This is amazing. He basically said, he'd return if elon comes around, and wishes him the best. And just said "my mastodon is on my website". No violation of those new "TOS" of any kind.
Paul was a big cheerleader for Elon. Touted his “skills” at Tesla & SpaceX. Elon kicks him off, because Dear Leader will not be criticized. Meanwhile Tesla is pile driving into the ground. I’m waiting for the FTC & the EU to weigh in on ALL of this puerile behavior by sham Tony Stark.
He was still giving Elon platitudes in his HN comment in the previous thread. For a person with so much wealth and influence, Elon is way too thin-skinned.
You can watch the account in your own instance (if someone on your instance has already followed him, which is likely for larger instances). Just go to https://example.org/@paulg@mas.to (replace the domain with your favorite instance's domain).
Does it make any sense to spin up your own little Mastodon server just for you and your most trusted friends, so you don't have to spend any time moderating content?
To put this into perspective, here's user growth over the last few days [1]. Before Musk bought Twitter, it was often ~4k a day. Earlier today it was back down to less than 2k an hour, after a peak a bit above 4k an hour after the journalist fiasco.
It's currently at 5,477 in the last hour.
Before the journalist fiasco it had fallen back to ~1k/hour, and I think you need to go back to Nov 19th to find similar peaks.
In other words, things had died down massively, and he's chosen to pointlessly inflame things again rather than letting it calm down further.
I'm on the same instance and holy crap they've gone down with every single major e-long caused migration wave. Poor admin crews of all the instances - can't even enjoy a Sunday off because Musk decides to do something stupid yet again.
I had hoped to have gotten rid of that anxiety the day Trump left office, and now it's back with a vengeance.
Having a personal website with contact information is not URL cloaking or plaintext onfuscation. Those TOS are ludicrous to begin with, but are not by any reasonable understanding written to say that you can not have a personal website with other social media.
Yeah, I can't see how "I can't post my handle here so go to my website to find it" isn't an effort to bypass restrictions. That doesn't mean that what Musk is doing is good, or that trying to bypass restrictions is bad. But there's this strange trend recently where in order to be part of one "side," you have to start uncritically repeating anything that looks good for your side, or else you'll be accused of shilling for the enemy side. It's not impossible to think that these new rules are stupid, attempting to bypass them is fine, but that also "I can't type my handle here so go to this other website and find it" is clearly an attempt to bypass them.
And these beliefs become opportunistic and change as soon as its convenient. Just a few hours ago when the promotion was first announced, most people were claiming that it was extremely expansive and that John Carmack could get banned for crossposting (which the terms say is allowed). People who disagreed were downvoted. Now that someone has been banned, the comments start claiming it's _not_ expansive, and people who disagree are getting downvoted.
That's one thing that makes it hard to follow this saga. It seems like Musk is doing pretty bad things, but there's so much hyperbole and inconsistency coming from his loudest critics that it's hard to have a grounded discussion on the matter.
> Casually sharing occasional links is fine, but no more relentless advertising of competitors for free, which is absurd in the extreme.
That was very casual and not at all an example of relentless advertising for competitors. It's also extremely dubious that PG was trying to evade Twitter enforcement.
Sorry for all those downvotes. I get people dislike Elon right now, and dislike the ban, but you are correct. I wish we would seek understanding instead of trying to… promote misunderstanding and silence people who point it out?
IOT_Apprentice|3 years ago
WaxProlix|3 years ago
"Phony Stark", maybe?
JumpCrisscross|3 years ago
We have no proof Elon personally kicked off PG. We can hold him accountable for creating this shitshow. But Hanlon’s razor wields well, here.
ssnistfajen|3 years ago
bbatchelder|3 years ago
cesarb|3 years ago
You can watch the account in your own instance (if someone on your instance has already followed him, which is likely for larger instances). Just go to https://example.org/@paulg@mas.to (replace the domain with your favorite instance's domain).
(Edit: fixed typo)
DonHopkins|3 years ago
bhoops|3 years ago
vidarh|3 years ago
It's currently at 5,477 in the last hour.
Before the journalist fiasco it had fallen back to ~1k/hour, and I think you need to go back to Nov 19th to find similar peaks.
In other words, things had died down massively, and he's chosen to pointlessly inflame things again rather than letting it calm down further.
[1] https://bitcoinhackers.org/@mastodonusercount/10953715946301...
toss1|3 years ago
Yikes. The Emperor's clothes get more transparent by the minute
barathr|3 years ago
mschuster91|3 years ago
I had hoped to have gotten rid of that anxiety the day Trump left office, and now it's back with a vengeance.
hinkley|3 years ago
Then a bunch of time on mischief after the ban, making aliases for the server that weren't on the naughty list yet.
rideontime|3 years ago
BryantD|3 years ago
[deleted]
meshugga|3 years ago
croon|3 years ago
bnralt|3 years ago
And these beliefs become opportunistic and change as soon as its convenient. Just a few hours ago when the promotion was first announced, most people were claiming that it was extremely expansive and that John Carmack could get banned for crossposting (which the terms say is allowed). People who disagreed were downvoted. Now that someone has been banned, the comments start claiming it's _not_ expansive, and people who disagree are getting downvoted.
That's one thing that makes it hard to follow this saga. It seems like Musk is doing pretty bad things, but there's so much hyperbole and inconsistency coming from his loudest critics that it's hard to have a grounded discussion on the matter.
threatofrain|3 years ago
> Casually sharing occasional links is fine, but no more relentless advertising of competitors for free, which is absurd in the extreme.
That was very casual and not at all an example of relentless advertising for competitors. It's also extremely dubious that PG was trying to evade Twitter enforcement.
inferiorhuman|3 years ago
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1499976967105433600
TigeriusKirk|3 years ago
If I had to bet at this point, I'd say it's a mistake caused by a poorly articulated spur-of-the-moment policy.
I don't believe this was the intent of the policy, but that doesn't mean it's not the way it's being implemented in the absence of clear guidelines.
Musk's lack of clear articulation is the biggest problem Twitter faces.
srcreigh|3 years ago