The Blog Experiment | Technology Nonsense and Internet Tripe

Controversial social media influencer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan are being moved to house arrest, following a ruling by a Romanian judge on Friday. The brothers had been detained in a Romanian jail for the last three months following their arrests on suspicion of human trafficking and organized crime. The two won their appeal to replace their detention with house arrest, the Associated Press reports.A spokesperson with Romania’s anti-organized crime agency, DIICOT told the AP that The Bucharest Court of Appeal ruled in favor of Tate’s appeal, which challenged a judge’s decision last week to extend his arrest a fourth time for 30 days. Tate’s lawyer contended that detaining them in pre-trial detention was excessively severe considering that alternative judicial measures like being placed under house arrest were possible. SEE ALSO: Who is Andrew Tate? And why is the controversial figure taking over TikTok? Following his release, Andrew Tate took to social media, posting a surreal video of the influencer pacing around his living room. He tweeted: “Since last year I’ve been in 24-hour lockdown. No yard time. Pacing a 3-metre cell with zero electronics or outside contact. Absolute clarity of mind. Real thoughts. Real plans. Vivid pain. One hour home and I can’t stand my phone. Some habits die hard. We must defeat Shaytan.” Tweet may have been deleted (opens in a new tab) His brother Tristan also tweeted following his release saying “4 months without putting on a pair of alligator shoes. The struggle was real.” Tweet…Andrew Tate and brother out of jail and on house arrest

When Twitter announced it would no longer provide free API access, some disappointed third-party developers said that they would have to deactivate fun bots they had made in their spare time.When Twitter rolled out the pricing for its paid API tiers last week, many indie developers announced they would have to shut down apps they had made for the platform. These distraught devs included those that had created services making hundreds to thousands of dollars a month, as the new API subscription tiers from Twitter would even priced them out.Now, the Elon Musk-owned company has seemingly cut off API access to even some of the largest Twitter-based apps – including some that wanted to pay the exorbitant new fees which start at $42,000 per month.On early Tuesday morning, a number of tech founders found that Twitter had suspended their apps from accessing the Twitter API. Twitter previously said last week that it would “deprecate current access” to the old free Twitter API day plans over the next 30 days. However, the move to suspend the API access today took many by surprise. Perhaps the most surprised, though, are the few developers who actually agreed to pay Twitter tens of thousands of dollars per month. Tweet may have been deleted (opens in a new tab) “Tweet Hunter has been banned from Twitter,” tweeted the founder of the Twitter content-creating web app TweetHunter.io. “5,426 Twitter power users are affected. No warning, no email, nada. We have no idea why.”Enterprise plan applicants were cut…Twitter cuts many app developers' API access, even those willing to pay $42,000 per month

Immediately after Elon Musk sat down at his throne made of doge and began slashing through everything we liked about Twitter, people began looking for alternatives. Is Mastodon where we go? Is everyone moving to Hive Social? Will we simply be forced to participate in Instagram Notes?That’s about the time Substack, a newsletter platform, launched its chat function, a space for Substack writers and creators to host Twitter-like conversations with their subscribers. It was — and still is — a space that feels a lot like AOL Instant Messenger or a group chat, and looks a lot like Reddit. It wasn’t exactly a social media substitute, though. In fact, when Chat launched, Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie told Mashable that he thinks “people are kind of fed up with it all in the public brawl of social media, and the idea of having a space where you can hang out with the people who actually want to be hanging out with you and talking about the things that you have a shared interest in … having that greater control. It’s just more fun.” Now, Substack is launching a new feature that actually is a lot like other social media feeds: Notes. Newsletter writers can already recommend publications through Substack’s Recommendations feature, but the Notes feature will “give them the power to recommend almost anything — including posts, quotes, comments, images, links, and ideas,” co-founders Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, and Jairaj Sethi wrote in the announcement. The feature will be available to all…Substack launches a new Notes feature

On April 1, Twitter owner Elon Musk was supposed to strip all legacy verified accounts of their blue checkmark badges. However, that didn’t happen. It’s unclear as to why Musk backtracked on this date. But, maybe this has something to do with it.Only 12,305 of roughly 420,000 legacy verified accounts have subscribed to a paid Twitter Blue plan as of Tuesday. That’s just above 3 percent of the celebrities, pro athletes, influencers, and media personalities who make up the platform’s power users.While Twitter Blue does provide some additional features such as being able to edit tweets and write longer posts, the major selling point promoted to users is the ability to simply get a checkmark next to your username by paying $8 per month (or $11 on mobile devices.) The latest Twitter Blue data comes from independent researcher Travis Brown, who has been tracking Twitter data since January. Brown’s data accounts for roughly 90 percent of all Twitter Blue subscribers. Previous internal Twitter Blue data leaks have matched with Brown’s estimates.If one adds government accounts with grey verified badges and business accounts which appear alongside a gold checkmark to the pool of legacy verified Twitter Blue subscribers, those numbers go up just slightly to around 15,000 users (or 3 and a half percent of these accounts in total).Again, this is after Elon Musk threatened to take away approximately 420,000 users’ verified blue checkmark badges. And this is also following Musk’s announcement that only Twitter Blue subscribers would be promoted in Twitter’s default…Twitter failed to scare legacy verified accounts into paying for Twitter Blue

One of the main upcoming features touted by Twitter for users who subscribe to Twitter Blue has been the ability to see less advertising.When owner Elon Musk announced the $8 per month paid subscription service (or $11 per month on mobile) shortly after acquiring the company last year, he specifically said that subscribers get “half as many ads.”Now that Twitter has finally shared details of the ad removal feature, we know that’s not actually the case.  Tweet may have been deleted (opens in a new tab) As first spotted by TechCrunch, Twitter has updated its About Twitter Blue help page which includes more information about the “half ads” feature that’s rolling out. And, as it turns out, subscribers are not actually getting “half ads.”Here’s the entire section with the details:Half ads: See approximately 50% fewer ads in the For You and Following timelines. As you scroll, you will see approximately twice as many organic or non-promoted Tweets placed in between promoted Tweets or ads. There may be times when there are more or fewer non-promoted Tweets between promoted Tweets. The half ads feature does not apply to promoted content elsewhere on Twitter, including but not limited to ads on profiles, ads in Tweet replies, promoted events in Explore, promoted trends, and promoted accounts to follow. Blue subscribers will have access to this feature after their account has been reviewed for eligibility and the blue checkmark has been applied.Let’s pick it apart.The first thing to notice is that this only affects…Elon Musk said Twitter Blue subscribers would see 'half as many ads.' That's not true.

It appears that Twitter may currently be feuding with the newsletter platform Substack.Substack writers began noticing that they were no longer able to embed tweets when creating a post on Substack yesterday. While this could’ve been just a technical issue, perhaps related to Twitter switching over to its new yet heavily-criticized API plans, it appears now that something more is going on here.Twitter is now blocking likes, retweets, and comments on tweets that include a link to a Substack newsletter. In addition, Twitter users cannot pin a tweet that includes a Substack link to their profile.The timing of these issues, which seem to solely be affecting Substack links, is peculiar. Just one day before these Twitter errors started appearing, Substack announced a new feature called Substack Notes. It basically brings a social media-like feed with tweet-like posts to the newsletter platform. It’s not exactly a Twitter competitor, as it exists within the newsletter platform’s ecosystem, but it sure does look like one.Yesterday, when Mashable reached out to Substack regarding the embed tweet issue, a spokesperson provided us with the following statement. Tweet may have been deleted (opens in a new tab) “We’re investigating reports that Twitter embeds and authentication no longer work on Substack,” the Substack spokesperson said. “We are actively trying to resolve this and will share updates as additional information becomes available.”Today, however, when Mashable reached out regarding the blocked interactions on tweets that include Substack links, we received a statement from Substack’s founders Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie,…Twitter appears to be going to war with Substack

There’s enough happening at Twitter today for a whole season of an HBO drama.The relationship between Elon Musk and his lead Twitter Files writer has ended over Musk’s decision to block interactions on tweets that include links to Substack.As a result of Twitter’s actions against Substack today, writer Matt Taibbi has left Twitter and said he will solely be using Substack going forward. In response, Musk unfollowed Taibbi’s Twitter account. Tweet may have been deleted (opens in a new tab) Earlier today, Mashable reported that Twitter was seemingly blocking all interactions on tweets that included links to the newsletter platform Substack. Many Twitter users run newsletters through Substack, including Matt Taibbi, the writer Elon Musk hand picked to lead coverage of the Twitter Files. For those who haven’t been following, the Twitter Files are Musk’s curated internal documents from before he took over the company that supposedly show various levels of government interference or bias from previous Twitter executives. (We should note that what has been released shows basic content moderation policies being acted on without anything nefarious going on. While one can certainly disagree with Twitter’s policy decisions, the released documents do not prove that any government agencies forced the company’s hand.) Tweet may have been deleted (opens in a new tab) Interestingly, the feud between Taibbi and Musk comes just one day after the former appeared on MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan’s cable news shot where Hasan pressed Taibbi on various errors in his Twitter Files reporting. During the show,…Elon Musk apparently on the outs with Matt Taibbi over Twitter-Substack feud

The Twitter versus Substack battle rages on, as the social media app seemingly continues to discourage promoting offsite Substack posts by marking all site links as “unsafe” for users. On April 7, Twitter appeared to add a warning to all external Substack links, the Verge reported, prompting users to steer clear of the platform and describing them as possibly “spammy or unsafe.” Elon Musk later denied claims that the site was blocking Substack links, tweeting on Saturday: 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.Substack co-founder Chris Best then rejected Musk’s claim that Substack was downloading Twitter data outside of the bounds of its API database. “We believe we’re in compliance with the terms, but if they have any specific concerns we would love to know about them! We’d be happy to address any issues,” wrote Best. Tweet may have been deleted (opens in a new tab) Earlier this week, the newsletter platform seemed to initiate the final straw against Twitter by launching its new Substack Notes feature — a “recommendations” feed that looks strikingly similar to the traditional, scrollable social feed at the crux of Twitter’s use. As many seek to leave the Elon Musk-owned social media app, Substack seemed to be providing alternatives, including a recently launched chat function that lets newsletter…Twitter flags Substack links as unsafe as feud continues

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Poor Matt Taibbi. He destroyed his credibility to take on the Twitter Files, and did so in part to raise the profile of his Substack site, Racket News. Indeed, Substack has become a home for nonsense peddlers of all kinds to create their own little bubbles of nonsense. In congressional testimony, Taibbi admitted that having Elon Musk hand pick him to deliver the “Twitter Files” has increased the number of paying subscribers to his Substack (though he defended it by claiming that the money has all gone towards journalism). But… apparently Elon has decided that no one on Twitter is allowed to even like or reply to any tweet that links to a Substack site. Including to Taibbi’s. Oops. Let’s back up, though. You may recall that back in December, as the number of people deserting Twitter became scary, Twitter instituted a new policy saying that you were not allowed to mention a somewhat arbitrary and random grab bag of other social media sites. A day or so later, after many people yelled about it (and his Mom was the only one defending it), Elon rolled back that policy, admitting that it “was a mistake.” Of course, since then, he’s systematically moved to make it more and more difficult to move to services like Mastodon, but at least people are still able to link to Mastodon and other social media. But now, suddenly Substack is a problem? Twitter will still allow users to send a tweet with a link to…Elon Musk Blocks Likes And Replies To Tweets That Link To Substack In A Pique Of Pettiness