Twitter suspends NYT for misinformation

Yes, of course this is satire from the Babylon Bee, but at this point the NYSlimes has its head so far up its tailpipe that it’s quoting parody videos of Ron DeSantis as if they were real.

There’s a video, the New York Times helpfully informs us. Except that it’s not a video of DeSantis, but — I kid you not — it’s a fake video by an unhappy student that was meant to satirize DeSantis:

Another student who requested anonymity because he feared repercussions for his job said Mr. DeSantis’s takes on the Civil War were the subject of so much talk that students made a satirical video about him at the time for the video yearbook.

The video, which was reviewed by The Times, includes a short snippet in which a voice purporting to be Mr. DeSantis is heard saying: “The Civil War was not about slavery! It was about two competing economic systems. One was in the North. …” while a student dozes in class. (A student voiced the role of Mr. DeSantis, because students did not have any actual footage of him, according to a student who helped put it together.)

I’m not sure which is more damning — the fact that the NYT reporter thought that this faked video was worth “reviewing,” or that the editor of the news section decided to keep it in the article. It’s not a recording of DeSantis. We have no idea whether it’s even an accurate recollection of what DeSantis argued, and neither does the Times.  It’s a literal example of “fake but accurate.” It would be as if 60 Minutes II had admitted up front that they faked the Killian memos but presented them anyway as evidence of what George W. Bush was really like decades earlier. (As veterans of Rathergate will remember, that ended up being Dan Rather’s fallback position.)

And naturally, the ADL, which has long turned into a part of the antiDemocratic Party’s Yevsektsiya [the Yiddish-speaking department of the CPSU], is now calling for an ad boycot against Tw*tter. How predictable.

And the UN human rights chief Volker Turk feels the need to open his yap too. Leaving aside that the United Nebbich has zero credibility at this point, considering how much “dangerous misinformation” of yesteryear has turned out to be… not exactly that…

Besides, Musk himself has said he doesn’t want Twitter to become a “free-for-all hellscape” — probably referring to how Gab was quickly overrun by truly rancid types. Then again, I would rather have, e.g., neo-National Socialist mamzerim bnei nidda out in the light where I can see them than underground or hiding behind dishonest facades.

Musk’s firing of 50% of staff — with severance pay, mind you — created wailing and gnashing of teeth on one side, schadenfreude on the other. He has said Twitter is a place where there’s 10 managers for each person who does actual productive work — not unlike some situations I’ve seen first-hand in various parts of the economy. Elsewhere I read that he’s actually moving 50 engineers from Tesla to Twitter — presumably AI specialists. I just hope it doesn’t merely mean that a bunch of SJW Karens as content moderators don’t get replaced by equally but differently stupid AI moderation without human supervision. Though Artificial Idiot-savant may still be preferable over human malicious zealotry.

Meanwhile, the Arbel daughter forwards this:

The platform was at any rate long due for either a massive overhaul or the digital ash heap of history. I wish Elon well in his attempts to try and turn the ship around.

ADDENDUM: there were economic reasons for Musk’s decision. Details here (via Sarah Hoyt, who snarks that “misinformation is just code speak for truths they don’t like”).

Elon Musk’s drastic decision to lay off half of Twitter’s workforce on Friday was driven by the company’s dire finances — with the now-private company on track to lose $700 million in 2023 if he hadn’t slashed costs, The Post has learned.

~Snip

On top of the punishing interest payments, Twitter typically spent about $600 million on capital expenditures, a banker said. Subtract the interest and capital expenditures from Twitter’s EBITDA and the company is $700 million in the red.