Elon Musk, Twitter Hellscapes, and USB-C Conformity
Elon Musk, Twitter Hellscapes, and USB-C Conformity
It's official - Musk has control of the reigns - what the hell are we in for?
After months and months of legal flip-flopping, Elon Musk has now officially taken the reigns of Twitter. This on-again, off-again plan to own the social network has very much felt like the ‘Ross and Rachel’ relationship status of our time.
Brace yourself for a long sentence:
From declaring that he wants it - to then backing out because of Twitter’s alleged ‘cover up’ of the amount of bots contained within the user stats - which to Elon would greatly affect the purchase price - in turn prompting Twitter to send him endless reams of data to sift through - we’re NOW at the stage where it’s a done deal.
And breathe.
(This also, incidentally, saved him the ordeal of the pending court case after Twitter were recently suing him for breach of contract.)
Upon arriving at Twitter HQ, he immediately fired the top tier management team. Not entirely unexpected of course. I sincerely hope that his vision for the platform will be a positive one, because at the moment it feels very much like the fox has got into the hen house.
There are currently just too many unknowns.
😏
He tweeted recently revealing his intentions in buying Twitter in the first place, which does, I think, read very well. But it also reads as something not written by Musk himself, because it sounds…….well……..coherent. And reasonable.
I say this because Musk’s own use of Twitter over the years has been controversial at best, and at worst, erratic, unnerving and potentially dangerous.
It does make me wonder that if he ends up managing Twitter the way he actually *uses* Twitter, then I don't like the look of where things may go. But I genuinely hope I'm wrong.
Here’s what he announced recently (click the images he posted to read the full statement in a new window):
There’s been much speculation with his proponent views on free speech that he suddenly might start bringing back a whole host of banned accounts, the likes of Katie Hopkins, Trump et al. Not something many level-headed people are looking forward to. Whether this does happen remains to be seen.
If he doesn’t want Twitter to turn into a free-for-all hellscape as he describes, then it certainly needs to retain certain boundaries that people can’t cross, which is why I believe that the people that have been banned for good reason, shouldn't come back. Free speech is of course important - but free speech also means that there should be consequences for overtly divisive and offensive opinions. And if that means being prevented from using a free platform because of crossing boundaries, then so be it.
Whilst the message he posted is reasonable, I don’t think, in this day and age, we’re ever going to have ‘peace’ in the online community. Just like we don’t in the real world. How could we? There are always going to be divisive characters, always going to be opposing viewpoints, and various digital camps will, naturally, be formed. I wish it weren’t the case, but the online world can only in reality reflect the offline world. We don’t live in a peaceful utopia, so I can’t see why the digital world would ever be the case either.
All we can do though is promote a message of peace, harmony & unity, in the hope that others will do the same. And curate our followed and following stats to create the place we want to reside, online. Just like on LinkedIn - if you don’t like what you’re seeing on your timeline, you just need to unfollow, disengage, delete, remove it, so you don’t have to see it. At least platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn aren’t force-feeding us ‘suggested’ content we don’t subscribe to that much, unlike Instagram.
We all have the power to curate what we see - and there are plenty of people in the world who can have opposing viewpoints and still have intelligent, well-intentioned and reasonable discourse without the need for dung-flinging. It’s usually the ones that bark the loudest who end up being the most vapid, anyway. So the best thing we can do is ignore them, and stick to healthy debate that creates a more positive atmosphere.
So let’s hope Elon sees it the same way and fulfils that ideology, to turn Twitter into a better, thriving, more positive community that doesn’t feel like the cesspool it has so often been described as in the past by many.
Verification Indignation
If you’re one of those people who has a verified ‘blue tick’ account, then you should be aware that one of the next projects Elon’s considering at the moment is charging to retain that status. Although it doesn’t seem fully official yet, Elon has floated the idea of charging $8/month for Twitter Blue, which includes the blue tick verified account status. This is a reduction on his original plan to charge $20/month!
Even at $8 it’s caused mass uproar, with several high profile blue tick account holders (including author Stephen King) saying they wouldn’t bother paying. And after a fairly large scale poll on Twitter by Jason Calacanis, 81.6% of users declared they wouldn’t pay - based on at time of writing, nearly 2million votes.
Which begs the question - if anyone can now (as seems increasingly likely) buy their way to blue tick account status, what is the point of it?
Historically, blue tick accounts have been reserved for celebrities, public figures, politicians, anyone that could well be likely to have fake accounts made in their name, so at least the genuine account holders can be immediately seen as ‘official’. It’s never been charged for before, because it’s been Twitter’s way of ensuring well known figures have a verified status to reassure their followers they are who they say they are, to prevent spoofing and scams.
I would hope that it would mean a massive shake up at HQ to make the Twitter Blue service absolutely rigorously checked to ensure people signing up can categorically prove their identity. Otherwise anyone could make up a new account, for instance, @Elon_Musk, pay their $8, then go around spoofing the CEO himself, offering up some less than savoury customer service to all and sundry!
(Not that I would do that, of course).
It remains to be seen how all this will pan out, but it goes to show Elon is shaking the Twitter tree rather vigorously at the moment. Interesting times ahead.
Apple Forced To Swap To USB-C
Another story that’s been making waves for a number of years now is the EU’s insistence that Apple stop using Lightning port connectivity in favour of USB-C. It’s now been decreed that this now will happen in 2024, despite Apple resisting and lobbying for it to not happen for quite a while.
The EU want everything to be universal, for all electronics that have charging ports; smartphones, headphones, game consoles, speakers - they are all having to change to USB-C to create cable uniformity.
Apple have resisted this notion because of the amount of e-waste this will generate - despite the EU claiming this is what they are trying to prevent. Apple do have a point, as come the switch-over, it’ll gradually mean millions upon millions of lightning cables (and associated third party compatible equipment) already in existence will be completely redundant.
In many ways, having everything connecting and charging via USB-C does make a lot of sense, as long term it would mean that a lot of devices may not need to ship with a cable at all - just like Apple a few years made the decision to stop shipping USB plugs with new iPhone purchases & just supplied a cable, due to the amount of plug adapters that are already out there - most people simply don’t need any more.
And of course, many other smartphone manufacturers initially put out marketing snipes announcing how stupid that was - before, naturally, very shortly after following suit themselves and stopping the shipping of plugs too!
So, for the long-term approach, this could well be a good move. However, USB-C isn’t quite the universal standard you may think it is…
Check out this video, which explains it better than I ever could.
And this is the biggest stumbling block in my head, which is why it isn’t necessarily a good idea that Apple are forced to ditch Lightning - at least not yet. The lack of standardisation.
The Lightning cable as it is, is universal in its usage - it will charge and transmit data - every cable that is an ‘official’ Lightning cable (i.e. ones that have the ‘MFi’ approval stamp from Apple rather than the dodgy types you’ll find on market stalls etc which are usually highly dangerous) will work in the same way.
That can’t be said, currently, for USB-C. As this guy describes in the video, just one look through the Amazon listings for USB-C cables will show that not all USB-Cs are alike. Some will charge smaller devices like phones, others will charge larger devices like many laptops that utilise USB-C. Some will work as data cables for computer monitors - but then won’t charge your devices.
It’s a minefield.
And that’s what has got to change in order for this whole global unified approach to work. You need to be able to tell, straight away, that the cable you have, or are about to buy, will do the job you need it to do. At the moment, this is incredibly difficult and needs careful research.
Ideally, we need all USB-C cables to do all the various functions required, in one, to make them truly standardised. Then it’ll be far more useful and more widely accepted by the masses.
So let’s hope someone is working on that, to make all our lives easier.
Stuff I Found That Might Be Useful
I would have hoped by now that most of us are beyond the days of utilising the word ‘password’ as the actual password for our online platforms. If you still are, then kiss goodbye to your online presence as I doubt you’ll have it for much longer, as hackers will find you & access your stuff before they’ve even poured the milk over their Coco Pops!
However, as Wired recently wrote about, the two most commonly used passwords on the web are still ‘password’ and ‘123456’. I’d genuinely love to meet these people, I really would.
Even though our internet browsers do a pretty good job at storing passwords for various things, they’re not infallible - and they aren’t necessarily as fully-functioned as we would like them to be. Which is why password managers are probably something we should all look at.
It’s something I’ve been toying with adopting for a while, in order to have one central vault that takes care of everything, so you only ever have to remember one single password to access them all. These password managers work cross-platform, and cross-device, so you have access to everything whether you’re on your smartphone, tablet, or computer.
The friendly people at Wired have done a round up of their favourite offerings, listing all the various features to look out for, with both paid and free options. Worth a looksie.
Something Light To Finish
Based on Shaun Usher's book Letters of Note, a book that contains ‘the world’s most entertaining, inspiring and unusual letters’, which have been written over the years by members of the public and those from the world of entertainment, and other public figures - is on YouTube as well. They periodically lay on events where other, current well known figures and high profile artists read these letters out loud to an audience. The YouTube channel is Letters Live, and is certainly worth a look at.
Here’s one of my favourites, read out by the glorious Miriam Margolyes.
