that the terminated employees will see a penny.

13th July 2023, 12:50 AM	#128
arthwollipot Observer of Phenomena Pronouns: he/him Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Ngunnawal Country Posts: 85,474	Originally Posted by The Don I doubt that the terminated employees will see a penny. I can see Elon as the kind of person who will fork out the $500M just to make the problem go away.
	__________________ A million people can call the mountains a fiction Yet it need not trouble you as you stand atop them https://xkcd.com/154/

13th July 2023, 01:23 AM	#129
Mashuna Ovis ex Machina Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Sir Ddinbych Posts: 6,986	Originally Posted by arthwollipot I can see Elon as the kind of person who will fork out the $500M just to make the problem go away. I agree, especially as he originally forked over billions to make the problem appear.
	__________________ I’d rather be a rising ape than a falling angel. - Sir Terry Pratchett

13th July 2023, 02:22 AM	#130
jeremyp Illuminator Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha Posts: 3,824	Originally Posted by arthwollipot I can see Elon as the kind of person who will fork out the $500M just to make the problem go away. No. He’ll fight against it for two reasons 1. His ego. 2. Twitter can’t afford to give anybody $500 million.

13th July 2023, 02:34 AM	#131
The Great Zaganza Maledictorian Photo Contest Winner Join Date: Aug 2016 Posts: 21,601	Originally Posted by jeremyp No. He’ll fight against it for two reasons 1. His ego. 2. Twitter can’t afford to give anybody $500 million. it's not like it's HIS problem - it's Twitters.
	__________________ “Don’t blame me. I voted for Kodos.”

13th July 2023, 05:09 AM	#132
Wudang BOFH Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: People's Republic of South Yorkshire Posts: 15,898	Originally Posted by arthwollipot I can see Elon as the kind of person who will fork out the $500M just to make the problem go away. I can see it go either way. He makes decisions on a whim apparently.
	__________________ "Your deepest pools, like your deepest politicians and philosophers, often turn out more shallow than expected." Walter Scott.

13th July 2023, 05:11 AM	#133
TurkeysGhost Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Apr 2018 Posts: 35,043	Originally Posted by arthwollipot I can see Elon as the kind of person who will fork out the $500M just to make the problem go away. The whole problem exists because he refuses to pay his bills. All he had to do was pay his severance agreements when firing these people. The US is already ridiculously boss friendly and Musk still managed to **** it up. My prediction is this is going to end up costing way more than just doing the right thing from the start, and these people are still going to end up with their severance, plus maybe a bit of annoyance pay and their legal bills covered. Another genius gambit by Musk.
	__________________ Previously known as SuburbanTurkey Last edited by TurkeysGhost; 13th July 2023 at 05:13 AM.

13th July 2023, 05:52 AM	#134
Gulliver Foyle Master Poster Join Date: Dec 2014 Location: Cork baaaiii Posts: 2,833	Originally Posted by TurkeysGhost The whole problem exists because he refuses to pay his bills. All he had to do was pay his severance agreements when firing these people. The US is already ridiculously boss friendly and Musk still managed to **** it up. My prediction is this is going to end up costing way more than just doing the right thing from the start, and these people are still going to end up with their severance, plus maybe a bit of annoyance pay and their legal bills covered. Another genius gambit by Musk. And because of this and other idiocies on Musk's part; both Twitter and Musk's Tesla shares* are soon going to be owned by his creditors. * Which have massively increased recently because Galaxy Brain Elon isn't paying attention and the company can concentrate on being a car manufacturing company and not an Elon placating one.
	__________________ Ceterum autem censeo Factio Republicanus esse delendam

13th July 2023, 09:47 AM	#135
jeremyp Illuminator Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha Posts: 3,824	Musk is now suing four alleged web scrapers for degrading its servers. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...ser-experience That probably tells us all we need to know about the gradual degradation of Twitter's infrastructure.

13th July 2023, 09:55 AM	#136
TurkeysGhost Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Apr 2018 Posts: 35,043	Originally Posted by jeremyp Musk is now suing four alleged web scrapers for degrading its servers. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...ser-experience That probably tells us all we need to know about the gradual degradation of Twitter's infrastructure. Odds of these scrapers, if they are ever identified, being in a jurisdiction where they can actually be sued? Scraping seems like the kind of grey area where people doing it don't operate in the US. pure speculation on my part though.
	__________________ Previously known as SuburbanTurkey

14th July 2023, 02:16 AM	#137
Puppycow Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Yokohama, Japan Posts: 28,687	Quote: The defendants, known only by their IP addresses so far, allegedly "engaged in widespread unlawful scraping of data from Twitter" by "flooding Twitter's sign-up page with automated requests." I wonder who it might be? And why? Would Meta have some sort of reason? I think it's know that search engines like Google and Bing do something like this, otherwise the search engines would not be able to find new tweets. Although presumably they only search the new stuff as it comes out, not "every tweet ever made in a short period of time" (because they already have the old tweets that haven't changed recently)
	__________________ A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool. William Shakespeare

14th July 2023, 03:41 AM	#138
jeremyp Illuminator Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha Posts: 3,824	Originally Posted by TurkeysGhost Odds of these scrapers, if they are ever identified, being in a jurisdiction where they can actually be sued? There's speculation in the comments on the story that the IP addresses belong to Twitter. Quote: Scraping seems like the kind of grey area where people doing it don't operate in the US. pure speculation on my part though. No, lots of people do web scraping. Search engines do web scraping all the time. I've done it in the past in situations where the web site from which I wanted information didn't have a proper API available externally. Twitter recently closed its free API which means that a lot more people are going to be doing web scraping.

15th July 2023, 06:30 PM	#139
lobosrul5 Philosopher Join Date: Nov 2017 Posts: 6,718	Anyone know if ads via Twitter are passed thru the thread reader app? I'm now boycotting Twitter after elons latest bs, pushed me over the cliff. I don't want one red cent of mine going to him via ad views.
lobosrul5 Philosopher Join Date: Nov 2017 Posts: 6,718

15th July 2023, 09:45 PM	#140
Orphia Nay Penguilicious Spodmaster. Tagger Join Date: May 2005 Location: Ponylandistan Presidential Palace (above the Spods' stables). Posts: 44,237	Originally Posted by lobosrul5 Anyone know if ads via Twitter are passed thru the thread reader app? I'm now boycotting Twitter after elons latest bs, pushed me over the cliff. I don't want one red cent of mine going to him via ad views. I read a thread reader app unrolled thread and it had ads, and I think those are to monetise threadreaderapp.com, not sucked in from Twitter. There was no text in the thread that sounded like an ad.

16th July 2023, 04:30 AM	#141
jeremyp Illuminator Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha Posts: 3,824	Originally Posted by lobosrul5 Anyone know if ads via Twitter are passed thru the thread reader app? I'm now boycotting Twitter after elons latest bs, pushed me over the cliff. I don't want one red cent of mine going to him via ad views. Does Twitter get money just for showing you the ad? Does it get money for carrying the ad or does it only get money for click throughs? Only in the first of those three cases would Twitter get money for you viewing its pages and then an ad blocker would probably fix it.

16th July 2023, 08:45 AM	#142
lobosrul5 Philosopher Join Date: Nov 2017 Posts: 6,718	Originally Posted by jeremyp Does Twitter get money just for showing you the ad? Does it get money for carrying the ad or does it only get money for click throughs? Only in the first of those three cases would Twitter get money for you viewing its pages and then an ad blocker would probably fix it. https://business.twitter.com/en/help...aigns-101.html In some cases, yes. Note they use the term "impression". That generally means the ad was displayed to someone.
lobosrul5 Philosopher Join Date: Nov 2017 Posts: 6,718

16th July 2023, 09:19 AM	#143
dirtywick Philosopher Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 5,122	i say hopefully he takes some ad companies down with him
dirtywick Philosopher Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 5,122

17th July 2023, 04:15 AM	#144
TurkeysGhost Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Apr 2018 Posts: 35,043	Originally Posted by lobosrul5 Anyone know if ads via Twitter are passed thru the thread reader app? I'm now boycotting Twitter after elons latest bs, pushed me over the cliff. I don't want one red cent of mine going to him via ad views. Adblocker on your browser (on PC or smartphone) and using the web version blocks all ads and promoted tweets, but you'll need to have a Twitter account. If you're using on PC, the "Block the blue" plug in works really well to improve the experience by automatically blocking blue check accounts you encounter, eventually leading to less low quality junk getting boosted to the tops of the comments section you see.
	__________________ Previously known as SuburbanTurkey Last edited by TurkeysGhost; 17th July 2023 at 04:16 AM.

18th July 2023, 06:34 AM	#145
jeremyp Illuminator Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha Posts: 3,824	Latest from Elon Musk: advertising revenue is down 50%. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...venue-down-50/

18th July 2023, 06:48 AM	#146
Darat Lackey Administrator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: South East, UK Posts: 112,595	Originally Posted by jeremyp Latest from Elon Musk: advertising revenue is down 50%. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...venue-down-50/ That's much better than I'd have thought. ETA: "....50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load..." Hmmm... I wonder why that is?
	__________________ I wish I knew how to quit you Last edited by Darat; 18th July 2023 at 06:49 AM.

18th July 2023, 07:06 AM	#147
TurkeysGhost Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Apr 2018 Posts: 35,043	Originally Posted by jeremyp Latest from Elon Musk: advertising revenue is down 50%. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...venue-down-50/ Considering that ad sales is almost solely responsible for Twitter revenue, this is monstrously terrible for their business. But hey, they have like ~600k twitter blue subscribers paying $8 a month bringing in like 60 million a year, which isn't even enough to cover Twitter's yearly debt burden. Business genius Musk.
	__________________ Previously known as SuburbanTurkey

18th July 2023, 07:29 AM	#148
newyorkguy Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Mar 2013 Location: NY Posts: 13,432	Originally Posted by Puppycow Twitter owes ex-employees $500m in severance, lawsuit claims I like this from the link: Quote: The company responded to a request for comment from Reuters with a poop emoji.

18th July 2023, 07:32 AM	#149
Puppycow Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Yokohama, Japan Posts: 28,687	Originally Posted by jeremyp Latest from Elon Musk: advertising revenue is down 50%. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...venue-down-50/ Let that sink in Elon. Negative cash flow.
	__________________ A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool. William Shakespeare

18th July 2023, 07:52 AM	#150
8enotto Illuminator Join Date: Dec 2018 Location: Mexico Posts: 3,153	Not negative cash flow exactly. Much like pillow boy they have effectively blocked cash flow where it doesn't shut the whole works down. Debt building and simply ignoring the uncomfortable stuff will work for a while but he doesn't have the luck to hold this forever.

19th July 2023, 01:22 AM	#151
jeremyp Illuminator Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha Posts: 3,824	Originally Posted by Darat That's much better than I'd have thought. ETA: "....50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load..." Hmmm... I wonder why that is? I find it hilarious when Musk talks about saving Twitter from its enormous debt. I think he’s actually trying to gaslight people into believing it was there before he took over.

19th July 2023, 04:54 AM	#152
jimbob Uncritical "thinker" Moderator Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: UK Posts: 31,382	This will end well for Musk https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/07/elon...lion-fee-.html Musk Sue's law firm that forced him to buy Twitter as he says their $90M bill was too much and shouldn't have been paid by the previous board before he took ownership.
	__________________ OECD healthcare spending Public/Compulsory Expenditure on healthcare https://data.oecd.org/chart/60Tt Every year since 1990 the US Public healthcare spending has been greater than the UK as a proportion of GDP. More US Tax goes to healthcare than the UK

19th July 2023, 06:20 AM	#153
Puppycow Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Yokohama, Japan Posts: 28,687	Originally Posted by jimbob This will end well for Musk https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/07/elon...lion-fee-.html Musk Sue's law firm that forced him to buy Twitter as he says their $90M bill was too much and shouldn't have been paid by the previous board before he took ownership. He could have saved a lot of money by just buying a sports team instead of Twitter. In this case he's just going to add to his legal expenses. Maybe he's so rich that he doesn't care.
	__________________ A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool. William Shakespeare

19th July 2023, 06:50 AM	#154
TurkeysGhost Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Apr 2018 Posts: 35,043	Originally Posted by jeremyp I find it hilarious when Musk talks about saving Twitter from its enormous debt. I think he’s actually trying to gaslight people into believing it was there before he took over. You can bet that when this thing finally gives up the ghost, Elon will try to save face by claiming that Twitter was already doomed before he took over. That still makes him look like a moron that overpaid for a lemon. No way to slice this failure that doesn't make Musk look like a fool. He never should have bought this thing to begin with, and every decision after that has been wrong.
	__________________ Previously known as SuburbanTurkey

19th July 2023, 07:37 AM	#155
jeremyp Illuminator Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha Posts: 3,824	Originally Posted by Puppycow He could have saved a lot of money by just buying a sports team instead of Twitter. In this case he's just going to add to his legal expenses. Maybe he's so rich that he doesn't care. No, it's going to add to Twitter's legal expenses. It's Twitter suing, not Musk (personally).