Connect with us
musk twitter musk twitter

News

Under Elon Musk, Twitter is working harder to thwart hateful conduct.

Credit: JC

Published

on

Under the new leadership of Elon Musk, Twitter is working harder to thwart hateful conduct. The new Chief Twit took ownership of the platform just before Halloween weekend and has been rapidly implementing new changes, addressing the needs of Twitter’s users, such as wrongful suspensions and addressing a spike in the use of a racial slur that took place as Twitter transitioned to its new leadership.

Jason Calacanis, a host of the All-In podcast, is working with Twitter’s new leadership team to help Elon Musk make the necessary changes to the platform. Calacanis shared a tweet by Twitter’s Head of Safety & Integrity, Yoel Roth, and said that the coordinated, hateful conduct surge was quickly thwarted.

In his thread, Roth gave a very clear update on how Twitter is addressing the surge in hateful conduct. This is a very different Twitter since many users, including myself, have experienced hateful conduct and have seen Twitter’s slow response to it. Roth’s full thread reads as follows:

“Since Saturday, we’ve been focused on addressing the surge in hateful conduct on Twitter. We’ve made measurable progress, removing more than 1500 accounts and reducing impressions on this content to nearly zero. Here’s the latest on our work and what’s next.”

“Our primary success measure for content moderation is impressions: how many times harmful content is seen by our users. The changes we’ve made have almost entirely eliminated impressions on this content in search and elsewhere across Twitter.”

Advertisement
-
-

 

Credit: Yoel Roth/Twitter

“Impressions on this content typically are extremely low, platform-wide. We’re primarily dealing with a focused, short-term trolling campaign. The 1500 accounts we removed don’t correspond with 1500 people; many are repeat bad actors.”

 

Credit: Yoel Roth/Twitter

“Impressions don’t tell the whole story. These issues aren’t new, and the people targeted by hateful conduct aren’t numbers or data points. We’re going to continue investing in policy and technology to make things better.”

“Many of you have said you’ve reported hateful conduct and received notices saying it’s not a violation. Here’s why and what we’re doing to fix it:”

“To try to understand the context behind potentially harmful Tweets, we treat first-person, and bystander reports differently. First-person: This hateful interaction is happening to or targeting me. Bystander: This is happening to someone else.”

“Why? Because bystanders don’t always have full context, we have a higher bar for bystander reports in order to find a violation. As a result, many reports of Tweets that in fact, do violate our policies end up marked as non-violative on first review.”

“We’re changing how we enforce these policies, but not the policies themselves, to address the gaps here.”

“You’ll hear more from me and our teams in the days to come as we make progress. Talk is cheap; expect the data that proves we’re making meaningful improvements.”

Advertisement
-
-

Author’s note: There has been a huge uptick in bots over the weekend. I’ve noticed several bots targeting Teslarati and continuing to spam the replies of Elon Musk. There was even a verified account posting as “Tesla News” promoting a link to a YouTube that promoted a crypto scam. 

 

 

That said, I don’t expect Elon Musk and his new team to solve these problems overnight. Seeing Twitter’s fast response to the hate is very hopeful. I also hope they apply this same speed to child sexual abuse materials. Advocate Eliza Blue has even offered to work with Twitter and Elon Musk for no charge to help spearhead the removal of the content. 

 

Advertisement
-
-

As Eliza pointed out to me over the phone, Elon Musk was most likely not aware of the ongoing lawsuits against Twitter regarding child sexual abuse materials. Having this material up, she said, is a liability, and as a supporter of Elon’s, she would like to help Twitter remove it.

“One key benefit of Elon Musk prioritizing the removal of this content besides protecting children is that corporate media and governments won’t be able to weaponize this very real crime against him,” she told me.

Your feedback is essential. If you have any comments or concerns or see a typo, you can email me at johnna@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter at @JohnnaCrider1.

Teslarati is now on TikTok. Follow us for interactive news & more. Teslarati is now on TikTok. Follow us for interactive news & more. You can also follow Teslarati on LinkedInTwitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Advertisement
-
-

Johnna Crider is a Baton Rouge writer covering Tesla, Elon Musk, EVs, and clean energy & supports Tesla's mission. Johnna also interviewed Elon Musk and you can listen here

Advertisement
Comments

News

Tesla starts testing its Starlink-integrated Cybercab on public roads

Published

on

Credit: lottherm | TikTok

Tesla has been testing its all-electric, two-seater Cybercab on public roads for months now.

Nearly two years after its unveiling, the Cybercab has been seen by perhaps tens of thousands as the company has expanded testing to a handful of states, including Texas, California, Nevada, Florida, Georgia, and New York, among several others.

However, nobody has seen one like this quite yet.

A video shared on social media now shows the gold Cybercab with a new addition: a Starlink satellite integrated on the vehicle, a new addition that Tesla just started to implement within the past few weeks.

@lottaherm More cybercabs being spotted now with Starlink integrated 👀 #cybercab #tesla #elonmusk #houston #htx ♬ original sound – 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗔𝗹𝗹𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗢𝘄𝗹𝘀|𓅓

Just a week ago, Tesla announced that it had built its first Cybercab with Starlink integration and showed it off at Gigafactory Texas. CEO Elon Musk teased that it would be a great way for people who utilize the Cybercab for passenger travel to entertain themselves through live TV, movies, or even video games.

Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, said it is also a huge advantage for Tesla as it will enable constant connectivity between the company and the fleet of Cybercabs it has. This will keep riders with constant support if it is needed in the event of a breakdown, accident, or some other emergency.

Tesla’s reason for Starlink integration on Cybercab might surprise you

Advertisement
-
-

It appears that this particular unit was spotted in Houston, Texas, a location where the company’s Robotaxi platform is already active. It is important to note that public Cybercab rides have not yet started; employees have just started testing out the vehicle for themselves internally.

Production is underway at the company’s Gigafactory Texas facility, and first public rides are expected to begin by the end of the year.

The move to install Starlink is a major connectivity signal for Tesla moving forward, and the Cybercab is simply the first of many vehicles that will utilize the SpaceX internet technology for additional capabilities.

Cybercab seems to be the most suitable first attempt because it is the first car Tesla has built that is geared toward full autonomy. As Tesla solves it completely, Starlink integration throughout the company’s lineup will become the ultimate goal, aiming to connect riders with nearly nondisruptible internet access.

Continue Reading

News

Tesla is building its largest Supercharger on the East Coast in New York City

Published

on

tesla store in New York City
Credit: Tesla

Tesla is building its largest East Coast Supercharger in New York City, planning to bring a 64- to 68-stall station to Queens, New York.

It will end up being tied for the largest Supercharger on the East Coast with this number of stalls. The largest on the Eastern Seaboard is located in Halifax, North Carolina, and is also 68 stalls.

The location is also set to be fitted with two pull-through stalls for EVs with trailers. We’ve seen Tesla implement these types of parking spots at newer locations as EV ownership continues to expand to those who do more than simply drive their cars.

There are plenty of Superchargers in the New York City metro, but they are mostly located in boroughs outside of Manhattan. There are five Superchargers in various neighborhoods of Manhattan, but there are limited plugs; usually only four per location. There are plenty of Destination Chargers in the Big Apple, though.

Advertisement
-
-

Queens, the Bronx, and Brooklyn have become popular locations for companies to build out charging infrastructure for those who live in the highly populated boroughs. There is simply much more real estate to build effective EV charging stations.

Tesla spends $18M to expand Supercharging in New York City

The Supercharger will be located in Maspeth, Queens, at 48-26 54th Road. Maspeth has I-495 running through it, so this will be a great location for Tesla owners to hop off the highway on their way to Long Island or to Manhattan to charge up before continuing their journey.

Tesla has done a really great job of expanding its charging footprint throughout the past several years, especially by building large-scale projects that cater to areas that have a high volume of traffic and are main routes of travel to major areas. Tesla is making an effort to make charging less stressful and more widely available in these concentrated regions.

Continue Reading

News

SpaceX just launched a secret payload from California

SpaceX launched a classified Space Force mission from Vandenberg, revealing almost nothing about its payload.

Published

on

By

Space Force officials say the Falcon 9 booster pictured here in SpaceX's rocket factory will have to wait a few months longer for its launch debut. (SpaceX)

SpaceX launched a classified Falcon 9 mission for the U.S. Space Force from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Saturday night, and the government released almost nothing about what was on board. The mission, designated USSF-366, lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4E with a window that opened at 9:52 p.m. ET and ran into the early hours of Sunday, according to SpaceX’s own mission page, which described the payload only as classified. SpaceX confirmed the launch on its X account and pointed viewers to a livestream that began roughly ten minutes before liftoff.


The lack of detail did not stop analysts from filling in the blanks. Independent tracking of the rocket’s stage drop zones matched the pattern SpaceX has used on previous Starlink Group 15 missions, according to reporting from Outer Space Today, which pointed to Starshield as the likely payload rather than a one off government satellite. Starshield is SpaceX’s national security product, a version of the Starlink satellite bus built to Pentagon specifications for earth observation, communications and hosted payloads. Unlike consumer Starlink, government agencies do not have to disclose what Starshield satellites are actually doing once they reach orbit.

USSF-366 is the latest entry in a steady flow of classified and semi classified work between SpaceX and the Space Force. The company picked up a $178.5 million task order in April to launch missile tracking satellites for the Space Development Agency, as Teslarati reported at the time, and followed that in July with a $1.6 billion award covering 18 more Falcon 9 missions from Vandenberg through the end of 2027, also detailed by Teslarati. Add those contracts up and SpaceX’s Pentagon business for 2026 alone tops $8 billion.

SpaceX scores another massive Pentagon deal to support military satellites

The Falcon 9 that flew Saturday landed back near the launch site, producing the sonic booms that have become routine for residents near Vandenberg. What is less routine is how little the public will likely ever learn about what the rocket carried. SpaceX and the Space Force have not confirmed the Starshield connection, and government satellite programs built on commercial buses rarely get identified beyond a mission number and a general orbit. For a company that live streams almost everything else it does, from Starship test flights to Optimus robot demos, USSF-366 is a reminder that some of SpaceX’s busiest work now happens entirely out of public view.

Advertisement
-
-
Continue Reading