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Jelly Roll Social Media Twitter

Jelly Roll leaves Twitter: ‘most toxic app… safe place for everyone to say mean sh-t’




We can add Jelly Roll to the list of people who have had enough of the Elon Era of Twitter. The singer, fed up with how sh-tty people are on the platform, has decided to peace the F out, calling Twitter “the most toxic negative app to exist ever.” He also called it a “safe place for everyone to say mean sh-t to each other.” Well, he’s not wrong! Just prior to Jelly’s decision to leave, people had been giving him a hard time over pictures he posted with Jack Black while backstage at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. Over the weekend, he had to contend with crazy conspiracies after he complained about the music industry and earlier this year, he took a social media break after commenters were bullying him about his weight.

“This is for sure the most toxic negative app to exist ever — PERIOD. Lol,” Jelly Roll wrote on X Oct. 20. “This place is different man, I always heard it was the Wild West on here but man it’s insane. It’s a safe place for everyone to say mean s–t to each other with no consequences. I’m out lol.”

Shortly before the “Save Me” singer’s announcement, he had been posting photos from his appearance at the 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, where he performed “Mama, I’m Coming Home” as a part of his Ozzy Osbourne tribute. After sharing a backstage photo with his band and Jack Black with the caption, “This is crazy,” one commenter replied, writing, “Jack Black looking real uncomfortable.”

“Jack Black hung out with us for 10 hours in the green room,” Jelly Roll, whose real name is Jason Bradley DeFord, replied, “Coolest most comfortable dude I’ve ever met in my life lol.”

The singer’s announcement comes just days after an Oct. 18 tweet of his gained attention when he wrote, “Learned a lot about how slimy the music business is this week, don’t worry yall know I’m going to expose it soon. This whole thing is smoke and mirrors yall. All that s–t Russ be talking about is REAL!”

He later replied to the tweet on Oct. 19, adding, “Man yall made a mountain out of a molehill with this one. All these weirdly over dramatic comments about selling souls and satanic weird s–t is just weird . lol. I’ll be talking about all this on my wife’s podcast soon.”

Jelly Roll’s Instagram account is still active with the singer boasting 3.4 million followers.

This isn’t the first time Jelly Roll has taken a break from social media.

“My husband got off the Internet because he is so tired of being bullied about his f–king weight,” Jelly Roll’s wife Bunnie XO said in an April 22 TikTok promoting her April 24 episode of her Dumb Blonde podcast. “That makes me want to cry because he is the sweetest angel baby.”

Bunnie, whose real name is Alisa DeFord, shared that the online critics affect her husband.

“He doesn’t show it to you guys but I’m gonna have a very vulnerable moment here,” she continued. “It hurts him. The Internet can say whatever the f–k they want about you and they say ‘well you’re a celebrity, you’re supposed to be able to handle it,’—no the f–k you’re not.”

[From E! News]

First off, I had no idea that Jelly Roll was married to Bunnie XO, so I learned something new today. Anyway, I don’t blame him! His fans can still interact with him through other platforms, so why does he need to deal with all of that negativity? I still check in with accounts that I respect and follow because I like to read what they have to say, but I don’t engage very much anymore beyond just “liking” a Tweet. It’s not worth the headache of the bots or the Blue Check Bro a-holes who apparently have literally nothing better to do all day beyond harassing strangers online. And a lot of the protections against harassment have been lessened or taken away. It’s easy for someone like me to make my account private to help prevent unwanted engagement and just lurk. I can only imagine how annoying it is for journalists or celebrities (the ones who manage their own social media accounts) to have to deal with the constant toxicity. I don’t blame Jelly for leaving. Good for him.

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Photos credit: Jerry Perez/Avalon, Getty and via Instagram

Categories
Elon Musk Twitter

Twitter plans to no longer hide your public posts from accounts you’ve blocked




Sometimes I truly wonder whether or not Elon Musk wakes up each day and wonders, “What terrible ideas should I implement today?” While I do think he’s purposely ruining Twitter, sometimes I wonder if he just likes to f-ck with people. Eh, who am I kidding? It’s probably both. Anyway, Elon’s latest genius business move is to have Twitter no longer hide any of your public posts from any account that you’ve blocked. In the past, if you blocked someone, they had to log out or create a new account in order to see any of your public posts. Now, the workaround has been removed, so whatever creeper you’ve blocked will still be able to stalk you. They just can’t “engage” with you anymore.

X will soon change the functionality behind its block button so that if you block an account, they will still be able to see your public posts, according to changes to X’s website spotted by independent app researcher Nima Owji. Elon Musk confirmed these changes on Monday, noting that blocked accounts will still not be able to engage with users who have blocked them, but they will soon be able to see their posts.

“The block function will block that account from engaging with, but not block seeing, [a] public post,” said Musk in a tweet on Monday.

Owji says users soon may not see the “You’re blocked…” message when visiting an account of a user who has blocked them, he tells TechCrunch via a DM (direct message) on X. Instead, blocked users will see the account’s public posts, like they were any other user. There will likely still be limitations in reposting, quoting, replying, or engaging with blocked accounts. It’s unclear at this time when the change will take place.

Musk said in his tweet on Monday that it was “high time this happened.” Previously, if a public account blocked a user, that user could simply log out and view the public account’s tweets all the same. There was an easily avoidable workaround, but now X appears to be removing that function altogether.

Roughly 10 years ago, when X was still called Twitter, the platform made similar changes to the block feature that were swiftly reversed. In 2013, Twitter updated its policy to allow blocked users to see content, follow, and even engage with those who have blocked them. The account that blocked them would not be able to see these engagements, but others would. At the time, Twitter reportedly called an emergency meeting due to backlash about the blocking update, and quickly reversed its policy to keep stronger blocks in effect.

Today’s update from X does not go this far — engagements are still not allowed under blocks, according to Musk — but some may not be thrilled about the changes. Social media users often use the block feature to distance themselves from harassers, abusers, or stalkers. Under these new changes to blocking, those barriers will be softened.

[From Tech Crunch]

I mean, at this point, he has to be tanking Twitter on purpose, right? Is there really no one over there that can tell him something is a bad idea? What does Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino do all damn day? We block people for a reason and that’s usually because of harassment, safety, or the general desire not to engage. Legal bitches, is there some sort of right to privacy law being violated here? Or does it not matter because of some stupid terms of agreement loophole? Elon has consistently made the platform slower and more dangerous, and it’s all for his own sick enjoyment. I bet part of it is ego, too, because now he’s forcing people who’ve blocked him to see his Tweets and he theirs. And yet, the one thing he does protect is letting people see what posts a user has “liked,” which we all know is so that all of the absolute worst people on his platform can like the most hateful, disgusting posts, free from any accountability. Ugh. You can set your profile to private, friends. That’s still safe until Space Karen somehow figures out a way to take that away, too.

Elon found out that most of us had him blocked.

— Randi White (@RandiWhite) September 23, 2024

some engineer showed elon that he was the most blocked account on the platform and he got mad https://t.co/Y8KIYj2ySe

— QuoProQuid (@TNOQuoProQuid) September 23, 2024

so if someone blocked their stalker, the stalker can still stalk them? wow this is a great feature https://t.co/5YXW2wj3iB

— taylor (@wishescametrue) September 23, 2024

Photos credit: IMAGO/Juergen Hasenkopf / Avalon and Olivier Huitel / Avalon

Categories
Business Elon Musk Technology Twitter

The Twitter/X app has been delisted from the Mac App Store and is no longer available

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Ahoy! There’s more Twitter/X drama on the horizon! According to reports, the Mac version of the website’s app is no longer accessible in the App Store, meaning that it has likely been “officially delisted.” This means that if you need to download Twitter (or, ugh, X) onto your Macbook to use as a desktop app, you can no longer do so. Instead, you will have to go through your browser if you want to use the service. If you already have the Macbook App version downloaded, you should still be able to use it right now. However, since it hasn’t been updated in over a year, it will only last until an iOS update renders it incompatible.

X (formerly Twitter) can no longer be accessed in the Mac App Store, suggesting that it has been officially delisted.

Searches for both “Twitter” and “X” on Apple’s platform no longer surface the app. The URL no longer works, either. Instead, it displays a pop-up message indicating that it is unavailable. This means new users can no longer download the service, instead having to rely on the browser-based version.

Some who already have the app installed reported they can still use it. Others, meanwhile, have reported that utilizing the iPad version on MacOS could potentially cause its own issues.

X has not confirmed when the app was delisted and has not yet responded to TechCrunch’s request for comment.

Today may mark the end of the company’s Mac app — which many users have complained was buggy. After Elon Musk rebranded Twitter to X in 2023, the new name was implemented across all platforms except for the Mac app, which had not seen an update in roughly a year.

It’s unclear if X plans to disable functionality for the Twitter for Mac app altogether. We’ll update when more information is available.

[From Tech Crunch]

I have both a Macbook and an iPhone and tested Twitter’s app out on both. I can still open Twitter from my phone and the app still shows up for me in the iPhone App Store, but if I go into the Mac App Store, I also get the error message mentioned, saying that the Twitter app is “no longer available” in my region. It’s not surprising to me that Elon “Always Looking at the Bigger Picture” Musk wouldn’t give two craps about keeping his platform available through all devices. I always found the app to be buggy, though, so on desktop/laptop, I’ve been using Twitter in my browser since the very beginning. I just deleted the long-dormant app from my Applications folder, so that felt nice to send to the trash.

In early 2023, Twitter revoked third-party apps’ access to API (Application Programming Interface), which basically killed most of the third-party client apps from running it. I had friends that used Twitterrific from its inception and were upset to lose it. I also remember TweetDeck, which let you view different accounts at one time and morphed into XPro. Part of me wants to laugh about how badly Elon Musk has purposefully run Twitter into the ground while the other part of me is sad that something that was (and still can be) a source of news, camaraderie, and community is being slowly phased out before our very eyes.

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Categories
Richard Simmons Twitter

Richard Simmons clarifies comment that he’s dying: ‘we should embrace every day’




Richard Simmons sent the interwebs into a frenzy on Monday when he tweeted that he was dying. You see, the public mistakenly took that to mean… that he was dying. But he’s not! Well, he is, in the sense that “we all are dying,” as he further said in his post. But the point is he is not presently dying. He just wanted to inspire us all to seize the day and take care of our health. And he never meant to cause upset or confusion by posting a nuanced message on Twitter that could have ambiguous interpretations. Are we clear now?

Richard Simmons got social media users working up a sweat.

The beloved fitness personality — who rose to fame in the 1970s and ‘80s thanks to his eccentric and energetic personality and his accessible at-home “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” line of aerobics videos — posted a cryptic message Monday on X, formerly Twitter, that confused and concerned a lot of users.

“I have some news to tell you. Please don’t be sad. I am …dying,” Simmons began his post. “Oh I can see your faces now. The truth is we all are dying. Every day we live we are getting closer to our death. Why am I telling you this?”

Although some wrote off the post as just a joke — especially since Simmons followed up that tweet with a thread of health tips — its wording never specifies whether Simmons is just trying to make light of the fleetingness of life or an actual life-threatening diagnosis.

It was especially bewildering because Richards has been reclusive from public life since 2014, as was pointed out in Dan Taberski’s popular 2017 podcast, “Missing Richard Simmons.”

The tweet even seemed to confuse media outlets that reached out to Simmons’ reps to verify whether or not the 75-year-old aerobics instructor was in good health.

The tweet seemed to cause such a fiasco that hours later, Simmons tweeted a clarification.

“Sorry many of you have gotten upset about my message today. Even the press has gotten in touch with me,” Simmons wrote. “I am not dying. It was a message about saying how we should embrace every day that we have. Sorry for this confusion.”

Tom Estey, a spokesman for Simmons, clarified to CNN that Simmons is fine.

“I can confirm with one hundred percent certainty that Richard is not dying,” Estey told CNN. “He’s, in fact, very healthy and happy. The sole purpose of the post was meant to be inspirational.”

[From HuffPost]

To be fair to Richard, a quick perusal of his Twitter shows that he routinely posts inspirationally-styled messages. So his explanation about Monday’s tweet makes sense when taken in the context of all his be-good-to-yourself tweets. Furthermore, Richard has been mainly a private person for the past 10 years. He doesn’t want the spotlight these days. He just wants to drop into people’s feeds here and there to remind everyone to give themselves a hug, or relay the all-plot, no-drama story of how he bought his first Barbra Streisand record. With this particular tweet, Richard’s words and tone didn’t make sense on the platform the way they did in his head. And then Twitter did what Twitter does. I hope Richard dusts off his spandex and keeps sharing his somewhat random yet overall positive anecdotes.

All that said, did I miss a horoscope reading foretelling that Monday March 18 would be a day to fact check death announcements? Cause that sounds more like some Ides of March sh*t to me! The day began with King Charles III being cast out by a (likely) Russian disinformation campaign, and then Fitness King Richard the First fell on the sword (of his own words). I’m dubbing it the Ides of Twitter. Beware!!

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photos credit: Getty and Optic Photos, PacificCoastNews / Avalon, Dominic Chan / Wenn / Avalon

Categories
Elon Musk MacKenzie Scott Twitter

Elon Musk thinks MacKenzie Scott is awful for giving her money to charity




In local news, a deplorable man has continued to be deplorable. On Wednesday, Elon “Elno” Musk decided to go after Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott. As you may remember, MacKenzie received $38 Billion-with-a-capital-B from her divorce in 2019. Over the past five years, she has taken that money and donated more than $16.5 billion across at least 1,900 different charities and organizations worldwide, including the NAACP legal Defense and Education Fund, European Climate Foundation, RAINN, several different small HBCUs, food banks, Planned Parenthood, and many, many more. It was pretty badass, considering how many of the ultra wealthy choose to donate to their own charities for tax write-offs.

Well, for some reason, Space Karen woke up and decided to get very mad at the rich woman who decided to give her money away to actually help people. So what happened was this: Apartheid Clyde, snowflake that he is, was triggered by a Twitter user complaining about Mac’s donations to “woke” organizations. We all know how excited Musk gets at the chance to give a good DEI rant, so he just couldn’t help himself from commenting on it.

On Wednesday, an X user complained that Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife is giving money to organizations that “deal with issues of race and/or gender,” deriding her gifts as “the ultimate expression of the most awful group in the US.”

“‘Super rich ex-wives who hate their former spouse’ should filed [sic] be listed among ‘Reasons that Western Civilization died,’” Musk wrote in response, according to a capture of the post available through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.

As of Thursday morning, Musk’s original post is no longer available on X.

The Tesla boss has been extremely critical of efforts related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Last month, for example, he publicly accused Bezos’ Amazon of “killing creativity with draconian DEI restrictions on content” weeks after he separately claimed that “DEI is just another word for racism.”

Musk has also previously expressed opposition to aspects of Scott’s philanthropy. In May 2022, after announcing he planned to vote Republican because of “unprovoked attacks” against him by leading Democrats and a “very cold shoulder” given to SpaceX and Tesla, he said he believed the hostility toward his companies was partly explained by “Mackenzie’s donation to PACs posing as charities.”

“It’s safe to say that Mackenzie [ahem] Scott is not exactly a big fan of her ex-husband,” he added in another post. “Unfortunately, a lot of others are getting caught in the crossfire.”

[From The Daily Beast]

Ole Jeffy Poo lives in Elon’s mind rent-free but I guess he saved some space for MacKenzie too. I don’t even know what else to say at this point other than to roll my eyes at their bigoted bro-y tears and laugh that someone made him take it down. Like, WTF does he care what another billionaire does with their money? It’s not like he’s capable of feeling any shame that he’s not doing the same. So much money with so many companies to run, and he wastes time being obsessed with the Blue Check Bros liking him.

So in that spirit, here’s a list of things that Elno should be concerned about instead of how MacKenzie Scott spends her own money: His child custody battle with Grimes, discrimination lawsuits filed against X, SpaceX, and Tesla, multiple class action lawsuits filed against X for not paying people, Tesla’s autopilot system leading to people’s deaths, arson at his Berlin factory, the Cybertruck not being able to drive in snow, and being an all-around tool. Lordy, the man is practically a walking parody of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” (“We didn’t ru-in Twiiit-ter…).

On a more positive note, MacKenzie’s charity endeavors are updated through her Yield Giving website. She’s vowed to continue donating to causes until the “safe is empty.” That’s so awesome.

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Photos credit: Lukasz Gagulski/Avalon, Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon, DDP/INSTARimages.com and Getty

Categories
Dionne Warwick Elon Musk Twitter

Dionne Warwick wants to talk to Elon Musk to find out ‘what he wants to do’




I know that for many, if not most/all, of you, Twitter is no longer fun, thanks to the awful changes its troll of a new owner has made over the past year. I’m one of those people who keep torturing themselves by hanging on. I spent too many years cultivating a great list of people to follow, and there are so many decent people on there that quite frankly, I would miss reading what they have to say in 280 characters. I’m hoping BlueSky or one of the other alternatives ends up blowing up so I can just pack up my entire Twitter abode and seamlessly integrate into a new social media home. One of those accounts that I love following is Queen Dionne Warwick. She’s funny, witty, and not afraid to Tweet it like it is. Auntie Dionne likes being on Twitter too, and she has some things that she’d like to say to The New(ish) Guy in Charge.

You’ve become the Queen of Twitter, but with Elon Musk’s changes, are you still enjoying the platform?


I have yet to speak with Mr. Musk. I have sent a message that I’d like to talk to him, which really will let me know if I really want to stay. Because I don’t know exactly what it is that he wants to do with the format. So until I find that out, I’ve kind of been a little dormant, my tweets.

What’s your favorite Twitter account to follow?


I follow a lot of people. I love following the youngsters, and of course, those who are in the industry. I’ll jump in on their platform and make a comment. I’m watching them as well. There’s a variety of entities on that format specifically that I follow.

Is there a favorite tweet that you’ve put out that sticks with you?


I think everybody remembers the very first one that I did with Chance the Rapper. They said, “Oh, she knows who Chance the Rapper is?” Yeah, I know who Chance the Rapper is, and I thought I would just poke a little fun at him. If I had to think of one, that would probably be the first one of the celebrities that I poked a little fun with.

[From People]

If Dionne actually talks to Elon Musk, he better listen to what she has to say. Remember when he was bummed about not getting Stephen King’s respect? Well, he better treat Auntie Dionne like the goddess that she is or else he will have a multitude of Twitter communities make his life even more miserable than they do now. That woman called out people who talked during the “On Mute” challenge and got sassy about Leo’s alleged 25-year rule! She will have no trouble taking Elno down a peg or two if she deems it worth her time. I also love that she’s following the “youngsters” and those in the industry. She is the best.

I am everyone’s Auntie. ❤️

— Dionne Warwick (@dionnewarwick) January 2, 2021

Remember: If I follow you today, I can unfollow you tomorrow if foolishness is your thing. #dionnewarwick

— Dionne Warwick (@dionnewarwick) March 2, 2021

If you know that you are supposed to be “on mute”, why are some of you not doing so? ????

— Dionne Warwick (@dionnewarwick) August 17, 2023

If you know that you are supposed to be “on mute”, why are some of you not doing so? ????

— Dionne Warwick (@dionnewarwick) August 17, 2023

Photos credit: William T Wade Jr/startraksphoto.com/Cover Images, Darla Khazei/INSTARimages.com/Cover Images

Categories
Elon Musk Twitter

Twitter keeps getting sh-ttier, Musk removes article headlines

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The smartest, funniest man in the room is making smart, funny decisions again. For reasons that only a very stable genius can explain, The Artist Formerly Known As Twitter has stopped showing headlines for links that get posted on people’s timelines. Only the embedded picture shows up. Why? Because Elon Musk thinks it would make posts “look better.” Elno’s other great ideas include slowing down links to sites that he doesn’t like and possibly putting Twitter X behind a paywall and charging users a monthly fee. Everything’s going great, guys. Nothing to see here!

X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, has stopped showing headlines for links posted on the site, after site owner Elon Musk said it would make posts look better.

Links posted on Twitter now appear as the image included in the article, as well as text in the left-hand corner of the image noting the domain of the link. If users want to visit the page, they must click the image, but it only appears slightly different to how images uploaded to the site appear.

The change was made on Wednesday for iOS and desktop users. The new appearance appeared not to apply to advertisement links.

The move to remove headlines had been in the works since August. Following Forbes reports about the planned change, Musk tweeted: “This is coming from me directly. Will greatly improve the esthetics.”

X has become increasingly hostile for news organisations to use since Musk took over nearly one year ago. While never a major source of traffic for many news sites, the platform is used by most media organisations and reporters in news sharing and gathering, but reports suggest traffic has declined from Twitter since the takeover. In recent months, NPR and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) have pulled back on using the site.

[From The Guardian]

It’s all just so stupid. This change makes it even easier to spread misinformation, which is probably the entire point. But that goes two ways. As usual, Twitter users are trolling Elon, posting links with his picture on them and creating their own headlines to things like, “Elon Musk supports Joe Biden’s bid for re-election.” This could make for a very funny weekend on Space Karen’s platform.

I don’t exactly know what Elon’s end game is here, but I’m of the opinion that he’s intentionally trying to tank Twitter. I mean, he’s a complete jackass, but at this point, it feels like his entire shtick is to own the libs either for his own amusement or because those are his marching orders. The platform is estimated to be worth somewhere between $4 and $8 billion now, which is, oh, around $36 to $40 billion less than he paid for it. It’s said that some of Elno’s investors aren’t happy at all, so they may have had enough of his shenanigans. On Thursday, CEO-in-name-only Linda Yaccarino met with the banks that financed $13 out of that $44 billion to discuss plans to increase revenue. I’m no business expert, but taking Apartheid Clyde out of the equation seems like it would be a great place to start.

Twitter/X has officially removed article headlines on links shared to the platform, now just displaying the image and website. pic.twitter.com/fNQSfAy70d

— Pop Base (@PopBase) October 4, 2023

No headlines can be fun ???? https://t.co/b3vVFgcooC

— Angry Staffer ???? (@Angry_Staffer) October 5, 2023

price of twitter acquisition: $44 billion

current value: $8 billion (est)

-reuters

— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) October 5, 2023

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