Elon Promises A Free API For ‘Good Bot Content,’ Again, Demonstrating He Has No Idea How Any Of This Works
from the whims-are-not-policy dept
It’s been clear since the takeover, that Elon’s running Twitter entirely based on his fleeting and oft-changing whims. The weird decision last week to suddenly, with one week’s notice, remove the free tier for Twitter’s basic API, has create a bit of an uproar, as tons of tools, services, and useful bots made use of it. Many have been posting farewell messages on Twitter, leading Musk (as he seems to do all too often) to announce a policy change in a reply tweet. He did this when he rolled back his bizarrely stupid policy that you were no longer allowed to link to other social media (a policy so obviously stupid, that only Musk’s mother would defend it). Musk rolled that one back in a reply tweet — meaning a tweet that very few people would see, because they don’t show up nearly as much.
Here, Musk responded to a tweet from the automated @PepitoTheCat account, which pointed out his account would have to be shut down under this new policy. The new policy, according to Musk in this reply tweet (which got many fewer views that his regular tweets) is that:
I guess we could give all Verified users access to the API for posts like this
Responding to feedback, Twitter will enable a light, write-only API for bots providing good content that is free
Really.
So… the policy might be that “all verified users” get access to the API… but only for “posts like this.” Or… it could be that a “write-only API” (don’t even get me started on how nonsensical that is) for “bots providing good content that is free.”
The point is: these are not policies. These are brain fart whims. This is no way to run a business with many millions of users.
Of course, it’s reminiscent of the naivety that Musk has demonstrated about all of this before. Like when he declared that content moderation was simple: you just delete the “wrong and bad” stuff, and support the “good” content.
Okay, genius: define “good.” Define “good” in a manner that your remaining team of flying monkeys can put it into practice without having to constantly consult your tweet replies to see if they’re doing it right.
The process of content moderation on a competent trust & safety team involves crafting a policy that can be understood by the team in charge of carrying it out. Creating a truly exceptional policy would be one that most users can understand.
None of that is happening here. Musk’s random “well, if it’s good” they can get some sort of weird sorta API access is not fixing anything. This is what good trust & safety teams actually do, and what they’re skilled at doing. It’s a constant challenge, of course, because as you write policies, you’ll constantly be running up against exceptions and things that challenge the policies. But saying “make an exception for ‘good’ bots” is worse than useless.
It’s simply reinforcing just how risky and ridiculous it is for anyone to build anything that relies on Twitter today. Who knows what nonsense will come from a random reply Tweet to a cat meme tomorrow?
Meanwhile, I’ll just note that over the weekend, I discovered three new services being built on the Mastodon API that are replacing things I used to use Twitter for. One of which, FeedSeer, is basically just like TweetShelf, an incredible Twitter tool that seems likely to need to shut down thanks to these changes.
Filed Under: api, bots, content moderation, elon musk, good content
Companies: twitter
Comments on “Elon Promises A Free API For ‘Good Bot Content,’ Again, Demonstrating He Has No Idea How Any Of This Works”
So does this mean Elon has decided Twitter can tank of it nets him more cat pics?
Or is this a backhanded admittance that his previous move was over broad and was going to have drastic consequences (denying him some of his cat pic feeds)?
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Only someone with a deep, profound, overwhelming, and seemingly irrational dislike of a giant captain of industry like Elon Musk would also complain about his man-of-the-people nature, how he solicits and responds to feedback from the Twitter userbase and isn’t too proud or arrogant to reevaluate changes affecting the service.
And so, rather than praise Musk for potentially reconsidering the decision to remove the free tier for Twitter’s basic API, Mike instead reworks the facts into another hate piece targeting his seemingly least favorite tech industry leader.
At least when Tim Cushing publishes here, he’s raising critical awareness of systemic failings in law enforcement across the U.S. that impact some of the country’s most vulnerable citizens.
Mike just seems obsessed with translating his personal dislike of Elon Musk into unhinged criticism of Twitter and its owner.
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You… you want people to praise someone when they arbitrary and capriciously walk back some of their arbitrary and capricious policies? Think about that for just a minute.
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Dude,
That’s like saying we should be happy for parents that take into the account of what all their children want before making a decision.
A good parent isn’t one that continually changes whims without notice. A good parent explains their reasoning to their kids on why some things are happening. When parents start polling their kids for every decision, then they’ve given.
Should kids be given opinions on what affects the family? Yes.
Should they be given final say? No
Should parents be consistent and concise in what they are doing? Yes
I’m actually becoming more convinced that the people who think what Musk is doing is wild and crazy, are probably ones who had a good childhood with a healthy parenting relationship. Whereas all these others probably had parents that were more concerned with being their friend.
Re: Re:
no, I experienced very unhealthy parenting, and I still think Musk has a few brumbies loose in the top paddock.
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Maybe your parents were so bad that you cycled back around to being reasonable.
Kind of like how some kids have abusive parents and make the conscious decision to break the cycle.
Re: Re: Re:2
“Maybe your parents were so bad that you cycled back around to being reasonable”
Or maybe your theory makes no sense and has no relationship to how people judge Musk
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Dude, raise some kids. Start a company. Then get back to me after you’ve learned the difference.
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That’s cute, but even I think Musk is off his rocker (more so than he usually is) and uh, I don’t think I’ve had the best upbringing…
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This isn’t “man of the people” nature. This is going back on a policy decision he didn’t think about because he took no time to give it a second thought and fired all the people who would tell him otherwise.
As Mike said; why would you build anything on the Twitter platform when its policy decisions are decided based on the whims of one guy and his yesmen? The product you build could be gone next week once he decides the API you use isn’t giving him enough profit.
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I’m sure you like using a service that changes its policy daily – sowing fear, uncertainty and doubt among its users. That you think pointing that out is somehow “a deep, profound, overwhelming, and seemingly irrational dislike” is just you projecting exactly those things on the critics. It also means you don’t read other tech-related sites covering exactly the same things, or perhaps you choose to ignore mentioning them because you aren’t allowed to proclaim your undying loyalty to Musk anonymously on them.
You also seem to forget that Musk’s behavior was entirely predicted before he actually took over Twitter, so commenting and criticizing on how utterly little Musk have thought things through is just following those predictions up.
And you don’t give praise to someone who fucks something up that has already been pointed out to be a bad idea, only for that someone to belatedly realize perhaps it wasn’t a such good idea when users start complaining.
I get it, you positively hate that your idol Musk is criticized for his idiotic decisions in light of your your incessant complaining about it – but that only means you are a fanatic who refuses to see your idol for what he is, someone who fails at certain things regardless of prior successes. Musk’s behavior is just like a gambler’s, a couple of wins and they think they are invincible and subsequent losses are just temporary setbacks that can be fixed by doubling down.
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Sorry, forgot the /s!
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And if you didn’t catch it, I was an entirely different Anonymous Coward there… 🙂
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Oh this is brilliant! Your satiric take on the usual trolls here is pitch perfect!
Unless you’re serious, in which case, you’re a braindead foot licker.
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Why is it that you people are so obsessed with Musk that when you read an article being critical of his business decisions w.r.t. Twitter, you get your feelz so deeply hurt that you need to come here and defend him?
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One possible explanation is that they assume everyone else is like them. They make judgments about the world based on their personal feelings about the people involved, so they assume everyone else is doing the same thing.
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This would explain why so many TRASH people think they hold popular views even when they’re not: They think they’re the loud part of a “silent majority” that would absolutely say all those TRASH things if not for fear of a backlash.
Re: Re: Re:2
When in practice, that “silent majority” has never been either of those things.
Re: Re: Re:
Another plausible explanation is that there are people so invested in Musk succeeding, by having their life savings in TSLA and SpaceX stock, their pensions literally depend on Musk never being revealed as a dunning-krugered edgelord whose marketing genius can’t save his reputation, credit rating or stock evaluation at this point.
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When you are a child and you fuck up you do get praise for correcting your mistakes. When you are an adult and fuck up fixing your mistakes is the bare minimum of a responsible person and hardly deserving of praise unless great sacrifice was involved. It’s nice to know we both see Elon Musk as a child but I think our parenting styles differ in that he definitely needs more honest scolding while you seem to be in the camp of lying praise being beneficial for him. If you don’t want to see an endless parade of embarrassing Elon stories just use your common man connections via Twitter to convince him to stop acting like a mercurial jackass and getting all hurt when he doesn’t get the level of praise he thinks he deserves for his big man baby genius.
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If Microsoft decided to charge for using the DirectX API, hoo boy, that would be such a massive shitshow even the FTC might make a comment.
And I’m supposed to praise Elon for doing that stupid thing even Microsoft doesn’t dare do?
Define good,bad, different countrys have different policys or Standards re religious content, political content, fair use ,satire , content that refers to minority or lbgt groups ,most countrys have no section 230 laws that protect online services if their users post defamatory or content that is false or misleading.moderation is a complex process that is best left up to the experts.
Post takeover it seems Twitter’s rules have largely been replaced by one overarching rule, with everything else secondary: ‘If Elon likes you you’ll get special treatment, if indifferent you’ll be subject to his ever-shifting whims that pass for rules and if you get on his bad side he’ll throw you out and then retroactively find something to justify it.’
‘Good bot content’… Given Elon’s sensibilities, that definition will include 4chan nazi meme repost bots, hourly racist dogwhistle bots, automated crypto spam accounts and doge meme bots.
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And the child porn bots he wants to see:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/02/twitter-only-reported-2-of-accounts-suspended-for-child-abuse-content-org-says/
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Bloody hell is that a chilling and damning article.
‘Experts told the Times that Twitter’s understaffing of its trust and safety team is a top concern, and sources confirmed that Twitter has stopped investing in partnerships and technology that were previously working to improve the platform’s effectiveness at rapidly removing CSAM.‘
…
‘Lloyd Richardson, the technology director at the Canadian center, which ran its own scan for CSAM on Twitter to complement the Times’ analysis, told the Times that “the volume we’re able to find with a minimal amount of effort is quite significant.”
…
‘Any accounts claiming to be selling or distributing CSAM off of Twitter—but not directly posting CSAM on Twitter—seemingly don’t meet Twitter’s threshold for reporting to authorities. Irwin confirmed that most Twitter account suspensions “involved accounts that engaged with the material or were claiming to sell or distribute it, rather than those that posted it,” the Times reported.‘
When the owner of your platform seems to give more effort to banning even mentioning a plane tracker for his plane than people posting links to CSAM that’s really not a good look.
“manner that your remain team“
This should be remaining?
It's about Mastodon
There are several services that use the API to help you find Mastodon accounts for people you follow on Twitter, to make a Mastodon transition easier. This is clearly about stopping that, and the “write-only” part is the tell.
Curious if this is “anti-competitive” enough to gain any notice from antitrust regulators, but probably not.
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I’m not sure I buy that. There may be many reasons, but as I noted last week, he kicked one such service off the API entirely unrelated to this, so he could just do that if he wanted to. I’m sure it’s a side benefit to him, but his main rationale seems to be “people will pay me for the API and I need revenue.”
Re: Re: "people will pay me for the API and I need revenue."
Exactly this.
He seems intent on having the user count match his management style. Or so I’m told, I left the hellsite months ago.
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Hey Mike
Hey Mike remember when you were on your knees after Musk bought twitter ready to suck his dick.
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
He told you to go fuck yourself. Pepperidge Farm remembers that too.
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Hey Chozen, remember when you thought that a public house meant public housing?
What a fucking idiot you are.
It also appears that Mike’s huge fucking mansion where he lives rent free inside your head must have got a big addition considering how much time you spend here commenting!
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I’ll take things that never fucking happened for $1000, Alex.
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Pepperidge Farms (unrelated to the actual Pepperidge Farms) would like to remind everyone that Mike’s take on the whole Twitter Saga, starting from when Elon decided to make the offer to now, is recorded on this very site itself.
And that Chozen is a serial liar.
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Writing shitty Tumblr-tier fanfiction ain’t no way to be, Chozen.
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Please cite the article where Mike kissed Elon’s ass in the context of Musk buying Twitter. I’ll wait.
Re: Crybabby loser
Now you’re referring to yourself as mike and talking in the third person.
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No, he doesn’t cause it NEVER happened which is why you can’t simply link to it, you lying fuck.
the only way this works...
“Okay, genius: define “good.” Define “good” in a manner that your remaining team of flying monkeys can put it into practice without having to constantly consult your tweet replies to see if they’re doing it right.”
The only definition that works for social media as a business is: whatever the advertisers think of as “good.”
Advertisers will squelch the worst stuff, like Nazi rants. Hard to make money off ranting Nazis (maybe if you manufacture canned beans for bunkers?)
Advertisers will also squelch stuff like the Eli Lilly parody giving away free insulin.
Even if Twitter ever goes back to being a normal company, it’s a normal company that serves the interests of the advertisers, not the users. Won’t ever be that.
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Depends on the advertisers, a pending article covers some of the ‘alternatives’ that Elon might end up settling with if the major ones aren’t crazy enough to sign back on and they probably wouldn’t be overly worried about pro-nazi content.
verified users
The best bit is:
“I guess we could give all Verified users access to the API for posts like this”
Umm… “verified” meaning they paid $8/$11. Not actually verified. So spammers who find it worthwhile can pay to be “verified” and use the “write-only” API.
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Pretty sure Musk knows how this works better than you do.
Seriously there’s no sense to your criticism. Whatever he does you’re gonna pretend that it was the dumbest thing ever….and you will be claiming that long after he turns the company into something profitable from the train wreck it was, previously.
Meanwhile you lie about the dystopian hellscape it was previously and pretend people are actually using mastodon in any meaningful numbers.
It’s pretty hilarious, but none of your sycophants will realize it and barely anyone else remembers this blog.
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So you approve of all the nazis, racists and bigots posting their shit among all the CSAM and Crypto-scams that is the current state of Twitter “discourse”? You have a very weird definition of dystopian but I guess that comes from being an unmitigated asshole who has to deny factual reality to come up with something only an idiot would consider an argument.
I do wonder what you’ll say the day Twitter has to file for bankruptcy because Musk refuses to pour any more money into it. I guess you will either go quiet or blame it on “woke activists” or something even more stupid.
Re: Re: possible BK
This seems somewhat less likely than I would have thought a month ago. It appears that twitter is not paying its rent on time. Some LLs like to see the rent paid, and may do mean things like evict if that does not happen.
If the twitter offices are closed with the desks piled in the street, there may be no one left there to file for BK.
Re: Re:
“So you approve of all the nazis, racists and bigots posting their shit among all the CSAM and Crypto-scams that is the current state of Twitter “discourse”?”
Most of “Bennet”‘s discourse does, in fact, suggest that he’d be heartily on favor of nazis, racists, bigots and crypto-scammer and gives exactly zero fucks about child abuse.
It’s really not a good look for Musk when the most avid defenders he has are people with long records of being alt-right activists.
Something he should have thought about before he decided to be their great white hope and let them all out of twitter jail.
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No. I liked his idea of encrypting DMs. Which he hasn’t done yet. That was a good idea. I’m still waiting for another good one.
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That’s rich coming from the Musk sycophant.
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Why does criticizing Musk hurt your feelz as much as it does?
And why are you so scared of people using Mastodon?
Re: Re:
Libertarians: “We believe in the free markets deciding!”
Free market: decides
Libertarians: “Wait no that’s wRONG!!”
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As good a summary of the libertarian mindset as any. I have yet to see any actual libertarians happy about the rare cases where their dreams have turned true and they discover it wasn’t the utopian ideal they thought it’d be.
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Can you actually come up with anything Musk did that was actually unambiguously good for the site so far? Anything that outweighs the capricious and incredibly dumb stuff he’s done? Or do you consider the fact that he’s dragging the site towards the right with all the misinformation and hate speech that comes with it to be a net positive, nevermind opening the floodgates to stuff like CSAM?
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Keep in mind, the commenter to whom you are replying, agrees with the Nazi racist homophobic bigots that Elmo has let back on the site, therefore, in his mind that is a net positive because he can now call people ni&&er on Twitter and not worry about getting the ban-hammer.
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Why are you so afraid of Mastodon?
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He is afraid of Mastodon because that is where the people he likes to target with hate speech are migrating to, and the Mastodon sites that will give him an account are defederated, blocking his access to targets.
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The irony?
All the defederated instances use Mastodon/ActivityPub as the backend.
Even the JP-only Pawoo.
He’s afraid because, unlike his actually confirmed by Elon’s Twitter harassment campaign, it works.
Re: Who are you again?
“and barely anyone else remembers this blog.”
And yet here you are…
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Almost every single TD article about Twitter after Musk’s takeover is evidence of the opposite. It’s not Mike’s fault that your reading comprehension mirrors that of a three-year old.
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He doesn’t make it challenging. It’s genuinely not the stretch of the imagination you want it to be.
Probably? You’re assuming that Twitter will become profitable in the relatively near future while Musk is in charge. But let’s say for the sake of argument, it does. If Musk does something that actively makes the Twitter experience better for most users, and not simply the handful of gleeful white boys trying to be edgy like children who discovered swear words for the first time, then we can discuss how that improvement came about. That doesn’t mean his actions, such as sacking most of the staff actually getting his new toy to work, were smart.
IBM contributed a lot to the market for computers. That doesn’t mean that the famous remark “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers” in 1943, from IBM’s then president Thomas Watson, wasn’t a fucking dumb thing to say.
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Reminder: Truth Social is a Mastodon server.
Re: Re:
Addendum: Gab is a Mastodon server (on a forked codebase)
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If the API for “Good Bot Content” is for Verified users, it’s not a “Free” API, it’s an $8 a month API
Especially if he carries through on sunsetting”Legacy” Verfied.
It’s just another 4D chess move to get more people to become verified.
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It’s not 4d Chess, it’s Chutes and Ladders
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Are you sure?
You may be right, but I was thinking Candy Land, albeit the 420 release/version.
Making us all look like fools, too
I operate the twitter account @theauldsthretch, which featured in the Irish mainstream media a couple of times over the last week, pushing the account’s follower count from 32.5k to 35.6k.
Just earlier today I learned about Elon’s decision to pull free access to the API. I posted a tweet regarding that, so that people would understand if the auto-tweets stop going out on Thursday.
Now, Elon’s policy-change-by-reply-tweet is putting me in the position of wondering if I should update my audience again, making me look like a dope, too. I have no clear idea whether either the initial policy or the mini-about-face will affect my bot account at all.
The vast majority of my audience is not paying much (or any) attention to what Elon’s doing with twitter. Those who were are long gone from twitter now (and, hopefully, following @theauldsthretch@mastodon.ie!), so there’s little understanding or concern about these changes he’s bringing in. It’s not my job to explain what he’s doing to people, and — even if it was — it’s appropriate to use @theauldsthretch to attempt to do so. So I have to find a balance between pretending there’s nothing happening and dealing with it quietly so as not to annoy or confuse people who follow the account for just one specific purpose.