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May 18, 2022 - Epoch Times
12:51
Undercover Video Shows Senior Twitter Engineer Admit That Platform 'Doesn't Believe in Free Speech'
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Good evening.
This man here is Mr.
Elon Musk.
And about three weeks ago, he reached a deal with the leadership of Twitter in order to purchase the company for approximately $44 billion.
However, Twitter's acceptance of his proposal, well, it has not stopped Elon Musk from continuing to criticize the platform.
Although, frankly, it's very likely all of his criticisms of Twitter, which is the exact reason why he decided to buy it in the first place.
Regardless, though, about two days ago, Elon Musk issued a rather dire warning stating that Twitter users were being manipulated by the company's algorithm.
Here is specifically what Elon Musk said in regards to this supposed manipulation.
Quote, You are being manipulated by the algorithm in ways you don't realize.
Easy to switch back and forth to see the difference.
Now just to pause here for a quick moment, when he says switch back and forth to see the difference, he's referring to switching between a simple chronological view of all your tweets versus what the algorithm wants to show you.
That's the difference that he's talking about.
And below that message, Elon Musk wrote a follow-up saying this, quote, The only way to fight the manipulation is to smash that like button and subscribe to the Facts Matter YouTube channel.
Now, I am, of course, just kidding.
He didn't say that.
Out loud, at least.
But I do hope that you take a moment to smash that like button and that subscribe button.
However, getting back to what Elon Musk actually said, well, here's what he wrote.
I'm not suggesting malice in the algorithm, but rather that it's trying to guess what you might want to read, and in doing so, inadvertently manipulates slash amplifies your viewpoint without you realizing this is happening.
Now, as we just read there, Elon made a specific point to not suggest that there is malice in the algorithm, but rather, just because of the way that it's designed, it's inadvertently manipulating the people.
However, the big question is whether that's really the case.
Because according to undercover video that was just obtained by the journalists over at Project Veritas, well, it appears to paint a very different picture.
Specifically, the undercover video, which was just released yesterday, shows a senior engineer over at Twitter tell the undercover journalist that, for one, Twitter does not believe in free speech.
Secondly, that many of the employees are left of center, socialist, or even communist.
Thirdly, that many of them hate Elon Musk's capitalist takeover of the company.
And that, lastly, well, they do censor conservatives.
Take a look.
Do you think there's a difference between Twitter's definition of free speech and Elon's definition of free speech?
Twitter does not believe in free speech.
What do your colleagues say about me?
They hate it.
Some of my colleagues are like super left, left, left, left, left.
You know, our job is at stake.
He's a capitalist.
We were really operating a capitalist board.
We were very socialist.
We're all like...
Call me a s**t.
I basically went to work like 4 hours a week last quarter.
It's just how it works in our company.
Twitter is like mental health and everything.
If you're not feeling it, you can take a few days off.
People will take a few months off.
I don't know if the two parties can truly coexist on one platform.
Ideologically, it just doesn't make sense because we're actually censoring the right, not the left.
Because everyone on the right wing will be like, bro, it's okay to say, you just got to tolerate it.
The left will be like, no, I'm not going to tolerate it.
I need to censor it.
Or else I'm not going to be uncomfortable.
It's true.
I'm totally biased.
It is what it is today.
What do your colleagues say about me?
They hate it.
Oh my god.
I'm at least okay with it, but some of my colleagues are super left-left.
What do they say?
They're like, this will be my last day if it happens.
Has much changed since Elon's coming out?
A lot has changed.
A lot has changed.
We're stress eating a lot.
We're all worried for our jobs.
Why are you guys so worried?
You know, our job is a capitalist.
He's a capitalist.
We weren't really operating as a capitalist mode.
and we're all like commie as . - I still think of that. - I think it's just like the environment, like you're there and you become like this.
- Commie.
- You don't know this. - Because of your reality.
- Now, of course, that is just the viewpoint of one engineer.
However, given the candid nature of the video, as well as the fact that he is a senior-level employee, well, it does seem to represent a unique glimpse of What is happening inside of the company itself, at what the company culture looks like.
Plus, it also does appear to be in line with some of the other glimpses inside of Twitter that we've gotten recently, such as the leaked audio of the Twitter headquarters meeting that came out a few weeks ago.
Regardless, though, this socialist company culture, as well as this algorithmic suppression of opposing viewpoints, well, it might actually be the least of Twitter's worries.
That's because at this very moment, the Elon Musk Twitter deal is facing some, you can say, rocky waters.
Four days ago, Elon Musk announced that their deal was on hold pending investigation of exactly how many fake accounts there were on Twitter.
Specifically, last Friday, Elon Musk posted this message right there on Twitter.
"Twitter deal temporarily on hold, pending details supporting calculation that spam and fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users." And then right below that message, you can see that Elon Musk linked an article from Reuters which stated that spam and fake accounts represented less than 5% of Twitter's daily And Reuters, in that article, they actually based their claim on an official filing that Twitter made with the Security and Exchange Commission.
In fact, here's specifically what that filing said.
There are a number of false or spam accounts in existence on our platform.
We have performed an internal review of a sample of accounts and estimate that the average of false or spam accounts during the first quarter of 2022 represented fewer than 5% of our MDAU, which is the monetizable daily active users during the quarter.
And also, just for your reference, according to these filings, Twitter had approximately 229 million users who were served advertising during the first quarter of 2022.
And so, that means that if 5% of those users were bots, that would mean that approximately 11.5 million of the accounts were fake.
And this matters quite a bit for a company like Twitter, because you see, the monetary value of a social media platform is largely determined by the number of people that use it.
The more people that use the platform, the more engaged those people are on a daily basis, and then in theory, the more ad revenue you can make, and therefore the higher the valuation is of the overall company.
And just for your reference, Twitter makes up about 90% of the revenue from advertising, and so the number of bot accounts becomes a very pertinent issue.
Now, of course, fake accounts will always likely exist, and 5% seems like a reasonably small amount.
However, the big question in this case is how exactly did the leadership over Twitter come to determine that only 5% of the accounts were fake?
What was their exact methodology?
And the answer might be a little surprising.
And I'll let you know what that answer was right after a quick word from our sponsor.
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I'll also throw a link down in the description box below.
And the answer might be a little bit surprising.
Because shortly after this SEC filing, Elon Musk posted this challenge on his official Twitter page.
And so essentially, he was asking people to take 100 random followers on the official Twitter account and look into how many of them were fake.
And that seems to be a rather benign challenge.
It almost seems like a joke.
However, the Twitter leadership was not laughing.
That's because shortly after Ilan sent out that message, the Twitter legal team, they reached out to him and complained that he had violated a non-disclosure agreement by allegedly revealing the fact that in their calculations, in their official calculations, they were quite literally using a sample size of 100 users to determine the number of bots.
Here's again what Elon said shortly after Twitter's legal team reached out to him.
Quote, Twitter Legal just called to complain that I violated their NDA, which is the non-disclosure agreement, by revealing the bot check sample size is 100, which is quite frankly rather amazing.
And this revelation appears to be rocking the boat and placing the entire deal on thin ice.
That's because just yesterday, while speaking at a conference...
Specifically, the 2022 All In Summit held in Miami Beach, Florida, Elon Musk said that it's unfair to pay the same price for something that is a lot less than previously advertised.
Here's specifically what he said, quote, quote, you can't pay the same price for something that is much worse than they claim.
The more questions I ask, the more my concerns grow.
They claim that they've got this complex methodology that only they can understand.
It can't be some deep mystery that is, like, more complex than the human soul or something like that.
There is some chance the number of bots might be over 90% of daily active users.
Now, to be frank, the truth is of course unknown, but this 90% estimate is likely too high.
There have been previous independent researchers that have looked into this issue, and they estimate that anywhere between 9% to 15% of Twitter profiles are bots.
And in fact, just this morning, Elon released a statement saying, among other things, that this bot issue must be sorted out for the deal to actually take place.
Here's what he said.
And so, whether it's 9%, 15%, or 20%, well, that would represent anywhere between double, triple, or even quadruple what the official estimate currently stands at.
Which could very obviously affect the advertising revenue and therefore the value of the entire company.
And until that is resolved, well, it looks like the entire deal is on hold.
Meaning that for the time being, you and I are better off posting pictures of cats on Twitter rather than any hard-hitting journalism that might get us banned by the allegedly super-communist censors.
If you'd like to go deeper into anything that we've discussed so far in today's episode, I will throw all the links down into the description box below this video for you to check out.
And all I ask in return is that if you haven't already, take a quick moment to smash, smash, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm.
And now, I'd like to mention something.
Just yesterday, we published an awesome movie over on Epic TV called The Trump I Know.
It's a very unique look of the man, seen through the eyes of the women who know him best.
Here's a trailer.
In this day and age, we have access to more information about people than ever before.
We peer into these little windows and think we know people.
Clinically narcissistic.
Even people we've never actually met.
You can tell this is not a person that understands any issue deeply.
We feel so connected.
So informed.
Technology has definitely opened new parts of the human experience.
But what's been closed off as a result?
We see in part...
We hear, in part...
I know words.
I have the best words.
Opinions are quickly formed.
Not that there was any question, but this is pretty clear.
And confirmed by random humans we've also never met.
Sojourners, abided, a racist, and narcissistic person.
We think we know people.
Is it balance problems?
Is there some weakness there?
But do we really?
The American people, by a fluke, elected an imbecilic con man.
The lack of humility from Donald Trump.
He might order a nuclear weapons strike.
This might seem like such a basic question, but how do we really know someone?
If you'd like to watch that awesome movie, as well as the plethora of other great content over on Epic TV, I'll throw a link to it.
It'll be right there at the very top of the description box.
I hope you check it out, because not only is it a great movie, but also, by subscribing to Epic TV, well, you are supporting all the journalism that we do here at the Epic Times.
Again, that link will be right there at the very top of the description box.
And then, until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epic Times.
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