The “increase in crime” is only really there if you compare today to the unusually low pandemic numbers. In general, we are just back to the normal (higher) pre-pandemic crime rates.

I read in another article that it is just supposed to be a first test of the feature before the global rollout.

Big chunk of the funding is from the Saudis though - and they have a very vested interest in trashing twitter.

This does not address any of the points above though. The Saudis could have just bought it for half the money and closed the doors.

It’s also entirely possible the truth is somewhere in between - people who knew he couldn’t manage his way out a paper bag working ego boy into buying twitter and ketting the inevitable happen. He’s not exactly hard to manipulate.

Manipulate into doing what? Buying twitter? I think it is very likely that he just attempted market manipulation and failed. Now he is trying to make the best out of the situation and transform Twitter into the company he actually wants. Except he is absolutely incompetent. I don’t see where anybody manipulated him into doing anything. Everything that happened seems very much like him.

Just today there was a great comment by @Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works on why this does not make any sense.

1. When you factor in the incredible damage done to the Tesla share price by the amount of stock he had to liquidate to finance the deal, and the almost billion a year in interest and operating costs the company is pulling out of him, the deal has, altogether, cost Musk about half of his net worth. No amount of petty childishness is worth that.

2. He literally went to court to try to get out of the deal. What was his play here? To sue with the intention of failing? For what possible reason?
3. If his plan was to kill Twitter, why would he attach his beloved X name to it? Musk has spent his entire life trying to make X happen. It is dearer to him than his own children. Why would he attach that brand to a company he’s intentionally sabotaging?
4. If his goal is to kill Twitter, why is it still here? He owns the company outright. He took it private. There’s no board. There’s no shareholders. He doesn’t have a fiduciary responsibility. If he wanted Twitter dead, all he had to do was shut the doors, turn off the lights, and send everyone home.

Anyone who buys into this “He’s trying to kill Twitter” nonsense, please, I am begging you, try to get your head around the fact that Elon Musk is not a smart man. This isn’t some incredible 4D chess play. Twitter isn’t failing because of intentional sabotage; it’s failing because Musk is genuinely trying his best, and his best absolutely sucks. He’s a bad businessman who lucked into a fortune he never deserved.

https://sh.itjust.works/comment/4855307

They did in fact do that in the English translation of some Arabic bios:

He had written in his bio that he was Palestinian, followed by a Palestinian flag and the word “alhamdulillah” in Arabic - which translates to “praise be to God” in English. However, upon clicking “see translation”, viewers were given an English translation reading: “Praise be to God, Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom”.

The linked article in this post is a cut down version of the original BBC article below, except it somehow lost all of the important content in the process: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67169228

I’m not sure if it works with YouTube

I can confirm that uBlock Origin blocks Youtube Ads.

I have a genuine question that maybe somebody with more economic knowledge can educate me in:

How is continuing the sale in Russia helping Russia? As I understand Russia is gaining money on the sales taxes, etc. but the rest of the earnings will go to the US parent company, which cannot be taxed directly by Russia. If Pepsi backs out, wouldn’t operations just be replaced by a rebranded russian company, where all of the earnings would be under russian “sphere of influence”?

I genuinely do not understand why Pepsi backing out is considered bad for Russia. I thought countries generally prefer national companies over foreign ones.

The dev said that the framework is completely disabled once you purchase the ad-free version. Various people also confirmed that statement with anti-tracking software.