Episode 141: Jesse’s Jewish Journey And Musk’s Magnificent Mastodon Meltdown

Jesse Singal returns to his ancestral homeland, only to find it in ruins. (Before that, he was on a trip to Israel.) There is panic in the Twitter streets as Elon Musk takes over and “dismisses” over 90% of the staff, including legendary software engineers Daniel Johnson and Rahul Ligma. Impersonation runs rampant and famous figures are permabanned left and right as Musk’s hasty changes to the verification program end in pandemonium.

Certain the site is doomed, the Twelve Tribes of Twitter (including Katie Herzog) set out in search of their fabled home: a previously obscure Twitter clone known as Mastodon. But you know what they say: “out of the frying pan, into the fire…”

Links:

🔊 Musician With Regrets: KLEZMER INCELCORE (Feat. Jesse Forever Single)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TeYfGbisefuZDgLLf99lbhquQMLz0Oum/view

It’s insane a Michael Moynihan trip to Israel didn’t end with him narrowly escaping via an airlift off the top of the American Embassy

Jesse witnesses Israel’s tragic alcoholism epidemic on his trip:

WaPo: “When Eli Lilly’s share price sank 4 percent on Friday — in line with a drop in other health care stocks — many Twitter users credited the fake account”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/14/twitter-fake-eli-lilly/

November 17th: “it seems Musk is concerned that not enough employees are buying into his vision of an“extremely hardcore” Twitter” [sic]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-changes-twitters-remote-work-rules-again-225801061.html

Literally the next day: “Twitter sued over Elon Musk’s ‘hardcore’ work rules”

https://www.independent.ie/business/world/twitter-sued-over-elon-musks-hardcore-work-rules-42153638.html

Musk has dismissed “half of [Twitter]’s workforce and most of its executive suite”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-10/musk-s-first-email-to-twitter-staff-ends-remote-work

Semafor: “Eventually, there will be an issue that has to be addressed by SREs [...] the other issue is that there is basically no security team left.”

https://www.semafor.com/newsletter/11/24/2022/black-friday-edition

Musk: “Vox populi, vox dei”

An assorted sampling of Musk’s shitposts:

🤣🤣🤣 please help 🤣 make it stop  🤣🤣 i am in excruciating 🤣🤣 🤣 pain 🤣 lmao 🤣🤣🤣

https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Aelonmusk%20%F0%9F%A4%A3&src=typed_query&f=live

Pew: Twitter’s users are more left-wing than the general population

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/04/24/sizing-up-twitter-users/

NYT: “Mr. Agrawal tweeted to rebut his claims. Mr. Musk responded with a poop emoji.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/technology/twitter-changes.html

Carabello: “Apple and Google need to seriously start exploring booting Twitter off the app store”

Business Insider: “A Twitter engineer said he believed he was fired for criticizing Elon Musk on Slack.”

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-fired-twitter-worker-jokes-slack-criticism-social-watercooler-2022-11?r=US&IR=T

Musk: "New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach.”

Musk: “I have no mercy for anyone who would use the deaths of children for gain, politics or fame.”

DeBoer: “I Assure You, Writers Would Be Fine Without Twitter”

Jeong for Vice: “Mastodon Is Like Twitter Without Nazis, So Why Are We Not Using It?”

https://www.vice.com/en/article/783akg/mastodon-is-like-twitter-without-nazis-so-why-are-we-not-using-it

Wired: “Rochko learned that the software project he started building during his university days, called Mastodon, is running Donald Trump’s new Truth Social network.”

https://www.wired.com/story/more-software-isnt-better-software/

🔞 Matt Skala: Mastodon WTF timeline (ロリコン vs. 児童ポルノ)

https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/335

The apotheosis of Adam Davidson:

The journalists’ Mastodon instance:

https://journa.host/explore

Bernstein for The Times: “Mr. Davidson told him he had been suspended [from journa.host] for referring to Ms. Molloy as an ‘activist’”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/21/style/mastodon-twitter-adam-davidson.html

Image: NEW YORK, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 31: Elon Musk attends Heidi Klum's 2022 Hallowe'en Party at Sake No Hana at Moxy LES on October 31, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Taylor Hill/Getty Images)

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