As misinformation proliferated on X thanks to verified users, a massive account sharing accurate information hit its Musk-imposed posting limit.
As misinformation proliferated on X thanks to verified users, a massive account sharing accurate information hit its Musk-imposed posting limit.
So how have Twitter fucked up here then? NERV isn’t a government body, it isn’t an official public safety channel, it’s a private not for profit organisation. The official government ones already have no limits, it’s just everyone in Japan uses NERV because they’re so damned good.
Now, I don’t agree with API charges (much like data charges for internet, they aren’t proportionate to cost) but setting that aside, NERV didn’t automatically deserve the exemption and never even tried to get it.
Musk has still made a shit system, but it’s not shit because of this event.
I think the counter to everything you said is that all the pressure and anger on Twitter over Nerv getting API limited got them registered as a Public Utilities App so they could tweet automatically. They’d been trying to get registered as such for a while but Twitter doing do it until AFTER an emergency and “イーロン” (“Elon”) was trending on Jp Twitter because people were so angry.
This is an issue that never should have arisen.
Had they been trying to for a while?
Lol how do you figure my comment is defending Musk against criticism? I literally said his version of the website is shit.
The point I’m making is that the criticism isn’t really valid here. NERV are not an official public safety channel.
People are making out like it’s the same as Verizon and the California firefighters when dealing with wildfires, but the difference is that firefighters are an official body.
Musk is shit, charging for API is shitty in general, but you can’t claim “they’re inhibiting public safety information!” when strictly speaking NERV is more like an overgrown Facebook group (although, that cannot diminish how awesome they are).
And THAT’S why Twitter finally gave them a “Public Utility App” status and lifted their API limits after people started kicking up a fuss. 🙄
No, they did it because:
Also the public backlash, like you said.
Kid named Steve Huffman
Aka Musk fanboi
Steve Huffman did it first
Did he? I thought Twitter started API charges first.
This article says Musk announced it in February last year: https://www.wired.com/story/twitter-data-api-prices-out-nearly-everyone/
imaybewrong.png
Maybe if he hadn’t fired 85% of his employees, there might have been someone who checked alerting accountsand made sure no api limits applied, but nope. Dude fired so many people the simple, basic shit isn’t getting done.
Nah, I don’t think there’s a sure fire way you could ensure that everyone that should get a free pass gets one. The effort they made to give free passes to government public safety bodies and the like was reasonable.
What isn’t reasonable is having API charges to begin with. Musk didn’t drop the ball here with Japan, he dropped it ages ago.
API charges are not flawed because they’re inhibiting public safety channels, they’re flawed because they inhibit regular people from making genuinely amazing positive contributions. That could be NERV, or it could be a lone reporter in a war zone, or just a person in their bedroom updating everyone on the crazy shit happening right outside. That narrative doesn’t really garner as much sympathy, but it’s far more honest.
It clearly wasent reasonable, as it missed the actual main alerting account for a nation of hundreds of millions. Basic data analysis should have caught that a non goverment body was important enough to exempt, but they just didn’t do it. The exceptions they did do were clearly to basic or lazy.
Yes, applying API limits is deeply flawed and stupid, but if youre going to do it, you have to do a good job, or people who relied on your service may literally die.
Its clear Musk gives no shits about the larger responsibility that taking over a social network with hundreds of millions of users brings.
What kind of “basic data analysis” are you referring to? I mean, it would be nice if that was a practical idea, to assess nearly every Twitter account and determine if it should have an exemption, but I don’t see that it is. You either have an insanely labour-intensive process, or you have an imperfect automated process. Or, you just draw a line in the sand, as they did.
I don’t think you can claim that Twitter has a “responsibility” in any meaningful sense, either. It’s a private website, they get to set the rules and change them as they see fit. That’s how it’s always been. The responsibility lies with the organisations tasked with distributing the information (which also doesn’t include NERV, they do it voluntarily).
I don’t even think Musk made this change to try and make money - in my opinion, ever since he was locked into the purchase the plan changed to running it into the ground. On the way down, Musk can experiment with all sorts of horrible things - such as API charges - and while they won’t get away with everything, the things they do get away with will set the standard for any social media platforms that come after the business ceases operations (primarily due to the debt accrued in the leveraged buyout Musk performed).
So yeah, Musk doesn’t give any shits, the whole operation is intentionally destructive. But like I say, he didn’t drop the ball here with Japan, he did it ages ago.
Are you trying to say that Twitter doesn’t have data engineers capable of parsing tweets by “geography+ follower count + $disasterKeywords?”
If Twitter doesnt have the capability to do the equivalent of basic sql agaisnt its dataset, I dont even understand what the remaining 15% of people are doing there.
X fucked up by imposing the limit in the first place.
Exactly. The whole thing is scummy, not because of this specific incident but by its very nature.