Tech journalism (hell, pretty much all journalism nowadays) reminds me a lot of every non-STEM class I had to take in college.
No matter what the topic of the discussion was, the end goal was to somehow tie it to whatever the lefty issue du jour was. Could have been a discussion about 19th Century British agricultural policy or Japanese wood cuts during the Meiji Restoration -- didn't matter, the end goal was to grab the discussion like a football and run in it into a woke endzone. Any and all mental gymnastics were justified and couldn't be questioned-- just score that touchdown.
For modern tech journalism, it doesn't matter what the question was, the answer is always "problematic rise in hate speech" or "further undermines marginalized groups."
This sort of thinking does not survive contact with reality.
Elon Twitter + Substack seems like the perfect pairing for free speech that we've all (well older millenials and young Gen Xers at least...) been begging for. Such a breath of fresh air. I hope they learn to get along.
the clip shows that high-ish level bbc reporters are doing npc-like repeating of institutional talking points without really knowing the subject imo. whether there is or isn't actually more hate speech on the platform now is a separate issue
and to be fair to james, it's totally understandable to not be able to give examples when on the spot like he was. still, the clip illustrated the NPC-like role he plays professionally, and i feel it's safe to generalize that to a lot of journalists at msm orgs, which is damning
remember when the mcdonalds cmo was like twitter isn’t “brand safe” for the literal metabolic poison we’re selling to the entire world. it’s all just code for “we don’t control the narratives fully anymore.”
I just wrote an article about a similarly horrific piece in Tech Crunch that delivers on all the tech presses Elon fetishes. Nazi? Check. Mis/mal/disinformation? Check. Journalist hater? Check. Maligner of Blue Checkmarks? Check. Capitalist Pig? Check.
I am happy for Elon Musk and think he made his points well (poor BBC journalist will probably never live this down OMG how embarrassing) - but am I the only one who wishes we could get out of this cycle of trying to make each other look stupid. I am genuinely interested in how Elon Musk defines hate speech and his thoughts on how to approach it. I am so curious about this! Please can we have an intelligent discussion about what this could look like in our brave new world. Elon Musk is one of the few people I trust to have coherent thoughts on this and I would like to know his logic.
these reporters never expect to be called on their BS. would love to see more of these types of interviews rather than usual PR coached ones. way more entertaining and informative. god forbid a reporter actually has to do research before interviewing someone!
I have a business Twitter account that just does business stuff but its algo is chock full of people wanting to shoot torpedoes at refugee boats. Standard strategy to just ask for an example then ignore it when finally produced.
“I don’t think this is getting anywhere” actually means “this isn’t going where I want it to go... oh God we can’t cut to commercial what did I get myself into”
this so very much reminds me of the dan rather fake documents incident. 60 minutes lost complete control of the platform when they put the documents online for anyone to examine. if that hadn't happened the narrative to help Kerry's election would have remained and done it's job.
in this case, the BBC lost control of the platform when the interview went out live. if this interview hadn't been live, the BBC would have freely cut up and omitted the real story here and crafted the interview to fit their narrative.
Tech journalism (hell, pretty much all journalism nowadays) reminds me a lot of every non-STEM class I had to take in college.
No matter what the topic of the discussion was, the end goal was to somehow tie it to whatever the lefty issue du jour was. Could have been a discussion about 19th Century British agricultural policy or Japanese wood cuts during the Meiji Restoration -- didn't matter, the end goal was to grab the discussion like a football and run in it into a woke endzone. Any and all mental gymnastics were justified and couldn't be questioned-- just score that touchdown.
For modern tech journalism, it doesn't matter what the question was, the answer is always "problematic rise in hate speech" or "further undermines marginalized groups."
This sort of thinking does not survive contact with reality.
Elon Twitter + Substack seems like the perfect pairing for free speech that we've all (well older millenials and young Gen Xers at least...) been begging for. Such a breath of fresh air. I hope they learn to get along.
the clip shows that high-ish level bbc reporters are doing npc-like repeating of institutional talking points without really knowing the subject imo. whether there is or isn't actually more hate speech on the platform now is a separate issue
and to be fair to james, it's totally understandable to not be able to give examples when on the spot like he was. still, the clip illustrated the NPC-like role he plays professionally, and i feel it's safe to generalize that to a lot of journalists at msm orgs, which is damning
“Sir do you believe it is appropriate that when I deliberately went out to search for offensive content that I was able to find some?”
remember when the mcdonalds cmo was like twitter isn’t “brand safe” for the literal metabolic poison we’re selling to the entire world. it’s all just code for “we don’t control the narratives fully anymore.”
I just wrote an article about a similarly horrific piece in Tech Crunch that delivers on all the tech presses Elon fetishes. Nazi? Check. Mis/mal/disinformation? Check. Journalist hater? Check. Maligner of Blue Checkmarks? Check. Capitalist Pig? Check.
https://www.sub-verses.com/p/elon-musk-destroys-liberal-minds
I am happy for Elon Musk and think he made his points well (poor BBC journalist will probably never live this down OMG how embarrassing) - but am I the only one who wishes we could get out of this cycle of trying to make each other look stupid. I am genuinely interested in how Elon Musk defines hate speech and his thoughts on how to approach it. I am so curious about this! Please can we have an intelligent discussion about what this could look like in our brave new world. Elon Musk is one of the few people I trust to have coherent thoughts on this and I would like to know his logic.
these reporters never expect to be called on their BS. would love to see more of these types of interviews rather than usual PR coached ones. way more entertaining and informative. god forbid a reporter actually has to do research before interviewing someone!
It read like something from a Monty Python skit. That’s how absurd things have become 😂
That was a most beautiful takedown
Substack Notes is a Twitter clone without the network effects— 🦗
It’s only a matter of time before they wind it down (prediction: just like their Reader).
Hopefully Twitter will reinstate embeds and stop giving Substack unnecessary attention.
I have a business Twitter account that just does business stuff but its algo is chock full of people wanting to shoot torpedoes at refugee boats. Standard strategy to just ask for an example then ignore it when finally produced.
The squirmer says, “lets move on.” “So about misinformation”
“Amazing!?”
“I don’t think this is getting anywhere” actually means “this isn’t going where I want it to go... oh God we can’t cut to commercial what did I get myself into”
this so very much reminds me of the dan rather fake documents incident. 60 minutes lost complete control of the platform when they put the documents online for anyone to examine. if that hadn't happened the narrative to help Kerry's election would have remained and done it's job.
in this case, the BBC lost control of the platform when the interview went out live. if this interview hadn't been live, the BBC would have freely cut up and omitted the real story here and crafted the interview to fit their narrative.
Mike truly has an uncanny read into the mindset of journalists.