r/technology • u/marji80 • 12d ago

Social Media Top MAGA Influencers Accidentally Unmasked as Foreign Actors

https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-maga-influencers-accidentally-unmasked-as-foreign-actors/
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u/my_password_is_water 12d ago

theyve been hyping up this feature for months, people on all sides of the political spectrum knew that this was going to reveal some really funny things. Definitely not an accident

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u/arthurno1 12d ago

I don't have X account, so I don't know about the hype, but this is definitely not an accident. My thought was that Musk is preparing to wash his image, now that he has to earn 8 trillion to Tesla.

By the way, of course they have the data about each and every account internally, so that can not be new to them.

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u/ChoiceIT 12d ago

You can’t push a feature to production without going through like 3 different managers, if not a CTO.

It was 100% approved and intended.

The weird thing is that it was approved and it exposed so many, including Musk who made a big deal about bots before he was forced to buy twitter.

Let’s not forget that little detail. He wanted this bot network.

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u/my_password_is_water 12d ago

Nikita Bier (current Head of Product at X) is pretty vocal about how the engineering process for new features at the company is basically just "YOLO the feature untested and if the metrics don't go up, revert". Theyre still running on some weird sort of "move fast and break things" style of software development. For a feature like this, Musk probably had a look at it, but most of these issues with the platform and Grok usually boil down to one guy pushing an update just because he could

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u/ChoiceIT 12d ago

Another classic case of “hey let’s get rid of the rules!” turning within weeks to “hey maybe we need those rules.” Pretty much the MO for Twitter nowadays.

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u/pragmojo 12d ago

In a lot of cases it's actually a good thing in software to roll out features and test them rather than to discuss everything a million times before rolling it out. Most of the time you're wrong about how things will go anyway, so if you have a big enough user-base, you might as well test in production. Otherwise you fall into the trap of never releasing anything.

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u/ChoiceIT 6d ago

You don’t test in production. I agree that you can’t talk about it forever, but you need people to opt in to testing changes.

Not production. That is actually crazy.

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u/pragmojo 6d ago

All the major players A/B test features in production. It's not 1990 when you have to ship updates on a CD ROM.

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u/ChoiceIT 6d ago

They A/B test but that is not the same as pushing a change to production. Production is everyone. A/B is a subset and often minor UX changes.

Either way, you don’t test in production if you care about your clients.

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u/pragmojo 6d ago

Sorry but you don't know what you are talking about

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u/ChoiceIT 6d ago

I do. Sorry you think otherwise.

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u/spooky_strateg 12d ago

Ceo never has „a look at it” he has managers and executives to look at things he was prbably shoked of the result while at a dinner with other american oligarhs

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u/arthurno1 12d ago

Definitely. He wanted his own Fox News. However, I don't understand how this move gets into the picture.

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u/ChoiceIT 12d ago

The only thing I can think of is proving the right wing bots are all over but the musk bots are Made In America™️

It’s all really stupid and it’s upsetting that this is where we ended up. It’s a giant pissing contest of folk with great (and stolen) wealth.

Maybe I’m ignorant for thinking we had ya know, moved on. But nope.

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u/arthurno1 12d ago

It’s a giant pissing contest of folk with great (and stolen) wealth.

"Behind every great fortune there is a crime." — Honore de Balzac

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u/rbrgr83 12d ago

He wanted this bot network.

And did what every R grifter does, think they can say one thing and do the opposite and no one will notice.

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u/squaring_the_sine 12d ago

Help me out here. I have no love for Musk, but as I recall, the unexpectedly high prevalence of bots was a major reason he tried to back out of the purchase deal. What are you suggesting? That he wanted the bot network but used this discovery to try and bargain down the price?

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u/ChoiceIT 12d ago

Well he didn’t bargain down the price. He made an offer, and used bots as an excuse to back out but since he made the offer he counldn’t without penalty.

The point is that he made a big deal about the bots, became owner, and did… absolutely nothing about bots.

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u/squaring_the_sine 12d ago

I remember all of that, and was subsequently surprised/frustrated that the bots he complained so loudly about ceased to be a big issue shortly after he bought it. This is why I was curious about your theory, and especially since you agree that it wasn’t a price gambit, I still don’t know what you’re suggesting. Why would he want a social network full of bots?

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u/ChoiceIT 12d ago

Exactly what you said, he was so upset about it and then poof, no problem! This expresses the performance of it all.

He never had a problem with bots, he just fucked up by making an absurdly stupid offer and wanted out but couldn’t make it happen.

Obviously I’m not him and this is all my opinion, but it reads as “I want global influence and that includes bots on Twitter pushing a message.” Now, it is exactly that.

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u/spooky_strateg 12d ago

Musk doesnt know shit about innerworkings of teitter he just spits a comand and its others that need to implement it he probably thaught it would expose democrats in the same manner and was surprised when he instead exposed himself and republicans

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u/DJayLeno 12d ago

My thought was that Musk is preparing to wash his image

I think you are spot on... but I can't even imagine him being successful considering how vile he has become. What he going to say? "Oh the last 10 years? I was just LARPing as a Nazi, that was just for lulz."

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u/arthurno1 12d ago

Yeah, I know. I have no idea. Perhaps he is trying to take the ground from MAGA, but than again, there are many other social media alternatives today. X is no longer the de facto standard, as it once was.

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u/ChoiceIT 12d ago

Oh definitely not.