3 ms·

Elon has made an utterly incomprehensible statement on the matter: > Substack was trying to download a massive portion of the Twitter database to bootstrap th

Elon has made an utterly incomprehensible statement on the matter: > Substack was trying to download a massive portion of the Twitter database to bootstrap their Twitter clone, so their IP address is obviously untrusted. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1644638493883211779 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1644638493883211779

andsoitis 4y ago
> Elon has made an utterly incomprehensible statement delirium
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  Wine and Ambien evening. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/872260000491593728 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/872260000491593728
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - morkalork 4y ago
    Ambien is like crack for white middle class and up people.
- papito 4y ago
  His actions and words also resemble those of a person dangerously sleep-deprived, but maybe it's just Elon being Elon.
VWWHFSfQ 4y ago
Oh shit they wget'd twitter?? from the IP address?!?
- ffssffss 4y ago
  Yeah, you know, the Substack IP address. You look it up in the Yellow Pages.
  - philistine 4y ago
    Elon talks about IP adresses like my wife, who is blissfully unaware of its intricacies. I mean, each person and company gets one IP address so we can track them, right? Right?
- ouid 4y ago
  wgot? whad?
- FartyMcFarter 4y ago
  You can download all of Google (and therefore all of the Internet) with: wget 8.8.8.8 Make sure to have enough hard drive space before you run this, or you could irreversibly damage your computer.
  - rchaud 4y ago
    Fake news, I have been to Google's campus and my Wifi showed an IP starting with 192. /s
    - doublerabbit 4y ago
      I'm waiting 127.0.0.1 to finish. 34 years later and still downloading.
angulardragon03 4y ago
This statement also carries so many implications. Is the Twitter database public? Can I also download from the Twitter database? Has Twitter now had a data leak? Does Substack just use a single IP that Twitter has... blocked?
- surrealize 4y ago
  If you're making a twitter clone (as Substack is) then scraping the twitter follower graph seems useful. And that's public, obviously.
  - bigbillheck 4y ago
    > seems useful How so?
    - Retr0id 4y ago
      Help users port over their own social graphs, and assist recommendations.
  - medler 4y ago
    Substack’s CEO has denied any improper use of the Twitter APIs. Given Elon’s long and storied history of making things up, this allegation seems likely to be another fabulation.
    - surrealize 4y ago
      Well, is scraping Twitter an improper use? Anyone can see tweets and who follows who - that's public. Twitter might consider a nascent competitor trying to scrape a significant fraction of the whole thing unfriendly though.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- VWWHFSfQ 4y ago
  Probably using the oauth tokens they get from substack users that connect their twitter to spider and download the API. Cambridge Analytica-style.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
RivieraKid 4y ago
He's a notorious gaslighter.
fundad 4y ago
This is a Unix system, I know this.
- dorkwood 4y ago
  Fun fact: that infamous scene from Jurassic Park featured a real file manager for Unix, known as fsn. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsn_(file_manager) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsn_(file_manager)
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
He’s accusing Substack of trying to scrape the Twitter database, and therefore nobody can like or retweet Substack posts because their “IP address is obviously untrusted”? This is the kind of explanation that sounds good when you give it to a close circle of yes-men who won’t dare disagree with you, but falls flat when posted somewhere that anybody can think about critically. Also, the pandering replies from the social media grifters trying hard to break into Elon’s inner circle are just sad: > Got it. Please DM so we can take this private.
- papito 4y ago
  Hey, he wrote C in the 90's, yo. Don't you dare question him!!!
- jollofricepeas 4y ago
  This is what modern corporate cancel culture looks like. Billionaires buy media companies and politicians for a reason. Its the same reason, totalitarian govs control their media and politicians. The playbook is the same: 1. Make an individual decision against an individual, group or organization (ie. target) 2. Make your plea to the masses using your platform of choice to stoke fear, hatred or worst (complacency) with your policy 3. Act violently, disingenuously towards your target We have not evolved beyond lynching in America. We just do it differently now.
- prox 4y ago
  I honestly don’t think Twitter is a good place to be on seriously/professionally anymore. LinkedIn wins on that front right now for me.
dorkwood 4y ago
I wouldn’t be surprised if this was part of his plan, though. If he appears technically incompetent in a public fashion, it means his opponents are likely to underestimate him. As Sun Tzu said, when you are strong, appear weak.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- lapcat 4y ago
  > I wouldn’t be surprised if this was part of his plan, though. If he appears technically incompetent in a public fashion, it means his opponents are likely to underestimate him. This gives the appearance of a quasi-religious belief. How would you ever refute it empirically? Death and destruction and suffering are all part of God's plan, right? We mere mortals cannot understand it, we just have to take it on faith.
- rchaud 4y ago
  Never attribute to 4D chess that which is adequately explained by industrial-strength hubris.
barbariangrunge 4y ago
The full tweet is > 1. Substack links were never blocked. Matt’s statement is false. > 2. Substack was trying to download a massive portion of the Twitter database to bootstrap their Twitter clone, so their IP address is obviously untrusted. > 3. Turns out Matt is/was an employee of Substack.
Lazare 4y ago
Incomprehensible is the polite version. 1) Substack links are blocked and restricted. I've personally confirmed this, as have countless others. In fact you can't even search for the word substack (or tweets made by Taibbi!) right now. Musk is either attempting some sort of deeply disenguous argument about the meaning of the word "blocked", or he's just mistaken. At best. 2) I can't even parse the nonsense about Substack scraping twitter. It makes no sense on multiple levels. There's no real way they're trying to download a "massive portion" of Twitter's content, there's no way they're "downloading the Twitter database", there's no way they only have a single IP address, and this block isn't about IP addresses, it's about domain names, or in the case of the search bans, actual words. And also, there's no reason why they'd want or need to do whatever he's accusing them of to start their Notes product. This is so garbled is hard to even call it wrong. 3) Taibbi isn't a Substack employee. Not that it'd particular matter if he was, but he's not. I'm honestly at a loss. This is so goofy and obviously wrong it's hard to figure out if Musk just believes his target audience will happily swallow nonsense and so has no need to make up plausible lies, or if Musk actually believes this stuff.
- lapcat 4y ago
  > if Musk just believes his target audience will happily swallow nonsense and so has no need to make up plausible lies Yes. See the replies/QTs/RTs from his fans, and see politics for other examples of this phenomenon. Also, the news media will dutifully repeat and spread lies even while "debunking" them.
- d23 4y ago
  I believe the lies are the point. The more his supporters swallow one lie, the more invested they get. The fabrication and fantasy of it all becomes part of the thrill of the narrative. Then he tells lies that are increasingly more absurd and obvious. The reality denying is the point and proof of unwavering fealty.
- bambax 4y ago
  > In fact you can't even search for the word substack I found this hard to believe so I tested it, and it's true... if you search for "substack" on Twitter you find instances of the word "newsletter". It's both hilarious and sad.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Mizoguchi 4y ago
Substack has been very controversial in the past, making very questionable /shady decisions to growth the platform. Not that Twitter and other social networks don't operate under the same grow-at-all-cost mindset, but thinking that Substack is in fair disadvantage here or that Elon's Twitter is just trying to kill a good upcoming platform is naive. Behind these companies are billionaires fighting for their new shiny toy, if anything it should be hilarious to watch them.
- bee_rider 4y ago
  Substack seems to host some better writing, and at least appears to be trying to come up with a fundamentally healthier business model than “ads I guess.” Who involved in Substack is a billionaire? Their CEO seems to be a youngish guy, maybe a millionaire. Not company is perfect of course but Substack seems less bad for society than Twitter. I mean Twitter also started out as non-evil, so maybe Substack will get there eventually…
  - Mizoguchi 4y ago
    No doubt there's great content on Substack, but good content is not what makes Twitter so popular. Paul Graham and Marc Andreessen are two big names behind Substack. At $650M valuation burning through $25M per year, unable to raise more funds and without a strategy on how to ever generate revenue with a subscription model, the only reasonable way forward for Substack is ads and low quality content that can appeal to the masses. Just like Twitter.
evantbyrne 4y ago
Besides not making any sense on a basic level, I'm also skeptical they would have even detected scraping unless it was truly massive. Back when I worked with the Southern Poverty Law Center, they scraped large amounts of data from Twitter to trace extremist networks, and they never ran into access issues.
- Lazare 4y ago
  Especially after their staffing cuts. Even if Substack was doing something (doubtful), and it was so large scale as to show up in their reports and dashboards (extremely unlikely), who's left to look at the reports and notice?
rchaud 4y ago
He's nearing "I backtraced their IP" levels of older person tech talk. [0] [0]https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/jessi-slaughter-cyberbulling-controversy https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/jessi-slaughter-cyberb...
- darreninthenet 4y ago
  And don't forget his uncle works for Nintendo!

andsoitis 4y ago

> Elon has made an utterly incomprehensible statement delirium

toomuchtodo 4y ago
Wine and Ambien evening. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/872260000491593728 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/872260000491593728
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- morkalork 4y ago
  Ambien is like crack for white middle class and up people.
papito 4y ago
His actions and words also resemble those of a person dangerously sleep-deprived, but maybe it's just Elon being Elon.

VWWHFSfQ 4y ago

Oh shit they wget'd twitter?? from the IP address?!?

ffssffss 4y ago
Yeah, you know, the Substack IP address. You look it up in the Yellow Pages.
- philistine 4y ago
  Elon talks about IP adresses like my wife, who is blissfully unaware of its intricacies. I mean, each person and company gets one IP address so we can track them, right? Right?
ouid 4y ago
wgot? whad?
FartyMcFarter 4y ago
You can download all of Google (and therefore all of the Internet) with: wget 8.8.8.8 Make sure to have enough hard drive space before you run this, or you could irreversibly damage your computer.
- rchaud 4y ago
  Fake news, I have been to Google's campus and my Wifi showed an IP starting with 192. /s
  - doublerabbit 4y ago
    I'm waiting 127.0.0.1 to finish. 34 years later and still downloading.

angulardragon03 4y ago

This statement also carries so many implications. Is the Twitter database public? Can I also download from the Twitter database? Has Twitter now had a data leak? Does Substack just use a single IP that Twitter has... blocked?

surrealize 4y ago
If you're making a twitter clone (as Substack is) then scraping the twitter follower graph seems useful. And that's public, obviously.
- bigbillheck 4y ago
  > seems useful How so?
  - Retr0id 4y ago
    Help users port over their own social graphs, and assist recommendations.
- medler 4y ago
  Substack’s CEO has denied any improper use of the Twitter APIs. Given Elon’s long and storied history of making things up, this allegation seems likely to be another fabulation.
  - surrealize 4y ago
    Well, is scraping Twitter an improper use? Anyone can see tweets and who follows who - that's public. Twitter might consider a nascent competitor trying to scrape a significant fraction of the whole thing unfriendly though.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
VWWHFSfQ 4y ago
Probably using the oauth tokens they get from substack users that connect their twitter to spider and download the API. Cambridge Analytica-style.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

RivieraKid 4y ago

He's a notorious gaslighter.

fundad 4y ago

This is a Unix system, I know this.

dorkwood 4y ago
Fun fact: that infamous scene from Jurassic Park featured a real file manager for Unix, known as fsn. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsn_(file_manager) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsn_(file_manager)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

He’s accusing Substack of trying to scrape the Twitter database, and therefore nobody can like or retweet Substack posts because their “IP address is obviously untrusted”? This is the kind of explanation that sounds good when you give it to a close circle of yes-men who won’t dare disagree with you, but falls flat when posted somewhere that anybody can think about critically. Also, the pandering replies from the social media grifters trying hard to break into Elon’s inner circle are just sad: > Got it. Please DM so we can take this private.

papito 4y ago
Hey, he wrote C in the 90's, yo. Don't you dare question him!!!
jollofricepeas 4y ago
This is what modern corporate cancel culture looks like. Billionaires buy media companies and politicians for a reason. Its the same reason, totalitarian govs control their media and politicians. The playbook is the same: 1. Make an individual decision against an individual, group or organization (ie. target) 2. Make your plea to the masses using your platform of choice to stoke fear, hatred or worst (complacency) with your policy 3. Act violently, disingenuously towards your target We have not evolved beyond lynching in America. We just do it differently now.
prox 4y ago
I honestly don’t think Twitter is a good place to be on seriously/professionally anymore. LinkedIn wins on that front right now for me.

dorkwood 4y ago

I wouldn’t be surprised if this was part of his plan, though. If he appears technically incompetent in a public fashion, it means his opponents are likely to underestimate him. As Sun Tzu said, when you are strong, appear weak.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
lapcat 4y ago
> I wouldn’t be surprised if this was part of his plan, though. If he appears technically incompetent in a public fashion, it means his opponents are likely to underestimate him. This gives the appearance of a quasi-religious belief. How would you ever refute it empirically? Death and destruction and suffering are all part of God's plan, right? We mere mortals cannot understand it, we just have to take it on faith.
rchaud 4y ago
Never attribute to 4D chess that which is adequately explained by industrial-strength hubris.

barbariangrunge 4y ago

The full tweet is > 1. Substack links were never blocked. Matt’s statement is false. > 2. Substack was trying to download a massive portion of the Twitter database to bootstrap their Twitter clone, so their IP address is obviously untrusted. > 3. Turns out Matt is/was an employee of Substack.

Lazare 4y ago

Incomprehensible is the polite version. 1) Substack links are blocked and restricted. I've personally confirmed this, as have countless others. In fact you can't even search for the word substack (or tweets made by Taibbi!) right now. Musk is either attempting some sort of deeply disenguous argument about the meaning of the word "blocked", or he's just mistaken. At best. 2) I can't even parse the nonsense about Substack scraping twitter. It makes no sense on multiple levels. There's no real way they're trying to download a "massive portion" of Twitter's content, there's no way they're "downloading the Twitter database", there's no way they only have a single IP address, and this block isn't about IP addresses, it's about domain names, or in the case of the search bans, actual words. And also, there's no reason why they'd want or need to do whatever he's accusing them of to start their Notes product. This is so garbled is hard to even call it wrong. 3) Taibbi isn't a Substack employee. Not that it'd particular matter if he was, but he's not. I'm honestly at a loss. This is so goofy and obviously wrong it's hard to figure out if Musk just believes his target audience will happily swallow nonsense and so has no need to make up plausible lies, or if Musk actually believes this stuff.

lapcat 4y ago
> if Musk just believes his target audience will happily swallow nonsense and so has no need to make up plausible lies Yes. See the replies/QTs/RTs from his fans, and see politics for other examples of this phenomenon. Also, the news media will dutifully repeat and spread lies even while "debunking" them.
d23 4y ago
I believe the lies are the point. The more his supporters swallow one lie, the more invested they get. The fabrication and fantasy of it all becomes part of the thrill of the narrative. Then he tells lies that are increasingly more absurd and obvious. The reality denying is the point and proof of unwavering fealty.
bambax 4y ago
> In fact you can't even search for the word substack I found this hard to believe so I tested it, and it's true... if you search for "substack" on Twitter you find instances of the word "newsletter". It's both hilarious and sad.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Mizoguchi 4y ago

Substack has been very controversial in the past, making very questionable /shady decisions to growth the platform. Not that Twitter and other social networks don't operate under the same grow-at-all-cost mindset, but thinking that Substack is in fair disadvantage here or that Elon's Twitter is just trying to kill a good upcoming platform is naive. Behind these companies are billionaires fighting for their new shiny toy, if anything it should be hilarious to watch them.

bee_rider 4y ago
Substack seems to host some better writing, and at least appears to be trying to come up with a fundamentally healthier business model than “ads I guess.” Who involved in Substack is a billionaire? Their CEO seems to be a youngish guy, maybe a millionaire. Not company is perfect of course but Substack seems less bad for society than Twitter. I mean Twitter also started out as non-evil, so maybe Substack will get there eventually…
- Mizoguchi 4y ago
  No doubt there's great content on Substack, but good content is not what makes Twitter so popular. Paul Graham and Marc Andreessen are two big names behind Substack. At $650M valuation burning through $25M per year, unable to raise more funds and without a strategy on how to ever generate revenue with a subscription model, the only reasonable way forward for Substack is ads and low quality content that can appeal to the masses. Just like Twitter.

evantbyrne 4y ago

Besides not making any sense on a basic level, I'm also skeptical they would have even detected scraping unless it was truly massive. Back when I worked with the Southern Poverty Law Center, they scraped large amounts of data from Twitter to trace extremist networks, and they never ran into access issues.

Lazare 4y ago
Especially after their staffing cuts. Even if Substack was doing something (doubtful), and it was so large scale as to show up in their reports and dashboards (extremely unlikely), who's left to look at the reports and notice?

rchaud 4y ago

He's nearing "I backtraced their IP" levels of older person tech talk. [0] [0]https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/jessi-slaughter-cyberbulling-controversy https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/jessi-slaughter-cyberb...

darreninthenet 4y ago
And don't forget his uncle works for Nintendo!