Go to ground.news/husk to see all sides of every story. Sign up or subscribe through my link before Oct 31, 2023 for 30% off unlimited access. Elon Musk Big Brain! Smart Man! Big Smart Man! He Twitter Good!? He Twitter Good!
Does Ground news use the US centric Overton Window or a more global one? Because even what gets labelled leftwing in the US is considerably to the right by the standards of the rest of the world, CNN for example, is by non-US standards still pretty right wing.
Not to freely shill, but it is a good app for precisely the reasons outlined. And for additionally what little it’s worth, Tyler has basically said the same thing in his unsponsored livestreams. It’s great when you can sell a product you believe in.
Most of them are good, this one feels like a half-baked Emp Lemon rant on why RU-vid/Twitter is bad without any of the charm and filling it with an ad.
Watching a man lose his mind to the media grind in real time. Also, I'm so blasted and burned out by news orgs that my first thought is "Who owns Ground, then? What's their angle and why do they want to be the trusted site on bias? How are they wanting to shape the narrative?" Living is exhausting these days.
I could see it being pretty hard to fuck up as long as it's only a tool to compare the way various other sites frame shit instead of being an article source itself. Like, the only way it could bias an aggregate would be to deliberately leave sites out of the aggregate, and since you see them all that'd be hard to slip by
@@madeliner1682 Hard to fuck up, yes, but if there were deliberate manipulation like selecting more stories from one side of a specific debate, I don't think that would be difficult to do. Had a quick search and it's a canadian company, a site called 'mediabiasfactcheck' says its "least biased" and "mostly factual", stating "While they present news with minimal bias, they do not factor in the credibility of the source.". I don't, however, know mediabiasfactcheck itself. For this quick search I assume it's good enough but how do I know that I can trust it? it's a wild goose chase of uncertainty.
Hi there. We understand your concern about navigating the news landscape; that’s precisely why we founded Ground News. We are owned and founded by former NASA engineer, Harleen Kaur, and are a small team based out of Waterloo, Ontario. We are mainly subscriber-funded with a small board of individual investors who also believe in our mission. Our mission is to empower readers to think critically by providing all sides of the story in one place. We are not a news publisher. Rather, we aim to expose the narrative by providing additional context like political bias, factuality and ownership using a combination of 3 expert bias rating systems which you can read more about on our methodology page.
i dont think he did that on purpose tbh. For me, it feel like he tried to grift investors with inflated blue subs, since only a few of his most dedicated yes-men ended up getting any money in the beginning. Its hardly that complicated with whatever he does. But hey, a broken clock is right twice a day; even if he made that decision purely to grift or even just randomly after being zooted on something, he hit the nail on the head with this one.
"Man falls down staircase again. Finds another huge pile of money." People really think the world works this way... no, Musk is successful because he is an excellent businessman and excellent businessmen understand how people think. The ugly Tesla truck was a stunt as was breaking its window on stage after saying they were bulletproof. He is not a broken clock and whoever convinced you that he is is just another fool getting played by his grift. He's not a genius either. He just knows how to manipulate people.
I deleted my Twitter Account in February this year. And still used the browser to check what people were saying, just without the ability to say anything back and to add an extra step to get on. But then Elon made it so that you can’t see what people are saying on the site without an account. So now I’m completely cut off from Twitter.
bro be thankful. I was a hard-core reddit addict but I got banned so many times and later they changed api rules and login to see shit so now I actually touch grass
I didn't see a whole lot of people buying checkmarks after Elon promised monetization. What I did see was people (mostly right leaning) defending already having paid for Twitter Blue as now potentially revenue generating and an attitude of "I bet you feel stupid for making fun of me now!" I also saw way more people (mostly left leaning) predicting that the promise of monetizing well performing tweets was a grift. Not long after that, I saw grumbling from Twitter Blue users over a sudden decrease in payments or a total lack of them.
Also, it is now only a question of time until twitter becomes an engagement bait content mill like facebook. It might make more money that way, but it will lose any cultural significance, and thus longevity.
It feels like most of the really bad takes on there are crafted for that purpose but I do suppose we could see more stuff like "What song was popular when you were born?"
If I remember correctly Twitter still hasn't given Android users the same features as iPhone. Even before Elon and X and Blue, Twitter isn't doing some bare bones stuff like a synchronous user experience across platforms. Twitter always been lacking
Were the people complaining about Elon signing up for TBlue? Everything I saw was them making fun of the monetization, since it came from a prefix shared poll of money, so the more people had it, the less would be made. Like, I know influencers were signing but not for the tweet revenue, but because their tweets would have priority and engagement so they can better communicate when they release videos and such.
this is similar to what TickTock did or does... the more people di well the less everyone got, honestly a perfect representation of 'the system' corporations want us living in.
I just accidentally tapped the X logo on the social media formerly known as Twitter to try and close it. I just realized Twitter rebranded to the symbol for "get me the f out of here" and nothing has ever been more appropriate
Just wanna point out, the site is BLEEDING cash at a record rate Dude’s certainly not making money in terms of profit, just making tiny chips into the mountain of debt he’s already strapped to
I'm gonna have to put a [citation needed] on that claim about all of Twitter Blue's detractors leaping directly on the bandwagon when a few pennies of ad revenue were offered to them.
Yeah I don't think anyone I follow took that seriously; they could see through the bullshit and figure out you aren't gonna make enough money from it to offset the cost of paying for the X Blue Premium or whatever it's called now
I'm just curious how sustainable the model is? We will never have hard numbers, but people ARE finding alternatives to Twitter still. The click through on adds is decreasing. I don't think young people are thinking "time to sign up for twitter" the way they used to.
The short-lived alternatives are just twitter with fewer features and a smaller community. They will not dethrone twitter. All they do is reiterate to people WHY twitter is King Shit of the Mountain and reinforces its dominance. You don't make an alternative to a market giant. You open up a better market. That's how Facebook beat Myspace.
In addition to that, there are a ton of people who are just dropping out of microblogging because it's the functional equivalent of sending a telegraph when e-mail exists. Why would I want to read a 2-3 sentence anything when there are images, videos, and actual good long-form writing out there? I was skeptical of tik-tok for years but I tried it and I completely understand why a lot of people like it. It's just really enjoyable and fun. It's still not my thing, but it's a billion times better to scroll through tik-tok than twitter. I think a lot of people are discovering that the entire microblogging format is just not enjoyable, fun, or useful. That's not even getting into the content, site administration, and community problems the site has. But yeah, Twitter will probably die a slow death because I haven't met a single person on the age of 25 that's remotely interested in it while Twitter's users slowly leave/die.
It's not really supposed to be sustainable. Elon didn't buy Twitter to make money, and he gut it from the inside-out so that it barely costs any money to operate. Twitter/X/whatever isn't going anywhere anytime soon
There's less pissed people in the comments, but they're there, and they are *salty af.* The kind of salty where they know they've been had but can't outright say it, and that just leaves them... silently fuming
I'm gonna be honest, nothing changed since the announcement of that decision. Those memes aren't new, neither the engagement and ragebait. The people that complained about twitter blue continue to complain about it. People who praised it continue to praise it. And Twitter is still in the red. Nothing new under the sun.
This video will get both clicks from capybara fans because of it comparing capybaras to Musk, and also rage clicks from capybara haters because of it featuring capybaras *Genius move.*
@@kingofcards9516 Twitter is a boat with a pierced hull. It still is bleeding money and it has driven away key advertisers. The only reason it is still alive is Mr. Musk. And Mr. Musk's actions have also scared off advertisers, particularly ones with large campaigns.
You had a great thesis until about the 60% mark, where you think that the musk haters turned grifters, to which I say ehhhhhhhhh no. The criticisms of the site remain the same from those who hate Musk, and the payment structure we see doesn't change or alleviate that. People going for that grind™ are incentivized to get maximum engagement, which promotes troll engagement like you describe or the worst firm of reply guy the world has ever seen. *Everything else suffers for it,* which includes traditional shitposters, artists and other creatives, and those mythical journalists you describe, who all happen to be on the musk hate train. We didnt see a huge report of Blue payments from this demographic because the payment pool seems to come from a pool where 1) you have to subscribe to Blue to even get paid 2) it's not guaranteed that you even get paid 3) you recieve an overwhelming amount of engagement over time, which is made easier if Elon Musk himself boosts your tweets. These 3 factors contribute to one group getting the majority of payments: the political far right. Musk haters, which tend to be center, left of center, or "far left" are unlikely to benefit from Blue payments because a) the policies that happened under Musk's twitter make it less usable and hospitable for them. Many kinds of bigotry, harassment, bullying, hatred, disinfo, and explicit content that would be bannable or reportable are barely acted on or explicitly permitted now. Search for the name of a minority there and youd find things that would get your RU-vid channel giga struck. Elon is constantly fighting journalists and news agencies, and recently removed headlines from linked articles, which makes sharing fake news even easier. And thats on top of it constantly breaking. b) these people arent clamoring for blue checks, even after the payments. You said it yourself; whatever usage they had before, they are basically a "kick me" sign now, and an easy blocklist marker. Hell, when Elon fully phased out Legacy checks, many (actually) notable people made it clear they would *not* play for Blue, and a movement rose to add anyone who _would_ to a massive blocklist, which would make the people who pay $8 for clout and reach basically irrelevant. This is why people with large follower counts (1M and up i believe) got "gifted" Blue for "free"/against their will. And for those who hate Musk but subscribe to Blue, it's most likely not to get those payments, but an attempt to get reach at all. The number one complaint I hear from posters on Twitter who criticize Musk is that it's harder to actually reach their audience, which in the attention economy, obviously stressful. So I have a hard time failting them for taking the bait when Musk fucks with their job. c) people are just leaving. Its been 1 year under Musk and the site has only degraded and likely will do worse. Their advertiser income continues to fall month over month and it's obvious subscriptions cannot sustain a site on its size. And the worst people online get given massive megaphones to say the worst things, now directly monetarily incentivised to do so. The vibes are atrocious, and the former green gardens that countered the shittyness are dead, barren fields of [racist thing i can't repeat here for clicks]. I don't think the haters are disingenuous in their dislike of Musk. I think they're trying to grapple with the fallout of a crumbling platform while alternatives struggle to be born. And no, he is unimaginably stupid.
Very well written post. I still think that part of his thought process after being forced to buy it, realizing there wasn’t a way to make it profitable, he was convinced by some of his far right buddies to destroy it by turning it into an even crazier tRuTh social. The Right saw Twitter as a major tool used by activists, the Left, grassroots politicking, marginalized groups, etc. & think it'll help them win in 24. Elon removed the teams protecting against & is doing nothing to stop foreign adversaries like Russia & Iran from meddling in our elections likethey did in 2016 to help Trump win through the electoral college. They actually _want_ Russia to meddle & now they can do it with impunity because of Musk.
you didn't mention the most annoying part about this, the money incentive created a stupid amount of bots, to both post content and view it. And the platform was clearly not prepared for it
All the change I've seen from the monetization is annoying checks spamming irrelevant memes in the comments of other checks, and people making more annoying rage bait posts. It might make more money this way, but it sure makes the site worse
For someone that cares a ton about the views and the money you get from the videos, you thought the next best video to make was to insult the intelligence of your audience. But you didn't think this was a bad idea because you think we're stupid. Is that what I'm supposed to take away from this video. It's really strange because in the live stream you cared about what your audience wanted to see but here you appear to not care what so ever. To me it appears as if you're starting to not care about what we want to see but rather the only thing that matters is the amount of views and money you make. I'm starting to feel bad for the people that gave you money in the live stream.
Nani? Twitter trending back up? Last I saw recently is that downloads and active use continue to fall. Elon might be milking the smaller group of users, but blue subs won't really save the platform if it continues to shrink. Also, the issue of big advertisers not buying as many ads.
Fun fact: Linguists have found that red, black and white were the first colors to be recognized as distinct colors in most human languages. Also took me a second to realize the rodents you kept showing were muskrats lol
I don’t plan to go onto Twitter/x, but I’m not sure I agree with your assessment about paying content creators making people with a change of heart into grifters. Their criticism was that Twitter blue is stupid was correct, until the rules changed and it stopped being as stupid. I still have low hopes that the platform will ever regain the community it once did, but props to anyone getting that bag I guess
Renting a broke down rust bucket for a lawn ornament, vs renting a taxi complete with license. Obviously any taxi driver who complained about their neighbor's eyesore was a grifter... Maybe they are, but that ain't why.
Maybe I just didn't use Twitter as much as most, but I still don't get the perception that Twitter is an echo chamber *any more than other platforms are.* Why has Twitter been different? I hear "I hate Twitter, can't wait for it to die" and I just think of all the cool creatives, including great RU-vid channels I've discovered there; makes me sad. I've been hearing the hate for a long time and I still don't get it.
I think it’s cause the algorithm it uses tends to recommend stuff depending on what you interact with, I;e say someone tends to clic on rage bait a lot despite him disliking that content, suddenly it begins to flood into its feed Boom, now it’s an “echo chamber”. And if you do click on stuff you agree with/like it actually does become an echo chamber.
Afaik twitter is less of an echo chamber than youtube imho (but not in a good way), since it tends to promote conflict and arguments, which means pitting sides against one another, where as platforms like reddit and youtube tend to have more homogenized communities that interact less with outsiders
Most platforms will algorithmically sort you into "echo chambers" based on things that you _actually like,_ or at least will engage with on a positive or neutral level. Xitter pushes things that _you do not like_ into your echo chamber, or things that you will most likely engage with negatively. In addition it will boost content that *Elon Musk specifically likes,* which is increasingly far right, as well as fucking with the user experience (seeing content from people that you blocked, ads that you can't report, being unusable while logged out, rate limits, etc).
@@doublinx2 It's very transparent too. If you interact a couple times with an account or post you dislike then block or mute person/thread it will still throw that person and closely related accounts into your recommendations in one way or another. RU-vid struggles with it but generally speaking, if I say "don't recommend me this channel" enough times on a trend of recommendations, RU-vid will start trying new recommendations it thinks I will like and learn what kinds of content I don't really like.
@@zackanderson7440 I don't click on e-girls and onlyfans spam pages, yet it floods my twitter feed. I decided to check again and I didn't find any of that stuff. Maybe telling twitter I'm not interested actually does do something. I don't use twitter very often lol.
I'm subscribed to you. I watch each video you upload. Whether I agree or not, it's a point of view. Also, I've never heard of this. I usually avoid Elon. Besides, people talk about him a lot as if he's their lover. I don't understand it. Props to you.
First half of the video felt like an ad. I usually love your content, and I loved the vid, AFTER the seven minute ad I watched to get to it :/ love ur content ❤
Considering the platform is likely worth less now than the interest he owes on its purchase, it’s kinda hard to see this as a “smart” move at all tbh. Sure, it exposes some individuals of hypocrisy, but the platform still has a snowball’s chance in hell of turning any kind of profit.
I appreciate you being open and honest in the beginning. It's really interesting. But also making 1/4 of the video an ad and having it be two videos jammed into one is ridiculous dude
The beginning part sounded odd to me for some reason. Sounds like a more direct 4th wall break compared to much of your other videos. Maybe it's the microphone quality. Ecks me gee, im not too sure. But I do like it. Very cool.
Smartest thing he's ever done is use the easiest way to make it in the US to become welthy is be born of wealth and then business with government contracts and subsidies.
The constant lowest common denominator engagement farm stuff is plaguing the site so bad now. It's even leaked into the artists and furry communities that I mainly use the site for. At this point, I've mostly moved off it to BlueSky and Mastodon now, the site has just turned so toxic now.
I am a proud right wing libertarian subscriber of yours. Always liked your content. And because of my leanings, I've been banned from Elon's Twitter. How about that? I've been on that platform since 2016. And only now do I get the boot. Kinda tells ya he's a liar. Funny enough the lefty owners from before never did that to me.
Hey I like your content bc you always have something to say. Today you spoke for the first 7minutes without saying anything other than an ad set up and ad read. And, to be clear, after the first 2mins, while I didn't know you were setting up an ad read, I could tell you weren't saying anything. I genuinely wondered if this was an April fools episode with a messed up release schedule. Because I respect you, I scanned forward in the video bc I assumed you would have something to say. Eventually I found the ad read. And then, to offer this feedback and went and listened to everything I skipped so I could offer this feedback knowing I'd truly listened to all of it. Going in circles saying nothing just reads as trolling your audience. I respect your perspective a lot, but the next video is going to be on a shorter leash for holding my attention or getting the benefit of the doubt. Your intro is basically all about strategically crying wolf to get attention. And dude, that worked in the last video because, at least in my opinion, I felt like u had something to say that lived up to your attention grab. The first half of this video on the other hand, felt like deceiving the audience, gloating about manipulating their attention (which just reads as bunching down), and wasting my time. That's not a fun experience. whether on the left or right, I imagine a lot of your viewers like to think of themselves as clever, savvy, free thinkers. -so they're not going to enjoy getting played. Someone else already commented on a third of the vid being to make an advertiser happy. I hope it did, and I hope you got paid. Bc, speaking as an audience member, it didn't do that for me. And I say that as an audience member who has been repeatedly satisfied and delighted by your content in the past. As Malcom gladwell says, the duty of the writer is this: "only be interesting"
I am so glad, I have had the briefest usage of Twitter possible. Literally made an account to check on a RU-vidr one time and haven’t logged onto it since.
I'm pretty sure he made it up. I'm sure there's edge cases, but I've only seen ridicule on all reasonable sides. And Twitter is making less and less money afaik. The video feels like enlightened centrism
