119 Comments

Brilliant idea. There should also be financial incentives for those who are most trustworthy.

Expand full comment

Making Twitter a more viable monetization tool for creators would seal the deal.

Expand full comment

Acquiring substack would make a ton of sense to add that complementary product with a share ethos on protecting free speech...

Expand full comment

Personally, I would prefer Substack to remain it's own entity. If Twitter ever does become corrupted again we need viable alternatives. Centralized control creates a single point of failure.

That said, I do think the long form tweets Elon is rolling out could allow for more in depth analysis of ideas that used to be only be possible through blogging/video tools. We'll have to see how that rollout goes.

Expand full comment

Spot on. Twitter doesn’t have long form content, only distribution.

Expand full comment

Longer intermediate form coming soon.

Expand full comment

NOBL is a new social media platform focused on credibility that allows users to monetize through tips and subscriptions.

Expand full comment

An idea for doing that for journalism. The Twitter News Service

https://twitter.com/wallsnopes/status/1608126349356548098?s=46&t=_meyabJzs9pHSIBdTQUIsg

Expand full comment

No one trusts "deciders" anymore. Maybe we need Leadership as a Service? Lol. At some point we need to agree on definitive values rather than living with the blurred lines that have developed and been accepted by society over the last twenty five years. Passive participation in important issues by citizens is killing our freedoms and rights. When it is ok to lie, cheat and steal without repercussions and accountability, we disintegrate and regress into the Wild West and eventually cave people and instead of guns and rocks we assassinate and murder by attacking reputation.

Expand full comment

Yuri, if I may, I just read your short bio, and know you are perfectly well suited for our new social media platform called NOBL:

- we prioritize posts and users by credibility, not popularity

- we call out BS, and you can too with the BS Button (yes, we have a BS Button!)

- we have a built-in meme creator

- and we have financial incentives (you can monetize your content)

Consider this a personal invite to be one of the first to our platform: https://bit.ly/NOBL-Google-Play-tw

Expand full comment

Note to self never venture over to NOBL they sound like used car salesman

Expand full comment

That's what dogecoin and tipping is for.

Expand full comment

I think the time is ripe for a complete Twitter rebranding and platform overhaul.

Its current structure doesn't quite support Elon's ambitious intent of actually speaking the truth to the extent that it could.

One platform to rule them all. That's the opportunity here.

Expand full comment

I am in favour of rebranding and platform overhaul... But "one platfrom to rule them all" seems dangerous too... whenever too much power is concentrated (even if content is produced in an decentralized way by million of users) we should be cautious of potential risks (abuse of power, corruption, etc)...

Expand full comment

Maybe data legislation where by contributing data to the site, every user has a stake in ownership and decision making of the platform could protect against the self annihilating tendency of power

Expand full comment

Yes! That's a brilliant idea!

Expand full comment

Dishonest journalism should be made illegal and punishable by law.

My personal preference: three strikes and you are out.

Expand full comment

Ever heard of the bill of rights and the first amendment? Maybe you should live in Venezuela?

Expand full comment

Dishonest journalism is like yelling fire in a crowded theater. Just look at the damage so called legacy media has caused. Just substitute dishonest for lying. Whatever happened to real journalism. Who, what, when, why, where. Just the FACTS please.

Expand full comment

I like where you are going, but how about rather than "three stikes and you are out", you are able to see how credible a person is based on their previous posts. You can't do this on Twitter.

But, this is exactly how NOBL was designed. No one is silenced or sent away, but you get to see the credibility of users and posts.

Expand full comment

Twitter is breaking user trust daily when they lock accounts over what it calls "hateful conduct" for tweeting verifiable facts! My account is currently locked for this very thing while other, more popular accounts, have not been locked and their tweets which say the same or similar things have been up for months. Still others have been reinstated because they have a lot of fans and are high profile enough to get the attention of someone at Twitter. The rest of us lose our accounts if we aren't willing to capitulate to false accusations and lies. I'm not going to admit my tweet was hate when it wasn't, and the appeals process does not work. I don't think a human being even looks at it, or they just press a button to send a cookie cutter form letter saying you have to admit to hate and delete the tweet. Musk bought Twitter and stated there would be more freedom of speech and exchange of ideas. There was nothing whatsoever rude about my tweet. It was respectful and inquisitive and backed up with verifiable facts. So Musk can claim all he wants that the platform supports free exchange of ideas but it clearly doesn't. Twitter continues to break the trust of everyday users. Musk hasn't changed much at al

Expand full comment

I was suspended recently for calling out what a woman is in biological terms. I appealed with; Biology Lesson: XX chromosome means you are biologically female. A female before maturity is called a "girl", after the female matures they are called a "woman". I was reinstated within a couple of hours. I do believe it is the old AI that are still catching some factual comments. Elon's new engineers are working on recoding Twitter. They have to recode the entire platform. It will take a few months. Until then the we all have to deal with the old platform until the new platform is finished.

Expand full comment

Not pictured: the "verifiable facts" of the case are hate speech.

Expand full comment

Facts don't care about your feelings, buddy. Transgendered people have high rates of mental illness. Look it up yourself. It's all over the place, easy to verify. Here's just one of many verifications right out of a Transgender Health journal https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6830528/

And even if you say transgenderism itself is a mi, that's an opinion not "hate speech," and you can find many examples of people who have said exactly that and their tweets remain posted and their accounts are not locked. One example among many here:

https://twitter.com/patcondell/status/1413077902862786560?lang=en

And that isn't even what I said. I simply wondered if transgenderism could be caused by a metabolic issue and I stated that transgender people also have high rates of mental illness. Again, that last is a verifiable fact. Look it up yourself. Facts cannot be hate speech no matter how much you dislike them. No one knows the exact cause of transgenderism so me just being on my own account wondering about it hardly amounts to hate speech either. There is no good reason for the Twits to lock my account over that.

The only reason I didn't state it in my original comment is that I'm not familiar with substack and didn't know whether saying the same thing here could get my account locked here. I've looked at their content guidelines since and apparently they are a bit more open to free speech than what Twitter is...

Expand full comment

"Feelings" NOT pertinent but seems to be the guidelines of PC. SO MUCH DAMAGE has been done by PC, it must stop. College campuses with, "safe spaces," coloring books and crayons distributed for those eternally offended by EVERYTHING. Think about this, many of our Founding Fathers whose rag tag army defeated the most powerful standing army in the WORLD, were about the same age as those students weeping over words causing their utter meltdowns.

We need to treat PC like an allergy. The only CURE for an allergy is exposure to the offending agents, allergens, in every growing doses. The CURE for PC is MORE SPEECH. Your feelings are not pertinent.

Expand full comment

I hope he sees this.

Expand full comment

Sorry, but you've been had. Get your blue check and prove you are "real" so your data can feed AI's insatiable appetite.

"[Twitter] is as close to humanity's stream of consciousness there is. It makes complete sense that the man behind Neuralink, Musk's company exploring brain-machine interfaces, would want unfiltered access to this digital consciousness.”

If controlling data means ruling the world, Twitter is a perfect place to get ahead in the race. Here we find every psychotic despot’s dream come true—an endless supply of raw, unfiltered data extracted from an endless supply of willing victims.

https://khmezek.substack.com/p/x

Expand full comment

I don't think you've been on the Twitter 2.0

Night and Day difference.

The benefits are clear and the outpouring of suppressed stories and information is astonishing.

Expand full comment

How is it so different Betsy? There is just less censorship. That is a good thing, but it is still so far from a platform you can use do determine what is true.

It is still a platform based on popularity (likes, retweets, followers, checkmarks), none of which signal what is true.

In contrast to this, my new social media platform called NOBL is based on credibility, not popularity. We even give you a BS filter.

You should come check it out: https://bit.ly/NOBL-Google-Play-tw

Expand full comment

I don't need someone else to signal to me what is true. I need it all to be out there unfettered unfiltered, and I along with many others who dig in to the information will figure it out on our own. I come with my own tried and true BS filter.

The sheer amount of information pouring in to Twitter, the ability to navigate it, and the new and previously censored people returning to provide point of view and analysis is spectacular.

Expand full comment

You look like you are a researcher, so I imagine you are using signals all the time -- credentials, peer reviews, sources, citations, etc.

At NOBL, we are taking that concept and applying it to social media and asking similar questions:

- what is your source?

- what is your track record?

- what do others say?

and providing all that information alongside the post.

I am sure you are excellent at determing what is true, especially in your field. We are attempting to provide tools better than a user's or post's popularity to help you "figure it out on your own".

Expand full comment

The only problem with this « Trust » service is that you create a technological oligarch that will be controlling the real identity of all individuals. That single fact puts at risk anyone that could be considered « subversive ». Controlling the narrative can be acheived in many ways. The rabit hole may not be what you expect it bo be. The other question is certainly, does it take 8$/month to be considered a voice? This seems to set the bar at a very high price when we start putting a price on freedom of expression. Although there is a cleanup needed on social media platforms, do not understimate the risks associated with putting your eggs in only one basket. Twitter is privatly held and a for profit entreprise. Unless its owner decides do make Twitter a non profit organization where no single entity is in complete control of the platform, Twitter will remain a private information hub with one goal « monetize » user activity. You are the product.

Expand full comment

I like your analysis. I don't see why people are equating freedom of speech with trust. Maybe there is more trust that you won't get silenced, but that doesn't equate to being able to trust the content.

And you nailed it regarding monetization. Twitter is monetizing you. You are the product.

My new platform -- NOBL -- allows you to monetize yourself. There is no advertising.

Expand full comment

I've still had posts hidden behind an offensive filter like many other users without being told anything about it.. repeatedly accused by the algorithm for being a bot because I used the website on two devices.. had one post deleted without being told about it where I used the term "BS" and criticized Musk's censorship of Ye in the post.. had my account permanently suspended without being told why, and had all my appeals to the suspension ignored. So the moderation on the website is still a far cry from anything I would call wise.

I wonder if they permanently suspended me because I had another permanently suspended account for spam before Musk took over; but that still makes them look bad, as I used that account to spam by hand, with hours of my free time after work, in an attempt to wake people up about covid vaccine harms, and direct them towards pinned batch harm information and theoretical treatments in part from censored doctors.

Expand full comment

Twitter has a lot more work to do before I could ever begin to trust it. At this point, I refuse to slave for any mainstream social media companies. Some of these companies even want you to make them bricks without straw. Nope, not me.

I do like the ability to embed tweets in my writing here on Substack.

Expand full comment

You could give NOBL a shot. You can monetize your own content. No advertising.

Expand full comment

Will look into it.

Expand full comment

"The Wisdom of the Crowd" exists when multiple entities solve the same problem independently and there is a mechanism to collect the solutions, filter the noise and select the best answer.

Open source development employs this to great advantage - the noise filter is built in. Traditional media did too - before it got lazy and began pimping its influence to ideology.

Twitter certainly has a mechanism to collect the "solutions" - but there is no noise filter. AI of some sort might resolve this - although there are issues about "Ethical AI" (another name for tuning the answer to a selected ideology).

Expand full comment

NOBL thought about this and solved it. We use the wisdom of the crowd. If you see a post that is BS, you hit the BS button and provide a reference. References are subject to the same scrutiny. We then graphically show you which posts are credible...

and we give you a literal BS filter -- a slider to control how much BS you are willing to tolerate.

We are just getting started and would love you to come try it out. https://bit.ly/NOBL-Google-Play-tw

Expand full comment

There is still a form of shadow banning on Twitter that has yet to be addressed. So-called 'conservative' voices like my own are still being throttled, even though I'm a paid subscriber through Twitter Blue. When I write to them to point this out, I just get a reply that doesn't address my concerns but pretends that it does and so then goes on to tell me my case is closed.

Expand full comment

Annie, if the twitter algorithm flags you for saying hateful shit and sends you to the naughty bin, that's not going to stop under musk. He explicitly endorses "speech but not reach".

Expand full comment

My speech is not at all 'hateful' although it is often counter to the mainstream narrative. What do you mean by he endorses speech but not reach? I'd not heard him say anything about that, and surely it's a contradiction of terms?

Expand full comment

He said that on the first month he got it. Hate speech on twitter gets deamplified, what you conservatives like to (erroneously) call a "shadowban"

Expand full comment

It depends on whether he's going by his own opinions, which are quite similar to mine on a lot of topics, or whether he's having to abide by the EU's definitions of 'hate speech', which I think is the more likely.

Expand full comment

People bring their information directly to those who are involved and not through a middleman. Heard everything long before the "news" comes on. The mix of art and science are jewels in the hunt for truth. Being involved with people who are going through life--babies, disasters, death--and a cup of coffee. The diversity of ideas. It is intriguing and most unfortunately--addictive. The hunt for people we trust versus trolls, bots, and enemies. It is a game. God (most reverently!), I love it!

Expand full comment

Everything sounds fine other than touching the karma system. Karma system incentivizes echo chamber behavior. Once I wrote a harmless thread about corruption on Wikipedia on a subreddit thread filled with socialists and my karma dropped from +60 to -60, lmfao.

Expand full comment

Twitter is my most trusted platform at present. Its extremely high transparency has won my highest trust. I am very optimistic about the development prospects of Twitter. Twitter is the light of the future of mankind

Expand full comment

I'm curious how you know what to trust on Twitter.

Expand full comment

You can have Twitter as a trustworthy news source or you can have Musk pandering to alt right idiots, but you can't have both.

Expand full comment

Traditional media is like bricks, and Twitter is mortar— they are not in conflict, but in harmony. Each fills a role the other does not!

Expand full comment

Twitter is like mortar and traditional media is bricks — not conflict, but harmony!

Expand full comment