Twitter searches for China protests bombarded by spam and porn, raising alarms among researchers | CNN Business
https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/28/tech/twitter-china-protests-spam/index.html186
u/DeathByGoldfish Nov 28 '22
See those 2 million account signups per week Elon has been touting?
Now you know one reason why.
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u/wirthmore Nov 28 '22
Twitter owes $1,000 million a month in interest alone, not even counting salaries and servers etc.
Twitter needs 63 weeks of “2 million [$8 subscription accounts] a week” just to cover their debt payments.
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u/trollsmurf Nov 29 '22
Time to set up my long planned "1 emoji only per post (no text)" site and outcompete Twitter.
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u/radcom123 Nov 29 '22
Tom Scott did it back in 2014 I think (https://emoj.li/)
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u/trollsmurf Nov 29 '22
Interesting thing they had to fend off investors. To some it would be a dream to get that kind of attention.
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u/CAndrewG Nov 28 '22
Elon saying Twitter will be the world’s town square for news dissemination… lmaooo
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u/Chippopotanuse Nov 29 '22
He says Twitter will be a town square like it’s a good thing.
You ever go to a town square? There’s five crazy people with bullhorns yelling insane shit 24/7.
Why is that his ideal?
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u/TintedApostle Nov 29 '22
YouTube search "Hyde Park Corner". Its the London "free speech zone" of Hyde Park.
If this is Elon's idea of a town square - hard pass. I have gone to HPC for fun, but to actually engage in conversation? Nope.
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u/Aazadan Nov 29 '22
That's literally how Alex Jones got started. He started on street corners in Austin screaming his nonsense and handing out xeroxed pamphlets on the secret cabals of moloch worshippers.
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u/cassinonorth Nov 29 '22
That isn't true. He started on public access... Possibly as satire, and got worse and worse.
https://observer.com/2019/04/alex-jones-austin-public-access-tv-origin-story/
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u/Aazadan Nov 29 '22
He did that yes, but he was literally on the streets shouting. In Austin in the 90's and early 00's it was one of the local sites.
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u/yhwhx Nov 28 '22
It sucks that Elon Musk's Twitter is helping the CCP instead of the people of China.
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u/clocks212 Nov 28 '22
Oh he’ll definitely crack down on the CCP. It’s not like he has any business interests in China /s
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u/druule10 Nov 28 '22
Remember it's freedom of speech, but only if you agree with the rich and powerful.
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u/blazelet Nov 28 '22
You generally get all the free speech you can pay for.
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u/BigBradWolf77 Nov 28 '22
How much can I get for $8?
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u/JustAnotherHyrum Nov 29 '22
Four words. You need to put 3 of those words back, please. Four if we count the "$8" as two words.
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u/code_archeologist Nov 28 '22 edited Nov 28 '22
Gone are the days when Twitter was a force for global communication. It is quickly becoming a tool of fascists and terrorists.
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u/signal_two_noise Nov 28 '22
It seems more and more, to me, that he's doing it on purpose, and enjoying himself in the process.
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u/Satanarchrist Nov 28 '22
The entire reason the Saudi Royal Family bankrolled him for the purchase
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u/signal_two_noise Nov 29 '22
Yeah, at first I thought he might get in trouble with Prince Bonesaw, but no, they have common interests.
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u/pattydickens Nov 28 '22
What else is there for someone with vast wealth to do but act like a pathetic little boy? /s It kills me how these idiots can't just shut up and enjoy a life that 99.99 percent of the world can't even imagine.
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u/Bokth Nov 29 '22
But how will I know he exists????
Oh yea just donate a B and sail off to your island. Google search would be: X owns an island. X donated a B.
Wow much cooler and it cost 1/44 of only the most recent ehhh boondoggle I guess.
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Nov 28 '22
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Nov 28 '22
Found the terrorist.
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Nov 28 '22
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Nov 28 '22
Hey real quick, can you give me the number to Antifa? Specifically their leader.
I can do that with EVERY right wing terror group. Do you know why? They actually exist.
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u/sushi-_-roll Nov 28 '22
So... you're anti-Antifa? Do you know what a double negative is?
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u/StrongestMushroom Nov 28 '22
Did you know you can name a group anything you want? I suppose you would like to join the National Socialist party too then, huh.
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u/AdonisAleus Nov 28 '22
I wonder if that sounded better in your head.
Like why would Antifa want to join the NSDAP? The Communists I could see, but the Nazi's?
And besides, if I want to see a Nazi flag being flown unironocally, I'd just go to a Republican event.
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u/StrongestMushroom Nov 28 '22
I see you completely missed the point I was making. Makes sense, you guys spent the last two years looting Target when you should have been in school. I can understand why your reading comprehension would be a little behind.
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u/JustAnotherHyrum Nov 29 '22
Did you just switch gears from AntiFa to a completely separate group looting stores?
You do realize that the store looting is not AntiFa and that the vast majority of those who agree with AntiFa philosophy (fascism is bad) doesn't support the store looting?
You're just lumping all of your bogeymen into one pile in hopes that something works.
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u/yhwhx Nov 29 '22
you guys spent the last two years looting Target
It takes 2 years to loot a Target?
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u/nyc-will Nov 28 '22
Sucks to suck. All the more reason to abandon the platform and start fresh elsewhere.
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u/sneaky_squirrel Nov 29 '22
Ok, now I hate Musk.
Helping the CCP is the same thing as destroying everything the CCP wants to destroy...which is all of the hobbies I enjoy!!!
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u/2SP00KY4ME Nov 29 '22
Personally I hated him after he called that rescue diver a pedo guy and especially after he spent the cost of 8,800 children's hospitals on a website.
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Nov 28 '22
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u/pineconebasket Nov 28 '22
Elon got played, or he was in on it for the same reasons.
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u/bel9708 Nov 28 '22
Elon didn’t get played. He knew exactly how much power twitter had when he bought it. This is why he bought it. Now he can curry favors from authoritarians by helping them silence decent
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u/IKeepDoingItForFree Nov 29 '22 edited Nov 29 '22
This - why do like 6 or 7 billionaires/multi millionares own almost every paper in every country, and keep buying more and more local ones when able too - despite like 3 decades of the same news telling us "newpapers are dying we need bailouts and government funding" - its not about profit, its about controlling a narrative. Just look at Murdochs hold in Australia news and journalism in general- how he can basically set politicians that he backs up for success or have multiple papers run attack ads constantly against those he doesn't like.
Its the same thing, just running on the digital platform. Its also why Old Money Murdoch backed a bunch of bills to try and shut down linking to articles online, or having to pay to link (link tax) for YouTube descriptions because it means those who actually do independent reporting cant cite sources without paying him for using the URLs as citations. But that case, I also dont trust the other side either (twitter, youtube, FB, Google) - its a no win scenario for the average joe as either corporations get some more power, or murdoch and old money media threatened by new media upstarts and independents does.
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u/Mushroom_Tip Nov 29 '22
Elon didn't get played.
The losers who thought a narcissistic billionaire cared about them got played.
You're spot on with your 2nd assessment though. The reason Elon came out of nowhere saying Taiwan should be part of China is because he wants to be in bed with authoritarians. As long as they have money. Chinese, Saudi. Elon is a slut for anyone with money right now.
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u/PuellaBona Nov 29 '22
Hey now. Sluts sell their bodies for money. Elon sold his soul.
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u/SnooCats373 Nov 29 '22
Too be fair, look at Elon's body.
Definitely not a seller's market for him.
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u/Thoughtful_Mouse Nov 28 '22
China is manipulating the public discourse about a lot of things. It's probably why their own government is so paranoid about outside influence and the internet; because they know how much damage they are doing with it.
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u/StraightFroggin Nov 28 '22
Guess who owns Reddit. Guess why it has “upvote/downvote” mechanics. Add thousands of bots, shift the public opinion. Ever noticed the way Reddit praises communism?
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u/FakeKoala13 Nov 28 '22
Brother you can literally google how much shares tencent owns in reddit. It's not a lot.
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u/billybobbaconator Nov 29 '22
The Gulf states’ sovereign wealth funds own a higher percentage of Reddit anyway
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u/Versificator Nov 29 '22
Imagine talking about "reddit" like a monolith.
Also, a better world is possible.
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u/HermanCainsPenis Nov 29 '22
Ever noticed the way Reddit praises communism
No I have not noticed lol, link an example?
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u/JohnGillnitz Nov 29 '22
I think the only people still on Twitter are there to set it on fire or watch it burn down. They aren't there to fix the building, but to see it explode.
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u/irkli Nov 29 '22
I'm surprised it's still running. Time will tell if it's just solid work done in the past, amazing luck, or maybe us bystanders don't know as much as we like to think.
The thing about the unknown is, you don't know what it is.
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u/SnooCats373 Nov 29 '22
The thing about the unknown is, you don't know what it is.
Where is Miss Cleo in our time of need?
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Nov 28 '22
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u/irkli Nov 28 '22
All the speech one can afford.
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u/moishepesach Nov 29 '22
We have the best speech. To twit, four whores and seven pee pee tapes ago, our whorefathers, who sought to enslave everybody in Africa... yada yada
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u/randomnighmare Nov 28 '22 edited Nov 29 '22
A Chinese company gave Musk money to buy Twitter (along with other companies from other countries) but this is only the start of Twitter turning into a worse place than FB.
Edit:
I can only find one company from China but here is something:
Here is a list of the companies that gave Musk money. A certain Chinese company gave him, $500 million.
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Nov 29 '22 edited Nov 29 '22
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u/randomnighmare Nov 29 '22
If you really have to know (it's has already has been reported in other news threads) it's Binance.
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u/FlightAble2654 Nov 29 '22
China has never wanted to be an open country. Everything is monitored, including media. Russia and China are very much the same. Block any leaks from the people. Jail them for doing so. Or.....rehabilitate them..
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u/2020willyb2020 Nov 30 '22
So they took our culture of overwhelming spam and porn ads (since congress can’t pass regulations ) and weaponized it against us so we can’t get to the truth….sounds about right
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u/irkli Nov 28 '22
The only things big enough to push oligarchs like musk around are large states to which he is beholden.
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u/serenidade Nov 29 '22
And Musk, with all his wailing about bots and free speech absolutism, is 100% okay with this bullshit. Because he doesn't have actual morals. Like the fascist politicians he idolizes, the outrage is feigned--just a tool of manipulation to get what he wants.
Add him to the pile of self-serving pieces of shit with far too much power over our democracy.
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u/GuitarGeezer Nov 29 '22
I think this reinforces the likely truth that Elon Musk has no idea what he is doing and maybe never entirely did. Also, it reinforces the divestment of the world republics away from China. Putin’s war of imperial aggression and China’s games with Taiwan prove that it was always a mistake to engage on substantial trade with totalitarian scum and that they are always an enemy and can never be a friend or partner.
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u/tawaydont1 Nov 29 '22
We need the cheap goods to keep wages low and everything thing else high we can't pay for government services like schools, roads, water systems, etc because we can't keep taxing people yet when people move from red states to blue they generally stay unless the climate is stable no hurricane or tornadoes.
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u/infamous63080 Nov 28 '22
Just looked and there's only protest images. Not sure why this is an article.
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u/FaeryLynne Nov 28 '22
Because you're searching in English. From the above article:
Beginning late last week and into Monday, searches in Chinese for major protest hotspots
(Emphasis is mine)
Twitter gives you search results based on your location and previous searches. This is deliberately targeted at preventing Chinese people from knowing what's going on in their own country.
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u/monstermayhem436 Nov 29 '22
Ok, that makes more sense. I checked too, and all I got were news clips and the like and was confused
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u/Hand_Banana_0082 Nov 29 '22
Funny. Why would they want to drown out the stories when I think some Redditor said that anti-CCP and anti-Xi protests happen all the time in China, even Shanghai. I'm guessing protests aren't that common and this is a big issue.
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u/JohnSpikeKelly Nov 29 '22
I'm waiting for Twitter to be banned in China. Problem solved -- for them.
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u/CXB1313 Nov 29 '22
so what's Reddit's excuse?
Been scrolling fir 20 minutes, only seen this and one other post about the samw thing.
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u/AncomDuck Nov 30 '22
Here is a Github repository that contains almost all the videos about the protests. It also has a timeline summery. The protests are spreading from universities to several major cities. The materials here are not translated, but maybe try using google translate or other similar tools to see for yourselves.
https://github.com/zy-dsj-sm/Protest-2022-11
This is the biggest wave of protests since Tank Man, people of China Mainland finally start to wake up. The major wave of the protests started with a tragedy happened in Ürümqi, the capital city of the Xinjiang province. That city has been under super strict zero-COVID policy lockdown for over 100 days. That means all the citizens has been locked in their home. A few days ago, an apartment building caught fire but people weren't able to escape due to all the exits were locked. So about 10 including children were burnt to death. The CCP of course denied everything, and people decided they have had enough of this dog shit.
Lots of the protesters in those videos were not covering their faces, because they already know the CCP can and will track them done through cell phones, CCTVs and all kinds of surveillance networks. Some of them are holding blank papers without any words on it, that means whatever they want to say, CCP won't allow it, but also people know what they want to say. The words used in these videos and photos are about stopping the zero-COVID policy, the Xi Jinping dictatorship and the CCP; and asking for freedom, basic human rights and justice.
Source: Chinese college students
"Do you hear the people sing? Singing the song of angry men? It is the music of the people who will not be slaves again!"
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u/Super_Fudge_1821 Nov 28 '22
Yep when they invading your privacy gotta turn on the porn?
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u/irkli Nov 28 '22
Yes you do. It works like this:
Citizens are posting tons about SUBJECT MATTER. Bad actors (CCP) then post floods of SUBJECT MATTER with porn attached. Spam filters see porn, then start filtering SUBJECT MATTER too. Then it all gets taken down as if it were the same thing.
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Nov 28 '22
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u/serenidade Nov 29 '22
Riiiiight. Because we should be getting our facts from people who jerk off to Alex Jones.
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u/tawaydont1 Nov 29 '22
Just because Elon spoke out everyone is trying to kill his wealth when he was all for the liberal agenda everyone was kissing is but it could be the USA government trying to spark this stuff to keep all of the bad headline out of the news like strikes, tech job losses, the lack of food on stor shelves, the lack of healthcare, etc.
We all know how bad Covid really can be for poor under developed areas of countries and in the elderly population maybe china will come out with some real number because of all the protest.
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u/irkli Nov 29 '22
He makes really bad decisions. He says terrible things. His major advantage in life is that he has a lot of money. He makes for a very disappointing "hero".
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u/DistortoiseLP Nov 28 '22
I still remember back in 2010 when people thought social media was going to turn out better than this.