[HN Gopher] Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter...
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Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private
Author : zegl
Score : 2254 points
Date : 2022-04-14 10:24 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| akomtu wrote:
| Such events is the moment when news agencies reveal their true
| faces. Compare how different outlets want to frame the narrative.
|
| Axios: "Elon Musk goes into full goblin mode". This outlet
| pretends to be neutral in quiet times. They usually frame the
| narrative by omission of inconvenient news.
|
| Reuters: "Elon Musk makes $43 billion cash takeover offer for
| Twitter". That's plain and factual.
|
| RedState: "Liberals Absolutely Lose It Over Elon Musk's Hostile
| Takeover Bid of Twitter". But they don't pretend to be neutral:
| it's in their name.
| dontblink wrote:
| Bezos has Washington Post as his mouthpiece. Murdoch has Fox
| News. Musk doesn't really need more money. I don't think this is
| just pump and dump.
|
| Is it possible Musk is looking to buy a method to influence a
| populace for his own ends? I.E. is this a method for him to
| influence a population to gain power and sway over elections,
| organizations, etc?
| usefulcat wrote:
| Certainly wouldn't be the craziest thing that has happened in
| the past 6 years.
| LoveMortuus wrote:
| Two options: a) He buys Twitter for ~35.5bn (he already owns
| ~9.2%) IN CASH mind you.
|
| b) He's trying to sell all of his stocks without people saying
| he's manipulating the market.
| MrStonedOne wrote:
| catsarebetter wrote:
| Yeah I like this perspective I don't think it's anything more
| than that
| belter wrote:
| We had the Bernanke Put now the Musk Put
|
| 1) Buy 9 % of shares
|
| 2) Announce intention to buy 100%
|
| 3) Look share price rise
|
| 4) Sell shares
|
| 5) Profit!
|
| PS: Note to Musk -> If you are looking to control a company you
| don't need to buy 100% of shares. Just a majority of shares or
| special rights shares if they exist. Save your money and help the
| less lucky ones:
|
| https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/02/mackenzie-scott-jeff...
| ekianjo wrote:
| when you own 100% you can make it private again.
| belter wrote:
| And the only reason you would make it private is?
| throwmeariver1 wrote:
| You don't have to please your shareholders.
| MrMan wrote:
| to do another IPO
| zthrowaway wrote:
| Being more aggressive with changes to the company and its
| product without a market freaking out over it.
| ekianjo wrote:
| you can do whatever you want and stop caring about meeting
| every quarters goals
| vntok wrote:
| Avoiding the requirement to file quarterly earnings
| reports.
| fileeditview wrote:
| I think you only need the majority of shares to go private
| and then the rest will be payed out automatically for the set
| price.
| aahortwwy wrote:
| > the rest will be payed out
|
| Yeah, because you're purchasing them.
| fileeditview wrote:
| Sure. What I meant is that you don't need the 100% to go
| private. But maybe that was obvious.
| AzzieElbab wrote:
| Interesting. I think Musk will be under tones of pressure. How
| would one play the market against him? Shorts?
| qsi wrote:
| Once he's taken it private, supposing he succeeds, you can't
| short the stock anymore as there won't be shares to borrow (or
| buy, or sell).
| AzzieElbab wrote:
| That is the thing. I would never bet against him but I don't
| think he will pull this through
| qsi wrote:
| Oh, I see. In that case the stock is likely to decline from
| current levels and you should short it. (Not Investment
| Advice!)
| cgtyoder wrote:
| This is exactly why individuals should not be allowed to have
| tens (let alone hundreds!) of billions of dollars in wealth -
| they become all-powerful and too easily subvert the will of the
| people. They become their own ruling class, which is unacceptable
| in a functioning democracy.
| krrrh wrote:
| Democracies are great, but they become weak when the majority
| crushes minority opinion and the chilling effects of a singular
| ideology makes it difficult for those without resources to
| speak their minds and openly engage in debate [1][2][3]. And
| this is even more true when there are few alternate centres of
| power outside of the state. Billionaires, along with NGOs,
| unions, etc, provide these alternative centres of power that
| are essential when a perspective or ideology becomes too
| hegemonic. This is even more obvious when the whole point of
| what Elon is doing is trying to do right now is to make twitter
| a more free, fun, and open platform for people who don't have
| the fuck you money that he has managed to earn.
|
| Of course the other utility of billionaires is that when
| they've earned it themselves they have shown some skill at
| allocating capital, and can pursue important societal goals
| that government or existing corporations have proven incapable
| of, like space flight, electric cars, better urban mass
| transit, brain-computer interfaces, etc.. None of those
| achievements seem important to people who have decided that
| Elon == bad for whatever transgression they believe is more
| important.
|
| [1] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-study-shows-
| peo...
|
| [2] https://www.cato.org/survey-reports/poll-62-americans-say-
| th...
|
| [3] https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-
| reports/2021/1...
| seoaeu wrote:
| Important to whom? The same power that lets a billionaire
| develop spaceflight can also be used to instigate an
| ecological disaster, roll back human rights, or unleash
| killer robots.
| colechristensen wrote:
| You can't just have two possible opinions in society, we've
| been going more in that direction and it is quite hostile to
| freedom.
|
| Love him or hate him, Elon adds value because he has a lot of
| power which isn't at all aligned with either of the two
| dominating opinions in America.
| colordrops wrote:
| What is "the will of the people" with regards to Twitter?
| Kye wrote:
| Twitter couldn't exist in its current form without billions
| from billionaires carrying it through years of not being able
| to fund itself. It would have had to grow slowly, probably in
| some decentralized form like Mastodon did with people and
| organizations funding their own instances and linking up
| through a common protocol. The world would have been better
| for it.
|
| In a different universe, (for example) branches of
| governments run their own instances for politicians and
| candidates to speak on without having to worry about clashing
| with moderation policies that serve other use cases on other
| instances.
| swalsh wrote:
| You're only a people if you have a blue checkmark.
| jdrc wrote:
| The will of twitter employees
| darthg0d wrote:
| Do you think _all_ Twitter employees have a say in how
| Twitter is run?
| rwmj wrote:
| That, or they piss it away on vanity projects like this and
| level themselves downwards in the process.
| hstan4 wrote:
| Shouldn't be allowed? What's the magic number the government
| will stop allowing one to accrue wealth?
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Zero to Tesla. It's not like he has hundreds of billions of
| dollars sitting in cash. Almost all of his wealth is in
| Tesla/SpaceX. He created value from basically zero.
|
| Didn't steal it from anyone.
| hatsubishi wrote:
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Your comment seems to cover a lot of territory, but it's not
| very specific.
|
| If you'd like to go deeper on a single line of criticism of
| the GP, I'd be interested in reading it.
| akie wrote:
| It seems to me that you are actually the one who doesn't
| understand how extreme concentration of wealth has the
| potential to steer and disrupt societies.
| seanw444 wrote:
| This is a joke right? I can't believe people unironically have
| takes like these.
|
| Also, for the love of God, stop calling it a democracy.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| > Also, for the love of God, stop calling it a democracy.
|
| The US is a democracy though
| seanw444 wrote:
| It's a Constitutional Republic.
| ickwabe wrote:
| That's semantic sleight of hand. The US is clearly a
| representative democracy.
|
| One related opinion on this topic:
| https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/yes-
| consti...
| seanw444 wrote:
| Yes, republics utilize some democracy. Are republics ==
| democracy? No. Otherwise one of the two words wouldn't
| exist.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| It's a square and rectangle situation. Republic is a
| subset of democracy.
| the_only_law wrote:
| If you're only allowed a single word to represent
| anything, I'm afraid much of your sentence is
| incomprehensible because o many of those words simply
| can't exist.
| throwaway2048 wrote:
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Which is a form of democracy...
| jklinger410 wrote:
| A constitutional republic is a type of democracy. You can't
| hold an adult conversation with people until you figure that
| out.
|
| Personal wealth limitations are a completely valid concept
| and have been considered many times by countries across the
| world all throughout history.
| the_only_law wrote:
| > You can't hold an adult conversation with people until
| you figure that out.
|
| It's a disingenuous argument, that's normally completely
| aside from whatever topic is going on at the moment, I
| doubt anyone using it is interesting in "adult
| conversation".
| mattwest wrote:
| Yea for sure, it's totally awesome when individuals hold
| absurd wealth because they never abuse it and we definitely
| don't have countless examples throughout history of this
| phenomenon causing harm to society.
| FredPret wrote:
| And we definitely don't have countless examples throughout
| history that shows the disastrous consequences of not
| allowing individual economic freedom and all it entails
| throwaway290 wrote:
| Economic freedom is like free speech (and any other
| freedom, really). It can not be absolute unless everyone
| behaves in good faith, once you assume you have rogue
| players who exploit the good faith behavior of others you
| have to have rules.
|
| So you will find literally no place where absolute
| freedom is practiced, and for good reasons.
|
| Sadly, in case of economic freedom a rogue player who has
| billions can also have political power to lobby against
| inconvenient to them rules, and ah everyone wants to be
| on their good side.
| jklinger410 wrote:
| One man's economic freedom is another man's economic
| fascism. You still haven't learned that we are arriving
| late in a game of monopoly. I doubt you are looking to
| learn anything in this thread, but I hope you do.
|
| Not only is individual economic freedom already limited
| in many ways, but also people making your argument leave
| out (either to be intentionally deceitful or because they
| are ignorant) that a capitalist globalist system has been
| at war with alternative economic systems for the entirety
| of these "countless examples."
|
| History does not actually show that capitalism is the
| only successful solution, at all, unless you are reading
| it with half of a brain rotted away by capitalist talking
| points.
| FredPret wrote:
| Your fact-free, example-free, and above all pompous line
| of argument is an excellent antidote to your own ideas
| jklinger410 wrote:
| I am not surprised that you are confused by my comment.
| Do you need me to provide the long list of times that the
| United States has gone to war with countries not
| participating in the global capitalist economic system?
|
| Or maybe the number of ways that personal wealth is
| restricted throughout the world? Or how about the number
| of referendums around limiting personal wealth that have
| been submitted throughout history?
|
| Or what about societies that successfully existed without
| what you would consider modern capitalism, whose ideas
| weren't necessarily proved wrong, but were victims of
| genocidal attacks by other capitalist countries?
|
| Or should we discuss how the massive innovation and huge
| success of the United States, often attributed solely to
| capitalism, is actually (gasp) more complicated than a
| simple economic life hack?
|
| I'm all ears Fred.
| FredPret wrote:
| I have neither the time nor the crayons for this, so I'll
| leave you with this very simple thought:
|
| Economic system A fought economic system B in a decades-
| long cold war. System A won, on every level, including
| the standard of living for poor people. System A,
| therefore, works better than B. QED.
| jklinger410 wrote:
| You are correct, it is a very simple thought, Fred. I
| encourage you to try a complicated thought in regards to
| this topic.
| julienb_sea wrote:
| Kindly provide a single example of an alternative to
| capitalism that was in any way "successful" by metrics
| vaguely comparable to capitalistic success. No, you
| cannot point at China, their success over the past 5
| decades was entirely a result of privatization and
| allowing market forces in their country.
| jklinger410 wrote:
| Japan did not adopt a form of modern capitalism until the
| 1800s. The Byzantine empire was never capitalist.
| Ethiopia did not adopt modern capitalism until it was
| invaded by the west. Ancient Egypt was never a capitalist
| society.
|
| > by metrics vaguely comparable to capitalistic success
|
| If you measure by quality of life I'd say it's a dramatic
| loser.
|
| If you unlearn decades of propaganda and realize the
| technological revolution was not created by simply
| stealing the value of labor from the worker and siphoning
| that up to the ruling class, and then combine that with
| the understanding that global trade controlled by massive
| banks created the capacity to destroy alternative
| economic systems, you might start to reveal the truth.
| qwertygnu wrote:
| And I can't believe people unironically defend multi-
| billionaires.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| I have pretty much zero problem with someone like Musk
| being a Billionare.
|
| Most billionaires made their money in finance or via
| generational wealth. Seeing a scrappy immigrant (Even with
| a $200k business loan) go from practically nothing to the
| richest man in the world, while doing things that actually
| have a positive impact on society is pretty much the
| epitome of the American Dream.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Musk made his money from a combination of generational
| wealth and government handouts.
| indiv0 wrote:
| "Scrappy immigrant" whose father was a half-owner of an
| emerald mine in Zambia. I can't think of a more on-the-
| nose example of the evils of generational wealth.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| So what was Musk's net worth when he was twenty?
|
| Probably less than 0,1 per cent of his net worth today.
| Possibly less than 0,01 per cent.
|
| Multiplying your net worth by a factor of several
| thousand is fairly rare, regardless of the circumstances
| you start in. Most people can't do it, even if they start
| reasonably well off. For example, Musk's own brother
| Kimbal couldn't.
| riversflow wrote:
| > Multiplying your net worth by a factor of several
| thousand is fairly rare, regardless of the circumstances
| you start in
|
| lol. No it isn't, maybe if you are born wealthy, but
| plenty of people have a negative net worth at 20 (no
| savings yet and student/car loans) and are home owners by
| 40.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Fair enough. But you are basically agreeing with me that
| those with non-trivial positive net worth in their youth
| will find multiplying it by several thousand times
| _harder_.
|
| And we should rule out massive inheritance to be fair,
| too. That can cause sudden large jumps in net worth.
|
| A person having 10 000 USD in their youth (far from
| _wealthy_ , just _not poor_ ) would need to aggregate
| something like 50 million USD in their fifties. Possible,
| but rare.
| [deleted]
| tasubotadas wrote:
| Because billionaires are the same people with the same
| rights like the other people.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| That has no parallel to reality.
|
| At all.
|
| None.
|
| Billionaires have far more rights than normal people.
| Their wealth affords those rights to them. "Rights"
| without ability to achieve actual results is just
| bullshit meant to placate the rabble.
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| What does it mean to talk about rights? Who cares if I
| have the "right" to buy twitter and change the way the
| entire world talks to each other when I have no earthly
| chance of ever doing it?
|
| Let's talk about reality, not possibility.
| kurisufag wrote:
| Your phrasing here is odd -- is it a moral wrong to have
| lots of money? Does having lots of money change the amount
| someone should be defended on arbitrary issues?
| cwkoss wrote:
| Bold of you to think the US has a functioning democracy
| annexrichmond wrote:
| How is this argument relevant? What difference is it whether
| person A with billions of dollars or person B with billions of
| dollars of net worth owns Twitter?
|
| Democracy? No one is forcing anyone to use Twitter. Current
| users are free to leave.
| ambrozk wrote:
| Exactly. It's sickening to see a billionaire like Elon Musk
| push around the ordinary people who currently own Twitter! (The
| ordinary people are Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, and State Street
| Corp.)
| honeybadger1 wrote:
| Lol,
|
| People don't care about facts brother, some people are just
| jealous and love to hate.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| If you were our supreme leader, how would you prevent private
| individuals like Musk, Bezos, etc from acquiring their wealth,
| given it is tied up in the value of very useful companies they
| created ?
| akomtu wrote:
| No need to speculate. The US Dept. of Treasury has just
| created the Office of DEI and that's not an April 1st joke.
| Musk is simply going to get a low diversity score from that
| high office and prohibited, by a new statute, from owning
| more than 10% in a public company.
| TMWNN wrote:
| >Musk is simply going to get a low diversity score from
| that high office
|
| Musk is, bona fide, 100% African American.
|
| Checkmate, atheists.
| Phenomenit wrote:
| Progressive taxation to hundred percent for both individuals
| and corporations.
| sakopov wrote:
| That's straight up fucking stupid. 100% tax is not a tax.
| That's theft.
| godshatter wrote:
| Well that's one way to get them to leave the country, I
| guess.
| matsemann wrote:
| Perhaps by sharing that value with others in the company,
| thus diluting it from any one person.
|
| Like, there are tens of thousands slaving for these big
| companies, and a few on top reaping the rewards.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| Wait, I thought every Tesla employees has to ability to buy
| the stock at a discount?
|
| https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/automobile/do-tesla-
| employ...
|
| Also, your solution is now how risk/reward works. The
| employees starting at Tesla today are not entitled to large
| amounts of the company because they are coming in on a sure
| thing. The early employees did get a lot of stock. I
| personally know someone that worked for tesla in sales in
| 2008 who walked way from 200K shares because he thought
| they were worthless.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| Not a Tesla employee, but I bought thousands of TSLA
| stocks since 2012. Why? Because I was already a spoiled
| child whereas my coworkers haven't inherited shit and had
| to pay for their education. I'm a multimillionaire, just
| from TSLA. Now, my wealth is mostly financial so my tax
| rate is coming down as I get richer because I earn far
| more from the stock market than from work. How stupid and
| unfair is this? We're always focusing on those who earn
| more their hard work but most people winning are just
| benefiting from unfair advantages. It's so obvious when
| this happens to you but I guess few admit that in order
| to keep some pride in their situation.
| mgfist wrote:
| You picked the (probably?) single highest performing
| stock in the past 10 years. Call it luck, but it's not
| luck because you were born rich. What if you invested in
| any of the other hundreds of companies that have gone
| bankrupt or lost most of their value.
|
| In any case being born rich is lucky for many reasons,
| but not for you investing in the huge gamble that was
| Tesla
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| >Call it luck, but it's not luck because you were born
| rich
|
| So if I let you flip a coin, give you nothing on tails
| and $1 million on head, and you win, will you owe your
| fortune to luck, too?
|
| _L 'argent ne fait pas le bonheur... de ceux qui n'en
| ont pas_ ~ Boris Vian
| misiti3780 wrote:
| I'd arguing that buying 1000s of shares of TSLA in 2012
| was a very risky, bad idea. Congrats, it worked out for
| you. If you hate the system that made you so rich, give
| it all to charity and start over from scratch.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| Risky? No, I did not risk anything but money I did not
| need. Help me find the charity that will change the
| system, please. I can't find one and I certainly don't
| expect money to change anything anyway (since the
| reasoning itself isn't enough to make people change
| course).
| misiti3780 wrote:
| Ok, I suspect your trolling at this point:
|
| If you're not, here you go: https://www.givewell.org/
| FredPret wrote:
| How is it stupid and unfair? You played a direct role in
| Tesla's success - you supported them financially at a
| critical point, which helped get them through the
| bottleneck
| mahogany wrote:
| How does buying shares support a company financially? My
| understanding of the stock market is that buying shares
| would only help a company during a time when they issue
| new shares to raise capital, like during an IPO. Are
| there other ways it helps them?
| FredPret wrote:
| Buying (and holding) reduces the number of outstanding
| shares, which supports the share price. So when the
| business needs cash to invest in new car research, they
| can issue shares at the higher price. This is exactly
| what happened at Tesla and also Gamestop. Now, they have
| so much cash, they are pretty much guaranteed to not
| fail.
|
| Even a single large, stable investor like Warren Buffett
| can be a huge help for a company for this reason.
| mahogany wrote:
| Thanks, I didn't realize issuing new shares after being
| public was a relatively common activity.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| It's stupid and unfair because only rich people could
| have a seat at the game table. Of course I did better
| than other rich capitalists would preferred to invest in
| a loosers, but is that really the point? For one guy
| earning millions, thousands are fighting to get a job
| that pays for food and a roof.
|
| My point is that as inequality increases (since
| everything is being monetized, without no other
| consideration than gains and profits), we're making the
| system even worse by lowering tax rate on the rich. Note
| that I'm French and both candidates for the presidency
| intend to lower tax on the rich and privileged. It was
| already reduced a good deal by making marginal tax rate
| on capital gains from 45 to 30% (1/3 a drop!) and
| removing tax on high wealth (I would be over KEUR50 a
| year, otherwise). I'm paying far less taxes than I'd have
| under Sarkozy (whose was said to be more fiscal
| conservative than Macron... go figure).
| cellar_door wrote:
| Don't worry, it'd just be seized and put in control of very
| competent and qualified "elected" members of The Party.
| [deleted]
| bg117 wrote:
| Twitter does not make any great money. It has to go private
| backed by a wealthy individual to stay afloat for more time
| without the regulatory worries. It's just a noisy online market
| place with mostly garbage.
| ab_testing wrote:
| If I was Jack Dorsey, I would take this deal in a heartbeat.
| Twitter stock has not gone anywhere in the last 9 years it has
| been public. It does not make any money. This is like the Yahoo
| deal where Microsoft offered a bunch of money for Yahoo.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| As a Twitter shareholder I would vote against this. Musk says
| there is tremendous financial potential in Twitter but then
| offers $54 a share, which is not even 2x the IPO price. That's
| not a "tremendous potential" premium.
|
| There is a lot of evidence that platforms which de-prioritize
| moderation have trouble attracting revenue and experience
| significant compliance costs. See: the sad story of Moot, who ran
| one of the most popular social websites in the world and ended up
| with absolutely nothing to show for it.
|
| This looks more like a hobby to me than a business decision.
| Hobbies are fine as long as they don't distract from the job,
| like Bezos buying Washington Post (he is a hands-off owner who
| spends very little time on it). But Musk is in two high-risk
| positions with Tesla and SpaceX. He worked over last Thanksgiving
| and sent a rather dramatic email about it. So I would be
| concerned about his ability to multi-task. He has already tried
| to run three businesses at once and he had to use Tesla to bail
| himself out of Solar City's troubles.
| poisonarena wrote:
| >Moot, who ran one of the most popular social websites in the
| world and ended up with absolutely nothing to show for it.
|
| 4chan? not really a 'social media' website. I think he did a
| good thing making it and we need more spaces like this in a
| more restrictive internet space
| ryeights wrote:
| "Social media" in the traditional sense? Maybe not. But
| social website? Absolutely!
| cainxinth wrote:
| > Musk says there is tremendous financial potential in Twitter
| but then offers $54 a share, which is not even 2x the IPO
| price.
|
| He means tremendous financial potential for _him_.
| robjan wrote:
| He means tremendous financial potential under his leadership.
| carnitine wrote:
| For him though, obviously. He is attempting to take the
| company private.
| cainxinth wrote:
| That's what he's selling.
| Geonode wrote:
| How so when Twitter barely makes any money, and he's got all
| he could need?
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| After fighting to accumulate $240B and becoming the worlds
| most wealthy man, Elon has decided, hey, isn't that enough?
| I should chill
| Geonode wrote:
| No, he thought, hey, I'll fix cars, and space, and solar.
| And that's not going the worst it could go, so maybe I
| can fix Twitter. He's not doing things for profit.
| MrStonedOne wrote:
| qsi wrote:
| Why is the IPO price the relevant metric? In fact, I would
| argue that exactly because it's been such a poor investment
| since the IPO, the fact that he's willing to offer a premium
| over recent market prices is a positive. Then again, I don't
| own any Twitter, so my views are irrelevant in that sense.
| PennRobotics wrote:
| One major point of going public is to give the first
| investors liquidity. The banks and funds that supported this
| financing event (the buyers at IPO) are the ones being
| pitched: Vanguard, Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, Fidelity, etc.
| They might have bought the dip but only after buying into the
| IPO.
|
| TWTR started trading 8.4 years ago at 45/share (after being
| priced at 26). SPY was priced at 180 and is today at 440.
| Gold was down near 1200 and is now at 1900. Twitter grew in
| value at 2.2%/yr before inflation while the S&P index grew
| 11%/yr. Factoring in the IPO pop (which screws the VCs),
| Twitter would have grown at 9.1% per year.
|
| (The banks also have strategies that earn them more at IPO,
| so they probably are earning slightly more than 10% per year
| on their investment.)
|
| In short, Twitter is not keeping up with the broader economy
| at Musk's price. You're telling the investment banks, mutual
| funds, and most-senior vested employees that their company
| has the same worth as a low-risk government bond or a bar of
| metal.
| bitshiftfaced wrote:
| Or they realized that their initial expectations were
| inaccurate. The market in general sure did, so why not the
| IPO investors? It boils down to how they perceive the
| opportunity cost of the decision, not how they valued the
| company a decade ago.
| qsi wrote:
| > In short, Twitter is not keeping up with the broader
| economy at Musk's price. You're telling the investment
| banks, mutual funds, and most-senior vested employees that
| their company has the same worth as a low-risk government
| bond or a bar of metal.
|
| Exactly! The stock has been a terrible investment since
| IPO, and Twitter management has done a terrible job of
| unlocking value. It's current management that has failed to
| keep up with the broader economy. Musk thinks he can do a
| lot better if he has full control. Musk's price is a
| reflection of how poorly current management has done; he is
| not trying to compensate you for future growth.
|
| If you think current management can drive the share price
| much higher, then you should not sell to Musk. If you think
| current management is just going to be more of the same,
| Musk is giving you a big premium over where the stock had
| been trading, and you should take his offer.
|
| If Musk thinks Twitter will be worth $400 in five years'
| time, then he can realize that value for himself. He'd be
| very foolish to offer you that price now.
| PennRobotics wrote:
| His companies and investments have done well by VC
| standards. It's probably a "not great" idea to refuse his
| offer.
|
| I also understand his point about mismanagement from a
| anecdotal user perspective: I hate the platform but not
| the concept. - Horrendous UX (Why can't I
| see the context of a tweet?) - Seemingly crappy bot
| policing (Really? You, "Megan, Warrior, mother, wife,
| respect all animals, bless our troops, go cowboys
| [football][usaflag][fingerhorns]" really have 4138
| followers and 4087 followed? Plus, the first follower I
| click has the same corny bio style, 4112 followers and
| 4056 followed, and only retweets political tweets?)
| - Creates aggressive echo chambers and lopsided
| arguments. (Influential user blasts another, their army
| of followers comment and like each others comments,
| blasted user's entire dialogue gets buried under army's
| despite having valid arguments.) - I'm sick of
| seeing the thoughts of politicians and celebrities.
| pc86 wrote:
| I think we agree on Twitter generally but I don't really
| get your examples. I also have the "Minimal Twitter"
| extension installed, and use Twitter exclusively on
| desktop so that certainly may color my opinions.
|
| 1. Seeing the context is as easy as clicking on the
| tweet. Tracking multiple threads off the same initial
| tweet would be nice if it were easier, but I'm not sure
| the UX would work for something like that (it's not an
| easy problem).
|
| 2. 100% agreed that the bot policing is garbage.
|
| 3. I think this is part of the chronological aspect of
| threads and replies, I'm not sure how you fix this
| without having an algorithm decide which tweets to show,
| which has its own host of problems.
|
| 4. I only see these when someone I follow retweets it,
| which is almost always something political. I honestly
| don't remember the last time I've seen a celebrity tweet,
| but that might be because of the extension I've
| installed.
| [deleted]
| pc86 wrote:
| Because that's probably when the GP bought in, and the GP is
| mostly concerned about what _their return_ would be from
| this.
|
| A 54% premium on the current price is absolutely in the
| ballpark of "tremendous potential." If you think it's not,
| it's easy to vote against this. I'm not sure I buy Elon's
| "the company has to be private to make these changes"
| argument, and if there was a path for current public
| shareholders to remain private shareholders and potentially
| reap the rewards of a future acquisition or second IPO, I
| think a lot of them would be all for it.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Who is GP?
| tekronis wrote:
| GP in this context is most likely the General Partners.
| MezzoDelCammin wrote:
| IMO it's General Public
| fishtoaster wrote:
| The "Grand Parent" commenter - that is, the HN user
| "snowwrestler".
| throwaway-jim wrote:
| I thought it was "general public"
| pc86 wrote:
| Snowwrestler in this context, I've always taken it to
| mean two comments above whatever comment says "GP"
| (grandparent/grandposter of current comment). But I've
| seen GP/OP used in slightly different contexts which is
| sometimes a bit confusing admittedly.
| zekrioca wrote:
| Yes, I always thought GP and OP were similar..
| wdn wrote:
| If you are a TWTR shareholder, then you should vote for this
| deal.
|
| Just open a chart and see what a disaster TWTR stock is since
| transitioned into the Biden administration. The market
| (institution shareholders) is not stupid. The lower price is
| how the free market punish TWTR for their actions. They have
| lost a lot of their users due to many of their limited free
| speech and work with government actions.
| jmull wrote:
| > They have lost a lot of their users due to many of their
| limited free speech and work with government actions.
|
| I thought people were mad at Twitter for resisting the
| government, not working with it -- when they were pushing
| back against the president of the US.
| noir_lord wrote:
| I'm not sure I'd expect coherence from anyone who has a
| problem with Trump getting banned from Twitter.
|
| The biggest problem twitter had there was that they had
| rules and then certain users with such a large following
| that they where unwilling to enforce them.
|
| It took a literal insurrection on the capitol to do it.
|
| I don't have a solution, moderation is inherently a problem
| for that case.
| basisword wrote:
| It's absolutely nothing to do with Biden. TWTR start sliding
| in October, 10 months after he took office. It's currently
| the same price as late 2020. It's almost like there is a war,
| another wave in the pandemic, and sudden inflation and those
| things are effecting the markets overall.
| bushbaba wrote:
| Trump brought a lot of attention to twitter.
| zwily wrote:
| Twitter has underperformed the market overall.
| basisword wrote:
| >> This looks more like a hobby to me than a business decision.
| Hobbies are fine as long as they don't distract from the job
|
| If he's taking the company private the future of the company
| should be irrelevant to you right? The only thing that matters
| is whether or not you think the price is fair.
|
| >> Musk says there is tremendous financial potential in Twitter
| but then offers $54 a share, which is not even 2x the IPO
| price. That's not a "tremendous potential" premium.
|
| He believes the potential is predicated on taking it private
| and clearing house. The IPO price also seems irrelevant.
| Whether or not you think Twitter can exceed that price again is
| relevant.
|
| Given it was at ~$70 last year he seems to be coming in too low
| for me as I think Twitter can get back to that point relatively
| quickly.
| mkolodny wrote:
| > If he's taking the company private the future of the
| company should be irrelevant to you right? The only thing
| that matters is whether or not you think the price is fair.
|
| The future of the company is relevant to you if you care
| about Twitter and it's impact on the world.
|
| Even if you're a shareholder, you can care about more than
| just money. Shares represent more than money - they also
| represent power.
|
| Shareholders have the power to decide whether the wealthiest
| person in the world should take unsolicited control over
| what's arguably the most powerful communication platform in
| the world.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| I agree with you that $54 is too low. Basically I don't think
| his pitch matches his offered price, and I think the
| explanation is that he is trying to buy a hobby on sale.
| Dangeranger wrote:
| It's possible that the OP holds stock for reasons beyond the
| financial investment, and wants to see Twitter add value to
| society in some way.
|
| Telling someone what criteria they should use to make their
| own decisions is quite arrogant, and out of line.
|
| If you want to use the stock price as your sole metric for
| deciding on accepting an offer, that's up to you.
| basisword wrote:
| OP mentioned being worried changes Musk implements would
| effect revenue opportunities. They also mentioned the offer
| was poor because it didn't match up to the IPO price. I
| think my assumption that the OP cares about this as a
| financial investment is fair.
|
| The real arrogant move is jumping into a conversation to
| tell someone they are arrogant without any evidence to back
| it up.
| cabbageicefruit wrote:
| For starters, GP's comment is absolutely not out of line,
| as explained in their sibling comment to this.
|
| Second, a large amount of your comment history is just
| telling people how "out of line" their comments are. There
| is a downvote button for that. Stop spamming it. It is you
| who is out of line.
| Dangeranger wrote:
| Please read the HN rules, they're not long.
|
| The downvote button is for low quality comments, not for
| disagreement. If you had been here for any significant
| length of time, you would know that.
|
| It's also a bit ironic when you say "stop spamming" from
| a sock puppet account you created specifically to reply
| to my comment, but you probably already knew that when
| you did it.
| oceliker wrote:
| > Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing,
| shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like.
| It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| Dangeranger wrote:
| I did not accuse them of astroturfing, shilling, being a
| bot, brigading, or being a foreign agent.
|
| I said they were a sock puppet account created three
| minutes before leaving their one and only comment as a
| reply to my own. These claims are verifiable, and their
| behavior lowers the standard of discourse in this forum.
| oceliker wrote:
| Just because their account was created for this comment,
| does not mean the comment itself is worth disregarding.
| Throwaway accounts exist for many reasons.
|
| You can address their point and move on. Leveling
| accusations unrelated to the point lowers the standard of
| discourse too.
|
| edit: to add to this, the claim that this is a sockpuppet
| is not a verifiable claim.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > and wants to see Twitter add value to society in some
| way.
|
| Define "add value", because otherwise I'm laughing hard at
| this notion.
|
| If you define it purely as "produce a product that people
| enjoy using or find useful", then sure, it adds value.
|
| But at a higher level, asking if it's a net positive on
| society as a whole, and I'd say Twitter will never succeed
| at that. Social media has caused a breakdown in political
| discourse where people no longer seek to understand, but
| instead seek to "win", and Twitter's short message limit
| completely eliminated any possibility of actual
| conversations in favor of 140-character[0] zingers that are
| nothing more than ridiculous straw men. Nuance is a thing
| of the past.
|
| [0] I know it's 280 now, but for the longest time it was
| 140, and I'm not sure the difference really matters. It's
| still incredibly limiting.
| mulmen wrote:
| I'm not convinced Twitter changed political discourse. It
| just lowered the price of a microphone to a point that I
| can get public-transit levels of discourse without
| leaving my home.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > Define "add value", because otherwise I'm laughing hard
| at this notion.
|
| I have a NLP/linguistics hobby,and Twitter has been a
| fantastic gold mine for generating corpora for "low-
| resource[1]" languages. No other social network is as
| open as Twitter is to scraping such information, and I
| have no confidence this will be the case if it's taken
| private to "unlock value". Hell, I even planned to use a
| Twitter bot to generate parallel corpora (for
| translations) since Twitter provides easy and _free_
| access to native speakers of almost every language that
| is currently spoken on this planet.
|
| I'm just a filthy casual, I bet there are hundreds (or
| thousands) of PhDs and papers that would not have been
| possible without Twitter; I have no doubt that Twitter
| adds value to society by virtue of its breadth and
| openness. Sadly, Twitter is also is detrimental to
| society, by virtue of its breadth and openness; but I
| know which side is easier to monetized.
|
| 1. https://datascience.stackexchange.com/questions/62868/
| high-l...
| cnelsenmilt wrote:
| I agree with you, certainly, but you must see that a
| shareholder could _believe_ that Twitter has this
| potential under current management but wouldn 't under
| Musk, or under a different management but still not with
| Musk. Whether they are mistaken can only be determined by
| playing out the future.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I'd presume he means tremendous potential _if_ he's allowed to
| take it over.
|
| "Gimme your stagnant site, at a premium, and I will fix it."
|
| That said, I'd vote against, as well.
| panick21_ wrote:
| > There is a lot of evidence that platforms which de-prioritize
| moderation have trouble attracting revenue and experience
| significant compliance costs.
|
| I think Musk would moderate bots more given his experience. But
| people less maybe.
|
| > use Tesla to bail himself out of Solar City's troubles
|
| He didn't run Solar City I don't think.
| alphabettsy wrote:
| > I think Musk would moderate bots more given his experience.
| But people less maybe.
|
| Maybe. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31006124
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > He didn't run Solar City I don't think.
|
| He was chairman, and his cousins were the founders. Who
| started the company on his suggestion.
| hackernewds wrote:
| This assumes Musk is serious about his offer. Recently he did
| the same with Doge
|
| _buys Dogecoin_ "TSLA will accept Dogecoin" TSLA does not
| accept Dogecoin. Musk sells Dogecoin for a profit "Jk"
| JackFr wrote:
| > See: the sad story of Moot, who ran one of the most popular
| social websites in the world and ended up with absolutely
| nothing to show for it.
|
| Normally "Really? I've never heard of it." isn't good evidence,
| but when you're asserting that Moot was one of the _most
| popular social websites in the world_ it does have some
| bearing.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Moot is the nick name for the founder of 4chan.
| Loughla wrote:
| And the fact that a poster on a tech focused forum didn't
| even know who Moot is, is proof itself that he got nothing
| in the end.
|
| And it's really weird. I assumed Moot was mega famous with
| tech folks.
| JackFr wrote:
| Ok. Maybe it is me.
|
| But that is weird. I mean I don't really think that my
| finger is on the pulse of the tech community but I've
| been on this site for the past 10 years.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Well, most of 4chan is weird, so this fits ...
|
| (Nothing wrong with weirdness, though, up to a certain
| level of messed up)
| nemothekid wrote:
| 4chan is 18 years old and moot stepped down 7 years ago.
| I can totally see younger engineers having no idea who he
| is.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| I mean, I've heard of 4chan of course. Never visited
| there, but heard of it. Never heard of Moot before today.
| In tech 30+ years.
| nomorecomp wrote:
| > And it's really weird. I assumed Moot was mega famous
| with tech folks.
|
| Only a certain subsection of us. My husband used 4chan in
| high school and college and told me about it and that's
| how I learned about him. 4chan is definitely a good case
| study in how being popular and engaging won't lead to
| monetary gains if your platform is too toxic. 4chan is
| still quite popular but half of the site is infested with
| actual "Hitler did nothing wrong" types.
| [deleted]
| tonguez wrote:
| " See: the sad story of Moot, who ran one of the most popular
| social websites in the world and ended up with absolutely
| nothing to show for it."
|
| when you say absolutely nothing you mean money. but millions of
| people have fond memories of what his site used to be. nobody
| would say that about facebook or twitter.
| Klonoar wrote:
| ...what even is this take?
|
| Plenty of people have positive memories of both Twitter and
| Facebook.
| sensanaty wrote:
| moot made 4chan and ran it off servers in his basement because
| he was inspired by Futaba channel and 2chan, and he wanted to
| create an English-oriented forum to discuss anime with others
| in an anonymous fashion.
|
| I wouldn't say he got nothing to show for it, considering his
| goal never was financial gain or anything of the sort.
| gambiting wrote:
| Also, 4chan still exists and is relatively popular in some
| communities. That is _something_ , to some people that's
| worth more than money.
| jansen555 wrote:
| qiskit wrote:
| > As a Twitter shareholder I would vote against this.
|
| Which is your right, but do you own nearly 10% of twitter like
| elon musk with the ability to buy up to nearly 15%? Unless you
| own big blocks of shares, your vote really doesn't matter.
|
| > Musk says there is tremendous financial potential in Twitter
| but then offers $54 a share, which is not even 2x the IPO
| price.
|
| Twitter IPO'd nearly 10 years ago. The IPO price really doesn't
| factor in today.
|
| Musk offered $54 and twtr is currently trading less than $47.
| It means that major investors don't value twtr higher than $54
| and do not expect a bidding war. If twtr was trading above $54,
| then it would indicate that musk was undervaluing twtr and
| investors expect a bidding war. Also, the fact that it is
| trading so much below $54 indicates that many don't expect twtr
| to sell itself to musk. Regardless, it will be interesting what
| happens in the coming months.
| throw123123123 wrote:
| If this offer is rejected twitter stock will go -30/-50% so if
| your north start is prices this is as good as it gets.
| kvetching wrote:
| sshine wrote:
| Some valid points here, some FUD.
|
| It might be a hobby decision, or it might be self-protection
| against censorship; I'd like to know.
|
| As an owner, he wouldn't have to be the person running the
| shop. Unlike Tesla and SpaceX, I'm sure Twitter can be managed
| by someone other than himself.
| rwmj wrote:
| _> it might be self-protection against censorship_
|
| I think basic web hosting would be a bit cheaper.
| Loughla wrote:
| >Unlike Tesla and SpaceX, I'm sure Twitter can be managed by
| someone other than himself.
|
| Isn't past behavior the best indicator of future behavior?
| gpm wrote:
| It's an indicator, not always the best one though. Your car
| has probably started every time you tried for years, but if
| it's suddenly -50c it's a very good bet that it won't this
| time.
|
| In this case it's pretty clear that Musk doesn't have the
| bandwidth to run another company in the same way as he runs
| Tesla and SpaceX. You can reach that conclusion any number
| of ways, counting the number of hours he (claims to/appears
| to) put in, listening to his own statements on the matter -
| where he has repeatedly outright said this, observing his
| relatively hand-off approach to his more recent ventures
| like neural-link or the boring company.
|
| It seems unlikely that his behavior at Tesla or SpaceX is
| about to change significantly, so it seems unlikely that
| he'll try and take as active a roll at twitter.
| bambax wrote:
| We're not sure he really wants to buy Twitter. This could
| simply be a stunt.
|
| I don't think he works too much; on the contrary, I think he's
| bored.
| loceng wrote:
| You're not focusing on foundational principles - you're looking
| at current status quo surface level/shallow consequences of
| decisions.
|
| E.g. Low moderation making difficulty attracting revenue is
| because that's based on an ad revenue based model.
|
| Tesla and SpaceX aren't high risk positions - both have been
| proven for years now.
|
| You're concerned about his ability to multi-task because he's
| successfully turned Tesla into the most valuable company in the
| world, and at the same time lead SpaceX to probably the most
| valuable private company in the world?
|
| I'd saw your analysis is at least a few degrees off.
|
| Did you consider what will happen to your current stock value
| if the BOD doesn't sell to Elon, and if Elon then sells off his
| shares and starts a competitor and moves himself and others
| follow? Do you think Twitter is anywhere near an upward
| trajectory that will provide you a better return than the
| relative stagnant value the stock has had for awhile now?
| RockyMcNuts wrote:
| probably just wants to get Benioff or someone else to step up,
| make a couple of billion, further buff his edgelord street
| cred.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| If you think the premium isn't high enough, the best thing to
| do is borrow some money and launch your own bid. Go for it, I
| say!
| moralsupply wrote:
| cloutchaser wrote:
| You are implying that advertisers would boycott a free speech
| platform, and this might be true for some advertisers, when
| Facebook was boycotted by some activist businesses it didn't
| dent their bottom line.
|
| Also - Twitter is more of a networking and influence tool in my
| opinion for "important people". These people are MUCH more
| likely to pay for Twitter, it's not like facebook where 99% of
| people would never pay for it. Which I think is what Musk was
| hinting at with blue badges for $2.
|
| If he does that, boycotting advertisers will matter much less.
| XorNot wrote:
| How many "important people" do you think exist on Twitter?
| It's a few thousand, maybe tens of thousands at most.
|
| So that revenue is worth, what, $50,000 a year?
| kbelder wrote:
| How many people on twitter _think_ they 're important?
| That's the more pertinent question.
| nemothekid wrote:
| Advertisers didn't boycott Facebook because Facebook ads are
| a money making machine. They demonstrably work because of the
| depth and breadth of Facebook's data targeting. You can't
| compare it to Twitter; advertisers may be more willing to
| dump Twitter as a platform as it isn't as valuable.
| jmull wrote:
| My first thought on hearing this was, "What a low-ball offer.
| This isn't really serious."
| polski-g wrote:
| 25% over current share is price quite typical.
| JacobThreeThree wrote:
| Yeah, the idea that if an offer is not twice the IPO price
| it's not a good offer, doesn't make much sense.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Right it's baseline off the current price. Things have
| changed since IPO (for the worse for Twitter)
| [deleted]
| rprenger wrote:
| Is this a high enough price to be considered a "Bear Hug"? I
| immediately thought of this scene from Succession:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4QHqjel4kI
| skilled wrote:
| [redacted comment complaining about the use of word "hostile" in
| title which apparently is a financial term]
| ekianjo wrote:
| hostile takeover is a common way to describe the fact that you
| are taking over a company by buying back its public share.
| Nothing unusual if you read financial news.
| qsi wrote:
| And specifically without the board's consent, or in active
| opposition to the board.
| john_cogs wrote:
| Hostile takeover is an investment term.
|
| When you attempt to buy a company without the board's consent,
| it is considered a hostile takeover.
| paganel wrote:
| I personally think this is excellent, in the great scheme of
| things, maybe this will open a real discussion about the real
| oligarchic nature of the US political and societal life at the
| top.
|
| I mean, with tech titan (and second wealthiest man on the planet)
| Bezos owning the WaPo, the moment the tech titan (and the
| wealthiest man on the planet) Musk will put his hands on Twitter
| hopefully will also be the moment of some "enlightenment" for the
| educated masses. Or maybe I'm just day-dreaming.
| MichaelMoser123 wrote:
| Speaking about enlightenment, isn't it strange that Elon Musk
| is into politics now? I mean he wants to go to Mars, his
| project was "Flyin' mother nature's silver seed to a new home
| in the sun", and now he goes right in the opposite direction.
| Did he have any major setbacks with his Starship?
| codeulike wrote:
| I'm wondering if this whole 'buy twitter' idea is some sort
| of displacement activity from stressful problems in either
| spacex or tesla. I'm a fan of both companies but I know he
| drives them hard and takes lots of expansion risks/gambles
| with them (innovation is a gamble at the end of the day).
| ncmncm wrote:
| It reveals that everything he ever said about Mars, or about
| global climate catastrophe, was just so much posturing.
| garbagetime wrote:
| How?
| ncmncm wrote:
| Money is fungible. Dollars put into Twitter are, exactly,
| dollars _not_ put into those other things.
|
| Dollars speak louder than words. Musk can say anything,
| anytime. What he does with his money demonstrates what he
| believes.
| djhn wrote:
| Unless he thinks those dollars, turned via Twitter into
| leverage and influence, will have a payoff in the space
| space?
| ncmncm wrote:
| You must have seen how he tweets, no?
| avisser wrote:
| The Zuck needs to be in that 2nd graph.
| Veedrac wrote:
| This is not oligarchy. Using that term here makes no sense.
| [deleted]
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| I mean by and large the success of first generation billions
| and the power they manage to control kinda show with enough
| money it doesn't matter that he is explicit not part of the
| "real oligarchic nature of the US political and societal life".
| hintymad wrote:
| As much as I don't like WaPo's Opinion columns and Twitter's
| double standards in content moderation, I don't think the two
| companies are puppets of their owners. The staff there have
| their mostly left-leaning political view point and their own
| moral standard. I don't necessarily agree with their view, but
| it's their view and their voice nonetheless.
| colordrops wrote:
| So you are saying that it's a coincidence that WaPo, owned by
| Bezos, who was in a public fued with Bernie Sanders, ran 16
| hit pieces on Sanders in less than a day?
|
| https://fair.org/home/washington-post-ran-16-negative-
| storie...
| hintymad wrote:
| Wow, I didn't know that. By the way, the first piece in the
| article is titled "Bernie Sanders Pledges the US Won't Be
| No. 1 in Incarceration. He'll Need to Release Lots of
| Criminals". This curiously contradicts to Dem's narrative
| in the past two years that our criminal laws are too harsh
| and too racist and we should drive more leniency.
| abvdasker wrote:
| What other reason could the billionaires possibly have for
| owning these companies? I doubt it's out of the goodness of
| their hearts and given the success of their other businesses
| probably isn't about making money.
|
| This is just robber barons all over again and to believe
| otherwise one would have to be pretty ignorant of America's
| history. Chomsky's best insights are about how this kind of
| control actually works and it isn't really that journalists
| are censored by owners (though this does occasionally
| happen).
| oceanplexian wrote:
| They probably own them for a lot of reasons: WaPo was
| failing and running a loss at the time that Bezos purchased
| it. Twitter is in the same boat due to poor management;
| it's losing money and headed towards failure. If Musk can
| turn it around he can A) Make a bunch of money, B) Save a
| useful tool for online communications and C) Promote his
| values when hiring leaders at the company.
|
| I doubt Elon is going to be personally moderating every
| Tweet, however it is likely that their corporate values
| system might change.
| moffkalast wrote:
| > Elon is going to be personally moderating every Tweet
|
| Why do you think he's doing neuralink eh? Wake up
| sheeple!
| tonguez wrote:
| "They probably own them for a lot of reasons"
|
| "I doubt Elon is going to be personally moderating every
| Tweet"
|
| why even post this?
| pvarangot wrote:
| Buying a media outlet is like buying the yacht and buying
| the plane. It's like just something of the "everyone in the
| club has one!" types of stuff you buy when you have enough
| capital to run your own private country.
| [deleted]
| cwkoss wrote:
| Wapo is a smartly used puppet - if the bias was overt it
| wouldn't be effective.
| hintymad wrote:
| I realized that "left-leaning" is an inaccurate
| characterization. To me being left means being liberal. To
| quote wikipedia, "Liberalism is a political and moral
| philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty,
| consent of the governed and equality before the law. " And I
| subscribe to liberalism.
|
| Twitter and WaPo's staff, sometimes, are nothing but liberal.
| A liberal wouldn't call anyone who questioned Fauci nazi or
| anti-science. A liberal wouldn't want to lock someone up or
| doxx someone just because they criticize Biden government. A
| liberal wouldn't celebrate the illness of Justice Thomas just
| because he is a conservative. A liberal wouldn't call someone
| who criticizes Sharia a xenophobic yet thinks it's totally
| okay for Khamenei to call for "eradicating" an entire nation
| and its people. A liberal wouldn't blatantly call Asian
| parents racists just because they support standard tests and
| entrance exams by popular schools. A liberal wouldn't call a
| government Nazi who didn't even try to consolidate power in
| the pandemic but celebrate another government for
| consolidating lots of power in the name of handling the
| pandemic.
|
| Those people do not appear to be liberals. They are radicals.
| cryptonector wrote:
| Historically, "liberal" encompassed markets. I.e.,
| historically, "liberalism" encompassed capitalism (in the
| sense of being mostly free to trade one's labor for others'
| goods and services). "Left-leaning" thinking is generally
| very suspicious of, if not outright opposed to, capitalism,
| and in that sense "left-leaning" is very illiberal. The
| meanings of these terms have shifted somewhat over time, so
| to equate "left-leaning" and "liberal" isn't wrong at all.
|
| One distinction I find helps is between "capitalism" and
| "capitalist". To me "capitalism" == "freedom to trade
| property, labor, goods, and services" (which, due to human
| nature, does lead to wealth accumulation), while
| "capitalist" doesn't mean "someone who believes in
| capitalism" so much as "oligarch" / "robber baron".
|
| A colleague once put it to me like so: trust in capitalism,
| not capitalists.
|
| Capitalists all too often rent-seek, and because they have
| accumulated enough capital to have outsize political power,
| they are a threat to their societies.
|
| Capitalism, in so far as it produces capitalists, is
| dangerous, but if the alternative is less freedom for
| individuals lest some of them become tomorrow's capitalists
| -especially if it is significantly less freedom- then I'd
| rather stick to capitalism. Of course, this is a result of
| my definition of "capitalism", and you might well disagree,
| but forget what word we should use to name a system with
| such freedoms. The important thing is the idea that those
| freedoms are a good thing, and that not having them is a
| bad thing, and that the price to pay for them is the risk
| of oligarchs arising, and that we need mechanisms to deal
| with that problem that don't throw the baby out with the
| bath water!
| Jotra7 wrote:
| tonguez wrote:
| That's because they only hire staff who have the opinions
| that the people who own the organization want them to have.
| There's nothing left-leaning about corporate censorship,
| which Twitter embodies. It's all neoconservative war
| propaganda.
| memish wrote:
| This is a good point. Everyone that thought it was great
| twitter was centralized and saying "it's a private company,
| they can censor what they want" and "go make your own platform"
| will have to contend with their once convenient unprincipled
| position.
| BeKindAndLearn wrote:
| Oligarchs controlling every form of my mass communication can
| only make things worse, though.
| jesusofnazarath wrote:
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Oligarchs controlling every form of my mass communication
| can only make things worse, though
|
| How can it make things worse when it has literally always
| been the case as long as there has been "mass communication"?
| linguistbreaker wrote:
| A media company having a legal obligation to maximize profits
| seems at least as bad for journalism as private ownership as
| there's zero room for any sort of integrity.
| RustyConsul wrote:
| 'Oligarchs' historically have gained influence and fielty to
| a nationstate. We are at a new form of Oligarchy, where the
| business magnates are able to operate internationally on a
| scale never seen before.
|
| Historically, taxation has been the most profitable form of
| revenue generation. But thats no longer the case. With
| globalism and multi-national product creation, a single
| person in a nation can be many times richer than any
| nationstate, with technology above and beyond any
| nationstate. What happens when musk has electric jets and
| fully-reusable ICBM's, has remade the world power grid in his
| image, is one of few entitys even able to get to mars let
| alone command and control the resources of the astroid belt.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| > can be many times richer than any nationstate
|
| The US economy flits around $22 trillion per year and the
| US budget last year was 30% of that. There isn't a single
| trillionaire in the world. The US government has the
| historically unprecedented ability to project hard power
| around the globe within hours of deciding to do so. Musk
| has little more than influence, and congress doesn't seem
| to like him very much.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| While saying _any_ nationstate might be hyperbole, it 's
| fair to say they surpass all but the richest.
|
| The most recent figures I can find for Amazon's operating
| budget list it at well over $500B, which puts it within
| an order of magnitude of the single richest country in
| the world; it would end up in the top 10 if it were
| itself a country[1]
|
| Keep in mind also that a large part of the US's wealth is
| derived _from_ having these nation-state-level
| corporations within its financial jurisdiction.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_go
| vernmen...
| RustyConsul wrote:
| If profits > tax && MultinationalProfits == True {
| totalWealthPercentage = totalWealthPercentage + Profits;
| Nationstate = nationstate + tax }
|
| Run that through alot of loops and eventually
| corporations aree biggeer than any nationstate
| Vec<Nationstate> by design of the system.
| RustyConsul wrote:
| Internet, Grid, Rockets, astroid belt.
|
| You know there's a giant ball of platinum floating around
| just outside mars thats worth 1.7 Quintillian?
|
| Today does not represent tomorrow.
| tiahura wrote:
| My new personal pet peeve has been the torturing of the
| word oligarch. It's now come to mean "rich person I don't
| like."
|
| From my vantage point, it's hard to see how Elon Musk is
| making any governmental policy decisions - and thus isn't
| an oligarch. But maybe you have some examples?
|
| Musk is extremely rich and can buy a lot of stuff. That's
| entirely different than determining agricultural policy, or
| putting people in jail, or conducting the census, or
| maintaining the border, or doing anything else that a ruler
| does.
| botverse wrote:
| Being a lawmaker in the current capitalist society
| doesn't make you the ruler (see lobbying). I'd say the
| few that rule are those with large amount of capital and
| influence, so oligarch is well applied here
|
| Edit: also one of the perks for rulers on the worse
| regimes (authoritarian regimes, monarchies) is that law
| is not the same for the few that tule than for the rest,
| law is definitely not the same from the point of view of
| this wealth maxers
| tiahura wrote:
| Why would you lobby someone who doesn't rule?
|
| I'm still waiting for examples of how Musk has exercised
| his sovereign power.
| justinpowers wrote:
| You're right in the sense that people often use the term
| imprecisely and hyperbolically, but in this discussion
| they are more right than wrong, at least by this measure:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy#Putative_oligarch
| ies
|
| > That's entirely different than determining agricultural
| policy, or putting people in jail, or conducting the
| census, or maintaining the border, or doing anything else
| that a ruler does
|
| You're making a mistake of your own by conflating
| oligarchy with tyranny. They often go hand in hand, with
| the former generally preceding the latter. So it's
| probably better to cry oligarchy before it's a given
| rather than afterwards.
| agalunar wrote:
| The poorest 70-90% of Americans effectively have no
| representation - there is almost no correlation between
| their policy preferences and the voting record of their
| representatives.
|
| On the other hand, enacted policy aligns quite well with
| the interests of large corporations, and I'm not aware of
| any causal explanation besides the obvious one.
|
| If Elon steers Tesla and SpaceX, he is indirectly
| steering congress (or at least has his hand on the
| wheel).
| betwixthewires wrote:
| That's still a far cry away from an oligarch.
| SteveDR wrote:
| Isn't that the current state of things?
|
| If musk makes this purchase it won't centralize power any
| more, but it will draw attention to how centralized that
| power is. Which is a good thing
| res0nat0r wrote:
| Elon doesn't care about "free speech", he wants to own
| Twitter so he can post whatever racist nonsense he wants to
| garner more attention for himself, manipulate stock prices,
| and not worry about being banned from the platform.
| mdoms wrote:
| People I don't like are racist!
| Jotra7 wrote:
| res0nat0r wrote:
| Actually no, all of the racist and sexist rightwing memes
| he keeps shitposting on Twitter are in fact the issue.
| k1ko wrote:
| Have heard a lot of criticisms of Musk but first time I'm
| seeing racist. Congrats you win the reddit award.
| cryptonector wrote:
| Is that like a level below Godwin's Law?
| res0nat0r wrote:
| Have you paid attention to his Twitter feed at all in the
| last few years?
| cma wrote:
| He has been pretty much promoting "Great Replacement"
| racist stuff lately.
| rajin444 wrote:
| For whatever reason people think we live in a democracy and
| not an oligarchy. I guess it's in the oligarchs best
| interest to keep that facade up.
| adamrezich wrote:
| search news.google.com for "oligarch" and see the pattern
| of how the media has propagandistically twisted this word
| to only mean a specific kind of person now, conveniently
| excluding those that control _our_ (Western) societies.
| [deleted]
| sohdas wrote:
| You're saying that oligarchs taking control is good because
| it will cause more people to realize that oligarchs are
| taking control?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| No, I think he is saying an oligarch that has a lot of
| focus on the rest of the oligarchically controlled media
| taking control of this piece of media already controlled
| by the haut bourgeois oligarchy will draw more public
| attention to the oligarchic control of the media without
| actually changing the fact of that control one bit.
|
| Which is still, IMO, foolish, given, among other things,
| the degree to which large swathes of the public have
| parasocial relationships with the particular celebrity
| oligarch in question, but it's not saying that making the
| problem worse will draw attention.
| addingnumbers wrote:
| He's saying that ownership by a loud, conspicuous
| oligarch generates more public scrutiny than a quiet,
| inconspicuous one.
| dm319 wrote:
| This thread is hilarious.
|
| In the cesspit of a social media website, people accuse Twitter
| of being a social media cesspit.
|
| I've seen people arguing for absolute freedom of speech, except
| in malicious circumstances, but seem to think that malicious is
| easy to define.
|
| I've seen people ask if there really are any other alternatives
| to individuals owning huge wealth. Or people saying that doing
| immoral things is ok if it's within the law.
|
| I think I've had enough of this site for a while.
| kbenson wrote:
| Eh, it's just the squeaky wheels, like it is anywhere. I find
| that people are much more likely to speak out (or up/down vote)
| in support of something they also do that they feel vaguely
| guilty for, possibly in an effort to assuage their guilt be
| explaining themselves and looking for people to tell them it's
| okay, than people are to condemn others, depending on the
| acceptableness of what's being discussed.
|
| I think most people don't want to come across as puritanical
| hard-asses, so either keep quiet or are not as forceful in
| their criticisms and condemnations in a public forums like this
| with lots of different subgroups. That may make it seems like
| people are generally accepting of a behavior when they're not.
|
| Importantly, I think this isn't limited to online forums, but
| it is lessened when there's more conformity in group discussion
| which is easier when it's smaller. That has it's own dangers
| though, such as being much more accepting of problematic
| behavior because the group is all similar in a way that makes
| it acceptable.
|
| I think the solution is to see it for what it really is, and
| just realize what you see isn't always representative of the
| norm.
| paxys wrote:
| This is exactly what it comes down to.
|
| "I'm a free speech absolutist. Twitter should allow free
| speech."
|
| So we should allow spam bots shilling Bitcoin scams on every
| thread? "No, I obviously didn't mean that."
|
| What about obvious phishing attempts promising Nigerian riches?
| "Those are obviously fake, and we need to keep users safe."
|
| Hardcore pornography? "No, lots of children use the site. Those
| should be filtered out at least behind some kind of flag."
|
| Explicit threats of violence? Blackmail? "No, all of that is
| obviously not allowed."
|
| Should I be able to write a script to post a thousand Tweets a
| second? "No, that strains the infrastructure. There should be a
| rate limit."
|
| So then we come back to a long list of rules for what should
| and shouldn't be allowed, and all the absolutism goes out of
| the window.
| indiv0 wrote:
| That assumes a dichotomy of either: everything is allowed, or
| Twitter blocks things they want to block.
|
| There are other forms of moderation that might be acceptable
| to people who are otherwise free speech absolutists. Crowd-
| sourced block lists (i.e. subscribe to a list of accounts
| marked by other users as spam), with the option to introduce
| your own exclusions to the list.
|
| Alternatively, a web-of-trust model where you only see tweets
| & replies from people you follow. Or maybe the people you
| follow + the people _they_ follow. Or maybe configure it on a
| per-person basis, if you trust person A 's followee list more
| than person B's.
|
| There are a ton of options. The point is that users don't
| currently have a choice, and have to deal with Twitter's
| policies with no opt-out or whitelisting.
| imbnwa wrote:
| Don't forget the majority of comments in this very popular and
| reasonable thread [0]
|
| [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28087309&p=2
| dang wrote:
| That thread begins at
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28087309.
|
| Linking to the second page gives a skewed impression, since
| downvoted and flagged comments are ranked lower and thus more
| likely to be on later pages.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Imo that thread was worse and not comparable. This one is
| mostly revolving around Twitter and it's moderation policy,
| there's no veiled racism as far as I can see
| RONROC wrote:
| Incredible thread. Definitely logged off for a while after
| that
| ComradePhil wrote:
| tWiTtEr iS A PrIvAtE CoMpAnY, tHeY CaN Do wHaTeVeR ThEy wAnT
|
| Elon Musk: _buys Twitter to run it how he wants to_
|
| nO NoT LiKe ThAt
| exikyut wrote:
| Ooooh, maybe this is what the
|
| > _" There will be distractions ahead ... let's tune out the
| noise and stay focused on the work and what we're building"_
|
| from the other day
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30984215) meant...
| gigglesupstairs wrote:
| Haha good catch
| randomsearch wrote:
| Complete speculation, but after seeing that and then the offer,
| i immediately thought "ok, they had some negotiation, Elon made
| demands, the board refused, he threatened to buy the company
| and fire them, the board refused... and now he is following
| through."
|
| I don't think he's an idiot though, so there must also be some
| other upside here. Certainly there's value to unlock in
| Twitter. Does he need the cash?
| sangnoir wrote:
| > I don't think he's an idiot though, so there must also be
| some other upside here.
|
| Maybe he's just petty? There wasn't an upside to calling that
| diver a "pedo guy", but Musk was nursing a vendetta due to
| perceived slights in the past.
| rdl wrote:
| This seems like a win/win. If Elon takes over Twitter and fixes
| it, we get free speech there (plus, product innovation!). If Elon
| is rejected, battle lines clearly drawn and hopefully many
| alternative platforms (innovating on product as well as terms of
| service; enjoy tankie-twitter!). This is like the great
| unbundling of Craigslist, probably created 100x consumer surplus
| over a decade.
| dmix wrote:
| At worst it's amusing to see all of the hysteria it generates
| from the people use see 'free speech' as a slur. Although these
| Twitter people seem to get off on FUD and hysteria.
| [deleted]
| dghughes wrote:
| Why isn't Elon buying Truth Social? Because it's not the hardware
| and software that he would be buying it's the equity which is
| people. Truth Social can have piles of servers and the best
| software but it can't buy or generate truth.
| tgv wrote:
| The power of the megaphone is what's he's buying. Idk what
| "Truth Social" is, and that's precisely the point: it isn't
| worth a dime. Musk is buying users by the millions. Attention
| craving users, but still users.
| dolekemp96 wrote:
| I believe this is not a hostile takeover. It's an unsolicited bid
| to purchase the company directly to the board. A hostile takeover
| would involve a tender or purchases directly to shareholders to
| purchase stocks ignoring the board or likely against the wishes
| of the board.
| mzs wrote:
| It's an unsolicited offer - so Musk can sell his shares, watch
| it depress the price, and then attempt the hostile take-over.
| Big stakeholders are signaling to the board not to accept the
| terms:
| https://twitter.com/Alwaleed_Talal/status/151461595698675712...
| marricks wrote:
| Oh I'm going to make one of those wild guesses:
|
| 1) musk buys twitter because it's difficult to reject the offer
|
| 2) musk states "free speech is very important" and reinstates a
| lot of banned conservatives, namely trump
|
| 3) trump's reelection gets put into high gear with twitter back
| as his main platform
|
| Actually feels more obvious than wild if 1 happens.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| Interesting if he manages to take over twitter. For me Twitter
| has become full of people marketing themselves with lists, tweets
| that don't make sense out of context, replies full of bile or
| inane comments and animated gifs.
|
| But I'm not convinced Musk's opinions of what is good for twitter
| is aligned with other content creators and consumers. Paypal,
| Tesla, SpaceX, Boring Company have clear goals - twitter is quite
| different.
| gitfan86 wrote:
| There are four goals.
|
| #1 make twitter efficient. firing 80-90% of the employees and
| replacing them with effective workers and management saves a
| ton of money.
|
| #2. Mitigate the bots and trolls by requiring payment and
| identification.
|
| #3. Open the feed algorithm and give people more control
|
| #4. Reduce the silencing of users.
|
| The last one is probably going to turn out to be harder than
| Elon expects. If Elon owned Youtube this week he would be sued
| for enabling the NYC subway terrorist. Same thing will happen
| on Twitter once he owns it.
| lorenzfx wrote:
| You are implying, that current staff of twitter is not
| effective. How do you get to that assessment?
| blairbeckwith wrote:
| If the engineers and product team were effective, there
| would be more product development.
|
| If the marketing team was effective, there would be more
| user growth.
|
| If the sales team was effective, there would be more
| revenue.
|
| If everyone was more effective, Twitter would be worth
| more.
|
| It's probably an over-simplification, but Twitter being
| stagnant is not exactly a minority opinion.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| There's also the other possibility that Twitter, as a
| product, is limited to a more niche audience than
| something like Facebook.
|
| More revenue, growth, or stock price is not a given
| regardless of who's working there.
| MichaelBurge wrote:
| That's the same possibility: "Employees are ineffective,
| because the product has no need for them".
| mehrdada wrote:
| > _There 's also the other possibility that Twitter, as a
| product, is limited to a more niche audience than
| something like Facebook._
|
| You state that as if what twitter is as a product is set
| in stone and delivered as a commandment. It is defined by
| the product people, engineers, and the executives of the
| company who have been doing a terrible job at that. If
| they were competent and the way out was to be Facebook,
| they should've been Facebook by now. FWIW, Facebook was
| not Facebook either. It didn't have news feed before it
| copied twitter. Ironic.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| I think that was made clear in the news fairly recently.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/12/03/twitte
| r...
| themitigating wrote:
| Elon Musk doesn't seem to be a promoter of free speech when
| it affects him https://www.wired.com/2012/02/tesla-vs-top-
| gear/
| gitfan86 wrote:
| Did you read the lawsuit? He isn't saying that Top Gear has
| no right to say negative things about Tesla. He is saying
| that when those negative things are lies and damage the
| business Top Gear should pay for damages.
|
| But you're overall point is correct, Elon's definition of
| Free Speech is not universally agreed upon by everyone.
| However, it is impossible to draw a line between acceptable
| and unacceptable speech that everyone will agree with.
| fbakrg wrote:
| He does not care about damage in reputation:
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50695593
|
| Twitter's current cancellation policies are an
| abomination, but we'll see whether it gets worse with a
| private Musk company.
| gitfan86 wrote:
| He won the lawsuit.
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/06/business/elon-musk-
| defama...
|
| According to the court no damages were done.
|
| Are you suggesting he wouldn't have paid if the court
| awarded the pedo guy damages?
| themitigating wrote:
| If I thought I could be sued for damages I would be less
| likely to talk about some subject than if the threat was
| I could lose my twitter account.
| swalls wrote:
| Tesla also fired a union organizer (while tweeting about
| how they are free to join a union) [0], banned a journalist
| from buying a Tesla[1], threatened to sue another
| journalist[2], and tried to destroy the life of a
| whistleblower[3].
|
| [0]https://labortribune.com/tesla-found-guilty-of-union-
| busting... [1]https://medium.com/@salsop/banned-by-
| tesla-8d1f3249b9fb
| [2]https://www.fastcompany.com/90208132/elon-musk-
| allegedly-sil...
| [3]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-
| elon...
| bena wrote:
| The last one?
|
| Let's go over the list:
|
| #1. Efficient at _what_? And how do you know the amount of
| chaff is 80-90%? And exactly how do you find "effective"
| workers. Like this bullet point alone is just so hand-wavy
| and vague. Might as well have just said "Make twitter more
| gooder".
|
| #2. This kills the twitter. First of all, no one is going to
| pay to read Elon Musk's tweets. Not for more than a month or
| two.
|
| #3. What would "open[ing] the feed algorithm" accomplish
| here? I assume you mean publish the source of the algorithm
| so we can see how it works. Why? So I can run my own twitter?
| And what do you mean by "more control"? Control of what?
|
| #4. I assume you mean fewer bans and removal of tweets. And I
| assume by "reduce" you don't mean eliminate. And I assume you
| don't want elimination because you recognize that some bans
| and deletions are necessary. That's a sticky wicket. You
| don't disagree with the action so much as the degree and/or
| the conditions of the action. This comes down to the question
| of why should your standards be preferable to twitter's?
|
| And ironically, it's actually probably one of the easier ones
| to do. As I don't think you have well-defined definitions for
| efficiency, effectiveness, or control. Which isn't an
| uncommon phenomenon. It's like having a really good idea for
| a story/movie/series/book/whatever. As long as you never
| actually have to make it, the idea gets to be as awesome as
| it could be. But execution is the bitch.
| MadSudaca wrote:
| I mean, what else can you ask for if you're limited to 240
| characters?
| barnabee wrote:
| I feel like most people must use Twitter wrong. Despite how
| common a criticism it is, your description is not even remotely
| my experience.
|
| I don't know why. Maybe most users follow people who they like
| or respect or think are good people not people who share
| content they care about or write interesting original tweets?
| Maybe they think the only recourse to not liking what they see
| on their timeline is to complain and wish people were better
| rather than unfollow? Or maybe some whole major topics/spheres
| of interest are just entirely toxic to the core.
|
| Twitter is incredibly valuable to me as a source of news,
| insight, and discussion on a wide range of topics (from
| programming to space to politics to skiing and more). It's been
| nothing short of revolutionary for my consumption of news and
| information.
|
| Twitter is actually better than RSS (though I do miss RSS being
| a thing) at what RSS was designed for, because curating your
| follows can give a better signal to noise ratio than taking
| everything from a given site, AND gives you a wider range of
| sources because you don't personally need to discover a source
| to see articles from it.
|
| It also provides for some excellent debates, discussion, and
| interactions between really smart people.
|
| I do agree with Elon though. The direction of the product is
| poor and there are many baffling decisions. It sometimes seems
| like Twitter themselves don't even know why their product is
| valuable or what it's potential really is.
|
| I'd love to see some really radical changes. The kind that
| might not work and could be the end of Twitter if they fail.
| I'd love to see Twitter become really open, even open source,
| become a federated network, integrate privacy and anonymity
| tech, etc.
|
| We don't know his plans and I doubt it'll happen, but Elon is
| one of the few people who has demonstrated willing to risk
| everything on an outcome he thinks is important. I hope this is
| one of this cases, and his instincts are at least reasonable.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| Twitter is completely unusable if you hadn't joined years
| ago, or are a famous person.
| Jcowell wrote:
| What ? Why? What is the use case your seeking that is
| undoable if you joined now compared to years ago?
| the_gipsy wrote:
| lupire wrote:
| Twitter (and Reddit, and Facebook) is like beans. Beans are a
| great nutritious tasty food of you know how to prepare them.
| But if you eat raw beans directly out of the package from the
| producer, you will get sick or die.
| bombcar wrote:
| And even if you DO eat them correctly, you're likely to
| subject everyone around you to random chemical attacks.
|
| The analogy works!
| 2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote:
| I'm always baffled about this as well. I keep the people I
| follow heavily curated, and I don't follow more than 90 - 120
| people at a time. Unfollowing and Refollowing is easy, why
| should I amass a list of thousands of follows like some
| people do?
|
| If I notice a negative pattern or drop in quality I simply
| unfollow, that's it. It's the big advantage over Facebook,
| the relationships are not bi-directional for me as an average
| user.
|
| In short: I get a quality experience and lots of useful
| information from Twitter because I only follow people that
| tweet quality content and useful tweets.
|
| However I do have to mention that the algorithmic timeline
| _IS_ really bad, so I do feel like Twitter is constantly
| fighting me and trying to turn my feed into polarizing crap.
| noir_lord wrote:
| I'm similar but I keep a hard cap of 80 accounts I follow,
| if I'm at that it's one in and one out.
|
| That way every new follow comes with a cost because I have
| to a) drop something I thought was following b) weigh up
| which is least valuable.
|
| As a result all I follow on twitter is open source
| projects, companies I use products from (i.e. JetBrains)
| and people I actually like/have something interesting to
| say.
|
| It makes twitter very useful to corral all that stuff into
| one place.
| barnabee wrote:
| Agreed, if you can't read enough of the temporally sorted
| timeline the answer right now is unfollows not the algo
| timeline.
|
| I would totally use _something_ to sort and filter my feed
| so I could proceed it quicker and follow more insightful
| people. It just needs to be external to Twitter,
| transparent, and under my control, and have financial
| incentives aligned with my goals.
|
| I actually like the idea of a marketplace for both human
| curated and algorithmic "edit streams" (h/t Neal
| Stephenson) as views over Twitter and other social/internet
| data that are transparent about what they filtered out or
| boosted and why, and could be provided by FOSS and
| collaborative communities as well as companies with a
| variety of business models.
| 2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote:
| > use something to sort and filter my feed
|
| It wasn't even that long ago when we had at least some of
| those options via external clients.
|
| That was until Twitter started to dismantle that
| possibility and limited external clients much more
| heavily.
| tootie wrote:
| I joined Twitter fairly recently and am mostly following
| journalists and thought leaders for subjects I'm interested
| in, and a few high quality creators. There's an odd gem but
| there's still a ton of noise per signal.
|
| I don't think Dorsey has any idea what he's doing and I think
| even less of Musk. The value to society that can be derived
| from a platform like Twitter is completely separate from the
| value it can bring to investors.
| palebluedot wrote:
| > For me Twitter has become full of people marketing themselves
| with lists, tweets that don't make sense out of context,
| replies full of bile or inane comments and animated gifs.
|
| I've found twitter's quality is a direct correlation to how
| discerning I am about who I follow. I don't really tweet or
| reply, so for me it is a read-only exercise. As such, the
| people I follow tend to be really high-quality (I am not
| typically following "regular" people like friends, etc.).
| Journalists, experts in specific domains, etc. And I try to
| make sure I am following people that have views different than
| mine along with those I do agree with. As a result, I've
| noticed I read pretty detailed information well before I see it
| break in major news organizations, and it is surprising
| balanced on the whole.
| paufernandez wrote:
| Same experience here. I interact quite a bit, though
| metafunctor wrote:
| Yeah. I mostly left Twitter about 9 years ago (!) for the same
| reasons.
|
| I wonder if a celebrity like Musk is overestimating how
| important Twitter really is. Because in my view, it's a
| cesspool of self-promoters, hate, corporate marketing and
| superficial populism. I believe correcting that course is
| impossible. It's been like that for 10 years with no change.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > Because in my view, it's a cesspool of self-promoters,
| hate, corporate marketing and superficial populism.
|
| Isn't this all social media?
| metafunctor wrote:
| I count HN as a social media, so no.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| "Twitterized" - means you can no longer absorb anything but
| simple concepts that can be delivered in a few lines, due to
| too much time spent on Twitter. To quote some early 20th
| century propaganda monkey, "The essence of propaganda is to
| take a complex subject, reduce it to a simple concept that a
| small child can understand, and then repeat, repeat, repeat."
|
| That's what Twitter is ideal for, and that's what political and
| media types use it for. Add in siloed echo chambers like
| Facebook groups and Reddit subreddits... I urge everyone to
| flush it all down the toilet.
| hmate9 wrote:
| Arguably he already has it but if Elon manages to turn Twitter
| around and grow it to be on par with Facebook and TikTok then
| nobody could deny he has the greatest Midas touch in the world.
| bikamonki wrote:
| I am not sure Elon can fix Twitter b/c I am not sure Social
| Networks can be fixed at all.
| another_devy wrote:
| Social networks in essence mirrors the society so its hard to
| run a company without judging and censoring free speech if
| comany doesn't want to be something like 4chan. The bigger
| problem arises when this censoring and controlling starts
| affecting democratic processes, there are other bad side
| effects too. Maybe there should not be any Social networks or
| maybe we should have better democracy which doesn't crumble
| under these new powers of information age.
| hitovst wrote:
| This is terrific. He said it will require threat with guns to get
| them to violate free speech. If true, this type of leadership is
| exactly what humanity needs.
|
| I still don't understand the interest individuals have in
| proprietary, restrictive, unnecessary, platforms.. but for those
| who tolerate that sort of thing, I assume Twitter will become
| more valuable to them.
| codeulike wrote:
| I'm worried that something is wrong at Spacex and this is a
| displacement activity
| gunapologist99 wrote:
| So Twitter was at $70 per share a year ago. So what? Jack Dorsey
| was CEO a year ago, too. The share price was $33 less than a
| month ago.
|
| But, despite an absolutely incredible roller-coaster news cycle,
| things have been definitely trending _down_ at Twitter ($33
| /share last month), which was reflected in its share price. The
| current executive team (and Dorsey) had wasted time focusing on
| things that didn't matter instead of things that _did_ matter.
|
| Boards have several fiduciary duties to the shareholders. As an
| all-cash offer, this generates for the shareholders a substantial
| return with NO RISK, and so the board has a serious legal
| obligation to carefully review this offer and make a decision.
|
| If the board elects to reject this offer, then their reasons for
| doing so need to be _very clearly elucidated_ , because, as
| Twitter is a public company, they would have to see something in
| their crystal ball that the rest of the market does not.
| s17n wrote:
| Unsolicited offers almost always get rejected, that's why it's
| called a "hostile takeover"
| zwily wrote:
| It's not hostile, yet.....
| postalrat wrote:
| Wouldn't be a takeover if it's rejected.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > that's why it's called a "hostile takeover"
|
| No, this is not a hostile takeover. A hostile takeover is if
| Elon bought up more than 50% of the shares. Which he can do
| much more cheaply than buying outright at a 38% premium.
|
| If they decline his offer plan B may be to buy up the cheap
| shares until he has 51%.
| skinnymuch wrote:
| Plan B makes sense if Musk was actually serious/determined
| (I have no idea but I doubt it). Especially once the stock
| gets volatile while going down after he sells [part of] his
| stake before re-buying privately.
| Someone wrote:
| To my understanding, this at the moment is neither hostile
| nor a takeover, but a (rather direct/rude/aggressive; pick
| whatever adjective you want) question to the board to advise
| shareholders to accept Musk's offer.
|
| It could become any of the four options failed takeover,
| failed hostile takeover, takeover, or hostile takeover.
|
| If the board says "good idea" and advises shareholders to
| accept the offer, it could or could not become a takeover,
| depending on whether enough shareholders (by share count)
| accept it (I don't know how many is enough, but it's almost
| certainly more than 50%, as an OK would force _all_
| shareholders to sell. You can't take a company private and
| keep shareholders around)
|
| Technically, that wouldn't be a _hostile_ takeover, though,
| as it would be with agreement by the board.
|
| If the board advises shareholders to reject the offer Musk
| could persevere. In the end, if enough shareholders sell
| their shares to him, the board's opinion doesn't matter. if
| enough shareholders do that, it would become a hostile
| takeover.
| s17n wrote:
| > To my understanding, this at the moment is neither
| hostile nor a takeover, but a (rather
| direct/rude/aggressive; pick whatever adjective you want)
| question to the board to advise shareholders to accept
| Musk's offer.
|
| Right, but a board is never going to say yes to this. If he
| was actually trying to get the board's agreement, the
| negotiations would have all happened in private and the
| announcement wouldn't have been made until it was basically
| a done deal.
| infofarmer wrote:
| > You can't take a company private and keep shareholders
| around
|
| I don't know how customary, but technically it's possible
| to keep up to hundreds of shareholders around when going
| private.
| DelaneyM wrote:
| Everyone currently holding $TWTR believes that the true value
| is greater than the current price.
|
| To make a successful hostile bid, you need to pay not just
| "more than the current price", but "more than the holders of
| 50% of current shares believe the company to be worth". Usually
| bidders use analyst price targets to guess at the distribution
| of holders' internal price targets.
|
| This is what makes it so difficult, and why this bid is very
| likely to be rejected.
|
| (This is easier to explain with a white board, tbh.)
| cwkoss wrote:
| I don't think your argument holds water.
|
| If the shareholders are rational and believe the true value
| is greater than current price, why aren't people buying until
| it asymptotically approaches that price?
|
| Optimism and hopes for future gains aren't priced in because
| they are fantasy and not yet material.
| daveed wrote:
| Risk management?
|
| I believe a lot of my long positions are worth more than
| their current price, doesn't mean I'm going to spend all my
| money buying them up to that price.
|
| If I lock in a 20% gain today that's nice, but I might
| believe with high confidence that it'll rise 50% in the
| next year. Then Elon's bid doesn't move me that much.
| cwkoss wrote:
| If they believed this, they wouldn't be selling at the
| current spot, sellers would all be putting their asks
| ~46% above spot (discounting time value of money), and
| the market would move.
|
| That risk and upside is already priced in if you believe
| in market efficiency.
| daveed wrote:
| I don't believe in market efficiency.
|
| The market is large and has plenty of participants with
| different strategies. There are people selling at the
| going price, and there are people who are not. The
| trading price is a good reference price, but it's not the
| "right price" for everyone.
| cwkoss wrote:
| OK...
|
| I don't anyone would find your squishy confidence it's
| worth 50% more than current value any more credible than
| shorters who think it's worth 50% less. Both seem like
| fringe opinions without much foundation.
| lilyball wrote:
| Risk tolerance, a need for a diversified portfolio, a lack
| of infinite money to spend buying stock, etc?
| trothamel wrote:
| The current shareholders, who vote on this, think that the
| current value is higher than what is being offered to them
| to sell. Those are the ones that Elon has to convince with
| his higher offer.
| memish wrote:
| What happens if they reject his offer?
|
| He sells and the price falls.
|
| Then he announces a new platform and the price falls again.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| It would be funny if he's already selling his shares for a
| tidy billion dollar plus profit and has no intention to buy
| even if the board accepts his non-binding offer. Not sure
| if this would be legal.
| [deleted]
| evanextreme wrote:
| the problem is that said "new platform" is doomed to fail,
| just as every free speech twitter competitor before it
| (gab, parler, truth, etc). this is an idea thats been
| attempted numerous times but doesnt succeed because no one
| wants a platform where they can be harassed. so im not
| inclined to believe that the share price of twitter will
| fall once he makes a competitor, because if free speech was
| truly a differentiator (versus decentralization /
| federation e.g. mastodon), then these other networks would
| have actually seen continuous use, but at the end of the
| day everyone still uses twitter
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| It's the network effect.
|
| Everyone is on twitter, a few of the people you want to
| follow are on parler. You won't bother checking parler
| too much.
| voidfunc wrote:
| Everyone likes betting against Elon... it has worked out
| so well so far.
| sssilver wrote:
| > no one wants a platform where they can be harassed
|
| I'm not sure whether it's that, or that simply no one
| wants a platform everyone isn't already on.
|
| Personally I would absolutely not mind being "harassed"
| by text, if I was also able to exercise wide spectrum of
| free speech myself.
| thwayunion wrote:
| Getting someone to onboard to a new platform is
| ultimately a sales job. Selling is about telling people
| who they want to be, not who they are.
|
| A social media platform advertised as a politics-
| first/free-speech platform is the social media equivalent
| of a beer ad featuring a divorced balding man at last
| call in a dingy basement bar. No one aspires to bicker
| about politics with strangers on the internet, even
| though in reality that's the engagement that pays the
| bills.
| attilaperez wrote:
| >Personally I would absolutely not mind being "harassed"
| by text, if I was also able to exercise wide spectrum of
| free speech myself.
|
| This is precisely the idea behind 4chan.
| smsm42 wrote:
| "everyone I know and care about still uses twitter" FTFY
| 13years wrote:
| Every competitor has failed because it prioritized free
| speech above user experience. Almost all have had
| terrible UI's, terrible performance, lots of bugs.
|
| BigTech owns the mindshare of how to build these
| platforms. Musk would actually have the resources to pay
| for the level of expertise and competence to build such a
| platform. However, it would be years in the making which
| might all become irrelevant with web3.
|
| Or Musk could throw support behind web3 tech as
| ultimately free speech will only exist when controlled by
| no one including free speech advocates such as Musk.
| procombo wrote:
| The next step is a social media company that is (1)
| private (2) membership based (3) no reliance on huge ad
| contracts, just promoted content (4) can tell the
| difference between political opinion and hate speech (5)
| gets out of the way of legal public discourse.
|
| It doesn't need to be web3. It just needs to be somewhat
| transparent and minimally auditable. Web3 doesn't know
| what web3 is yet. Most is just garbage, sorry.
| k1ko wrote:
| The failure of those other platforms has nothing to do
| with free speech or lack there of. Twitter has a moat
| that you aren't going to be able to break by just trying
| to out Twitter them.
| [deleted]
| memish wrote:
| Even just him announcing a new platform would scare
| twitter investors. If successful it'd drive twitter even
| further down.
|
| Paul Graham thinks he would be able to compete:
|
| "It is obvious. It's also obvious that Elon could draw an
| initial set of users that was more than big enough to
| have sufficient network effects on day 1."
|
| https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1507782349924274180
|
| "I'd try it the first day. Wouldn't you? Sum that pattern
| across Twitter, and you've got quite a lot of users on
| day 1."
|
| https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1507855287130243085
|
| "You don't need to get everyone to switch right away. All
| you need, to start with, is a critical mass of users --
| enough so that people don't feel they're talking to a
| void. You'd very likely have that from the start. Then it
| grows."
|
| https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1507855750680428545
| bastardoperator wrote:
| I'd argue Trump has more immediate, impressionable
| supporters than Elon and his twitter like platform is a
| complete bust. I'd also argue people don't switch, they
| add. Rarely is someone popular on a single media
| platform, they tend to use to all of the vertices to
| engage. There would have to be a value proposition, one
| that persuades users, the name Elon in my opinion isn't a
| large enough selling point on it's own.
| memish wrote:
| "Trump's fan base are not tech bellwethers, to put it
| mildly. Elon's are."
|
| https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1507791725410070528
| bastardoperator wrote:
| I don't think Elon's fan base are any more capable or
| driven. I would argue Trump is vastly more popular on
| social media than Elon and that Trump supporters are at
| the very least motivated for reasons outside of
| billionaire worship and straight trolling.
| skinnymuch wrote:
| Billionaire worship/trolling vs Blindly following
| regardless of the amt of double speak, hypocrisy, blindly
| rejecting things because they are not on your side and
| following things that go against your best interests +
| billionaire worship + allowing the amount of grifting
| that occurs...
|
| The motivation may be different. Is it any better? Or
| change anything for the better in terms of social media
| success?
|
| Trump's popularity may be larger, but it's also more
| isolated and siloed. The total possible user base for a
| social network of almost any billionaire will be larger
| than Trump's. Not that most would ever get close to
| reaching that amount or getting numbers more than Trump.
| Just that the addressable market is bigger.
| skrbjc wrote:
| Trump was also kicked off of twitter while being
| excoriated in the media and then took, what, two years to
| launch something?
|
| Musk is not nearly as trashed in the media and could
| leverage promoting an alternative while still on twitter.
| Obviously there does need to be something that is at
| least reasonably differentiating from twitter, and I
| think that is the real challenge as just saying it is
| twitter but more free is not as tangible.
| giarc wrote:
| Would that not have been true about Truth Social? They
| would have had enough users on day 1 to get network
| effects, but it hasn't happened. You could blame
| technical issues, but as I understand, Trump isn't even
| on the platform and neither is Fox News. So why would a
| Musk Twitter clone work any better?
| majormajor wrote:
| > "It is obvious. It's also obvious that Elon could draw
| an initial set of users that was more than big enough to
| have sufficient network effects on day 1."
|
| This would be "obvious" about Trump, too, no?
|
| Perhaps your claim is that Musk would have a better
| chance of making something that scales and can accept all
| those users from day 1, but then that's also a much more
| expensive bet for Musk to make with higher up-front pre-
| launch cost.
| skinnymuch wrote:
| Musk wouldn't do such a blunder launching it. Truth
| Social with a sizeable war chest, took Mastadon (while
| [still] lying about it) with many months if not over a
| year to get it ready.
|
| Being able to launch a product with more than enough
| resources is almost intertwined with drawing in users.
| Truth Social never had the bare minimum expectations.
| Something that is not given to most people since most
| aren't abnormally focused on grifting and so on for such
| a big venture.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| If this is true, why isn't Clubhouse a resounding
| success?
| behnamoh wrote:
| elitist marketing bs based on invitations that didn't
| work and ultimately attracted wannabe narcists to boost
| their ego
| themanmaran wrote:
| It's functionally quite different. And requires a higher
| level of effort to engage with the content.
| knowaveragejoe wrote:
| RC_ITR wrote:
| >Everyone currently holding $TWTR believes that the true
| value is greater than the current price.
|
| This is not exactly true. Everyone holding Twitter believes
| that it will outperform the next best available asset. This
| can mean that it will decline less than cash (i.e. inflation)
| and decline less than other stocks. In our current market,
| this means people believe that Twitter has a good forward
| looking IRR, but it does not mean that all holders believe
| that the stock price should be $70.
|
| >To make a successful hostile bid, you need to pay not just
| "more than the current price", but "more than the holders of
| 50% of current shares believe the company to be worth".
|
| Again, this comes back to IRR terms. Sure Twitter may be
| worth $100/share ten years from now, but most people would
| take $50 today than $100 then.
|
| >This is what makes it so difficult, and why this bid is very
| likely to be rejected.
|
| The bid is likely to be rejected b/c it's likely made in bad
| faith. Read the SEC release and count how many times it says
| ' non-binding'
| splitstud wrote:
| RaymondDeWitt wrote:
| How was Musk's offer - a public disclosure with few
| conditions or contingencies, made in bad faith? At face
| value, it does not violate basic standards of honesty or
| appear to deliberately mislead.
| jjeaff wrote:
| It's another 420 reference just like his claim to have
| financing ready to take Tesla private which turned out to
| be false and just a joke.
| mdoms wrote:
| You mean like his offer to take Tesla private - a public
| disclosure with few conditions or contingencies?
| RC_ITR wrote:
| I implore you to do what I suggested in the parent
| comment.
|
| How many times is "non-binding" said in the document?
| colinmhayes wrote:
| At face value Musk has a history of paying large SEC
| fines because he lied to investors.
| fallingknife wrote:
| Any initial offer is going to be non-binding. This is
| standard.
| mathlover2 wrote:
| IIRC he claimed that this was his only offer and that he
| would sell if it was refused.
| mathlover2 wrote:
| > Mr. Musk called the bid his "best and final offer,"
| adding that if his proposal isn't accepted "I would need
| to reconsider my position as a shareholder." Mr. Musk
| earlier this year built a position of more than 9% in
| Twitter.
|
| Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-offers-to-
| buy-rest-of...
| dheera wrote:
| He could sell it for higher? People would probably buy
| the shares at higher price if they knew it came from
| Elon.
| jonovate wrote:
| No, that's not how it works :).
| RC_ITR wrote:
| Yeah and any initial offer is worth the paper it's
| printed on.
|
| That is not the mainstream understanding of this "offer"
| though and that's the point I'm trying to make.
| ratsmack wrote:
| >The bid is likely to be rejected b/c it's likely made in
| bad faith. Read the SEC release and count how many times it
| says ' non-binding'
|
| I must assume this statement is just a personal opinion
| rather that an SEC ruling.
| cjensen wrote:
| Holding a volatile and risky asset implies that the holder
| thinks there is a significant win available to offset the
| costs of the risks. It's reasonable to assume that
| projected price is far above market.
| splitstud wrote:
| fallingknife wrote:
| TWTR was trading at 33 before Elon announced his stake, and
| he offered 54. That's a 60% premium.
| paxys wrote:
| What happened last week is irrelevant. If I can sell my
| shares on the market today for $46 and Elon is offering
| $54, that's a ~17% premium. It's better than nothing but
| not nearly enough to convince >50% of shareholders to vote
| in his favor. Several major ones have already said no to
| the offer (https://www.reuters.com/technology/saudi-prince-
| alwaleed-bin...).
|
| If it was a serious offer the market would have already
| valued TWTR at ~$54, but it has actually gone _down_ after
| Musk announced his bid.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| It's gone down since he's made it clear he will liquidate
| his stake if the deal doesn't go through.
| paxys wrote:
| So then the market expects it to happen, which is my
| point. As it stands it is unlikely that the deal will go
| through.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| Sounds like the market thinks it's about 50/50 (given the
| current price is half way between the previous price and
| the offered price).
| aurelius12 wrote:
| Twitter is down a whopping 0.33% today.
| water8 wrote:
| down 2% 1 hour later
| gpm wrote:
| > What happened last week is irrelevant
|
| Information about a potential takeover bid is absolutely
| relevant, and it's generally reasonable to calculate the
| premium from before that news first existed.
|
| What happened last week was information about a potential
| takeover bid.
| skinnymuch wrote:
| It is not at all irrelevant. I would be surprised if any
| reputable financial source would think of this as a 17%
| premium and not include last week.
|
| gpm said the rest already as a reply.
|
| As to the Saudi prince. Regardless of the topic. In any
| situation, it is hard to take the prince at face value
| knowing he pushed hard to successfully give the Kushners
| and co $2B[0]. If there's more at play for the prince
| than short or medium term money, what he says is
| irrelevant then.
|
| [0]: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/04/11/hes-
| cashing-kus... or
| https://www.marketwatch.com/story/jared-kushner-
| scores-2-bil...
| AustinDev wrote:
| The board kind of has to put this to a shareholder vote to
| limit their liability. If they don't, they'll be sued by
| shareholders very quickly.
| meerita wrote:
| If they don't accept this offer, the stock will plunge.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Then Musk can make a slightly lower offer and make the price
| plunge again.
| memish wrote:
| Would Elon reinstate Jack to set up a Steve Jobs style comeback
| story?
| asd88 wrote:
| Jack already had his Steve Jobs comeback moment in 2015.
| sulam wrote:
| Jack wasn't fired.
| netik wrote:
| That's funny, because many employees recall him being shown
| the door early in the company's history.
|
| Nick Bilton's book covers this.
| bumblebritches5 wrote:
| adam_arthur wrote:
| Jack never struck me as very competent like many of the other
| tech founders. More like somebody at the right place and time
| texasbigdata wrote:
| Explain square.
| ohyoutravel wrote:
| "More like somebody at the right place and time."
| colordrops wrote:
| For two companies? Seems like too hand wavy of an
| explanation.
| texasbigdata wrote:
| To argue against myself, and I can't cite this,
| Zuckerberg allegedly referred to Twitter as a clown car
| that drove into a diamond mine.
| vimy wrote:
| When / where did he say this? At one of Facebook's weekly
| townhalls?
| texasbigdata wrote:
| I think I heard it on the This Week in Startups podcast
| this week (pre- takeover offer).
|
| Edit: literally first google result for Zuckerberg clown
| car
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=Zuckerberg+clown+car
| 7sidedmarble wrote:
| If you had his kind of golden parachute, you don't think
| you could see any number of product ideas through to
| success?
| enra wrote:
| Seeing and hearing Jack, I think he is good and what he
| likes to be more like "spiritual" leader. He can makes
| bets and give guidance but he doesn't want to manage, or
| get to the weeds. The way he set up Square is more like
| individual groups working independently and he just
| provides the aircover for things he believes in.
|
| He pushed the Square Tidal acquisition because in a weird
| way it makes sense in his mind. He also pushed for
| bitcoin because he believes in it, instead of it being
| part of company strategy.
|
| Twitter needs someone who could reset the current
| thinking and be the product visionary but also a person
| make people execute on the vision. Kind of someone like
| Elon. Unclear if Elon's ideas are good but at least he
| doesn't tolerate bad performance.
| behnamoh wrote:
| I do miss Steve Jobs, or mainly, his leadership style in
| tech. Every year with SJ was full of surprises and
| delightful visions coming true. In a way, people in the
| late 90s and early 2000s experienced the peak of the tech
| landscape. The smartphones revolution was just one of the
| visions that came true in that era.
|
| In a way, Musk is like SJ, but greedier and cockier. SJ
| was about products centered around humans. Musk is about
| humans centered around technologies.
| adam_arthur wrote:
| Certainly he's somebody who took initiative. Did his
| personal contributions move the needle beyond getting the
| idea rolling?
|
| I honestly don't know, but I haven't seen any evidence of
| that. But I also haven't looked that hard.
|
| It seems easy to accidentally stumble upon stories of the
| other prominent tech founders moving the needle. But
| maybe it's all propaganda
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Jack left because he was done, he resigned. He is now pretty
| much 100% BTC and decentralization.
| behnamoh wrote:
| Maybe because he realized what a monster he created
| meatsauce wrote:
| Never happen. Jack was part of the problem.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Reinstate Dick. Having a comedian in charge again would be
| funny.
| LegitShady wrote:
| "Let me introduce your new CEO, a clone made by crossing
| Joe Rogan and Sergei Brin."
| reducesuffering wrote:
| He doesn't seem very funny.
|
| "Me-first capitalists who think you can separate society
| from business are going to be the first people lined up
| against the wall and shot in the revolution. I'll happily
| provide video commentary." -- Dick Costolo
|
| (He deleted it from Twitter, who'da thunk)
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Arthur Fleck wasn't very funny either, but the situation
| of giving a standup comic great power is.
| cinntaile wrote:
| What was the problem exactly and how has it improved now
| that Jack is gone?
| rtkwe wrote:
| The problem is how to make money on Twitter without
| alienating users with too many ads or monetization of
| posting. I have zero desire to ever spend money on
| anything Twitter like, I enjoy the feed I've curated but
| if it starts costing me money I'll find another way to
| get it.
| [deleted]
| lr4444lr wrote:
| The company's laggard growth, and never issuing a
| dividend because he wasn't responsive to making the
| company profitable, and couldn't grow the user base for
| quite a while.
| djfobbz wrote:
| _What was the problem exactly?_ Jack
| Dorsey: 'I'm partially to blame' for helping create a
| centralized internet. Censorship is the first thing that
| comes to my mind. Source:
| https://twitter.com/jack/status/1510314535671922689
|
| _How has it improved now that Jack is gone?_
| It hasn't. Maybe a shake-up like this is overdue. We'll
| see!
| ilaksh wrote:
| It's literally impossible for a system run by a single
| company to not be centralized. Dorsey acknowledging that
| or not does not change that nor would having some other
| owner.
|
| It's actually possible (although not easy by any stretch)
| for us to build a decentralized Twitter that would not be
| controlled by a company for profit and would be more
| censorship resistant. It probably will not happen because
| of ignorance and political manipulations rather than hard
| technical limitations.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Isn't that what Mastodon, or various projects using
| Mastodon, are trying to do anyway? It's not such a thing
| can't be built, it's just it's unlikely for such a
| project to gain mass adoption.
| adolph wrote:
| Evan Williams would be the comeback story. Medium would play
| the role of NeXT whose core technology shapes the way
| forward.
| Kye wrote:
| Twitter already has this with Revue.
| spiantino wrote:
| Your logic would make it seem like a hostile takeover would be
| accepted with any premium, and companies routinely have to bid
| 40 or 50% higher.
|
| Maybe it's different with a poison pill in place as the onus is
| on the board, but I don't think its obvious what the board
| should/will do
| crate_barre wrote:
| Truth of the matter is before Elon ever gets Twitter another
| tech giant will buy it without hesitation.
|
| They should sell to him because all he is doing is either
| buying Twitter at fair value or doing pre-launch hype for a
| competitor which will include the accumulation of other
| platforms including Trump's Truth social, shit like substack,
| which he can easily get for less than 10 billion, Mastadon,
| etc.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| You can't buy mastodon, the software is licensed AGPL and the
| network is run by it's users. You could buy stewardship of
| the software and the trademark if it's registered, like
| google did with android, but you never own GPL licensed
| software, only the users do.
| crate_barre wrote:
| I think you still understand my point. This guy roughly
| says if there's no electric car, build your own. If there
| is no reusable rocket, build your own. If big tech is
| stifling free speech ...
|
| All successful people continuously repeat what worked for
| them in the past.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| I don't get how the logistics work in a move like this. If
| you're a shareholder and the board approves the sale are you
| forced to sell your shares to Elon at the stated price? What if
| you don't want to sell?
|
| Edit: I also wonder how leveraged positions, especially shorts,
| get resolved.
| chippiewill wrote:
| The sale can be forced so long as 75% of shareholders approve
| and the purchase price is above the sale price during the
| offer period.
|
| No idea about shorts. I would assume that the short seller
| would simply have to pay the original owner the end purchase
| price.
| cloutchaser wrote:
| Depends on the shareholder agreement and how the board fits
| into that.
|
| By default it would be something like - if the board approved
| it goes to a shareholder vote, and if 75% or 90% of the
| shareholders approve the rest are dragged.
|
| I doubt the board can force all shareholders to sell, that
| would be an insane power position for shareholders
| AlexandrB wrote:
| This is informative, thank you. I wonder what portion of
| Twitter investors are index fund companies like like
| Vanguard and "institutional investors" like pension funds
| that are unlikely to object. And obviously Elon himself is
| a ~10% shareholder. Seems likely that this would pass a
| vote easily.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| 78.4%
|
| search "Inst Own" https://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=TWTR
|
| That's actually crazy to think about... so besides Elon,
| only 11.6% of shares are privately held? Meaning Elon
| holds about half of all privately held shares? Unless
| somehow he is in the 78.4% but I don't think so.
| shagmin wrote:
| He might be in both brackets - 11.6% of shares held
| privately plus some fraction of that 78.4% by owning some
| broad index funds.
| escot wrote:
| Yes. Specifically, your shares will just turn into cash in
| your brokerage account. You don't need to initiate a sale.
|
| Note that this happens even if you're going to lose money on
| your investment.
| mikestew wrote:
| _...and so the board has a serious legal obligation to
| carefully review this offer and make a decision._
|
| [citation needed] on that "legal obligation" myth that is
| continually propagated. As a real-life example, there's
| Microsoft's offer to Yahoo.
| belter wrote:
| A company is not a bag of potatoes in the market to sell at the
| whims of the highest bidder.
|
| Here is what would be looking after their fiduciary duties:
|
| The company had a loss of 200 million dollars this year. Was
| only profitable 2 years out of its 16 years of existence. The
| board should state that Twitter in the hands of Elon Musk,
| could jeopardize its current unique and somewhat also
| precarious, place in social media.
|
| The company should ask Elon Musk, to first explain to
| shareholders what he plans to do with the company, and how it
| would benefit them. Provide details on shape and form of how
| his plan would be implemented. Until then, rejecting the offer
| is looking after their fiduciary duties.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| I think you have it backwards. Twitter has always struggled,
| usually losing money, and Musk is coming in with a cash
| offer. He doesn't need to change anything for this to be a
| financial relief to shareholders. Not to mention shareholders
| will no longer have an interest in the company, as it will
| become private. There really isn't any impetus to prove
| Twitter's future will be better (and better than what? bad?)
| belter wrote:
| That is the whole point of my argument. As a director, I am
| rejecting the offer because my fiduciary duty, it to veil
| for the future of the company, not the bank account of the
| shareholders :-)
| ksdale wrote:
| It will be rather difficult for the board to argue that it's
| satisfying it's fiduciary duty by rejecting an offer with
| such a high premium so the current shareholders can continue
| to own a company that's losing money.
| timmg wrote:
| > A company is not a bag of potatoes in the market to sell at
| the whims of the highest bidder.
|
| That's _exactly_ what it is. Stocks trade on an open market.
| Twitter went public. They chose to become a commodity. That
| 's how commodities work.
| carlosdp wrote:
| > The board should state that Twitter in the hands of Elon
| Musk, could jeopardize its current unique and somewhat also
| precarious, place in social media.
|
| But see, this point is irrelevant in this scenario. If they
| sell, every current shareholder gets bought out in full, they
| no longer have a stake in the company. He could shut it down
| the next day and it wouldn't affect the former shareholders,
| the company's future at that point is only Elon (and Twitter
| employees' and users') concern.
|
| It's fiduciary duty to the shareholders, not the company
| itself, not the employees.
| belter wrote:
| A board works for the company not directly the
| shareholders. Shareholders think they are the owners of a
| company but they are not.
|
| "Shareholders think they own the company -- they are
| wrong":
|
| https://www.ft.com/content/7bd1b20a-879b-11e5-90de-f44762bf
| 9...
|
| "Board of directors have a fiduciary duty to exercise due
| care in how they manage a corporation's affairs and also
| have the duty of loyalty and obedience to the corporation.
| A fiduciary duty means that both directors and officers
| handle their powers only for the collective benefit of the
| corporation AND (my emphasis) its stockholders."
|
| https://www.upcounsel.com/board-of-directors-fiduciary-duty
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > Shareholders think they are the owners of a company but
| they are not.
|
| They are. That's what a shareholder is.
| belter wrote:
| See article I linked from FT for the rationale.
|
| You can have all 100% of the shares, and there are still
| things the law can punish you for, like running a company
| to the ground. You can't say: I owned 100% of the shares,
| so ordered the board to set fire to it as I though the
| flames would be beautiful and would give me a calming ego
| trip.
|
| Shareholders can't order any type of action from
| directors, just because they might have votes to elect
| them.
|
| Look at Facebook, and the CEO special shares. Do you
| think you are an owner of Facebook or a passenger along
| for the ride?
| carlosdp wrote:
| > Look at Facebook, and the CEO special shares. Do you
| think you are an owner of Facebook or a passenger along
| for the ride?
|
| That's not a great example, because in Facebook's
| structure, Zuck has special class shares which give him
| 10x the voting power of regular shares, per share. So he
| actually _does_ have the majority of the shareholder
| power, irrespective of any rationale of the
| responsibility of directors.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| Anyone notice that the price is $5 _4.20_?
|
| A coincidence? A week out from 4/20?
| dmarcos wrote:
| Not a coincidence. Elon also offered $420 per share when he
| tried to take Tesla private.
|
| Context for the unfamiliar:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/420_(cannabis_culture)
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| Yeah that's what I was referring to, making me think this
| is more of the same juvenile shenanigans.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Well yeah, he's never seen any real punishment from all
| the other times he's broken the law. So why would he
| stop?
|
| He'll pump & dump again. Make a ton of money. Then after
| he's forced to pay a modest fine, he'll make it his
| mission in life to hunt down and destroy the careers of
| anyone involved in the investigation.
| ProjectArcturis wrote:
| Yeah, where's he going to get $42B cash? A typical offer
| would describe the source of funds. This one doesn't.
| skinnymuch wrote:
| He will sell 42000 NFTs to his followers.
| ghayes wrote:
| The Bloomberg article states this fact, as well.
| mdoms wrote:
| He sure does like the weed number for a guy who smoked pot
| exactly one time.
| golemotron wrote:
| His text to counter-parties telling them that he was going to
| make an offer was 281 characters too.
| GoodJokes wrote:
| namesbc wrote:
| No board is going to accept a low-ball offer, and that assumes
| Musk is even seriously offering and not pulling another stupid
| stunt.
| boringg wrote:
| Part of his strength is that he keeps people on his toes.
| What is a real move vs when is he trolling.
| cft wrote:
| Deep state via its pension funds that have unlimited access to
| free cash from Fed in cases like this, will long Twitter. This
| bidding war cannot be won by Musk. He probably factored this
| in, and will take significant profit once he dumps his share as
| he promised. Hopefully that would go towards funding a Twitter
| alternative.
| alecco wrote:
| And to note, Musk is going against the trend. Ark, the tech
| permabull, reduced its Twitter position. Cathie Wood just said
| she started selling after @jack stepped down as CEO.
| Interesting times.
| mgfist wrote:
| I don't think he is. He stated that he doesn't see a future
| for Twitter with current management.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Too early to say. He bought, pumped, and has set up an excuse
| to dump. To go against the trend, he would have to hold. That
| remains to be seen.
| et2o wrote:
| Do you really think Elon Musk cares about potentially
| making about 100 million on a pump and dump scheme? He's
| worth 240 billion
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Yes. Not only does he get $100M for a few tweets and
| talks with an accountant, he gets to hurt people he
| doesn't like, and he builds his reputation as one who
| plays hardball.
| partiallypro wrote:
| If the bid is rejected the price of the shares would
| probably go below his initial purchase price in the
| shares...so he'd likely lose money.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| He can keep the circus going long enough to significantly
| sell into it, if he hasn't already started. He's _really_
| good at that.
| Fomite wrote:
| See Musk's net worth. It's entirely possible that
| whatever the loss is, it's an entertainment expense in
| his mind for a vanity project, a bit of spite, and
| perpetuating his reputation.
| mike00632 wrote:
| "NO RISK"?
|
| There is a very clear risk of transformating the social media
| titan that is Twitter into Truth Social, a sideshow of a forum
| that is dedicated to the worship of one man. That would plummet
| the stock price.
| max599 wrote:
| >That would plummet the stock
|
| From the point of view of the investors, there is no risk. If
| offer is accepted, they get their bags of cash and walk away
| with hopefully more than what they paid for those share. Musk
| could shut down the business to the ground on day 1 and they
| still get to keep their cash (I wish he would).
| partiallypro wrote:
| This is a fear based on nothing that I keep seeing peddled by
| people with no experience moderating anything in their entire
| life, and don't remember early Twitter. Other companies have
| actually censored theirselves into irrelevance (almost happed
| to OnlyFans, already happened to Tumblr, Yahoo, etc.) So a
| model with more fair and transparent moderation would likely
| be a business boon. Twitter is not at all transparent on why
| some things are allowed to stay while others are banned
| entirely.
|
| Also the shareholders would get cash, they would no longer
| own the company at all and the future of the company would no
| longer be of their concern. Musk could shut it down and it
| wouldn't matter to investors, they'd already have their
| money.
| aoeusnth1 wrote:
| Not for the current shareholders, who would have cashed out
| by then. They would have no stake in MuskTwitter (tm).
| jtdev wrote:
| MrMan wrote:
| in the financial press I see people saying the board should
| _not_ accept this lowball, non-negotiable offer.
| randyrand wrote:
| Fiduciary duty =/= short term gains of company stock.
|
| Shareholder interest =/= money. Shareholder votes allow other
| considerations can be taken into account.
|
| I agree with your comment, but it's not _that_ hard to reject
| IMO.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Boards have been sued and won against for not taking takeover
| bids. So there is some precedence.
| texasbigdata wrote:
| Delaware law is a bit more nuanced here.
| ABCLAW wrote:
| Not really. The OP in this thread is very overblown. The
| business judgement rule is a cornerstone of corporate law
| in most western jurisdictions - Delaware's framework, if
| anything, enhances the value of the scope and level of
| deference offered by the rule.
|
| https://corplaw.delaware.gov/delaware-way-business-
| judgment/...
| [deleted]
| coffeeblack wrote:
| One risk may be that a lot of the blue hairs among the staff
| may choose to leave the company. Then again, that might be a
| positive thing for the company's economic performance.
| bspear wrote:
| All I can think is... lucky Jack, and poor Parag
| jereees wrote:
| The ultimate scapegoat tbh. The whole things was just for
| show (completely unfounded statement, but I hold it to
| heart).
| babypuncher wrote:
| > Boards have a fiduciary duty to the shareholders. As an all-
| cash offer, this generates for the shareholders a substantial
| return with NO RISK, and so the board has a serious legal
| obligation to carefully review this offer and make a decision.
|
| The fact that their primary concern has to be for their
| shareholders and not whether the sale will be good at all for
| the rest of humanity is a huge problem in my eyes.
| Digory wrote:
| I echo /u/Babypuncher's call for human idealism.
|
| Legally, the Board can consider stakeholder goals and
| morality. I think if Musk announced a profitable-but-legal
| foray into genocide, you could urge shareholders to reject
| it, and no court will hold otherwise.
|
| But at some point the shareholders can overrule you. And in
| those cases, we find management's highest goal is usually
| preserving their own special salary, not the "interests of
| humanity."
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The fact that their primary concern has to be for their
| shareholders and not whether the sale will be good at all for
| the rest of humanity is a huge problem in my eyes
|
| Welcome to capitalism.
| kebman wrote:
| What is it that you think is good or bad for the rest of
| humanity about this potential sale?
| metamet wrote:
| You can criticize Twitter's leadership all you want, but I
| don't see how allowing Elon Musk to take ownership control
| of Twitter would better humanity.
| coolso wrote:
| Free speech is dangerous; without censorship, progressive
| ideas cannot propagate because people can then make them
| look as silly as they truly are.
| bobkazamakis wrote:
| > Free speech is dangerous; without censorship,
| progressive ideas cannot propagate because people can
| then make them look as silly as they truly are.
|
| By this definition, the US never would have abolished
| slavery. Those who praise conservative ideas always put
| those ideas in a vacuum where they can't be proven wrong.
| Fascinating, isn't it?
| water8 wrote:
| This is kinda riding on past accomplishments of the
| Republican party. Progress for progress's sake isn't
| always progress
| bobkazamakis wrote:
| the statement asserted has nothing to do with any
| specific party at any specific point in period. This is
| an example of progress during an era of which,
| apparently, free speech was unquestioned. The past
| accomplishments of the Republican party much more closely
| mirror the current Democratic party due to the Southern
| Strategy, but again, not relevant to the point being
| made.
|
| > Progress for progress's sake isn't always progress
|
| then it's definitively not progressive, isn't it?
| Conservation is a reactive stance, not an active one.
| andrepd wrote:
| I've read this 3 times and I still don't understand what
| you're trying to say.
| boppo1 wrote:
| He's saying Twitter is very left-leaning and censors
| criticism of progressive tweets.
| andrepd wrote:
| But isn't this demonstrably false? (Not even to mention
| that "progressive" in this context seems to mean
| something very different from the dictionary definition).
| water8 wrote:
| Just as much as it's demonstrably true.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| Which Twitter are you using? Pick up any conservative
| YouTube video talking about social media and you'll see
| plenty of examples.
|
| One example that comes to mind is Hunter Biden's laptop
| (recently confirmed as true, even by left wing
| publications) being censured vs all the Trump's Russian
| allegations (which didn't go anywhere) which weren't.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| > recently confirmed as true, even by left wing
| publications
|
| Sorry, the existence of said laptop, or all the wild
| conspiracy theories attached to it? You need to bound in
| your definition of "true" here a bit.
| KarlKemp wrote:
| He's saying that humanity is seriously losing out because
| he is sometimes limited in his capacity to be an asshole
| in some corner of the internet. Also, if my set-theory
| interpretation is accurate, he's claiming that "being an
| asshole on the internet" + "being progressive" equals the
| totality of the human experience, from their vantage
| point.
| coolso wrote:
| Many of the silliest progressive ideas are being / have
| been normalized thanks to Big Tech and the establishment
| doing one or more of three things:
|
| 1) actively censoring people who speak out against them
|
| 2) preventing discussions from happening in the first
| place (comments disabled, dislikes hidden)
|
| 3) actively promoting the ideal progressive version of
| the idea to cut down on dissent
|
| Take the pronouns thing. Every other Instagram account of
| a female has her official pronouns (which you may only
| choose from a list of officially allowed ones so as to
| cut down on dissent via things like "your majesty / his
| highness") set to she/her. I'm sorry but we all know
| you're a woman. Why are you putting your pronouns up? The
| idea is a preposterous one; don't even get anyone started
| on the they/them abomination.
|
| And yet dissent and mockery of this abject stupidity is
| largely censored. As a result it's bleeding out into the
| real world.
|
| I hang in very progressive social circles. Trust me when
| I tell you, you do not want this reality. Their lives are
| defined by their progressive causes and perceived slights
| and micro aggressions. Every introduction "must" involve
| your pronouns and if you "forget" them they will
| innocently ask you of them. As a result people are
| bumbling pronouns all the time, I cannot tell you how
| many times even the pronoun experts start to say "she" or
| "he" in casual conversation referring to someone but then
| panic and stutter and say "they" because they can't quite
| remember what pronoun this particular person wants to go
| by today or if they're a they/them who despises people
| who feel like they should be able to speak freely without
| knowing they're very, very special and are too special to
| go by a binary pronoun.
|
| Mockery is the best defense against stupidity. Which is
| why it's under such a big threat. And it's why Elon is
| taking over Twitter.
| rrose wrote:
| > Take the pronouns thing
|
| oh boy.
|
| > Why are you putting your pronouns up?
|
| To normalize people being open and explicit about their
| gender identity so that people with non-obvious gender
| identities can feel less conspicuous sharing theirs.
|
| > they/them
|
| They and them have been neutral-gender pronouns forever.
|
| > And yet dissent and mockery of this abject stupidity is
| largely censored.
|
| Because most of it is thinly veiled transphobia. You can
| still disagree with the censorship but to act as if it's
| mostly good-faith arguments being censored is just naive.
| hyperdunc wrote:
| Sorry, a person's gender identity just isn't that
| interesting, and the extra cognitive load of remembering
| pronouns isn't something I'm willing to bear.
|
| This trend isn't meaningful, it's narcissistic.
| rrose wrote:
| it not being interesting to you doesn't mean it isn't
| incredibly important to them. The fact that it _is_
| incredibly important to them is obvious, and the
| "cognitive load" you're talking about is completely
| trivial. If you're not willing to take even the tiniest
| effort to make the people around you feel welcome, you
| may be the one being narcissistic.
| akomtu wrote:
| Some relevant offtopic here. Long time ago I came across
| a book of occult nature that, among other things,
| outlined 6 soul types, one of them being a curiously
| accurate portait of what we call wokeness now:
|
| ...individualised by vanity were born into city
| populations, and life after life they tended to drift
| together by similarity of tastes and contempt for others,
| even though their dominating idiosyncrasy of vanity led
| to much quarrelling and often-repeated ruptures among
| themselves. Separateness became much intensified, their
| minds strengthening in an undesirable way, and becoming
| more and more of a shell, shutting out others. Their
| emotions, as they repressed animal passions, grew less
| powerful, for the animal passions were starved out by a
| hard and cold asceticism, instead of being transmuted
| into human emotions; sex-passion, for instance, was
| destroyed instead of being changed into love. The result
| was that they had less feeling, birth after birth, and
| physically tended towards sexlessness, and while they
| developed individualism to a high point, this very
| development led to constant quarrels and rioting. They
| formed communities, but these broke up again, because no
| one would obey; each wanted to rule. Any attempt to help
| or guide them, on the part of more highly developed
| people, led to an outburst of jealousy and resentment, it
| being taken as a plan to manage or belittle them. Pride
| grew stronger and stronger, and they became cold and
| calculating, without pity and without remorse.
| robonerd wrote:
| Do you mind sharing the name of this book? I'm interested
| in reading about the other sort of souls.
| diputsmonro wrote:
| Cool story bro.
|
| I could also write up paragraphs of text filled with
| vague generalizations and prejudices about people living
| in the rural countryside, and paint up a picture that all
| the people who live there are abominations who uniquely
| suffer from the negative aspects of the human condition..
|
| But I won't, because this and that are both mindless
| factionalist drivel.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Then there is nothing anyone can do for you.
| cockfacts wrote:
| RaymondDeWitt wrote:
| If someone offers to purchase your home or other property,
| the decision to accept that offer lay with the property
| owner(s), not the municipality, county, or state who may or
| may not consider impact to humanity. In what utopia do you
| think we live?
| seizethegdgap wrote:
| You're comparing apples to Zanzibar.
|
| You don't have 300 million people (including heads of
| state) outside your house (that you jointly own with
| millions of other people) standing on your lawn interacting
| with each other and the rest of the world.
| kbenson wrote:
| You likely do have people or organizations on the loan to
| your house though, and they don't really get a say most
| of the time as long as they can be paid off.
|
| What if instead of a house we were talking about a small
| business that serves people. Can that business not sell
| itself to someone else?
|
| Property rights and the government stepping in to force
| changes don't interact well, and goes against a free
| market type system. The government does step in
| sometimes, but usually when they see what's being done as
| being anti-competitive and hurting people through
| reducing market effectiveness, not just because they've
| made some moral judgement. Personally I'm happy they're
| not doing the latter, I suspect quite a lot of people
| would not agree with the judgements they were making at
| any specific time, depending on the specific groups in
| power.
| andrepd wrote:
| Property rights and the government stepping in to force
| changes don't interact well, and goes against a free
| market type system. The government does step in
| sometimes, but usually when they see what's being done as
| being anti-competitive and hurting people through
| reducing market effectiveness, not just because they've
| made some moral judgement.
|
| Tobacco advertising, pollution, lead gasoline... Clearly
| we do make moral choices and, as a democracy, pass laws
| restricting some activities. The world is not encompassed
| by The Profit Motive.
|
| I'm not quite sure that unrestricted hyper-optimised
| misery factories are the thing we should be shooting for.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| People claim that free markets, capitalism, and
| government noninterference lead to good outcomes.
|
| Then when we look at examples of these things causing
| harm rather than leading to good outcomes, people shout
| and say "Hey you can't do that, its a free market!"
|
| If people want to use the argument that free markets
| should be able to cause harm if they want then people
| need to stop using the argument that free markets are
| good because of all the good they consistently do.
| cloutchaser wrote:
| China has a different model. Perhaps move there and try that?
| mgfist wrote:
| Shareholders can vote no. It's why having a majority
| shareholder is so powerful.
|
| But also it's the job of the regulatory body to be the check
| for society
| [deleted]
| CivBase wrote:
| > The fact that their primary concern has to be for their
| shareholders and not whether the sale will be good at all for
| the rest of humanity is a huge problem in my eyes.
|
| I know very little about public trading or the laws regarding
| it - especially compared to many other HN users - but here's
| my novice response:
|
| Think about _why_ that 's a rule. The board doesn't own the
| company; the shareholders do. The board's role is to make
| decisions on behalf of the shareholders. The rule exists to
| ensure they do exactly that.
|
| A board deciding to financially harm the investors they
| represent for the "good of humanity" goes against the very
| concept of investment. A public company intentionally acting
| against the financial interests of its owners would see its
| stock value immediately collapse, causing immense damage to
| its shareholders, employees, and customers.
|
| If you want a company to act "for the good of humanity", it
| has to either be privately owned or align with the financial
| interests of its investors.
| KarlKemp wrote:
| It's really just a silly common misinterpretation of a
| vague legal concept, the stock market equivalent of
| "correlation doesn't imply causation", in that it's the
| only thing many people know about the subject and that they
| consider this very complicated information that needs to be
| mentioned at every possible opportunity.
|
| In reality, there has been more or less exactly one
| successful invocation of the concept in history, against
| Craig Newmark, when he explicitly said he was going to do
| something that would harm shareholders.
|
| In reality, you do whatever you want and if anybody
| complains you tell them it's good PR and will therefore
| benefit shareholders in the long run. You can be as wrong
| about that as you want as long as you manage to avoid
| explicitly stating that you know to be wrong.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| > A board deciding to financially harm the investors they
| represent for the "good of humanity" goes against the very
| concept of investment.
|
| It does not. It goes against a very specific concept of
| investment, which is that I should be able to buy a thing
| and make money with absolutely zero regard for anybody
| else. It is not a rule of the universe that owning
| something should allow me to harm others.
| CivBase wrote:
| I agree that ownership of a company does not entitle you
| to harm others. There are many laws which exist to
| prevent companies from harming others and we probably
| need more of those.
|
| But this isn't about what rights a company has. This is
| about the obligations a board has to act on behalf of its
| shareholders within legal limits.
|
| Please don't confuse my comments for an approval of
| public companies choosing financial gain over the good of
| others. This is one of the primary reasons why I am very
| critical of companies going public. Going public
| essentially means a company sells its soul for investment
| money. The owners and investors may see a big payout, but
| the potential long-term good a company can do is
| handicapped as soon as it goes public.
| [deleted]
| RaymondDeWitt wrote:
| BINGO
| andrepd wrote:
| That's all very well and good but aren't you arguing in a
| circle? You're essentially saying "since shareholders have
| absolute power over an enterprise, therefore they have
| absolute power over the enterprise". Sure, but we're
| arguing that it's not a good idea to have companies be
| immune to any public accountability or and democratic
| control. In fact we already do this: there are myriad laws
| that constrain the behaviour of companies: rules about
| financing, transparency, pollution, taxes, etc.
| CivBase wrote:
| I read the comment as being a complaint specifically
| about the rule that board members should have to act in
| the financial interest of shareholders. If the intention
| was to criticize ownership rights of shareholders or to
| argue for legal limitations on the powers of a company's
| owners, then my response definitely doesn't address that.
| andrepd wrote:
| Fair enough.
| carlosdp wrote:
| If you want that to be the primary concern, start a
| B-Corp[1], not a C-Corp. There's plenty of successful public
| benefit corporations!
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_Corporation_(certification)
| qez wrote:
| Who decides what's right for humanity? Someone has to. How
| about the owners... aka the shareholders.
| andrepd wrote:
| Why should a very small number of people with capital
| decide that? Clearly that's not very democratic.
| cercatrova wrote:
| Because...they own the company? They literally hold
| shares representing their ownership of the company and
| then vote on what to do with said company. That is
| democratic.
| yellow_postit wrote:
| What system would you propose?
|
| Shareholders seems like the best of the worst type
| scenarios. They have skin in the game, they are
| countable, they have legal status.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| Why is Twitter important enough to require democratic
| stewardship? Lots of people don't use Twitter; it's the
| least used platform among all the other social media
| companies. When you're thinking about stewarding capital
| democratically, think about where the lines are, and why.
| The critique I'm reading behind the lines here is that
| Twitter, despite being a private institution, has a large
| amount of impact on society and so should be subject to
| democratic oversight. I'm not sure that's the reality;
| Twitter is a failing business with a stagnant, albeit
| highly engaged, userbase. It's unclear to me why we
| should subject Twitter to democratic control for the good
| of its small userbase. If anything that critique would be
| more applicable to something like Facebook in the US or
| WhatsApp in other countries (HK, India, etc) which
| actually have come to take a sort of infrastructural role
| in communications. Twitter does not have this role.
| Should the government have stepped in during the Tumblr
| acquisition?
|
| That's the tricky thing with making the case to steward
| corporations democratically. Just for example, my parents
| don't know anything about Twitter except its name. I
| think they would find the government regulating Twitter
| to be an overreach of democracy simply because it's not
| something they know or even care about.
| ROARosen wrote:
| The reason this bothers me in principle, is that whatever the
| side of politics you are, the "public" will have effectively zero
| control on affecting any board decisions at Twitter, moderation-
| wise or otherwise.
|
| Its true that the public had little say in that regard till now
| but at least this buyout threat shows that it is "possible" to
| stand up to whatever decisions their board makes.
|
| As an aside, I doubt people and governments would have the same
| confidence in Twitter were it a private company, which leaves me
| to believe that this whole buyoff thingy is just a power play by
| Musk to gain some power over the board without actually joining
| the board.
| sidcool wrote:
| It's such a dichotomy. Twitter's main assets are its users.
| Twitter is valuable only because of its user base. And the
| users do have a say. If majority of the users decide against
| this takeover, they can boycott the platform. But a collective
| action at this scale is pretty difficult to orchestrate. It's
| quaint, users have the power to shut down Twitter, but still
| they can't do it.
| fleddr wrote:
| Twitter's users are worthless.
|
| Recent studies show that a very small percentage is
| responsible for some 97% of all tweets. And worse, 80% of
| those 97% of tweets are retweets.
|
| There's almost no original content of any value on Twitter.
| You could now delete half of all Twitter users and absolutely
| nothing will happen.
|
| Twitter is a bunch of celebrities/politicians saying things
| that fuel division and outrage, which generates the bulk of
| activity. They won't ban anything as because without Twitter
| richly rewarding them for idiotic takes, they are nothing.
| orlp wrote:
| This dichotomy is as old as the dictatorship. A
| king/emperor/tzar/<dictator variation #923>'s assets are the
| people he commands. All his value comes from taxation of the
| people or extraction of natural resources by the people. The
| people can decide to overthrow the king, but it is hard to
| orchestrate.
| xixixao wrote:
| I don't see any connection between ownership and moderation.
| Perhaps Elon does. But he can be called on by the Senate just
| as any board appointed CEO. Curious if someone can explain the
| connection.
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| If you own twitter you can chop heads till the
| moderationpolicy changes
| [deleted]
| neillyons wrote:
| Can someone give me a layman's explanation as to why taking
| Twitter private would allow Elon to make the changes he wants to
| make that he couldn't do if it was still public?
| [deleted]
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| If he takes the company private (solo or with other investors),
| he'll make sure to have the votes to impose the CEO of his
| choice, with the option to change him/her whenever he pleases.
| That should be a sine qua non.
| Jsebast23 wrote:
| This is just opinion.
|
| Twitter lost the trust of important users who have seen people
| censored for tweets that go against management's politics.
| Nobody thinks it's cool to build a community of hundreds of
| thousands of followers, only to be censored out at the most
| critical moment. That confidence will never be regained as long
| as Twitter has the same management and the same board. You
| would need to replace the board (the owners) and the
| management. Musk will also add his own name--a powerful brand
| itself--to Twitter's brand; but for the thing to work, Musk
| needs to be in full control. A private company also has less
| disclosure obligations, which is a valuable plus.
| oneepic wrote:
| And just like that, Twitter engineering _might_ somehow develop
| the same poor culture and work-life balance as Tesla and SpaceX.
| If I was there, I 'd be groaning at this news.
| [deleted]
| jollybean wrote:
| "Boards have a fiduciary duty to the shareholders."
|
| Xi and the CCP/Chinese Government make a bid to buy Google, for a
| 20% premium.
|
| They also bid to buy Twitter, Facebook and Microsoft. All for 20%
| premium.
|
| Should shareholders do 'the right thing' and sell?
|
| Assuming you're not a Twitter shareholder _why do you care about
| investors interests? Why don 't you care about your interests_?
|
| Why do plebes constantly argue against their own interests?
|
| As a Twitter user, I pretty much don't want Elon Musk involved,
| and I don't really care too much otherwise.
|
| Every organization has stakeholders: customers, suppliers,
| financiers (investors and debtors), execs, employees.
|
| If a Union forms, they can take considerable control away from
| investors.
|
| If debtors come calling, they can take considerable control, away
| from investors.
|
| 'Externalizations' such as issues in the public good, or
| environmental issues - matter.
|
| Usually, we like to think of those things, in the context of a
| 'Charter' that highlights those things i.e. some 'Crown/Gov.
| Corporations', things like the CBC, US Post etc..
|
| When you say 'things that don't matter vs. things that do' - that
| could be true, or only even true from a certain perspective.
|
| For example, you might think they should not focus on moderation,
| but instead, advertising. Well, without appropriate moderation,
| the ship could sink. Also, issues like moderation can be hard and
| ultimately satisfy nobody, and frankly, might not even be an
| operational distraction (although it probably is).
|
| Finally - as property of Elon Musk - Twitter will be literally
| whatever he wants it to be.
|
| Rich People have, throughout history, bought newspapers etc. for
| the entire purpose of slandering their opponents. The news wasn't
| even 'real' until just a few generations ago, it was all tabloid.
|
| Elon Musk could will likely censor those who disagree with him
| and his colleagues, and boost/amplify those who's interests are
| aligned with him - maybe not as badly as others, but it could be
| that.
|
| If you're going to take a 'principled stand' on this issue, it's
| going to have to be one probably of the externalized common good,
| not so much shareholders.
| mrleinad wrote:
| Moderation makes sense when somebody is hijacking your platform
| and ruining the experience for everyone else.
|
| How does someone ruin anything for anyone on twitter, when you
| can just unfollow/block on your own, and follow whomever you
| want?
|
| Seems to me that "moderation" these days is the same as
| "censorship". The same way the EU decided that their citizens
| cannot think for themselves and need to be protected from
| Russian lies like small children.
|
| I'd very much like Elon to take over Twitter, since he has
| clearly expressed he doesn't believe in pre-emptively censoring
| anyone just because their views are not aligned.
| tuwtuwtuwtuw wrote:
| > The same way the EU decided that their citizens cannot
| think for themselves and need to be protected from Russian
| lies like small children.
|
| But there is vast amounts of empirical evidence that this is
| correct. Why in the world would you think otherwise?!
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Every single argument that can be made in favor of speech
| restrictions can be made in favor of voting rights
| restrictions as well.
| tuwtuwtuwtuw wrote:
| Nope.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| The idea behind freedom generally is that despite the fact
| that most people don't behave optimally, it is unjust to
| curtail their right to behave suboptimally, so long as that
| behaviour doesn't _directly_ impact others.
| [deleted]
| jollybean wrote:
| First " since he has clearly expressed he doesn't believe in
| pre-emptively censoring anyone just because their views are
| not aligned. "
|
| This is completely false. Nobody is barred from Twitter pre-
| emptively, and nobody is barred because their 'views are not
| aligned'
|
| More importantly, it's naive to believe that the commons can
| decipher the truth.
|
| They cannot - neither can you or I - in a world of total
| disinformation.
|
| The 'truth' does not rise to the top, rather, the ideas that
| are the most seductive, that appeal to our impulses and
| beliefs, are the ideas that rise to the top and especially if
| there are potent interests - and there always are i.e.
| Economic or Political, that 'free forums' will be controlled
| by those interests which will likely have nothing to do with
| any kind of 'truth' - which is in the public good.
|
| People are busy, and the world is complicated - so we need
| centres of credibility.
|
| For example - Doctors and Medical Information.
|
| That's a hugely regulated sector, because we don't want
| Yahoos selling you 'Cures for Cancer' when they don't work at
| all. And there would be a Trillion dollar business there, if
| were allowed, causing untold harm. We already have a lot of
| problems there actually.
|
| There is no 'free speech' in Medical Information.
|
| I'll use your own example against you:
|
| Do you think that Europeans are magically smarter than
| Russians? How is it that large number of Russians, even those
| who technically have access to 'outside information' come to
| such a deluded view of reality established by Putin?
|
| Why do you think that Europeans are going to magically
| enlightened and not susceptible to his made up reality?
|
| Putin has not 'cut off' Russia, he just needs to raise the
| barriers a little bit (i.e. VPN), because most people will
| just watch the propaganda otherwise.
|
| That way, he can create a 66% buy-in in Russia.
|
| If he can aggressively drive his misinformation into Europe,
| he could create a 15% support, and maybe 25% disinclination,
| enough to tilt the tables in many political situations, based
| on complete fabrications.
|
| In the Weimar Republic, Stalin had direct control over 17% of
| the Bundestag via his direct control over the German
| Communist Party achieved through control over popular
| information ie propaganda in the commons.
|
| 30% of the USA public believes that the election was stolen,
| which is a lie.
|
| If you take a survey among progressives about police violence
| against African American and ask them to put some numbers
| down (i.e # of unarmed African Americans being killed by
| police) - you'll get outrageous answers, not really based on
| any kind of reality.
|
| And both of those things are problems even in the current
| system which has 'some integrity'.
|
| All un-moderated public places turn into chaos very quickly -
| that's the first problem.
|
| More importantly - they will be used by forces to create the
| reality they want.
|
| It's fine to have a view of what Twitter should and should
| not be of course, if you want Elon there, that's great.
|
| But nobody who is not a Twitter investor should really care
| that much about 'fiduciary responsibility'. The 'Truth' is a
| much, much more important public good that some random guys
| economic interest.
| mrleinad wrote:
| > Nobody is barred from Twitter pre-emptively, and nobody
| is barred because their 'views are not aligned'
|
| Maybe so. What about branding accounts as "pro X" or "anti
| X"? Because Twitter's been doing that, albeit much less
| explicitly. You can see now that some journalists get the
| tag "Russian affiliated" just because they try to report on
| all sides the same way. Isn't that akin to taking a stand
| against or something? Why would you need to brand someone
| on their views if not to censor them in a way?
|
| > it's naive to believe that the commons can decipher the
| truth
|
| Where's the enlightened group of individuals that decide
| what truth is and is not? Who decides who's a common, and
| what parameters do you use? I'd really like to know.
|
| > The 'truth' does not rise to the top
|
| If you mean your twitter feed, certainly not. But on the
| long term, it surely does.
|
| > that 'free forums' will be controlled by those interests
| which will likely have nothing to do with any kind of
| 'truth' - which is in the public good
|
| So, you're saying that the Twitter board knows what's best
| for the public good and what's not. They're the enlightened
| ones then? How did they attain this state?
|
| > Why do you think that Europeans are going to magically
| enlightened and not susceptible to his made up reality?
|
| I'm saying they should decide for themselves. Nobody should
| tell you what you can and cannot read. That's your right,
| and that includes listening to lies. If you want people to
| see beyond lies, teach them to recognize those lies
| instead. Critical thinking is what's required.
|
| Of course, then they'll also be able to see through YOUR
| lies, so maybe that's what they don't want?
|
| > If he can aggressively drive his misinformation into
| Europe
|
| Forget about Putin. How will you be able to tell
| misinformation from truth in your own government, when
| instead of pushing for critical thinking, you push for
| banning people?
| thegrimmest wrote:
| > _so we need centres of credibility_
|
| I don't disagree, however I would hold that these centers
| establish themselves naturally, in absence of any
| regulation. There is a reason that one's reputation was of
| _paramount importance_ before this regulation came into
| being. Well-raised people didn 't fall for quackery simply
| because they were taught _only_ to transact with reputable
| purveyors.
|
| I personally would _very much like_ to make my own
| decisions based on the information available, and I don 't
| need the government to limit my options or hold my hand in
| any way. I also have no problem with letting misinformed
| people _fail_ to the full extent that their failure
| implies, including pursuing quackery for their medical
| ailments. I fundamentally don 't think it is the
| government's job to protect people from their own
| misfortune or personal failure.
|
| The problem with "the truth" is that it substantially
| doesn't exist, beyond reproducible scientific inquiry. How
| do you know, for sure, as a matter of scientific fact, that
| the election wasn't tampered with in any way? I'm not
| suggesting that it was, only that it is _unknowable_. As
| with any question of the historical record, all we can do
| is look at the facts available to us and apply our best
| judgement. These questions are fundamentally ones on which
| free people should be entitled to disagree.
|
| I don't want an authority dictating what is and isn't the
| "right" interpretation of history or current events, simply
| because _no authority_ can be relied on to get this 100%
| right. Being forced to conform to one lie is far, far worse
| than hearing many.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| > Moderation makes sense when somebody is hijacking your
| platform and ruining the experience for everyone else.
|
| It makes sense _to you_. Moderation makes sense to me in very
| different circumstances.
| llbeansandrice wrote:
| > need to be protected from Russian lies like small children.
|
| You are not immune to propaganda.
| jollybean wrote:
| It's kind of sad egoism that people think they are immune
| to misinformation or propaganda.
|
| Mark Twain said something along the lines of it's 10x more
| difficult to convince someone they've been duped, then
| duping them in the first place.
|
| Everyone, definitely including intelligent people, are very
| susceptible to propaganda and misinformation.
| mrleinad wrote:
| Who gets to decide what's propaganda and what is not?
| You? The government?
| nullc wrote:
| How many of the positions you strongly advocate for here
| on HN would you estimate are ultimately the result of
| misinformation or propaganda that you've fallen victim
| to?
| mrleinad wrote:
| Never said I was. But neither you nor the government (nor
| me for the sake of argument) can decide what's propaganda
| and what's actual information.
|
| Let people decide that on their own.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| No one is saying they are, only that they'd like the
| opportunity (read the right) to make up their own mind, and
| be wrong about things.
| alimov wrote:
| > How does someone ruin anything for anyone on twitter, when
| you can just unfollow/block on your own, and follow whomever
| you want?
|
| So if we don't ignore bots or "troll farms" (or whatever they
| are called these days) then it's pretty clear how the
| experience of any user on the platform can be "ruined". If
| you're spending a ton of time blocking / unfollowing instead
| of engaging with others on the platform, then that could be
| one way that many "someone's " can ruin Twitter for others.
| mrleinad wrote:
| > If you're spending a ton of time blocking / unfollowing
|
| Do you really spend hours doing that? I use twitter and
| really don't need to do all that maintenance, and there are
| TONS of trolls and nasty people.
|
| What are you doing on twitter that requires such high
| maintenance?
| andrepd wrote:
| >Seems to me that "moderation" these days is the same as
| "censorship".
|
| Extremely funny that you say that in a forum that is so
| heavily moderated.
|
| >I'd very much like Elon to take over Twitter, since he has
| clearly expressed he doesn't believe in pre-emptively
| censoring anyone just because their views are not aligned.
|
| Yes, as we all know Elon Musk is an extremely trustworthy
| person and I'm sure he will go out of his way to keep his
| word (as he has always done in his life) in order to do good
| to the world, even to his own detriment. /s
|
| My god, some people are very gullible.
| mrleinad wrote:
| > Yes, as we all know Elon Musk is an extremely trustworthy
| person
|
| He refused to ban Russian media through Starlink when
| everyone was banning them and anything that smelled like
| russian. So I'd say he can take the heat for free speach
| when it truly matters.
| andrepd wrote:
| Of course, he refuses to ban things when that doesn't
| impact his bottom line! (and in fact gives him good pr)
|
| But that's easy enough, it's free. But we do see how much
| he truly cares about freedom when his $$$ is on the line,
| say when he goes full gilded-age union-busting on his
| employees for example.
| mrleinad wrote:
| I'll re-evaluate my views on him in that case. So far, my
| case stands.
| bewaretheirs wrote:
| "Xi and the CCP/Chinese Government make a bid to buy Google,
| for a 20% premium."
|
| If this were to happen, the bid would be reviewed by the CFIUS
| -- https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/international/the-
| co... ; based on the review, the transaction could be blocked
| by executive order.
| jollybean wrote:
| Of course it would not pass muster, which is my point.
|
| There is a giant 'non market force' at play there a certain
| kind of regulatory apparatus which most people understand
| exists for good reason.
|
| This regulatory condition obviously supercedes 'fiduciary
| responsibility' of the Board.
|
| Communications is a protected industry because powerful
| foreign interests can take control of narratives, precisely
| because people in the commons - including you and I - are
| fairly easily pursuaded.
|
| 'Truth' is really hard to do, it's a public good and it's why
| at the national level we have protections - and - it's why
| both Twitter, Google etc. as 'sources of information' fall
| under a different perspective of governance than say, a
| 'cracker company'.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| > Xi and the CCP/Chinese Government make a bid to buy Google,
| for a 20% premium. They also bid to buy Twitter, Facebook and
| Microsoft. All for 20% premium. Should shareholders do 'the
| right thing' and sell?
|
| The right thing isn't necessarily selling. In that case the
| right thing is to _consider_ the offer and decide if it 's
| worth it or not. In this case the answer would probably be "No"
| and the US Government probably wouldn't let it happen either.
| CosmicShadow wrote:
| Scary if he wins. One super powerful shit disturber with a
| personal agenda controlling one of the largest social news
| sources out there.
|
| It goes from a company fighting to survive, who probably has
| little agenda (or time and power to really fight for it), to a
| company that exists simply to serve the whims of one man's agenda
| and every change and action will be for that purpose, albeit not
| advertised as such. How else better to amplify one's voice and
| discredit anyone else's? Sow chaos, fuel rumours, surface chatter
| that will affect markets to his favour and to dick around with
| politicians and countries that aren't doing him any favours. It
| definitely doesn't sit right.
|
| The real question is why, because I very much doubt he wants to
| "improve" twitter, it's more like what does he want to accomplish
| by owning the platform to advance his other goals.
| ravenstine wrote:
| I can't imagine Musk can make Twitter any worse than it is. As
| much as I would have liked it to be a medium that elevated
| humanity, with some exceptions, it's served to be quite the
| opposite. I'd be pleased if Twitter disappeared from existence,
| but maybe Musk either improves it or leads to demolish it, and by
| no means would I suggest standing in the way.
| Angostura wrote:
| You see, I think Twitter is different things to different
| people. I use it quite a lot - for putting out news about my
| local swimming club, the school's parent teacher association
| and at work communicating with customers. I find it great, and
| don't have to deal with toxicity because I don't go out looking
| for it.
| ravenstine wrote:
| That's true, and is the case with Facebook as well. I'm
| mostly commenting on the overall effect Twitter has had on
| civilization, and not so much that on the individual level.
| If Twitter has enriched society, I've yet to have noticed. In
| contrast, at least Tesla makes electric cars, expensive they
| may be, and even Facebook Marketplace is an improvement over
| Craigslist.
| hans1729 wrote:
| Unfortunately, you don't have to go out and look for it
| though. Twitter was not supposed to be a worse RSS-feed, so
| if that's your use case, nice, but that scope is ignorant to
| the reality of its market-fit.
| abap_rocky wrote:
| It's easy to imagine how Twitter can be worse because you can
| just look at Facebook.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Oh yeah, Facebook. I think my grandpa used that once.
|
| Don't get me wrong, Facebook can be bad, but I think Facebook
| was primarily bad at the personal level. It performed adverse
| psychological experiments on its users and it leaked data.
| Twitter is I think bad at a large scale because it's created
| a global shouting match while implementing ridiculous and
| often unspoken rules for the sake of protecting the
| establishment.
|
| At least you can sign off of Facebook and never use it again.
| Twitter, on the other hand, is given such undue power over
| the flow of information and intercultural sentiment, and news
| from both the mainstream and the digital outskirts reference
| it all the time. Whether I have a Twitter account or not, I
| can't avoid it, because mere tweets make the news
| _constantly_. I 'd say that Twitter is far more influential
| than Facebook at this point.
| racl101 wrote:
| yeah, it's already a dumpster fire. How much lower can it get?
| pavlov wrote:
| I've been very unhappy with my Twitter use because it has an
| addiction pattern. I set a short screen time limit on my phone,
| but I keep breaking it. Yet browsing the feed generally makes me
| feel sad and anxious.
|
| This news may be what I needed to delete my account.
| cbg0 wrote:
| It sounds like you should be unhappy with your own addictive
| tendencies and not necessarily Twitter. You may want to reach
| out to a specialist if you feel this is negatively impacting
| your life, as you'll likely start doing the same with some
| other app.
| HonestOp001 wrote:
| Good. Twitter is a top heavy company that could have its staff
| halved and still be good.
|
| Elon would do a great job firing the staff and right sizing the
| company.
|
| There was a chap who was involved in their AI department. Despite
| the initial question of why is there an AI department, the follow
| up is why is it doing so badly?
| lvl102 wrote:
| He actually dismissed Twitter's management so I am guessing
| they're slated to be demoted or fired if he takes over. Should
| they sell? I mean it's such a bizarrely undervalued company. It's
| like buying a plot of land on fifth avenue that's owned by a
| convenience store and the store owner wants to charge for a
| skyscraper market rate.
| caymanjim wrote:
| Twitter's management has no say in whether or not they sell,
| except insofar as they get to vote with their shares like any
| other investor.
| objclxt wrote:
| > I mean it's such a bizarrely undervalued company.
|
| Is it, though? Snap's market cap is $56 billion right now, and
| they have more MAU than Twitter (~320 million vs ~220 million).
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| Snap has been on borrowed time for a while. Both Tiktok and
| FB do what they do only better and with more users.
| [deleted]
| l-lousy wrote:
| I have NEVER seen an ad on Snapchat because all I do is send
| pictures and chat. Twitter has a user base that is a lot more
| engaged and can easily be captured by ads.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| You are just a millennial, this is why you undervalue
| Snapchat.
| barnabee wrote:
| Twitter is where people who are or will be powerful,
| influential, or impactful get their information, form their
| opinions, and often debate really important topics.
|
| So I'd agree it's undervalued in terms of utility if it's not
| priced an order of magnitude or more higher than Snap.
|
| Whether that value can or should be captured as profit or is
| a public good, implying Twitter should operate more like a
| utility or non-profit is another question...
| adwn wrote:
| > _Twitter is where people who are or will be powerful,
| influential, or impactful get their information, form their
| opinions, and often debate really important topics._
|
| Anecdotal counter point: I'll be powerful and influential
| one day, and I'm not using Twitter at all.
|
| On a more serious note, I haven't seen any evidence for the
| claim that powerful people form their opinions from
| information on Twitter.
| chii wrote:
| > I'll be powerful and influential one day, and I'm not
| using Twitter at all.
|
| how would you know you won't be using twitter when you do
| become powerful?
| UncleMeat wrote:
| I don't believe I have ever once seen a "debate on really
| important topics" on Twitter. And that's even including the
| unusually large number of professors I follow.
| garbagetime wrote:
| Professors must be among the least likely to have such
| discussions on Twitter.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Well then point me at all of this "debate on really
| important topics."
| mike00632 wrote:
| If you think that 280 characters is thorough intellectual
| discourse then you're spending too much time on Twitter.
| robonerd wrote:
| Twitter is where the powerful, influential and impactful
| people of the world do their best to demystify and demean
| themselves.
| lvl102 wrote:
| Twitter is literally the news breaking platform across the
| world. How much do you think that's worth? I think it's worth
| more than $100B under competent management.
| Ekaros wrote:
| It might have reach... But does it make money? And can it
| be made to make money?
| chii wrote:
| That's what they said about facebook in the beginning.
| And that's also the exact same thing they said about
| facebook acquiring whatsapp.
| throwaway71271 wrote:
| who even watches the news? its worth nothing for people <
| 30, and the people > 30 already watch what they want to
| watch, so twitter or not doesnt matter.
| garbagetime wrote:
| It's certainly a very impactful service.
| aeyes wrote:
| Around the world? I think you are overestimating Twitter by
| a large margin. My guess is that in the US Twitter has
| marketing deals with media outlets which make it a relevant
| platform to post and consume breaking news in the first
| place.
|
| In other countries I haven't seen a lot of Twitter logos on
| TV.
| caymanjim wrote:
| TV has nothing to do with it. I've never seen a Twitter
| logo on TV in the US either, except when they're
| reporting on Twitter as a company. GP wasn't talking
| about a business relationship between TV networks and
| Twitter.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Nothing to do with TV, Twitter has been established as a
| news breaking platform since at least the Arab spring.
| And it is _absolutely_ an international phenomenon.
| derefr wrote:
| The GP means that the journalists at the TV stations are
| getting their leads on what to cover _from Twitter_ ; not
| that audiences are watching Twitter in place of breaking
| news.
| asdff wrote:
| They probably have a police scanner running too. Should
| the public have that running as well to listen to all the
| latest news? IMO there is place for that and most people
| don't really need up to the second information on things
| happening hundreds of miles from anywhere they regularly
| interact with.
| zzleeper wrote:
| What's the chance of him just polling off a dogecoin? Price went
| up, he sells, then says "sorry for rejecting my offer" (which of
| course had "secured funding" and all that).
|
| Would be a great way to make a few extra billion and of course
| the SEC won't do mcuh
| Foivos wrote:
| Why 100% and not just the majority?
| YossarianFrPrez wrote:
| 43 Billion Dollars!? Of all the important issues in the world,
| Twitter is where this sort of money might go? Twitter! Oy vey
| have we lost sight of whats important. That's enough to give
| every research PhD student in the USA a sorely needed extra $15k
| every year for the next ~50 years. Sure glad we aren't living in
| an age where incentivizing technological breakthroughs on a
| societal level is an important thing to do.
|
| I use twitter, I get something out of it, and I probably disagree
| with Musk politically on several issues. But if he were to take
| Twitter private, and change it, or whatever... Honestly, that's
| his prerogative; I'm certainly not in a position to stop him.
| Whether it's "good" or "bad" is not something that's really under
| my control. It's just a shame that this wealth isn't used for
| something more productive.
| neonate wrote:
| Twitter _is_ the public square for elite discourse in the US.
| It 's surprising the price is that low. As a business maybe
| not, at least not in the short term, but the externalities
| are...compelling.
| thethimble wrote:
| Also this is an investment - not a donation. The expectation
| is that the $43b will drive direct ROI - not something that a
| donation to students will provide to an investor.
| YossarianFrPrez wrote:
| That's a good point. I guess I just question the value of
| having any more "direct ROI" when you already have a
| quarter of a trillion dollars. Surely, at that level, the
| things that improve the quality of your life -- especially
| to a systems thinker type -- are positive social changes?
| thepasswordis wrote:
| He doesn't lose $43 billion. He goes from osning $43B of one
| thing to $43B of a different thing.
| YossarianFrPrez wrote:
| True, but I'm not too concerned whether Musk loses $43
| billion or makes a 9% return on his money. While I don't
| imagine most people would be happy "losing" ~16% of their net
| wealth, when you have a quarter of a trillion dollars, I
| don't know that it makes any difference. Wealth and money
| mean something different at Musk's scale.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Just because he spends 38% over market price for Twitter
| doesn't mean that the realizable value of Twitter to anyone
| but the people who have already sold to him goes up by that
| 38%, nor, even if it did, does it mean it retains that value
| once he takes control.
| hitpointdrew wrote:
| I would have to hard disagree. I think free speech is one of
| the most important issues we face today, it's worth any price
| IMO, including the ultimate price.
|
| Having research without free speech is useless.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Free speech doesn't mean being able to say anything one wants
| on every platform one wants to say it on. There are real free
| speech issues out there but I don't see how this is one of
| them.
|
| I see nothing good about some billionaire buying a
| communication medium millions of people use every day but I'm
| happy to be told why this is better than Twitter being a
| public company.
| YossarianFrPrez wrote:
| I too am a fan of free speech. In academia, in theory, that's
| what the tenure system is for.
|
| It seems to me that the issue is one of society being less or
| more accepting, not so much twitter censorship.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| The money doesn't disappear, it's not being "spent". One person
| is buying, a bunch of people are selling.
| hbn wrote:
| > 43 Billion Dollars!? Of all the important issues in the
| world, Twitter is where this sort of money might go?
|
| Wait until you hear what the US wastes on its military every
| year!
| themitigating wrote:
| That's wrong as well. What does it have to do with the
| current conversation
| hbn wrote:
| You can point to any large amount of money spent and say
| that it could be spent better. At least this is staying in
| the country and could potentially benefit people.
| YossarianFrPrez wrote:
| True, but one of these is set in a messy and complex
| interlocking system of multi-stakeholder incentives. The
| other seems to be more or less the whims of one individual.
| joshmlewis wrote:
| It's not like he's spending it for nothing in return. He's
| buying a business that has the potential to be cash flow
| positive (although it's been a couple years). He must see
| potential to make the service better and make money doing it. I
| can't speak for him obviously but based on his prior large
| bets, he's willing to lose it all but that's never his
| intention at the outset.
| [deleted]
| oxplot wrote:
| How the hell is this a hostile takeover? No one's even responded
| to the offer yet? Shitty ass clock bait headline.
| lesgobrandon wrote:
| GrumpyNl wrote:
| Just to much money for one person.
| unglaublich wrote:
| Another billionaire that buys a media outlet to massage the
| public's opinion to their need.
| arrakis2021 wrote:
| Good. Twitter is a hate factory. And it is failing as a business.
| A shake up is overdue.
| bikamonki wrote:
| Can it be fixed though? The hate factory is the end-game of how
| the software was built (follows, retweets, etc) and how people
| use the software. What is the plan here? Re-program Twitter?
| Invent a new social network where the end-game is not a hate
| factory?
| quantumhobbit wrote:
| Who else thinks he's hype driving the price up to dump the shares
| he already owns at a profit? He clearly has no reason to fear the
| SEC...
| matthew40 wrote:
| I see this positively. Musk cannot save what the Internet is
| becoming, but he may be able to prevent Twitter from being
| completely captured by leftists fascists.
| tambourine_man wrote:
| Time to take a second look at Mastodon. Or third.
| MrMan wrote:
| the things Musk says about twitter in the press release, dont
| seem to be necessarily true - that twitter has some unique social
| utility, or a great deal more value that is not being maximized.
| I guess reality distortion fields work, but people are wise to
| twitter, and what it is and isnt good for. and any changes or
| enhancements that make it worth 70 per share once more are likely
| to be more about new engagement models like 10 second videos or
| something, not crossing some imaginary line of maximal free
| speech. I dont know.
| danielktdoranie wrote:
| Someone explain to me how this is a "hostile" take over?
| XargonEnder wrote:
| Basically if you don't like Musk then all this behaviors can be
| explained as hostile.
|
| I certainly don't agree with this viewpoint but this is
| functionally what is happening.
| amznbyebyebye wrote:
| They are backed into a corner here. They don't have a choice.
| Elon's got 'em.
| akhmatova wrote:
| Substantiation needed.
| frankbreetz wrote:
| There is a threat about Elon dumping his shares if he doesn't
| get his way.[0]
|
| Elon has been known to pump and dump various things. Look at
| what happened to Bitcoin when Tesla announced they would no
| longer be accepting it. He is essentially saying take this
| offer or I am going to tank your share price.
|
| "If the deal doesn't work, given that I don't have confidence
| in management nor do I believe I can drive the necessary
| change in the public market, I would need to reconsider my
| position as a shareholder," said Musk.
| dav_Oz wrote:
| What he certainly has produced already is a lot of attention,
| now, if he can't buy up this specific platform at his final bid
| maybe a dump and a 51% will follow ... whatever the case he got
| an extraordinary amount of people in and outside of TWTR
| discussing his intentions and captured hopefully some
| imaginations so in the end if nothing succeeds in terms of an
| acquisition he can at least effectively leverage this huge
| attention to jump start a new platform.
|
| I'm not for obscenely wealthy single individuals i.e. 'oligarchs'
| sponsoring "open source free speech platforms" but I welcome the
| mainstream opportunity for stirring up the dead end (social
| dilemma) in which social platforms find themselves (from out-of-
| spiral censoring ("moderating") to basically uncontrolled anon
| image boards) I guess from an engineering perspective sensible
| new solutions are very much needed.
| indigodaddy wrote:
| So after Twitter's stock price doubles and Musk dispenses with
| these foolish antics, he dumps his shares, yeah?
| tannerbrockwell wrote:
| "The Reporting Person intends to review his investment in the
| Issuer on a continuing basis. Depending on the factors discussed
| herein, the Reporting Person may, from time to time, acquire
| additional shares of Common Stock and/or retain and/or sell all
| or a portion of the shares of Issuer common stock held by the
| Reporting Person in the open market or in privately negotiated
| transactions, and/or may distribute the Common Stock held by the
| Reporting Person to other entities." [1]
|
| [1]:
| https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/000110465...
| ss108 wrote:
| > Free speech absolutism is possible and is beneficial
|
| I don't think we have evidence to support this. Pursuant to the
| last major thread on the topic, I was thinking further about it,
| and realized that the vast majority of progress civilization has
| made has been under conditions much more regulated in terms of
| which ideas may propagate. We've never had a situation where fake
| news can and does spread the way it does today, where authorities
| are being undermined like this and casually dismissed by people
| with no knowledge of the respective fields, etc.
|
| The notion that all speech should be allowed actually seems
| stupid to me on its face, the more that I consider it.
| sneak wrote:
| > _We 've never had a situation where fake news can and does
| spread the way it does today_
|
| Have you heard of the church? We've had authority figures
| spreading lies for personal gain for millennia.
| throwawayacc2 wrote:
| > The notion that all speech should be allowed actually seems
| stupid to me on its face, the more that I consider it.
|
| The logical conclusion of this is speech should be regulated.
| And if speech is regulated, the next question is by whom? Good
| luck trying to get people to agree on this and even more good
| luck having this not be abused by those in charge.
|
| What you will end up with is a dictatorship like China and
| Russia.
| stouset wrote:
| There are _bountiful_ examples of regulated speech in the
| modern world and yet the world isn 't only China and Russia.
|
| Speech is regulated right here on this platform, where you
| clearly have no qualms with participating. Speech is
| regulated in Germany, where it is outright illegal to express
| Nazi-sympathizing opinions or to deny the Holocaust. Speech
| is regulated in the US, where you cannot shout "fire" in a
| crowded theater or promote investments you haven't disclosed
| your stake in.
|
| Not all slopes are slippery.
| throwawayacc2 wrote:
| > or to deny the Holocaust
|
| Purely out of curiosity, what do you think about government
| mandated beliefs?
| stouset wrote:
| The government doesn't mandate beliefs. In this case, the
| government denies you a platform to spread particular
| beliefs. It's hard to argue that leaving holocaust denial
| out of the discourse is losing much of value.
| throwawayacc2 wrote:
| > In this case, the government denies you a platform to
| spread particular beliefs.
|
| Is this something you believe to be a good thing?
| stouset wrote:
| It's something I believe isn't a slippery slope. We have
| ample evidence that denying a platform to limited sets of
| beliefs (e.g., Holocaust denial or Nazi sympathizing)
| does not quickly devolve to total censorship the likes of
| which we see in China and Russia, which was the original
| argument you made.
|
| If you're backing down from that original assertion I'm
| happy to argue other aspects of this discussion, but I'm
| not going to chase you around in a circle while you keep
| re-framing the argument.
| pxmpxm wrote:
| > We've never had a situation where fake news can and does
| spread the way it
|
| This is a recycled church argument from when the Gutenberg
| press came around...
| ss108 wrote:
| It's intellectually lazy to ignore the very different power
| of the internet and the very different social context in
| which the relevant technologies are developing. For example,
| the Gutenberg press didn't let literally any idiot
| immediately distribute their inane thoughts to everybody.
| There were still barriers of literacy, etc.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Actually, it was in a sense worse, it only let those able
| to afford to print distribute their potentially inane
| thoughts. It did not distinguish whether thoughts were
| inane or not, it only distinguished how much money you had.
| The assumption that being able to afford something prevents
| one from or is mutually exclusive with having inane
| thoughts to express is, I think all of history would
| corroborate, completely unwarranted.
| boredumb wrote:
| Being incredibly generous, barely 20% of the US population
| even logs onto twitter.
| macinjosh wrote:
| So what you're saying is illiteracy was a good thing?
| Perhaps we should bring that back /s
| tomp wrote:
| > the vast majority of progress civilization has made has been
| under conditions much more regulated in terms of _who can have
| sex with whom_
| rayiner wrote:
| > We've never had a situation where fake news can and does
| spread the way it does today, where authorities are being
| undermined like this and casually dismissed by people with no
| knowledge of the respective fields, etc
|
| Real authorities don't need society to defer to them as such.
| Their mastery over nature--the power of their ideas to deliver
| tangible outcomes--makes their authority undeniable.
|
| It's the people whose expertise is of marginal real-world value
| who insist on deference to their "authority." At the limit,
| it's the clergy that insist on social norms to defend their
| claim to authority. Today, you'll find those sorts of folks
| mostly in the social sciences, insisting that their PhD in XYZ
| studies entitles them to speak authoritatively on issues of
| general concern:
| https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm.
| ss108 wrote:
| They do have that authority. One of the reasons I left tech
| is precisely this attitude I see prevalent among engineers
| where they don't respect other peoples' areas of expertise.
|
| Just because something is of general concern doesn't mean
| everyone is equal in terms of their mental models or
| knowledge of the issues.
| rayiner wrote:
| "Knowledge" is not the same as "expertise" in the sense OP
| means above. Clergy go to school and have degrees and have
| deep knowledge in their field, but that doesn't mean that
| ordinary people owe them any deference on areas of general
| concern.
|
| True authority automatically draws respect because it
| enables those experts to do things and explain things
| ordinary people cannot. It's not just engineers--it's
| carpenters, accountants, lawyers, doctors, electricians,
| mechanics, etc. If literacy rates were skyrocketing because
| of the work done by Doctorates in Education nobody would be
| making snarky comments about them.
| ss108 wrote:
| > True authority automatically draws respect because it
| enables those experts to do things and explain things
| ordinary people cannot.
|
| Taking a generous view of what you're saying ("authority
| gets as much respect as it merits in a kind of free
| market of ideas/actions"), I just think that's not true
| of contemporary Western culture at all. People denigrate
| authority all the time without any knowledge of the
| subject-matter. It's become a real problem in this
| culture.
|
| I also don't know why you think authority and expertise
| need to be tied to "doing".
|
| And, on both points, I can assure you lawyers can't "do"
| anything particularly interesting and also that what
| narrow expertise they do have is constantly denigrated--
| it definitely does not automatically draw anyone's
| respect lol. Often, they have a good knowledge of how law
| and government work, and also the reason why some laws
| are how they are. I see a lot of people denigrating and
| dismissing reasoned articulations of why some laws are x,
| why you can't automatically blame y government official
| for z outcome, etc. I find that people on the political
| fringes tend to really just totally ignore such things
| because they just want to blame (blame is a huge part of
| both progressivism and Trumpism). We have an adolescent
| culture.
| rayiner wrote:
| > I just think that's not true of contemporary Western
| culture at all. People denigrate authority all the time
| without any knowledge of the subject-matter.
|
| Not authority that delivers tangible results. Nobody is
| like "those aerospace engineers don't know what the heck
| they're doing."
|
| > It's become a real problem in this culture.
|
| I would say a worse problem is practitioners of non-
| rigorous fields demanding the deference accorded to
| rigorous fields. For example the recent kerfuffle in
| Virginia about parents versus "expert" teachers.
|
| > I also don't know why you think authority and expertise
| need to be tied to "doing".
|
| Because that's the only way to separate what's real from
| quackery and avoid recreating the clerical classes of
| yore.
|
| > And, on both points, I can assure you lawyers can't
| "do" anything particularly interesting and also that what
| narrow expertise they do have is constantly denigrated--
| it definitely does not automatically draw anyone's
| respect lol.
|
| At the end of the day, when the government knocks on
| their door, people call the most expensive lawyer they
| can afford. Yes, that expertise is narrow, just like a
| carpenter or electrician or a mechanic. But within their
| narrow expertise--writing briefs or making a case to a
| jury--they can deliver tangible results for their
| clients.
|
| > I see a lot of people denigrating and dismissing
| reasoned articulations of why some laws are x, why you
| can't automatically blame y government official for z
| outcome, etc.
|
| Which is great! It would be profoundly anti-democratic
| for lawyers to point to their credentials and say that
| someone makes them "experts" in fairness, justice, and
| governance. But that's exactly what you see people in
| non-rigorous fields doing. Teachers think that because
| they have expertise in how to teach Phonics, that means
| they should be broadly untrusted to decide what children
| should learn and how they should be socialized.
| Epidemiologists think they should be making calls on
| whether bars are more or less essential to society
| compared to churches.
|
| Society has lots of debates about very important things:
| how to socialize children, what's fair and w hat's not
| fair, how to treat people who are different from the
| majority, how to make tradeoffs between safety and
| freedom, etc. You can't have a healthy society where
| these debates are being monopolized by people saying "do
| what I say because I have a PhD."
| rlewkov wrote:
| In general, more free speech is always preferable to less free
| speech. If you could stand on your proverbial soapbox and say
| something in the town square then you should be able to say the
| same thing on Twitter (modern day town square) without being
| censored. No one knows exactly what Elon will do but I think
| whatever he does will be a positive ... IMHO.
| ss108 wrote:
| "In general, more free speech is always preferable to less
| free speech."
|
| Again, why? This is something people are repeating almost
| dogmatically in this thread, and the examples from history
| they point to in order to support this are inapposite in
| numerous ways.
|
| On the other hand, we have pretty concrete examples about how
| verifiably false information is spreading in contemporary
| society, in addition to things like hate speech.
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31025090. (Not for
| moderation reasons--simply to prune the thread so the server
| isn't quite as overwhelmed.)
| cwkoss wrote:
| > We've never had a situation where fake news can and does
| spread the way it does today, where authorities are being
| undermined like this and casually dismissed by people with no
| knowledge of the respective fields, etc.
|
| There have had situations where the authorities are the ones
| generating fake news, and they have also criminalized dissent
| or corrections. I view that situation as more threatening than
| the current one.
| mrfusion wrote:
| > ..the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion
| is that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the
| existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still
| more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are
| deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if
| wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the
| clearer perception and livelier impression of truth produced by
| its collision with error.
|
| John Stuart Mill
|
| https://www.utilitarianism.com/ol/two.html
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Mill is one of my favorite philosophers, but his ideas on
| free speech need to be updated due to the internet. The
| amount of power technology gives us would have been
| inconceivable to him. There's no doubt in my mind the _On
| Liberty_ would be a completely different book if he published
| it today.
| thrwy_918 wrote:
| As many as 15% of Americans may hold QAnon beliefs [1]. Where
| is the evidence that "the opportunity of exchanging error for
| truth" is actually being seized?
|
| It's all very well making an argument from principle, but if
| the real-world outcome is tens of millions of people
| believing absurd and dangerous conspiracy theories, I don't
| find the argument from principle very persuasive.
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/27/us/politics/qanon-
| republi...
| ss108 wrote:
| Exactly. The combination of free speech and the internet
| has made things worse in a lot of ways.
| vxNsr wrote:
| As usual the NYT tells half the story to advance an agenda.
| Ten years ago you coulda asked about Area 51 conspiracies
| and gotten the exact same response rates.
|
| If you ask leading questions you'll get the answers you're
| looking for. The poll is bad and the data is meaningless if
| you're trying to find out what people think. However if
| you're trying to push a specific agenda, and convince a
| large part of the other 85% that many "others" are crazy
| and need to be "re-educated"well then it's a very useful
| poll.
|
| You've been had.
| ss108 wrote:
| "Ten years ago you coulda asked about Area 51
| conspiracies and gotten the exact same response rates."
|
| And that's a good thing to you? I don't get what you're
| saying.
|
| Clearly there are people who believe in QAnon. And that's
| a problem. Not sure what you're trying to argue.
| Veen wrote:
| The evidence is that it's _only_ 15%. Free speech doesn 't
| guarantee everyone will have right beliefs. In fact, it's a
| certainly that in a free speech environment lots of people
| will have crazy beliefs.
|
| Free speech does, however, guarantee that no one group can
| control which ideas--crazy or not--can be expressed. And
| that, in the long run, ensures that there will be space to
| push back against the crazy and the harmful, which tends to
| be good for the less powerful.
| kadoban wrote:
| If you're celerating that "only" 15% of people believe
| the most obvious bullshit anyone could possibly cook up,
| then your plan is flawed.
| Veen wrote:
| What would a non-flawed plan look like? One that results
| in everyone having "correct" beliefs? I'm pretty sure it
| would be a great deal worse than what we have now.
| kadoban wrote:
| Nuking social media from orbit would be a good start. Any
| platform where what content you're shown is primarily
| driven by an algorithm is very suspect.
| Veen wrote:
| On that we can agree. Social media is a scourge. But it's
| also true that people believed crazy things before social
| media.
| kadoban wrote:
| They did, but a more manageable dose. The current amount
| and effectiveness of disinformation is making society
| itself unstable.
|
| Education could be a big part of it as well, not even
| teaching people what's correct but how to figure it out.
|
| Income inequality isn't exactly helping either. Many
| people will believe any noisy asshole if their life sucks
| enough.
| themitigating wrote:
| How does it guarantee that? What if I have information
| that so and so in a government is a rapist but a sea of
| lies implies I'm a traitor or pedophile
| JacobThreeThree wrote:
| Furthermore, in the grand scheme humans beliefs being
| 'right' or 'wrong', people today probably have far more
| 'right' beliefs than ever during history. Conspiracy
| theories and wrong beliefs have been more prevalent in
| the past than today.
| [deleted]
| SantalBlush wrote:
| John Stuart Mill was wrong. It is absolutely possible to
| convince someone who holds a correct opinion that their
| opinion is wrong.
|
| This is a major blind spot of otherwise intelligent, thinking
| people: they believe that once a person is presented with the
| truth, it magically reveals itself to them as the superior
| piece of knowledge and the scales suddenly fall from their
| eyes. It's utter nonsense, and people don't work this way.
|
| *Edit: To my replies, I'm addressing an epistemological
| assumption with this particular comment, not making a broader
| judgement one way or the other about Twitter's handling of
| speech. I don't care about Hunter Biden or whatever pet issue
| you have with the media.
| replygirl wrote:
| And do you think an environment where undesirable ideas are
| suppressed would be conducive to believers changing their
| minds? Or do you think maybe those ideas would become
| further entrenched and evolve into QAnon and vaccine
| microchip theory?
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| And it is even easier to convince someone who holds a
| correct opinion that their opinion is wrong, if you ban and
| suppress correct opinion.
| mostertoaster wrote:
| "Correct" opinion, is also subjective. Someone thought
| let's say the hunter biden laptop story was true at first,
| then someone convinced them it was wrong, because of
| censure.
|
| And maybe that opinion was "wrong" because it didn't
| promote some agenda or worldview that the majority hold.
|
| What is true, and what is correct aren't always the same
| thing.
|
| In 1984 the correct answer to 2+2 _is_ 5.
| smackeyacky wrote:
| With respect, the handbill or pamphlet was about the most
| subversive means of communication he saw, in an age when
| literacy wasn't universal.
|
| The social media morass is something entirely different.
|
| There is no precedent for the mass hysteria of something as
| dumb as Qanon. Dead presidents dead children emerging from
| the grave to save the world?
|
| Oh wait...Jesus...David..rocks...easter.
|
| Nvm.
| soundnote wrote:
| The Taiping Rebellion in Qing China between 1850 and 1864.
| It was started by a man called Hong Xiuquan who failed his
| mandarin examinations, fell into a psychosis of some kind,
| and came to believe he was the brother of Jesus. The cult
| he started was wildly successful and turned an entire
| province into a cultist theocracy before being quashed by
| the Qing.
| op00to wrote:
| It took hundreds of years of proselytizing by some very
| highly educated people for Jesus David rocks Easter to have
| an affect on the world.
|
| Today, people who barely can string coherent thoughts
| together can have an instant platform to spread idiocy.
|
| I guess what I'm saying is the risk is much greater now for
| idiocy to take over than before.
| deadpannini wrote:
| The main change new technologies bring is that we can now
| see that a great many people disagree with us.
| themitigating wrote:
| There's a difference between opinions and misinformation, at
| least how I see it.
|
| "Covid isn't dangerous" is an opinion. "Covid doesn't exist"
| is misinformation.
| docandrew wrote:
| "Misinformation" is being used as a cudgel to suppress
| opinions or even facts that are, say - inconvenient - for
| someone's narrative though.
|
| Completely reasonable differences in opinion about the
| risk, origin, or proper mitigation of COVID were blasted as
| "misinformation" before they were eventually accepted by
| the wider establishment. The initial rush to completely
| censor such discussion early on is what caused all this
| free speech ruckus.
|
| There's always been nutty conspiracy talk, scams, hoaxes,
| lies, ignorance - especially on the internet - and we've
| learned to filter it out.
|
| The "misinformation" label is going to backfire, though.
| Instead of ignoring it, people are going to take a closer
| look, because there's probably something there that the
| labeler finds inconvenient. If it was simply untrue, then
| say so, call it "not true" or a "lie."
|
| Instead, "misinformation" is this kind of 1984-ish weasel
| word used to discredit inconvenient facts while maintaining
| plausible deniability when they turn out to be correct.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| As someone that was always very skeptical of the claimed
| effectiveness of the vaccine, despite the claims of its
| effectiveness by the experts at the time from both
| administrations. I feel vindicated when real world
| numbers come out like this.
|
| https://www.walgreens.com/businesssolutions/covid-19-inde
| x.j...
|
| Page 3, showing the unvaccinated testing at a much lower
| rate for covid than the double or triple vaccinated
| despite being forced to take a lot more tests.
|
| I just assume it's easier to claim success than to
| actually achieve it. I also took a few stat courses at
| university, and saw problems with claims being made at
| that time. So I opted to wait. Now I'm glad I did.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| It could easily be that unvaccinated people are more
| likely to get a test when they have no symptoms but did
| have an exposure, because they know C19 has worse
| outcomes when unvaccinated.
|
| Or, as you say - they are tested more often, routinely,
| without symptoms or exposures because of their status.
|
| I'd say both are more likely explanations than the
| vaccine makes people more likely to contract covid, which
| appears to be what you're suggesting.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Well except. Take two groups, A and B. If A tests more
| often, then the accuracy of the results are more
| accurate, because you have more data points confirming
| the results and are more likely to count all the positive
| cases during the 10 day window when someone might test
| positive. This is not a trivial difference either. The
| triple Vaccinated are 3 times more likely to test
| positive now, according to the Walgreens results, despite
| that group going in for testing at much lower rates.
|
| Are there some circumstances under which we might see
| this pattern, sure. But there are also some circumstances
| on the other side of the argument like Marek's disease
| that lead to the disease evolving to target the
| vaccinated.
|
| Anyway, we went from expert claims of vaccine being 98%
| effective at preventing covid, to what now? hoping they
| will get the same infection rate as the unvaccinated. You
| have to admit the standards keep dropping.
|
| Now this doesn't even consider the economic damage done
| by the lockdowns. That same Walgreens is running out of
| baby formula. It was a mainstream story just a day ago.
|
| Also, Ontario is showing the same pattern. Though it over
| counts the unvaccinated in all categories, by including
| those that received a single dose, and those getting sick
| within 14 days.
|
| https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data?fbclid=1
| vxNsr wrote:
| > _Instead, "misinformation" is this kind of 1984-ish
| weasel word used to discredit inconvenient facts while
| maintaining plausible deniability when they turn out to
| be correct._
|
| This is so well stated I've saved it with attribution for
| future reference and quoting.
|
| You've hit the crux of the problem people today have with
| society at large. It truly feels like we're living in the
| on ramp to one of the dystopian novels from our youth,
| 1984, the giver, etc. Large swaths of society see nothing
| wrong with controlling people's thought.
| detcader wrote:
| "Humans are mammals, so they are mostly either male or
| female" misinformation or opinion?
|
| "Israel is an apartheid state, even one of its former
| ministers said this" misinformation or opinion?
|
| "Government-funded groups like Hasbara Fellowships and
| CAMERA make up an operation to spread propaganda and
| influence our elections" misinformation or opinion?
|
| And who should decide one or the other? If you have the
| names of any experts we should appoint at Twitter, Facebook
| etc, it would be great to know.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Who decided depends on who you ask to propagate your
| opinion. If they disagree with it they don't have to
| restate what you say.
| LegitShady wrote:
| if opinions are decided to be misinformation and
| censored, they don't get the opportunity to agree or
| disagree. that's the whole point.
| judge2020 wrote:
| My point is that Twitter or Facebook or whoever can
| exercise their own free speech to not propagate what you
| say, whether that be for the reason of "misinformation"
| or for the reason "contains the letter X".
| civilized wrote:
| > the vast majority of progress civilization has made has been
| under conditions much more regulated in terms of which ideas
| may propagate.
|
| Lots of good things have happened in spite of bad conditions
| that hampered progress. These bad conditions have often
| revolved around a lack of freedom of expression, especially in
| the modern era, where this has been extensively documented.
|
| For example, there has historically been intense stigma for
| expressing skepticism of the local religion, and scientists
| have famously suffered for it. Should we bring that back as
| well, since most progress has been made under such conditions?
|
| If not, why? Do you like today's authorities better than those
| of centuries past?
| beowulfey wrote:
| Aren't we already there? Just replace local religion with
| local ideology/belief.
|
| Edit: parent expanded their comment.
| ianai wrote:
| And isn't twitter really reinforcing that already? So the
| sun rises and sets as it has for billions of years in the
| past and will another billion at least.
| beowulfey wrote:
| Yup, Twitter is just another "locality" no different than
| a town, state, or region. It has pockets of subgroups
| with different beliefs and has an overarching majority
| opinion. It is different only in the speed that
| communication travels peer to peer (and maybe in its
| size) but otherwise it is indeed the same shit that
| humanity does and has done for millennia.
| ianai wrote:
| Only you get the benefit of a whole, new organization of
| people to shame you into submission independent from your
| already binding social organizations. How wonderful.
|
| Edit-and I emphasize shame because the number of people
| who agree with everybody on earth is vanishingly small.
| Meanwhile, twitter does push your content to potentially
| everybody on earth. And we know that the people most
| likely to respond to content are those who disagree with
| it.
| beowulfey wrote:
| Well, it is optional at least. Nobody forces us to use
| it. I have one but barely look at it.
| [deleted]
| ignoramous wrote:
| Well, their point is, allowing _all_ speech may aid in
| spreading such stigma nationally, even if not globally. Local
| pressures are at least contained.
| civilized wrote:
| I do not understand the eagerness to cede strong individual
| rights of expression to faceless institutions. Do you
| expect these institutions to be on your side? They will
| happily shut you up, permanently, the moment they do not
| like what you have to say.
| ss108 wrote:
| As the other poster said, our right to speech is not
| something a corporation needs to abide by, it's something
| the government needs to abide by (at least in the US).
|
| I see your point below about basically that we should
| have a more expansive view of the Right than the scope of
| its actual legal application, and, while I think it has
| merit, I ultimately think it's just a normative view that
| most of us simply don't share.
|
| If I don't like Twitter's policies, I won't use Twitter
| (I already don't, and would be even less inclined if
| someone like Musk owned it). Not to mention it's not
| clear that Twitter is even censoring speech--there is
| plenty of garbage on Twitter. The notion it's even an
| example of censorship is laughable, actually.
| civilized wrote:
| Censored data presents a selection bias issue, but from
| what I can tell, Twitter's censorship seems to have
| little rhyme or reason. It is neither effective at
| suppressing lies and propaganda, nor effective at
| permitting reasonable discourse that falls afoul of some
| mob's opinion.
|
| They still have every right to do it, but I'd be more
| interested in the merits of censorship if there was any
| institution that seemed to be doing a half-decent job of
| it.
| jupp0r wrote:
| There was never a right for your opinion to be published
| on a particular platform, nor is this free speech.
| civilized wrote:
| I do not think that social media platforms should be
| obligated to publish anything any individual wants
| published on them, and I do not think they should be
| legislated into a particular attitude toward speech. But
| a permissive default attitude with limited restrictions
| seems preferable to me, and such an attitude amounts to a
| policy of free speech in a facially obvious sense.
| cft wrote:
| Modern local religion (at least in the US) is neomarxism, and
| FAANG serves it on their platforms, duly suppressing opposing
| speech.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| You're getting downvoted because majority of the US is some
| variation of Christian so it's bizarre to see someone state
| that neo-marxism is as popular as you think it is.
| toiletfuneral wrote:
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| You have misspelt Neoliberalism
| panick21_ wrote:
| Neoliberalism as a term is something that the Left came
| up with to describe all policies they don't like.
|
| There was something called Neoliberalism in Europe but
| doesn't really fit with what is called 'Neoliberalism'
| became and was basically a term had very little use for
| decade and was basically not used anymore by anybody.
|
| Then the term 'neoliberalism' was used in a article used
| to critic the Chile Coup and from there spiraled into a
| everything that is not far left. Its really a critic of
| the Far left against the Center Left and has from there
| expanded to basically encompass everything.
|
| Its a terrible term that the supposed neoliberals have
| never actually used. But I guess is a great term if
| leftist hang around with each other and try to prove how
| smart they are. Anybody from the center left to the far
| right is an evil neoliberal apparently.
|
| Because if not then claiming that traditional
| neoliberalism is the 'local religion' is crazy as you
| could win a single election with classical neoliberal
| ideas.
| toiletfuneral wrote:
| ss108 wrote:
| > These bad conditions have often revolved around a lack of
| freedom of expression, especially in the modern era, where
| this has been extensively documented.
|
| Yeah, I just don't think this is true. I think a lot of
| progress has been agnostic in this sense--i.e., "free speech"
| in the sense that modern advocates of the term use it had
| nothing to do with, e.g., the invention of automobiles. Was
| it the yellow journalism of the late 19th/early 20th century
| that gave us any of the progress of those eras? It was
| instead property rights and basic rule-of-law things.
|
| > For example, there has historically been intense stigma for
| expressing skepticism of the local religion, and scientists
| have famously suffered for it.
|
| Again, a problem that wasn't solved via allowing every
| grandmother to be exposed to and propagate conspiracy
| theories; if anything, one might argue, those biases might
| have been continually reinforced if everyone had their say.
| Query whether the kinds of people who have brought about the
| positive changes to which you allude were analogous to Fauci
| or whether they were analogous to Breitbart.
| civilized wrote:
| This argument always revolves around whether the authority
| with the power to restrict speech can be trusted not to
| abuse that power. I don't think the state can be trusted to
| decide what is propaganda and what is a conspiracy theory.
|
| Historically, states have been the foremost perpetrators of
| propaganda and conspiracy theories. Democracies are not
| immune. See the propaganda efforts surrounding the Vietnam
| and Iraq wars, just the top of a very long list. The
| protest movements against these wars were so powerful and
| inspirational because the state had so little power to
| suppress them. Similar movements in Russia and China
| essentially do not and can not exist.
|
| State power is a ratchet. Limits on state power, once
| removed, do not come back. Every power we give to the state
| today will be used against us decades from now, in an
| utterly different context, with utterly different people in
| charge. Giving away limits only makes sense to stave off
| imminent demise, which, panicked op-eds aside, is not what
| we face today.
|
| I mostly agree with the people who currently have the most
| power to censor speech. My interests and viewpoints would
| be advanced by increased state censorship. But I am still
| against it for the reasons above.
|
| I'm more okay with private companies deciding these things,
| because other private companies can do things differently.
| They do not have the monopoly on power that the state does.
| I think a cultural norm favoring free speech should apply,
| but it's reasonable for platforms to apply judgment to set
| more limits.
| ss108 wrote:
| I feel like this contrasts with what I thought your
| position was based on your previous posts. As far as this
| particular post goes, I'm not sure I really disagree with
| you lol
|
| From your previous posts, I thought you were not okay at
| all with private companies regulating speech on their
| platforms.
| civilized wrote:
| My initial position was that censorship has historically
| been mostly bad. My more fully explained position is that
| censorship is bad enough that we should not let the state
| censor, but not bad (or good) enough that the state
| should interfere in the publication of speech by private
| media platforms.
|
| I guess this is why the best opinion-havers write essays
| instead of hot takes in the comment section.
| abduhl wrote:
| >> We've never had a situation where fake news can and does
| spread the way it does today, where authorities are being
| undermined like this and casually dismissed by people with no
| knowledge of the respective fields, etc. ... The notion that
| all speech should be allowed actually seems stupid to me on its
| face, the more that I consider it.
|
| Seeing this come from someone in the legal profession is deeply
| concerning, although I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a
| "Biglaw first year" is in favor of restrictions on speech that
| would elevate their corporate clients' interests over the
| public's.
|
| It's important to understand history here, which you obviously
| do not. The Gutenberg press took the power of knowledge
| transfer from a small group of people (the church) and gave it
| to the larger public as a whole. You would argue that this did
| not accomplish as much as the internet has because people were
| still illiterate and writers still had to find a publisher;
| however, you are arguing quantum (erroneously, as well) rather
| than kind and so we should actually look at the quantum of
| change the internet has wrought. To do this we need to fast
| forward from the 15th century to the 20th and examine another
| technology that caused a fundamental change in the spread of
| information: radio.
|
| Radio blew away your literacy barriers, and the early history
| of radio establishes that (prior to FCC regulations) nearly
| anybody could start their own local radio station. "Fake news"
| and anti-authority speech was rampant in the early days of the
| radio. There are numerous books on the subject and the
| government's attempts to rein in this speech, you can find most
| of them by googling the phrase "Radio Right." Along comes TV,
| and sensationalism grows along with people's access to
| information.
|
| Now we can accurately compare quantum. Did the internet bring
| about as large a change in conditions as the Gutenberg press?
| That answer is not so clear cut as you have argued elsewhere
| here. The Gutenberg press took from the privileged few and gave
| to a much larger class of people. The internet took from a
| larger privileged few (radio and television) and gave to a much
| larger class of people. However, similar to the Gutenberg
| press's problems with literacy and access to a publisher, the
| internet's impact is diminished by its own barriers: access to
| the internet at all, access to electricity, and literacy
| (English is not the world's language, after all).
|
| The history of mass communication is not as black and white as
| you seem to suggest, and it is certainly not as barren of
| important movements forward. Where we are today is just the end
| of a long, slow march towards giving the public more free
| speech and access to information, a march which has been
| subverted and fought by governments every step of the way. The
| government's primary way of fighting this has historically been
| the "rule of law" that you so passionately advance as the
| reason for our current situation, but you could not be more off
| the mark. The rule of law is malleable and its use changes as
| populism waxes and wanes. I urge you to become more educated on
| the history of mass communication.
| ss108 wrote:
| "Seeing this come from someone in the legal profession is
| deeply concerning, although I guess I shouldn't be surprised
| that a "Biglaw first year" is in favor of restrictions on
| speech that would elevate their corporate clients' interests
| over the public's."
|
| Pretty dumb ad hominem, and demonstrates you know few young
| lawyers (lawyers on the whole tend to actually be pretty
| left, and young lawyers in biglaw tend often to be pretty
| far-left compared to the general population). The
| corporations are not too harmed either way, in any event, at
| least far as I can tell.
|
| Personally, one of my main motivations to go to law school
| was to sort of shore up the center. I wasn't surprised people
| were stupid enough to vote for Trump, but I came to realize
| that this stupidity and the often blind hatred for "the
| establishment" on both political fringes posed an actual
| threat to society. My classmates/peers tend to be more
| staunchly on the progressive side of things.
|
| Even conceding you know more about the history of mass
| communication than I do, I don't see how what you're saying
| supports either side of this. But this is useful context, so
| thanks, I'm happy to be corrected (see this is actually good
| speech because you're lending knowledge to the situation).
| abduhl wrote:
| That isn't an ad hominem. I haven't attacked your position
| because of your obvious conflict of interest, I've merely
| pointed it out. I didn't say, "This person is a corporate
| shill and so you shouldn't listen to them about free
| speech!" I said, "It makes sense that you would be in favor
| of restrictions on speech that benefit your clients." I'm
| not casting doubt on your argument because of your bias. In
| fact, I attack your position's substance head on by
| providing actual historic context.
|
| I could not be further from an ad hominem if I tried.
|
| And I'm well aware of the supposed leftist slant of younger
| biglaw lawyers. I just don't acknowledge it as a true value
| they hold. Actions speak louder than words, and biglaw on
| the whole works against liberal values.
| johnthewise wrote:
| mrfusion wrote:
| > We've never had a situation where fake news can and does
| spread the way it does today, where authorities are being
| undermined like this and casually dismissed by people with no
| knowledge of the respective fields, etc.
|
| If authorities were never "undermined" you would still be
| drinking cocaine, giving your kids cough syrup laced with
| heroin, spraying people with DDT, and also smoking the
| cigarette brand your doctor recommended.
| onion2k wrote:
| _If authorities were never "undermined" you would still be
| drinking cocaine, giving your kids cough syrup laced with
| heroin, spraying people with DDT, and also smoking the
| cigarette brand your doctor recommended._
|
| But what would the downsides be?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Huh? The authorities are the ones who stopped each of those.
| With regulation.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| If you're taking literally the most surface level view
| possible, then sure.
|
| But it doesn't at all reflect the actual realities of what
| led up to that happening.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| This might be confusion over the word "authority," with
| one including journalists and the other not.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Lol they fought tooth and nail against any change for a
| long time. Look at oxycontin in the US and how the FDA was
| complicit for like 20 years.
| themitigating wrote:
| Because the public was informed by the news. However, now
| that some are demonizing the the media or "The Main Stream
| Media" people trust it less.
|
| This was properly done to prevent the public from being
| informed about bad actors.
| samstave wrote:
| > _the public was informed by the news_
|
| --- inform (v.)
|
| early 14c., "to train or instruct in some specific
| subject," from Old French informer, enformer "instruct,
| teach" (13c.) and directly from Latin informare "to
| shape, give form to, delineate," figuratively "train,
| instruct, educate," from in- "into" (from PIE root *en
| "in") + formare "to form, shape," from forma "form" (see
| form (n.)). In early use also enform until c. 1600. Sense
| of "report facts or news, communicate information to"
| first recorded late 14c. Related: Informed; informing.
| themitigating wrote:
| Can you please state your argument along with pasting the
| definition? I dont
| themitigating wrote:
| Can you please state your argument along with pasting the
| definition?
| suction wrote:
| But what if authorities would never have been believed? If
| everyone just dumped their trash into the countryside, drove
| 120 mph in cities, gave a damn about building codes or safety
| measures?
| disambiguation wrote:
| > The notion that all speech should be allowed actually seems
| stupid to me on its face, the more that I consider it.
|
| I couldn't agree more. I motion that we ban your speech
| immediately from this moment forward ;)
|
| Kidding aside, you've set up a false dichotomy. While absolute
| free speech itself (holocaust denial, etc.) is absurd, history
| shows that you can either have absolute free speech or you have
| censor authorities abusing their powers for political gains. In
| the real world those are your only two options.
| wmeredith wrote:
| You've set up your own false dichotomy, and have done it in
| literally the next sentence after accusing someone else of
| doing the same. Amazing.
|
| The situation is nuanced. It's not black and white-it's not
| easy. There is some balance to be struck on free speech. Some
| speech should be protected (dissent against the government),
| some should be forbidden (inciting a riot), and it's a thorny
| ever evolving problem to figure out what exactly defines
| those terms.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| You have not demonstrated a false dichotomy. Even inciting
| a riot doesn't have to be forbidden. Rioting itself is the
| problem, not talking about rioting.
|
| We may decide it's better to not allow rioting speech, but
| that doesn't make it a false dichotomy.
| DaltonCoffee wrote:
| I think he means this bit:
|
| >you can either have ... In the real world those are your
| only two options
| cwkoss wrote:
| That wont work. Any time there is a riot, the government
| can claim it was incited by the dissenters they wished they
| could prosecute directly.
| spiderice wrote:
| I'm not sure it is a _false_ dichotomy though. GP is
| basically saying there are two options.
|
| 1. Absolute free speech
|
| 2. People who have the power to censor, and abuse it
|
| You're basically just adding a third option
|
| 3. People who have the power to censor, and don't abuse it.
|
| I think many people would argue that #3 is impossible, and
| an unachievable ideal. At the very least, nobody is ever
| going to be able to agree that power isn't being abused in
| #3. In which case, GP's original 2 options are not a false
| dichotomy, and are simply the reality of the situation.
|
| edit: formatting
| ss108 wrote:
| Wouldn't the very situation of a platform like Twitter
| censoring or moderating the speech on the platform
| represent a kind of middle-ground?
|
| It's a private company, and one can start another one
| that caters to a different crowd (see Parler or w/e). The
| government is in no position to stop that, and nobody in
| this thread is arguing they be given such power.
|
| As far as truly public spaces go, the law still allows
| all speech. Government can't stop someone from voicing
| their opinion at a public meeting based on content, etc.
| Even if it's Covid misinformation or something.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > In the real world those are your only two options.
|
| This is completely ahistorical. For most of human history,
| across time and space, the reality on the ground has been
| some mixture of free speech and some limits on speech.
|
| Of course, if you're an absolutist who insists that if there
| is ANY limit on speech, then there is _no_ freedom of speech,
| then sure, there 's only two choices. Very, very few humans
| that have ever lived view the world in this way.
| causi wrote:
| I think it's very strange that I see the same people
| defending one person's right to advise a present murderous
| regime on how to use cryptocurrency to get around sanctions
| and then advocate for jailing other people for voicing dumb
| opinions about historical murderous regimes.
| [deleted]
| beaconstudios wrote:
| It's not quite that simple - not only can absolute free
| speech be absurd (a condition I don't really care about to be
| honest, untruth will always be prevalent), but it can be
| actively dangerous: free speech can include terrorist
| radicalisation, trying to convince people to join perform
| suicide bombings or shoot up churches. Much of the far right
| radicalisation in recent years has occurred in Internet
| forums.
|
| That's not to say that the answer is obvious, but the current
| setup that we have where only the most egregious speech and
| harassment is explicitly banned and social norms are enforced
| by social pressure seems to work. I think a lot of people
| advocating for free speech are ambiguous as to whether
| they're arguing against explicit censorship or against social
| pressure, which can obscure the conversation.
| cwkoss wrote:
| "Terrorist radicalization" is a nonsense buzzword
| cultivated by warmongers and governments trying to
| manufacture consent for oppression.
|
| Terrorists are radicalized by material conditions, the
| speech that is claimed to radicalize them is part of the
| process but it is not causal. Western imperialism created
| ISIS, not a handful of bloggers who are mad about it.
|
| Do you think if you read ISIS propaganda you'd feel
| compelled to join, or is the speech itself not the primary
| factor in radicalization?
| HeckFeck wrote:
| > The notion that all speech should be allowed actually seems
| stupid to me on its face, the more that I consider it.
|
| Who will decide which speech will be forbidden, and on what
| basis will the decision be made? How accountable will this
| person or body be, and to whom? Will it work transparently or
| in secret?
|
| How will it enforce its decisions? Who will be bound by them?
| What punishment will be appropriate for those who utter
| forbidden words?
|
| The praciticalities of censorship-enforcement are as
| nightmarish as the "ethical" arguments for it.
| pmontra wrote:
| All speech must be allowed. The problem to solve is the scale
| and speed of diffusion.
|
| Most speech used to be confined into the room it was spoken or
| into a circle of friends. Damage was limited. Now everybody can
| chat with everybody else. The damage can bring down countries
| in a few years.
| themitigating wrote:
| If you slow the speed or scale isn't that just censorship?
| jumpkick wrote:
| It's a common talking point in the US that the second
| amendment was written in a time when the most powerful guns
| were rifles that shot balls which took tens of seconds, at
| best, to reload. That the authors of the right to bear arms
| weren't thinking about automatic handguns and that the
| amendment can't apply to today because of modern weaponry.
|
| Maybe that's the same for the first amendment too: it was
| written for a different time, with the technology of the time
| in mind, and so it can't apply now.
| ss108 wrote:
| It's funny, because a lot of the arguments in this thread
| in favor of maximal free speech use the example of past
| religious suppression and orthodoxy as support, and they
| act like they are on the side of the bloody Enlightenment,
| piercing the darkness of ignorant r3ligionz, but if you
| disagree with the rules set by the constitution on speech
| or guns[0], they want to cling to that text as it was
| written in the 18th century _religiously_ , the same way a
| fundamentalist Muslim doesn't want to alter anything in the
| religion despite societal changes that have occurred since
| the 7th century (using this example because I'm Muslim, not
| because I'm a bigot who wants to pick on Muslims).
|
| [0] Legally, it's debatable whether the 2nd Amd applied to
| the bearing of arms for personal use, but we can go by the
| law on the books right now, and I think that the ship has
| sailed anyways
| ss108 wrote:
| I get what you're trying to say, but a) I just don't see a
| strong case for why the fundamental proposition that it all
| must be allowed is something we should all hold; b) I don't
| think, even given/assuming the desirability of allowing all
| speech, the tension you allude to is resolvable.
| jumpman500 wrote:
| > Pursuant to the last major thread on the topic, I was
| thinking further about it, and realized that the vast majority
| of progress civilization has made has been under conditions
| much more regulated in terms of which ideas may propagate.
| We've never had a situation where fake news can and does spread
| the way it does today, where authorities are being undermined
| like this and casually dismissed by people with no knowledge of
| the respective fields, etc.
|
| I don't think you have evidence to support this either. Really
| hard to say when progress in a civilization happens, and how it
| would be different if norms were different.
|
| Just because historically speech has been controlled doesn't
| mean anything. Slavery also was well accepted and "progressed"
| civilization, but most people don't want slavery in the modern
| world.
| ss108 wrote:
| I think you made a good point; to me the result is that we
| have to work off of where we are now and we are going, in the
| contemporary moment. And to me, that establishes even further
| that, at minimum, big platforms should be allowed and
| encouraged to moderate speech. The reason I say it
| strengthens that position is because a lot of the historical
| arguments fall away, leaving us with a world where free
| speech and the internet have permitted things like QAnon and
| anti-vaxxers to flourish.
| ianai wrote:
| Hey maybe he'll finally reveal his true nature in an
| irrefutable way and society can progress a little.
| nkozyra wrote:
| Never revealing his "true nature" has been a critical part of
| his myth building - people tend to fill in the blanks and
| mold the idea of Elon Musk into their ideal.
| suction wrote:
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| How much time have you spent in South Africa?
|
| When I was there I never talked to a single British or
| Afrikaans that I would ever describe as white
| supremacist, or even racist. Everyone of them at some
| point voted ANC, mostly in Mandela's time.
|
| However, going through Durban, I saw the dead remains of
| Namibian immigrants who were just necklaced in a almost
| 100% black area. Almost all the murder or violence there
| is white aggressors. I was forced out of Escort one day
| for being white. And our car was attacked by bottles and
| rocks in Mooi River, very presumably because we were the
| only white people around, although I didn't ask
| specifically.
|
| Slandering someone you don't know as white supremacist
| because they are a South African white, is really messed
| up.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Can't edit.
|
| Almost none of the violence in Durban was white
| aggressors.
| lurker619 wrote:
| The previous VP engg of twitter was also a white guy from
| south africa. (mike montano)
| mwint wrote:
| So you're assuming his motives based on his skin color?
| There's a word for that.
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| We can assume his motives by making note of his actions
| and comparing how well they match up to his words.
|
| Often his actions are directly opposite of his words.
| ianai wrote:
| Is there much of a difference?
| WA wrote:
| No, because he did already plenty of times and there are
| still a lot of fanboys.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| The problem is that Musk has _legitimately_ advanced
| society in a number of ways with each of his adventures. He
| is a ... very complex person to put it lightly, and even
| for his legitimate issues and scandals he caused (e.g.
| blatant ignorance of SEC regulations or calling a rescue
| diver a pedophile), he still has the achievements on his
| "good side".
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| Musk with a lot of help of others and a lot of government
| subsidies you mean. The same subsidies he now things
| aren't needed, that others don't need subsidies because
| he doesn't need them anymore. Note this is based on his
| public comments, not his actual actions as his actions
| show he still loves subsides.
|
| I suggest that someone who can spend 40 billion of a
| social media platform doesn't need taxpayers to give him
| quite as much assistance as he gets.
| kylecordes wrote:
| I think these two aspects are inexorably intertwined, the
| same personality trait.
|
| On the plus side, you get first principles thinking, bull
| in a china shop unstoppability. You get important
| progress in rocket technology (reuse and radically lower
| cost per kg delivered). You get electric vehicles that
| people want to buy, at scale, after decades of slow
| walking by the rest of the industry.
|
| On the minus side, you get the naive notion that Twitter
| could be made radically more "free" without turning into
| a cesspool that loses the bulk of its mainstream
| audience.
| ianai wrote:
| Yeah. Tangentially, I wonder if free speech absolutism can
| only hold so long as shame still exists in wide enough
| numbers. Psychopaths occur probably too frequently...
| licebmi__at__ wrote:
| If sending a car to space out of spite didn't reveal his true
| nature to his followers, I'm not sure what will.
| panick21_ wrote:
| > out of spite
|
| What are you even talking about?
|
| The car was just a mass simulator. They had to pick
| something, why not make it something fun?
| playpause wrote:
| Free speech absolutism doesn't mean you can get away with any
| crime just because it _involved_ you saying something.
|
| Even free speech absolutists agree that falsely yelling "Fire!"
| in a crowded theatre in order to cause a fatal stampede is (and
| should be) a criminal act. But the crime is not the utterance
| of the word. You could commit the same crime by setting off a
| fire alarm. In either case, the crime is in the _action_ of
| tricking a group of people into stampeding.
|
| Similarly, impersonating a police officer is illegal. You could
| do this by lying (telling a gullible person that you are a
| police officer), or by wearing a police uniform in public. The
| criminal _action_ is tricking people into thinking you 're a
| police officer, whether you do it with lies or clothes. Lying
| itself is not illegal, but a lie may constitute an _action_
| that is criminal.
| garaetjjte wrote:
| >Even free speech absolutists agree that falsely yelling
| "Fire!" in a crowded theatre
|
| I would really want this stop being quoted so often, because
| the context in which it was originally used didn't advocate
| free speech at all.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| It's also logically inconsistent. Of course you want people
| to have the freedom to yell fire in a crowded theater. What
| if there was a fire??
| playpause wrote:
| I said _falsely_ yelling fire
| timeon wrote:
| > Even free speech absolutists agree that falsely yelling
| "Fire!" in a crowded theatre in order to cause a fatal
| stampede is (and should be) a criminal act.
|
| Then they are not really 'absolutists'. Either you are free
| to speak or not. If you are considering something as criminal
| act and some other not then you are not 'free speech
| absolutists'. Words can have consequences yes, but you are
| here just arbitrary choosing which one can and which one can
| not have consequences.
| joering2 wrote:
| Bravo! He absolutely fell into his own trap! An this is why
| free speech is a complicated issue. And besides - one
| person would say "you get people to stampede", meanwhile
| the perpetrator will say "that's only your opinion, I'm a
| comedian, here is my Youtube Jackass channel where I do
| things like that all the time and my intention is never to
| hurt anyone!". How you gonna prove if he's genuine or not?
| Jury that has their own opinion? And what if he really IS
| genuine in just being a stupid joker? Okay, so now you
| gonna tell him "you cannot say that!". Then we back to
| square one - controlling free speech.
| f38zf5vdt wrote:
| In what point in time or space has a human had the ability
| to communicate all of their ideas and not have consequences
| from them? There has never been a time in history in the
| United States where you could say or publish absolutely
| anything you wanted and were immediately absolved of all
| responsibility, government or otherwise, by invoking the
| first amendment. The US obscenity law still exists on the
| books today. [1]
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_obscenity_law
| jesusofnazarath wrote:
| Spooky23 wrote:
| That's why democracy and actual meaningful exchange of
| ideas is important.
|
| When you allow human discourse to be reduced to Id driven
| animal urges, democracy doesn't function well.
| dougmany wrote:
| Funny that Musk is famous for catering to those human
| urges. Fast car! Big rocket! He even talks about
| rewarding limbic impulses and I am convinced that is why
| he is so successful.
| cloutchaser wrote:
| This is a ridiculous twisting of what people are talking
| about, with no nuance, which life has. It's not just 0 or
| 1.
|
| There are very clear rules that have been worked out in the
| legal system for what constitutes incitement to violence
| for example. It has to be actual call to cause physical
| violence, right where violence might happen, soon or
| immediately. If you are standing outside a house yelling
| burn it down, that is incitement. Yelling burn down the
| capitalist system on Twitter is not incitement, because it
| is not direct and it's not immediate.
|
| What many silicon valley techies have now done is move
| things beyond the legal system, which has worked reasonably
| well for decades, and thought that they can create a better
| system. Except it seems in practice this is much more
| difficult than it seems. Posting pictures of the severed
| head of Trump seems fine them with them (legally, I think
| this is ok anyway), but posting a satire article of a
| transgender woman military officer is not, and gets your
| silenced. Oh, and let's just block the legitimate story of
| the president's son's laptop.
|
| In a way this is an extremely arrogant and elitist way of
| acting, you are saying you are going to create a better
| legal system than the evolving common law one we've used
| for a very long time.
|
| It's also pretty obvious in the last 5 years that this
| leads to all sorts of conflicts of interest, and Silicon
| Valley elites really don't seem to be doing a fair job.
| Surprise suprise, what legal experts and judges have
| refined over decades works better.
| chomp wrote:
| John Stuart Mill is considered an absolutist and he
| invented the harm principal.
|
| This is because shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater is
| not a free exchange of ideas, it's enticement of injury.
|
| Here's the gist of it: "Mill argued that even any arguments
| which are used in justifying murder or rebellion against
| the government shouldn't be politically suppressed or
| socially persecuted. According to him, if rebellion is
| really necessary, people should rebel; if murder is truly
| proper, it should be allowed. However, the way to express
| those arguments should be a public speech or writing, not
| in a way that causes actual harm to others. Such is the
| harm principle: "That the only purpose for which power can
| be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised
| community, against his will, is to prevent harm to
| others.""
| ashtonbaker wrote:
| A lot of potentially harmful political speech on social
| media seems to avoid actual incitement, though. If there
| is a kind of speech such that the intent is to cause
| harm, and the effect is to cause harm, but its form
| allows it to be categorized as "free exchange of ideas",
| I'm not sure how I can support this kind of view.
| chomp wrote:
| Oh for sure, but I think you and Mill might not be too
| far off:
|
| "The example Mill uses is in reference to corn dealers:
| he suggests that it is acceptable to claim that corn
| dealers starve the poor if such a view is expressed in
| print. It is not acceptable to make such statements to an
| angry mob, ready to explode, that has gathered outside
| the house of the corn dealer. The difference between the
| two is that the latter is an expression "such as to
| constitute...a positive instigation to some mischievous
| act," namely, to place the rights, and possibly the life,
| of the corn dealer in danger."
|
| I just don't think philosophers back then realized our
| society was going to become so polarized, with global
| reach. His views do presuppose a progressive society to
| be able to host this speech, so it's possible we're no
| longer a progressive society. (re: more and more
| "opinion" speech winding up being harmful to others, both
| left wing overzealousness, and right wing opinions
| inciting harm)
| ashtonbaker wrote:
| Yeah, I think we're not too far off in principle, you
| rightly guess that the key difference for me is how
| society has changed since that time.
|
| Now, you can make these kinds of claims about the corn
| dealer on television, on twitter, in dark-money facebook
| ads, to angry mobs gathered anywhere but the corn
| dealer's house, all while knowing that online forums are
| circulating rumors of the corn dealer running a
| pedophilia ring, and still be afforded plausible
| deniability when violence results.
|
| I don't have a solution, because if the corn dealer _is_
| starving the poor, we should be able to discuss that
| openly, and I don't think I want to give the State the
| power to make such a discernment, because it would be too
| easy to abuse.
| sgc wrote:
| Mill is wrong. because he ignores the extremely strong
| negative effects of sustained disinformation campaigns,
| and immediate and obvious harm should not be the bar.
| Society could never handle that, it just thought it
| could.
|
| Such an attempt to force feed any and all uninformed or
| malicious opinions down society's proverbial throat,
| plays right into the hand of the very active
| disinformation campaigns that are quite actively
| reshaping politics and opinion in countries around the
| world.
|
| And an un-nuanced promotion of supposed 'free speech' in
| the context of such clear and widespread societal harm
| that is currently occurring, including as the backdrop
| for real wars with people dying, does not at all resemble
| a sincere effort at improving the state of affairs. At
| all. It frankly stinks of yet another billionaire
| attempting to make sure this simple, malicious, gaming of
| public opinion remains easy in the near future.
| 52-6F-62 wrote:
| It makes sense, but how can you possibly reconcile that
| with reality.
|
| Reality is much more complex. The effects that have been
| sought through the manipulation of "free speech" on
| platforms like Twitter are so dangerous because they are
| insidious. They are insidious because they are matrix,
| they are not linear (like "go kill that guy"). The bad
| actors seek to leverage it to gradually sway opinion into
| such a state that everyone is shouting exactly what they
| want them to shout.
|
| This isn't arcane knowledge anymore, it's been the
| subject of expose after expose over the past decade.
|
| Those kinds of effects weren't possible at scale over
| other forms of communication. It's the immediacy and the
| context-less nature of the communications that enables
| them.
|
| Applying Mill's argument here is like trying to apply
| Earth's physical constraints to actions on the moon.
|
| The rules governing those platforms aren't perfect, but
| they're like a gardener spotting new weed growth and
| clipping it off.
|
| If you want freedom, it was _never_ in Jack Dorsey 's (or
| now Elon's) garden, man. (or, What freedom was there ever
| in the courts of kings?)
| n4r9 wrote:
| I believe that labelling people as absolutist confuses
| the issue. JSM advocated liberty up to the point of
| harming others. Almost everyone in the Western world
| agrees with this as stated. The differences lie in the
| vagueness of defining "harm". I don't think JSM defined
| it explicitly. For some people, harm means physical
| bodily harm. For others, social triggers legitimately
| count as harm.
| overrun11 wrote:
| If you include social triggers as harm then free speech
| becomes meaningless. Only the most vapid and inane speech
| would be protected under such a definition. The reason
| speech needs protection is because there will always be
| some group wanting it suppressed because they believe it
| will cause harm.
| n4r9 wrote:
| Fine, I don't disagree. Either way "harm" needs to be
| defined before the boundaries of free speech can be
| delineated.
| dhzhzjsbevs wrote:
| I love how you claim the word harm is vague and hard to
| define in one sentence then apply bias to your definition
| claiming only your view as legitimate.
|
| Maybe harm isn't hard to define? Maybe you people just
| keep making shit up?
| n4r9 wrote:
| I didn't claim anything is legitimate, I said that there
| are people who consider that a legitimate view.
| LegitShady wrote:
| being offended isn't being harmed. People who want to
| control others who offend them claim they're being
| harmed, when they're just offended. Allowing those people
| veto powers on others speech is antithetical to freedom.
| ss108 wrote:
| Wouldn't defining "harm" that narrowly mean defining
| "harm" for a lot of people in a 1984 way? Why should your
| definition of "harm" supersede theirs?
|
| (Mostly rhetorical; I don't necessarily disagree with you
| on this, but I think your take is callous and ignores an
| inherent contradiction of free speech maximalists).
| LegitShady wrote:
| your take on harm harms me, change or be guilty of
| harming others...(j/k)
|
| your take is essentially an endless take of "why
| shouldn't we include offending as harm" and the answer is
| because its not harm. Or we can just proclaim other
| people's opinions I don't like as harm and stand in a
| circular firing squad, which is what society seems to be
| doing now.
| guerrilla wrote:
| > the way to express those arguments should be a public
| speech or writing, not in a way that causes actual harm
| to others
|
| The assumption here is that expressing those arguments as
| public speech or writing does not cause harm. I think
| this is wrong. Arguing for extermination of the Jews did,
| in fact, cause harm. Bullying someone into suicide does,
| in fact, cause harm. Spreading propaganda can, in fact,
| cause harm.
| mbreese wrote:
| _> This is because shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater
| is not a free exchange of ideas, it's enticement of
| injury._
|
| Many people who say they are free speech absolutists
| aren't exactly known for appreciating this nuance. Hence
| why every open forum ultimately degrades into anarchy.
| I'm not saying an absolutely open forum couldn't survive
| (let alone thrive), I'm just saying we haven't seen one
| yet.
|
| _> the way to express those arguments should be a public
| speech or writing_
|
| When we have a society that actively ignores expert
| opinions, it makes it hard to take arguments for absolute
| free speech seriously. And online forums tend to not
| appreciate "quality" arguments over high-volume
| "quantity" one-liner rebuttals. Online forums tend to see
| users eventually switch over to mob mentalities, where
| normal rules of argument and civil discourse don't hold
| any weight. You can reason with a person. You can't
| reason with a mob. This is why online speech, absolute or
| not, is such a tough problem.
|
| I guess my take is that this is an issue of theory vs
| practice.
| rpmisms wrote:
| Free speech absolutism, to me, means that the speech cannot
| be punished, but if the speech causes direct and immediate
| harm to others, you can be held accountable. Shouting "Fire"
| in a crowded theater is fine, but if there's a stampede and
| someone dies, you can be held liable at some level. I think
| that's a reasonable balance between zero suppression of
| speech and consequences for actions.
| zosima wrote:
| Well, we have seen how authoritarian repression of alternative
| viewpoints turned out, with the imprisonment of Galileo,
| execution of Thomas More, horrors of Stalin and Hitler and too
| many more to mention.
|
| And we have seen what immense improvements of the conditions of
| man came through a free society like the founding of USA, with
| freedom of speech and eventual total abolishment of slavery.
| (Slavery, which up to then more-or-less had been part of the
| vast majority of civilizations, from Asia to Africa, to
| America, to Europe).
|
| And now you argue to run that experiment again, just to be
| sure?
| ss108 wrote:
| The US wasn't like this in terms of free speech right off the
| bat (in both legal and cultural terms), and your historical
| analogies aren't well-supported. Stalin was able to kill a
| lot of people due to, inter alia, a lack of what we could
| term "the rule-of-law", and he did it in part to direct as
| many resources as possible towards industrialization. Hitler
| is a demagogue who arguably took advantage of a situation
| where anyone _could_ say almost anything, and where faith in
| more standard institutions was low.
|
| Nobody is advocating for actually _punishing_ people based on
| what they say, let alone in as dire a manner as execution, so
| the examples of Galileo and Moore are irrelevant.
| pgcj_poster wrote:
| The United States abolished slavery later than most other
| Western countries, including the British Empire, and at its
| founding was "free" only for a minority of white, land-owning
| males. While the Bill of Rights protected local elites from
| dictates of the federal government, it was not applied to
| state governments until the 20th century. State-level
| blasphemy laws were applied up until the 1930s: https://en.wi
| kipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law_in_the_United_St....
| Additionally, free speech was applied highly unevenly
| throughout the 20th century. The 1960-70s liberation
| movements that gave us most of our substantive freedoms were
| fought viciously by the US government, with methods that went
| as far as assassination:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO.
|
| This, however, is not particularly relevant to content
| moderation on websites.
| themitigating wrote:
| Isn't that more about authoritarian governments? Hitler was
| elected and wrote down with he thought in a book.
| caeril wrote:
| > the vast majority of progress civilization has made
|
| You know for such a scientifically-minded group as HN, we sure
| seem to embrace Whig History as if it's _axiomatic_ that the
| progress we 've made thus far is some sort of global maxima.
|
| We don't have a control group timeline. We don't know the type
| and speed with which we'd have made different progress under
| different intellectual or social regimes.
|
| There is absolutely NO reason to believe that the path we've
| taken has led us to the Best Of All Possible Worlds.
| ss108 wrote:
| Oh I don't really disagree!
|
| I just think the limit on our knowledge that you describe
| should lead us more towards caution than the opposite in a
| lot of situations. Because it could be worse too.
| [deleted]
| david_draco wrote:
| Free speech + Karma + community self-moderation + community
| self meta-moderation can work, as slashdot (and HN) showed.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| No one is advocating for absolute free speech.
|
| Just expanding what's allowed. Currently, Twitter's policies
| are extremely lopsided.
|
| I don't think anyone is calling for allowing violence, threats,
| etc.
| koalaman wrote:
| What happens to employee unvested stock grants when you're taken
| private?
| quaintdev wrote:
| I guess they are forced to sale?
| tbirdny wrote:
| For $1B he could make an exact twitter clone, and he could
| probably do it for much less than that. You might say, yes, but
| he's paying for the brand, and no one would use his clone. He
| could pay for a flood of advertising and other promotions to get
| people to switch. He could pay 42,000,000 people $1000 each to
| switch to his twitter clone.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Yeah but that takes time, years.
| garbagetime wrote:
| I doubt he sees it as the best use of his time to build a new
| social media website up from scratch - I'd be pretty
| unconfident in such a project's likelihood to see great
| success, anyway.
| ardfard wrote:
| It's not the tech that makes Twitter interesting, it's the
| already established networking power. You can clone the tech
| but you can't clone the social part.
| ttul wrote:
| Frankly, Musk could pull this off and it might be his plan
| anyway. Twitter has a lot of tech and very talented people..
| not to mention the existing user base. But Musk has the star
| appeal to draw in famous users and make it at least somewhat
| appealing to the masses who want to follow along.
|
| The social media space is stagnant and looking for change, but
| as yet nobody can match Meta's $55/user in ARPU. Maybe Musk can
| get there.
| imilk wrote:
| Lol the only people who would join Musk's social network are
| Tesla investors, crypto enthusiasts, and people who've
| already joined gettr, parler, truth social, etc..
|
| Also having the head of a new social network be someone who
| is notorious for being a dick is not the best way to build a
| healthy community.
| objektif wrote:
| I think he can. I see twitter to be a much better platform
| than FB and based on my observation engagement in the
| platform is only getting better. With politics, tech, markets
| as hot topics as ever TWTR could be worth much more under
| Elon.
| moralestapia wrote:
| >He could pay 42,000,000 people $1000 each to switch to his
| twitter clone
|
| So that he could have a shitty twitter clone with a fraction of
| its users? For the same cost of real twitter? Whoa what a great
| deal ...
| flavius29663 wrote:
| > shitty twitter clone
|
| I doubt you can make Twitter shittier, it's not just dark
| patterns, it's downright hostile to the user
| the_only_law wrote:
| These days, it's hard to find apps that aren't.
| ROARosen wrote:
| Right, or - more simply - he can just buy out Twitter.
| BbzzbB wrote:
| You don't pay for Twitter's infrastructure, you pay for it's
| >210M daily active users. What it cost, in dollars and years,
| to replicate _that_? Some $200 per Twitter DAU is not
| extravagant, 13 years of current average revenue per user, one
| which could (but doesn 't have to) greatly appreciate by
| pressing on monetization, it's at like Facebook 2014 levels.
|
| When Facebook paid 1 and 14 billion-s for Instagram and
| WhatsApp, it wasn't for the handful of employees and the
| codebases, but the userbases with snowballing network effects.
| They tried replicating TikTok with Lasso and Snapchat with Poke
| and Slingshot, but none of that went anywhere. It's not easy to
| build a large userbase, and as far as I can see from social
| media history, all the large ones were first to get some steam
| in whatever niche-s they occupy. Leveraging their 3 other
| networks Facebook's able to bolt-on competitors to steal some
| inertia from the snowballs (Stories which is a larger business
| then Snap by now, and Reels which is seemingly going
| somewhere), but building a standalone social media for
| competing with an existing incumbent is just bloody hard.
| They're displaceable, but there's always been something novel
| when social media market shares went to or grew into a new app.
|
| Twitter's not quite snowballing at this point, but it has
| entrenched itself in some important roles and niches (namely of
| a town square and an official outlet) that are hard to
| displace. It would take time, effort and significant
| propositions to outgrow Twitter's significance. Alternatively,
| one can sell a quarter (or a third once Twitter's board or
| shareholders refuse and he bumps the offer) of it's Tesla
| shares - or borrow against the whole - and buy the existing
| network, go from there.
|
| A network effect is one of many forms of licenses to print
| money which can't just be replaced. Like a brand, any decently
| sized game dev team can probably clone Call of Duty or EA
| Sports games, won't get them the licenses to print money that
| Activision (soon Microsoft) and EA hold. You can make the best
| perfumes, it doesn't buy you Coco Chanel's money printer.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > He could pay 42,000,000 people $1000 each to switch to his
| twitter clone.
|
| He could try, but there's no way to stop them from switching
| back.
| poxwole wrote:
| Twitter should be nationalized. No man should control such a
| large medium
| greenhorn123 wrote:
| By which nation?
| Researcherry wrote:
| China
| seanw444 wrote:
| Nationalized media has historically always turned out _so_ much
| better.
| LightG wrote:
| Deleted my 3 twitter profiles last week when this started going
| down.
|
| I feel incredibly healthier mentally.
|
| You should try it.
| Cypher wrote:
| Gogogogo Elon! free us from the cancel culture
| soheil wrote:
| For all those saying govnt should control platforms like this
| bear in mind that the free market is working even in this case. A
| single person decided to take a massive social media private only
| after a few years of it being a bad actor (see anti free speech
| sentiment around Twitter.) In a socialist/state-run world any
| regulation would take years to pass to only then cripple the
| platform and make it a worse version of itself in many ways maybe
| except the primary goal of the regulation.
|
| A non-public Twitter will have less pressure from the outside to
| "perform" and not taken hostage to follow the current dogmatic
| norms of the population allowing it to undergo much needed and
| necessary changes to make it a better platform.
| sjones671 wrote:
| That's a lot of zeros for some frozen peaches.
| LeicaLatte wrote:
| With the original founders gone, why not? He is literally
| twitter's most passionate user.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| From observing various internet forums, including this one, I
| noticed that people from the "first world" countries don't know
| the value of free speech and often take it for granted. Sometimes
| even coming to such views as "free speech is dangerous" and that
| "we should limit free speech" (by blocking the views I don't
| like).
|
| Understand this: limits on free speech are far more dangerous to
| society than allowing fringe extremists to spread their ideas.
| Coming from a country that had made a transition from a (rather
| messy) democracy to an authoritarian fascist police state in just
| 15 years, I tell you this: it all started with limits on the
| freedom of speech.
| [deleted]
| Miner49er wrote:
| There's been limits on free speech in the US and other first
| world countries forever. Where we put those limits will always
| be up for debate, but I don't think it's realistic to ever
| expect _no_ limits.
| mc32 wrote:
| I expect that many of the people who used to say private
| companies can set policies and ban at their pleasure will begin
| to realize this is a bad policy and only serves to establish an
| echo chamber rather than a free exchange of ideas.
|
| Of course that whole argument was a ruse and I believe that was
| hypocrisy that will get naturally exposed.
|
| We'll see.
| pohl wrote:
| Amazing that anyone would think that the kinds of things that
| actually get moderated-out would have somehow enriched
| discourse -- as if humanity doesn't have more productive
| things about which to amicably disagree.
| mc32 wrote:
| So discussing the Hunter Biden laptop and whether or not
| the Steele dossier was a hit job by Hillary and co.,
| whether some Covid policies made sense or not, whether it's
| fair or not that people who grew up as boys or men and take
| hormone treatment as they transition to females are fair in
| competing against biologically female athletes are all
| outside enriching discourse? The above is not to take
| sides, but rather allow discussion to find what makes
| sense. At times any of the above were taboo subjects.
|
| Imagine some ideologue on the other extreme of the
| political spectrum were to take over (Musk is in my view,
| mildly libertarian) and suppressed talk about abortion
| rights, gender equality, police violence, drug
| liberalization, etc. That's what the extreme left is doing
| but obviously they have their own, different sacred cows.
| pohl wrote:
| I have good news for you: there is still a veritable
| cornucopia of tweets about Hunter's laptop, and the
| Steele dossier, and COVID policies, and trans folk as
| athletes out there. I see them every damned day with my
| own eyes. While there have been a few people who violated
| the ToS while pushing those agendas, it's hard to argue
| that anything of real value was lost during its
| enforcement.
| mc32 wrote:
| Yes, yes... Long after it's useful use by date. Maybe
| they'll provide the same courtesy to the other sides too.
|
| What, Boris Johnson attended a party during Covid...
| hush!!! Trump talked to Putin. No, no, we can't prove
| it's true. Let's wait till it all boils over and it
| becomes irrelevant then you can talk.
| pohl wrote:
| Like I said, the discussions you're referring to are
| still out there. They're still happening -- right now, as
| we speak. You're free to go join in on them. Nothing is
| stopping the vast majority of people who are talking
| about these things. Most such users, turns out, do not
| violate the terms of service.
| mc32 wrote:
| Ok, why were the NYPost articles blocked? Why were
| articled related to Covid blocked and people deplatformed
| not for lying, but just opening questions?
| pohl wrote:
| If the owners of a web site do something with their own
| site that I don't agree with, I tend to just not go
| there. Beyond that, I don't care. It's not "the public
| square", and they're not the government. Point your
| browser somewhere else, maybe. Take some personal
| responsibility over how you vote with your attention
| instead of trying so hard to make yourself a victim.
| mc32 wrote:
| I am not a victim, however, news, truthfulness and
| openness are victims. There are instances where you can't
| post reasonably certain events, not to mention verifiable
| facts, if they are counter narrative, but you can post
| unverified or very suspect information, if it follows a
| preferred narrative --that should be of concern.
|
| What is the purpose or turning #bidenflation to
| #inflation on Twitter?
| [deleted]
| phatfish wrote:
| This is quite patronizing to people in "first world" countries.
|
| If there is no limit to free speech is it not possible that
| lies and falsehoods are so potent that spreading them leads to
| an authoritarian fascist police state?
|
| There is a line that has to be drawn, for me it is solidly on
| the free-speech end of the scale, but absolutely not
| "unlimited".
|
| I hope enough people will recognize when an idea is moving a
| society from democracy to autocracy and in this case all
| options to stop the autocrat should be used, including shutting
| down their ideas.
|
| Trump walked very close to the line with his big lie on the
| legitimacy of the last US presidential election.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| This is a naive view. Twitter does not enable free speech for a
| single person on this planet. Every el single prison in the
| world who can access Twitter can also access any number of
| other ways to speak freely.
| Koshkin wrote:
| But there is a reason why people choose Twitter.com over
| OtherWaysToSpeak.com.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Not a reason related to their human rights.
| strogonoff wrote:
| "Free speech" tends to be used in two ways: free speech the
| compound phrase, and free speech as two words taken literally.
|
| Certain subsets of population love to hijack discussions by
| forcing the latter meaning[0]--they break the phrase up into
| separate words and take them as absolutes. Yet the reality is
| that free speech in absolute sense doesn't exist: a bit like
| free market, in a world where malicious actors exist _at all_ ,
| it has to be subject to limits (moreover, in any culture there
| are its own taboos defining additional unwritten constraints).
|
| The first meaning is what "free speech" refers to in any
| meaningful political discussion about free speech. It is
| fundamentally vital in a democracy, and no sane person would
| qualify it as absolute.
|
| Fine aspects of what conditional free speech actually implies
| could be a worthy topic. Off the top of my head, free speech is
| where you don't need to censor yourself provided you are of
| sound mind and do not mean harm, but this is not very precise.
| How should we define the limits of free speech on a meta level?
| Is it their vagueness that causes distress? Once the
| terminological ambiguity is settled, meaningful debate becomes
| possible.
|
| [0] I believe in most cases such individuals have their own
| agenda to push, and one would become equally opposed to
| absolute free speech as soon as their preferred agenda is
| implemented.
| chunsj wrote:
| Most of the case, "different views" are not different; simply,
| they are just wrong ones. When people says "limit free speech",
| it's intended to limit these. Liberalism is meaningless without
| under democratic control.
| loudmax wrote:
| Private companies are not the arbiters of free speech, and they
| should not be compelled by the government or anyone else to
| distribute views they don't like. This especially goes for
| businesses whose revenue models are based around advertising,
| where the financial incentives do not line up with the social
| benefit of their users.
|
| I believe the proper solution here is social networks that are
| open, distributed, and federated. It is not for government or
| advertisers to decide what speech must, or must not, be
| discussed in the open.
| qgin wrote:
| So in your model, some other random person can come along and
| force you to use unlimited amounts of your own resources to
| broadcast whatever they want to say?
|
| We have freedom of speech in that the government cannot
| persecute us for what we say.
|
| We do not have the right to commandeer other people's resources
| without their permission to rebroadcast what we want to say.
| toss1 wrote:
| Also understand this: Free Speech Absolutism is as stupid as
| any other form of absolutism.
|
| Absolutism, almost without exception, is an oversimplification.
| It's easy and facile to defend, but also wrong, in that
| absolutism by definition ignores all edge cases.
|
| And some of those edge cases can have extremely severe
| consequences, effectively crashing the system and killing large
| numbers of people.
|
| YES -- the constraints on the ways in which govt can limit free
| speech should themselves be extremely constrained, precisely
| because the dangers of government constraints rapidly escalate.
|
| Yet the dangers of disinformation, algorithmically amplified to
| maximize 'engagement' are also to the level where the system
| can be crashed and result in mass killings.
|
| The effects of both can be seen from Russia this week. Their
| massive disinformation campaigns and combined with effective
| near-total suppression of free speech has 60% to 80% support
| and almost total suppression of dissent [0][1]. The result here
| is hundreds of millions of people supporting a genocide in
| their neighboring country.
|
| Yet completely free access to all media, and not only speech
| but amplified media platforms can also bring down democracies.
| The spread of Russian disinformation specifically to increase
| polarization in democracies is working. It already converted
| Hungary to an authoritarian state, and France is now very close
| to falling to an authoritarian party...
|
| The ability to deliberately manipulate the public conversation
| with tens of thousands of fake accounts is not free speech, it
| is freely amplified lies [2].
|
| The real problem is that if free speech is converted to free
| amplification of whatever disinformation any authoritarian
| state thinks is in its interest, the result will be not more
| free speech, but the end of democracy and imposition of a far
| tighter regime on free speech.
|
| Again, look at Hungary - they had an open democracy, and free
| speech resulted in divisions, and an authoritarian took over.
| Now, free speech is severely curtailed in order to keep the
| authoritarian in power.
|
| Is the solution to curtail free speech at the outset? Maybe a
| little, something like the old Equal Time requirements for
| broadcast TV, or on social media, accurate identification of
| the source.
|
| Probably more important and effective than curtailing free
| speech is to actively and in real-time counter the
| disinformation. This actually worked in the Ukraine war, as
| Russian disinformation efforts were countered and called out as
| the lies that they were within hours, which denied the Russians
| the cover they had when such pretexts went unchallenged in 2014
| as Crimea was invaded.
|
| So, yes speech must be biased very strongly towards the FREE
| end, but requiring a private platform to amplify any particular
| speech is just as un-free. If you want an amplified platform
| for your views that most consider abhorrent, you are FREE to
| make your own competing platform.
|
| [0] https://www.israelhayom.com/2022/03/11/russian-campaign-
| depi...
|
| [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-05/russian-support-
| for-p...
|
| [2] https://theconversation.com/russian-embassy-in-canada-
| weapon...
|
| EDIT: Additionally, it is not exactly a secret that Russia is
| running bot factories - it is openly mentioned on their mass
| media [3].
|
| It is not individual speech that needs to be controlled, it is
| amplified govt and corporate speech abusing the agora that
| needs to be controlled.
|
| We must understand the difference and apply different rules &
| repsonses.
|
| [3]
| https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/151442262800988160...
| weakfish wrote:
| Just wanted to say thanks for writing the comment I was too
| lazy to :-)
| etherael wrote:
| > The effects of both can be seen from Russia this week.
| Their massive disinformation campaigns and combined with
| effective near-total suppression of free speech has 60% to
| 80%
|
| So your first example that springs to mind to prove the
| simplistic and facile nature of free speech absolutism is a
| disinformation campaign that expressly rests on the extensive
| control of free speech within a certain information venue in
| order to promote that disinformation? How does this make any
| sense whatsoever?
|
| > It already converted Hungary to an authoritarian state, and
| France is now very close to falling to an authoritarian
| party...
|
| And what, exactly, is the information which is not being
| censored which has resulted in what you claim are
| objectionable and dangerous results in Hungary and France?
|
| > The ability to deliberately manipulate the public
| conversation with tens of thousands of fake accounts is not
| free speech, it is freely amplified lies [2].
|
| So why equate it with free speech aside from to assemble a
| strawman which you then proceed to knockdown to make your
| case after just emphasizing yourself they're two different
| things.
|
| What?
|
| > requiring a private platform to amplify any particular
| speech is just as un-free.
|
| Is that actually being proposed? Because I haven't seen
| anything like that?
|
| > you are FREE to make your own competing platform.
|
| This is observably false based on what happened to Parler and
| Gab. The truth of the matter is that big tech is very hostile
| to competition and will to the extent they are able outright
| forbid it. The only way to actually build competitive
| platforms that do not push their ideological agenda and
| circumvent their attempts to stop you is to do what Odysee
| has done, and even there, they're fighting a case against the
| SEC as we speak, so it's not like they're being left to
| simply go about their business.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| You can trash talk all you want - though some outlets may not
| let you because they care about their other users.
|
| In other words. If you get thrown out of hn, you can try
| reddit, but you may end up enjoing 4chan. If you go to jail, it
| will be because of something you did, not something you said.
|
| In other words: It is all free speech, and we, the other
| people, have an equal right not to listen to you.
| fastbeef wrote:
| From observing various internet forums, including this one, I
| noticed that people from the "first world" countries think Elon
| Musk actually cares about freedom of speech and isn't just a
| bored billionaire throwing his weight around.
| Tycho wrote:
| Our entire legal system rests on the (rather obvious) principle
| of hearing both sides in order to find the truth, but the brain
| rot has somehow progressed to the point where in the media this
| is considered some sort of fallacy ("both-sidesism"). Lots of
| people want to appoint some sort of information gatekeeper,
| with no anticipation that one day the gatekeepers might turn
| against you.
| bmitc wrote:
| Musk's involvement in Twitter has absolutely nothing to do with
| free speech. Like many things he does, it's a false narrative
| to push what he wants forwards. He has a clear history of
| trying to bully and shutdown those that disagree with him in
| any capacity.
| Gatsky wrote:
| Not sure I buy this analysis. I mean, he's spending $43B
| dollars. That's a heck of a jerk move, even just for the time
| and effort it takes.
| bmitc wrote:
| Narcissism is a hell of a drug.
| kylecordes wrote:
| I too am eager to see whether, if the bid is accepted, the
| tremendous quantity and variety of anti-Musk sentiment on
| Twitter keeps flowing.
| bmitc wrote:
| It's just unbelievable to me that people are talking about
| this free speech thing as if it's a legitimate thing to
| actually be talked about. These are Trump and Putin
| tactics. Get people talking about idiotic claims as if
| they're real, while you do what you want behind the noise.
|
| Musk is the person who claimed that the SEC was violating
| his free speech rights for investigating him over market
| manipulation. I would argue the SEC was actually very light
| on Musk, and it's clear here again Musk is manipulating the
| market. If Twitter denies his offer, he will sell after
| pumping the stock, and he already indicated that in his
| offer letter in order to soften claims of market
| manipulation. If Twitter accepts his offer, he gets massive
| control over _his_ "free" speech.
| joshsyn wrote:
| lol, you are funny. think you are the one who can be
| easily controlled. Putin does not even speak english. The
| delusional with this one is strong.
| themitigating wrote:
| Wrong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrXf8Qn9pBI
|
| 35 seconds in
| matwood wrote:
| Bingo. This is about Elon's speech if it's about speech at
| all. Remember the kid who was posting Elon's public jet
| movements? You think Elon lets him keep Tweeting? Elon is
| also known for blocking anyone who disagrees with him. So
| much for free speech absolutism.
|
| Personally, I think he's just a troll with a ton of money.
| This is 'fun' for him.
| needlefish wrote:
| It is bizarre in the US that people don't really think about it
| being the first thing amended to our constitution.
|
| As if that was just random ordering and not a statement in and
| of itself.
| toyg wrote:
| Classic situation where "Only a Sith Deals in Absolutes".
|
| In practice, there is a tension. Absolute free speech is not
| necessarily safe - the Weimar Republic was a time of
| unprecedented freedom of expression and it ended badly. The
| freedom paradox is real: too much freedom can result in the
| death of freedom, by tolerating anti-freedom movements enough
| for them to snowball.
|
| Also, you shouldn't assume that these "practical limits" on
| free speech are new, particularly for the US. In the second
| postwar period, airing leftist views often resulted in people
| being put under invasive surveillance - or worse.
|
| There is always a tension in practice, and it's about finding
| an acceptable set of compromises. Germany is free but you can't
| print Hitler's works there, and that's just fine.
| pilsetnieks wrote:
| There isn't a black and white answer to this. It should be
| painfully obvious by now that unrestricted free speech also
| enables incredibly technologically amplified propagandists of
| various stripes to drive people's behavior to various extremes
| including threatening the existence of that same democracy.
| Clubber wrote:
| Yes, there is certainly a limit on both sides. I think when
| social media platforms would ban hate speech and the like,
| most people were perfectly ok with it. Once they started
| banning political opinions that most people would consider
| not that inflammatory, or even interesting (think COVID
| discussion) people starting having a problem. The social
| media platforms themselves became a political tool rather
| than a tool to share ideas.
|
| Why is Twitter really important? This is really the crux of
| it for me. Ever since mass communications, the news was the
| arbitrator of opinion. It was common for journalists of
| prominent newspapers (like the NYT) to declare themselves
| "kingmakers" in elections, even presidential ones. How they
| portrayed a candidate directly affected his or her outcome in
| a significant way. If journalists at the NYT thought a
| candidate wasn't a "serious candidate", they wouldn't get
| much coverage, or that coverage would be intentionally
| unflattering. Social media breaks that barrier down because
| now the politicians can circumvent the news as a middleman of
| information and we can now have discussions of ideas on a
| fairly large scale without requiring the news to deliver that
| information.
|
| Once Twitter becomes just another arbitrator of information,
| then we've regressed as a society back to the times where all
| our information was filtered by "kingmakers." Instead of a
| new world with much more available contact with our political
| class, we digress to the way it was before, the only
| difference is we have new arbitrators.
| andrepd wrote:
| Nice comment (in the style of "I'll get downvoted for this
| but"), but I don't see how this is remotely related to the
| article at hand.
|
| A multi-hundred-billionaire is bidding for a takeover of one of
| the largest internet public forums. How is this conducive to
| free speech?
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > How is this conducive to free speech?
|
| He couldn't possibly be any worse than what we already have.
| harambae wrote:
| Well there is wide speculation that Elon could open up the
| rules of twitter a bit - perhaps allow Trump back on, widen
| what type of Covid-19 discourse can posted without
| repercussions, etc.
|
| Fewer people think Elon has any predilection to locking down
| what can be said on Twitter.
|
| (I don't know what will happen ultimately, but that's how it
| could be related.)
| andrepd wrote:
| So we have an unelected multi-hundred-billionaire deciding
| the rules, which may or may not be less restrictive when it
| comes to certain types of discourse of his choosing.
|
| I still fail to see where the "freedom" part enters into
| all this.
| matt_s wrote:
| That has nothing to do with free speech though.
|
| That has to do with changing the TOS for users of a private
| (after buyout) company.
| [deleted]
| schleck8 wrote:
| Undermining the legitimacy of liberalism through enabling its
| abuse by extremists in violation of other laws is equally as
| dangerous.
| Pxtl wrote:
| We already have limitations on free speech in the "first
| world".
|
| Ask somebody involved in a merger how "free" their speech is.
|
| Or somebody involved in a court case.
|
| At issue is what we choose to protect from harmful lies.
|
| Wealthy people with good access to lawyers can sue for
| defamation. A courtroom is protected by perjury laws. Business
| is protected from fraud.
|
| And yet the tools to fight the COVID pandemic are beneath
| protection? Minorities are beneath protection?
|
| Look at the Americans -- half the country still thinks the
| election was stolen, and the only people facing consequences
| for that are the ones who lied about Dominion Voting Solutions
| because there a business had standing to show damages.
|
| Free speech online has been tried, the end result is 4chan,
| which gave way to Qanon. When fascism takes hold in the first
| world, it will be "free speech" without any protection of
| _truth_ that ushered it there.
| lm28469 wrote:
| The US is the only country with such weird views on free
| speech, there are many perfectly free (often with better
| freedom of speech/press scores actually) first world countries
| with different definition of free speech.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Yes, where you can face hellish legal processes and the
| threat of jail time over jokes:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Meechan
|
| Sounds perfectly free to me!
| seszett wrote:
| That comment could also have been written as:
|
| A member of a far-right nationalist party was condemned to
| a 800PS fine for teaching his pet to do the Nazi salute
| when he hears "Sieg Heil" and also react to the phrase "gas
| the Jews", and post it on YouTube.
|
| The trial seems to have been over less than a month after
| it was opened, but "hellish" is subjective enough that it
| might still apply.
| workaccount21 wrote:
| ur dugs a nazi
| HideousKojima wrote:
| UKIP is "far-right?" That's a very strange way to
| describe them, but whatever.
|
| The trial itself was fast, but he had two years of
| waiting with the charges (and potential jail time)
| hanging over his head.
|
| In any case, would you support similar legal action
| against the creators of _Father Ted_?
|
| https://youtu.be/sLNMSTQnSyk
| seszett wrote:
| > _UKIP is "far-right?" That's a very strange way to
| describe them, but whatever._
|
| I was simply going by Wikipedia's definition[0].
|
| I don't know anything about your YouTube link.
|
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Independence_Party
| lucideer wrote:
| > _That 's a very strange way to describe them_
|
| It tends to be how they're most commonly described, so -
| independent of whether you think that's accurate - it is
| certainly not "strange"
| sofixa wrote:
| There are things that are off limits, and they are widely
| known. You can't dress up or play as a Nazi and pretend you
| didn't know there'd be consequences. All Nazi-related stuff
| _bar for historical reasons_ like research, or art, is off
| limits. I prefer my country free of Nazis, and if that
| means they get sent to jail for "jokes", fine by me and
| pretty much the majority of the population.
| sidlls wrote:
| The nazis preferred their country free of jews, and many,
| if not the absolute majority definitely the majority in
| power, were fine by that.
|
| This is one case where an equivalence argument is
| actually valid. To be blunt: your view is dangerous and
| ought to be regarded as reprehensible by anyone who
| actually values a free society.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > This is one case where an equivalence argument is
| actually valid.
|
| Hardly. Being a Jew is an immutable trait. Being a Nazi
| is a behavior choice.
| scambier wrote:
| > This is one case where an equivalence argument is
| actually valid
|
| Yes, absolutely, banning Nazism is 100% equivalent to
| killing Jews. Freedom of speech definitely depends on
| letting nazis spread their views. Declaring that nazis
| are bad for society is a dangerous view.
|
| Totally normal things to say.
| sofixa wrote:
| Paradox of tolerance, fellow human. If you allow Nazis,
| who are anti-tolerant, violently so ( and as you said,
| they'd remove all Jews), to do whatever they want out of
| tolerance, they won't respond in kind, they'll abuse that
| tolerance until they're in power and usher in their
| intolerance. You cannot be tolerant of the intolerant.
| Even Goebbels himself said it, they were going in the
| parliament as a wolf in sheep's clothing to destroy
| democracy from within with democracy's tools.
|
| Furthermore, it's a bullshit false equivalency that a
| Nazi, who wants to at the very least discriminate people,
| is somehow equal to a random person who would get
| discriminated against. Or a racist and any random person.
| Those are not the same, and don't deserve the same
| protections.
| Ekaros wrote:
| But can you either be tolerant of those who are not
| tolerant of the intolerant. I would group them similarly
| as bad or even worse.
| sidlls wrote:
| When did anyone suggest allowing Nazis "to do whatever
| they want"? Suggesting that people ought to be allowed to
| voice reprehensible opinions without fear of government
| locking them up isn't the same as suggesting they be
| allowed to do whatever they want.
|
| It's not a bullshit false equivalency: every nazi is more
| or less just some random person with an opinion. Just
| like you and I are random persons expressing an opinion
| in this forum. At least, right up until they take action
| to commit violence--but that's a separate matter.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Well shit, I guess we'd better send Mel Brooks to jail
| for _The Producers_
| rhexs wrote:
| Hottest take on HN. Countries without actual free speech have
| better "free speech" than the only country with actual free
| speech.
| zajio1am wrote:
| Someone living in US cannot be jailed for advocating
| genocide, but can be fired from work for disagreeing with
| latest woke positions.
|
| Here i can be jailed for advocating genocide, but cannot be
| fired from work for disagreeing with latest woke positions.
|
| Who has better freedom of speech?
| Hasu wrote:
| The person in the US can find another job. The person in
| jail doesn't have such luxuries.
|
| Also, when the woke people take over your government,
| there's no bright line rule that says, "You can't put
| people in jail for speech." Now you don't lose your job
| for disagreeing with the latest woke positions, you go to
| jail. In the US that bright line rule does exist, so they
| are limited to just trying to get you fired from your
| job.
|
| It's obvious to me who has better freedom of speech.
| [deleted]
| Ardren wrote:
| American's act like the constitution is some uniquely
| divine document that makes them special. Honestly it's
| tiring.
| sofixa wrote:
| American Civil Religion is a powerful drug. Funnily that
| and their deification of "The Founding Fathers" smell a
| lot like the absolutist models of Kings and their Divine
| rights, while being the opposite.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Honestly it's tiring.
|
| As is the steady stream of people who take every
| opportunity to point out how much America sucks.
| themitigating wrote:
| You're tired of all the speech used to criticize America?
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| The constitution (including amendments) is almost unique
| in that it makes actual guarantees about your right to
| freely express yourself, even if you views are
| controversial and out of line with the views of the
| government. That doesn't make it divine, but it does make
| it special at the moment. Hopefully the rest of the world
| wakes up, but I see few signs of that happening (although
| Dominic Raab in the UK has indicated that freedom of
| expression will be the top priority when laying out the
| British Bill of Rights which has been promised since
| brexit).
| mardifoufs wrote:
| I mean the first comment literally said "America is the
| only country with such views" so yes, that makes them
| special by definition? Or are you saying that the way
| America sees free speech is common, which would
| contradict the earlier claim that it isn't
| andrepd wrote:
| >the only country with actual free speech
|
| I think you win the hottest take award with that one ;)
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| tell that to Julian Assange or Edward Snowden.
| enumjorge wrote:
| > Sometimes even coming to such views as "free speech is
| dangerous" and that "we should limit free speech" (by blocking
| the views I don't like).
|
| This is such an oversimplification that it verges on being a
| straw man argument.
|
| You talk about authoritarian take-overs. Your problem wasn't
| limitations on free speech. It was that people who didn't care
| about laws got into positions of power, and enough people in
| that country didn't care enough when the law was ignored.
|
| Authoritarians don't care about precedents or laws. If a law is
| causing them problems they'll change it. It happens all the
| time. And an ignorant or misinformed population can be easily
| distracted with red herrings like xenophobia and homophobia.
|
| There's been a rise in fringe extremists in the US. Many of
| them are ardent supporters of Donald Trump, who benefitted
| tremendously from the megaphone that Twitter provided, a
| company that isn't even 20 years old and yet has come to
| represent freedom of speech somehow and arguably helped him get
| elected. This is the same man who launched an all out attack on
| elections, one of the tenets of the democracy; a man who also
| threatened to cut off access to White House press briefings to
| any news channel that attacked him; a man who sent the police
| on peaceful protesters in DC just so he could do a photo-op.
| All of those are serious attacks on democracy, and he has faced
| zero consequences, Twitter or no Twitter. Why? Because his
| zealot supporters are too busy trying to ban books, limiting
| abortion and bringing back an LGBT rights as a major political
| topic to care.
|
| Extremism is dangerous too. Electing people who don't care
| about the law is dangerous. Once those are allowed to fester
| and take over, democracy is already in grave danger and laws or
| precedents won't provide much help.
| lobochrome wrote:
| Hacker News is moderated rather strongly (hi dang)
| oblio wrote:
| > it all started with limits on the freedom of speech
|
| No, it all started with your citizens giving up on democracy.
| They probably chose safety or convenience or stability
| (economic, probably) or a mix of them.
|
| That's how all democracies fail (barring ones invaded by other
| countries). People don't want them anymore.
|
| Where people really want democracy, they fight for it.
|
| It's that simple. Yet unbelievably hard to manage in practice.
| pupppet wrote:
| Is flagging/moderation on HN also included in your free speech
| world view?
|
| Do you believe you should be able to walk into any television
| station and step in front of a camera?
|
| Free speech is not free soapbox.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| It's getting really bad here in Canada. The governments
| directly funds, and contributes to the media companies. And
| recently passed laws for all media companies to be licensed.
| And of course decided to deny said license to one of his
| strongest critics, Rebel News. Which I don't much care to
| watch, but I do on occasion do watch RT do get a different
| perspective. Just yesterday I found out that RT was blocked on
| youtube and removed from cable. Just crazy to me that a
| government thinks it has a right to decide which news
| organizations I'm allowed to view.
| rayiner wrote:
| In a way we're fortunate that the descent down the slippery
| slope happened far faster than we could have imagined. We went
| from "we'll only use these powers to censor the flat earthers"
| to country's major social media companies blacking out a
| damaging story about the former Vice President's son moments
| before the highest turnout election in American history:
| https://www.npr.org/2022/04/09/1091859822/more-details-
| emerg....
|
| The basic problem with the notion of "censoring misinformation"
| and even "fact checking" is that the "flat earth" stuff isn't
| really what anyone cares about. It's the _debatable_ stuff that
| people have the desire and incentive to censor. That 's always
| the way it works out.
| metabagel wrote:
| France bans most election coverage just before the election.
| It's to prevent misinformation from coming in at the last
| moment without an opportunity to verify or properly
| understand it.
|
| https://www.france24.com/en/20170506-france-media-rules-
| proh...
| jstream67 wrote:
| I mean thats a bit different from just blacking out
| anything that makes the Democrats look bad - which is whats
| currently happening on US Social Media platforms
| hyperbovine wrote:
| > Understand this: limits on free speech are far more dangerous
| to society than allowing fringe extremists to spread their
| ideas.
|
| Germany has had such a policy regarding holocaust denial for
| decades, and they don't appear to be on the verge of tyranny to
| me. It's not as black and white as you make it out to be.
| goodpoint wrote:
| Spot on! See
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
| psyc wrote:
| Thank you for saying so. As an older American, it's absolutely
| maddening and I feel exactly the same way, insofar as people
| taking it for granted.
| Aunche wrote:
| I don't agree with Twitter's moderation, but how exactly are we
| losing the freedom of speech?
|
| Whiners are free to demand companies to boycott Twitter ads
| when they see a tweet they don't like. The companies are free
| to stop buying ads from Twitter. Twitter is free to appease
| these whiners by moderating speech the way they want it, so
| they don't lose out on revenue. Elon Musk is free to disagree
| with that business strategy and buy 10% of Twitter.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Would you not eject someone from you property if they were
| harassing your other guests?
|
| It's not an exact analogy, and there are features like mute and
| block that are less severe than removing someone from a
| platform, but people generally don't want to individually deal
| with every person who decides that being miserable to others is
| the best use for social media.
| Steltek wrote:
| Moderation, either top-down curation or bottom-up mute/block,
| is not a solution. Either way, you're going to haphazardly
| create echo chambers, which aren't great at maintaining free
| speech.
| cycomanic wrote:
| The irony is that Elon Musk is who calls himself a free speech
| fundamentalist has been quite happy to silence people's speech
| if it didn't suit him. Similarly all the people calling out
| twitter for violating free speech never complained that
| protesters were thrown out of Trump rallies or that he called
| for beating them up.
|
| I do believe that there need to be limits on free speech and we
| also need to have means of equalising speech because otherwise
| we end up in the situation that the person with the loudest
| voice (the biggest resources) can say whatever they want and
| nobody else gets heard.
| Frost1x wrote:
| I think many of the people described aren't taking free speech
| for granted, they're reevaluating the idea in a new social
| dynamic. Technology has changed the societal impact on free
| speech drastically: reach, frequency, noise, targetability. In
| parallel, populations have grown drastically so the scale for
| ideas to reach critical mass and spread have changed. The
| dynamics are simply different now.
|
| I think many understand the consequences of highly restricted
| speech and how much benefit free speech has, including how
| censorship and tight control on speech has lead to undesirable
| government regimes historically. What people are really doing
| is reevaluating the costs side in the new environment where
| there's no longer a town square, information has the potential
| to spread to masses quickly, information is more difficult to
| separate from noise, and those with harmful intent can speak
| with more anonymity.
|
| I'm a huge fan of free speech but the increasing potential
| damaging effects can't be completepy ignored. It's better if we
| can defend against such issues, in my opinion, and protect free
| speech, not ignore them and go on as is.
| throwaway4aday wrote:
| I think you're wrong. The "increasing potential damaging
| effects" are only damaging to the current regime. The
| internet is just the latest iteration in a long succession of
| things that challenge the power of the elite and we're
| experiencing exactly the same blowback and propaganda that
| gets trotted out every time this happens. Even the whole
| "fake news" rhetoric isn't new but hundreds of years old.
| People with privileged positions, power and money are
| scrambling to widen their moats and shore up their positions
| against the rabble as they once again wrench the wool from
| their eyes.
|
| https://www.history.com/news/coffee-houses-revolutions
|
| https://www.britannica.com/topic/publishing/Printed-
| illustra...
|
| http://www.beaconforfreedom.org/liste.html?tid=415
| mmaunder wrote:
| That's exactly right. I've posted here many times discussing
| what it was like to grow up under apartheid in South Africa.
| Elon grew up under that regime too. He's the same age as me. He
| went to Pretoria boys high school. I went to Paarl boys high
| school. Similar tracks. Both highly conservative, pro apartheid
| and a clear demonstration of how limiting free speech enables
| awful regimes like the apartheid government. This is one of the
| strongest reasons he is a free speech absolutist.
|
| It's incredible how many smart people in the freest country in
| the world are asking to have their freedoms removed without
| considering who may inherit those rights.
| themitigating wrote:
| did this transition happen because extremists were able to
| spread their ideas?
| SirHound wrote:
| Yes this is why there are very few actual limits on free
| speech. Twitter isn't going to throw you in jail for saying
| something wrong on the platform. Your country didn't slide into
| a fascist state because a private company started limiting
| which kinds of posts are allowed on the platform it made and
| owns.
| kareemsabri wrote:
| You're gonna get replies basically saying "but free speech is
| about protection from the government not corporations". This is
| the stock answer, even though corporations in America are
| generally considered to be equally if not more powerful than
| the government (for good reason).
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| This is 100% true - but giving algos & bots the ability to
| spread disinformation on your network at low-cost and gaming
| networks to make it seem legit is what is dangerous.
|
| From a Twitter / YouTube / Facebook standpoint - it's easier to
| just block bad content than fix the above problem.
| iammru wrote:
| 100%... I lived and worked in many countries around the world
| and the amount of free speech we enjoy here is not common. This
| is why people like my parents escaped their motherland. It's
| surreal to me, as an immigrant, that we are trying self-limit
| free speech here. If you don't like what others say, then tune
| out, you have no right to silence other even if you abhor their
| ideas.
| themitigating wrote:
| If I ran a store that sold model trains and you can in and
| started yelling at something I shouldn't be able to kick you
| out?
|
| You may say - "Well twitter is bigger" - There are
| competitors and you aren't forced to use it.
|
| Or "I want to reach the largest audience" - Why should a
| private company spend its own resources to help you spread
| your message.
|
| You came from a country without freedom of speech? How would
| it have helped if the government just kills its enemies or
| arrests them on bogus charges?
| snowwrestler wrote:
| The principle of free speech is what lets Twitter (which is
| just a collection of private people) decide which content to
| publish or not publish.
| cduzz wrote:
| I'm not really sure what you mean by free speech here.
|
| Do you mean that, if I say "this war is bad!" I may be
| "arrested" and "tried" and then put in a jail for 15 years (or
| just vanish, or be dropped from a helicopter over the ocean).
|
| Or do you mean if I tweet "I'll <wink wink> 2nd amendment those
| Hajis!" my tweet won't be seen by 12 million people rather than
| "promoted" by some algorithm?
|
| Freedom of speech, as denoted in the United States
| Constitution, is a set of limits around the government
| behaviors. U.S. Government behaviors.
|
| The dose makes the medicine.
| bambax wrote:
| In most of Europe, the governments regulate free speech, and it
| works okay.
| Hamuko wrote:
| What country doesn't regulate free speech?
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| free speech as an american concept does not cover private
| businesses, it's specifically meant to curb government
| censorship
|
| if private businesses had to uphold the same standards the
| internet would very quickly devolve into every space becoming
| 4chan... you'd see people protesting inside of stores, it would
| be a mess
|
| maybe there's a call to make a platform like twitter a public
| utility, that would possibly solve it, but what a thorny
| situation that would be... I imagine the rules would likely be
| more restrictive than they are now, despite censorship laws.
| I'd guess they'd want to strip anonymity as well.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| There's a difference between free speech and access to global
| loudspeaker. You don't have freedom to get maximum engagement.
|
| Twitter and Facebook are dangerous because they allow anything
| that gets them money. Political campaigns and foreign influence
| campaigns wield armies of bots to spew bullshit.
|
| People of more libertarian bent tend to focus on some idealized
| vision of free speech. When those platforms enable fascists to
| overthrow democratic governments, you've won the battle and
| lost the war.
| ss108 wrote:
| > Understand this: limits on free speech are far more dangerous
| to society than allowing fringe extremists to spread their
| ideas.
|
| I just don't see the evidence to back this claim up.
|
| Granted, if I really think about it, I am not directly harmed
| either way. The fact that this is one of our fiercer debates is
| probably a good sign of our decadence lol
| Proven wrote:
| JoeNr76 wrote:
| Limits on free speech by government is dangerous. Private
| companies enforcing rules you have agreed to when you became a
| member, is something completely different.
| memish wrote:
| To put an even finer point on it, you'll never ever see Xi or
| Putin say "I'm a free speech absolutist" or "let's have less
| censorship".
|
| That so many people are taking the position of authoritarians,
| but presenting it as though they are protecting democracy, is
| truly baffling to behold. Elon removing these authoritarians
| from twitter's leadership and employee base, and restoring free
| speech principles, will be the best thing we've seen for
| democracy in a long time.
| mint2 wrote:
| You'll also never see them say "I'm a freedom from property
| rights absolutist" as in no state or private ownership but
| that doesn't mean anything either. Dictators not going to say
| "xyz" doesn't really have any bearing on the merits of xyz,
| and that doesn't even get into how dictators are loose with
| the truth and often will lie about "I'm for xyz" while
| violating the spirit of xyz. So in other words, what a
| dictator says is pretty irrelevant.
| [deleted]
| croes wrote:
| It works both ways, free speech with global range allows fringe
| extremists to disrupt democracies.
|
| Just look how russia uses this free speech. Free speech is ok
| but not with unlimited range.
| [deleted]
| nukemaster wrote:
| ganyu wrote:
| cloutchaser wrote:
| Because Russia has used its free speech how?
|
| Internally they ban all opposition media, which is not free
| speech, it's only hearing from propaganda.
|
| Considering the events of the last 2 months, has Russia
| really managed to turn the west pro Russia or anti Ukraine at
| all?
|
| I literally don't understand what you are trying to say.
| suction wrote:
| Russia has free speech in that, until very recently, they
| were allowed to spew their fake news propaganda in Western
| countries through outlets like RT, Sputnik, Zero Hedge
| (that one's still on), etc. etc.
|
| Maybe nobody who greenlighted the licenses to those
| channels could believe that there are enough idiots
| domestically who would not recognize it as lies and
| propaganda? As recent history has proven, there are always
| enough idiots to believe anything.
|
| If you have absolute free speech, you'll have to allow the
| media of other countries (China, NK, Russia, who have you)
| to disseminate propaganda to your citizens until something
| like Jan. 6th happens.
| croes wrote:
| Maybe you should look at the german Querdenker scene.
|
| They didn't use russia's free speech but ours to turn our
| people against us.
| Dangeranger wrote:
| Russia has been using sock puppet accounts to spread
| manipulative propaganda throughout western democracies for
| over two decades. They've been especially effective in the
| last ten years. Their goal of fomenting grievances among
| the factions within democracies, combined with a global
| refugee crisis they helped create in Syria has resulted in
| the rise of authoritarian leaders within over a dozen
| countries.
|
| In other words, the Russian regimes free speech has given
| rise to authoritarians who would in all likelihood, limit
| free speech in other countries if or when they rise to
| power.
|
| "Free speech for me, but not for thee."
| loudmax wrote:
| Absolutely this.
|
| Not just the rise of authoritarian leaders, but promoting
| both extreme left and extreme right political opinions
| leading to questioning the legitimacy of democratically
| elected leaders and the destabilization of free
| societies.
| [deleted]
| etrautmann wrote:
| I would guess the parent intended to convey that Russia
| weaponizes free speech in the US via troll farms/etc for
| foreign influence, not that they have it domestically?
| watwut wrote:
| That actually makes it make sense. Thank you.
| croes wrote:
| Exactly
| cloutchaser wrote:
| Seems like my point has gone right over everyone's head
| who answered...
|
| How well has what Russia done worked? Like how loved is
| Russia right now in the west? How many people agree with
| it?
|
| (sidenote: the russia brexit involvement has been 100%
| disproven. The Trump russia thing has been 100%
| disproven. The hunter biden laptop was not russian
| disinformation)
| croes wrote:
| It's not about love for russia, it's about doubt in
| western science and governments.
|
| How many people reject vaccines? How many belief the
| governments are controlled by a secret elite? Even flat
| earthers are linked to russian psyops.
| croes wrote:
| BTW how was russia's involvement in brexit disproved?
|
| It's unproven but that's not the same
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_t
| he_...
|
| Looks more like they tried but with minor effect at most.
| [deleted]
| asdfapslkjtewr wrote:
| RockyMcNuts wrote:
| Free speech is never 100% free, there are laws against libel,
| fraud, conspiracy, copyright, trademark, which create crimes
| that consist only of speech, or civil liability. Courts and
| parliaments have rules of procedure so it's not, whoever's
| loudest wins. And then there are social norms.
|
| Slippery slope arguments are a slippery slope to never doing
| anything to improve anything.
|
| It's always a balance between letting 20% of hateful crazy
| troll Nazis hijack all rational conversation, on the one hand,
| and blocking unpopular opinions on the other hand. Even HN
| moderates a lot.
|
| Same applies to all the rights enumerated in the US
| Constitution, you have freedom of religion to the extent it
| doesn't infringe on the other important rights and provisions
| of the Constitution. Polygamy is banned. If your religion says
| servitude of women or Black people is God's will, you don't get
| to practice it. 2nd Amendment however broadly interpreted
| doesn't let you build a nuclear weapon in your backyard.
|
| Also true, a lot of people want to block legitimate speech they
| don't want to hear and should be resisted. The first step
| toward fascism is indeed people not caring about free speech
| and thinking their personal discomfort is the most important
| thing, starting with the most powerful. Protesters get arrested
| and kettled, Colin Kaepernick loses his contracts. You're not
| going to stop the powerful from trying. It's never 'cancel
| culture' when state legislatures cancel women, minorities, gay
| or trans people, it's only 'cancel culture' when those people
| call out the powerful.
|
| We need free speech, but letting liars and extremists run the
| public square and destroy all decency isn't the answer either.
| You need to protect free speech by having reasonable rules and
| norms.
|
| "Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of
| liberty abused to licentiousness." - George Washington
| insta_anon wrote:
| Which country is that?
| ganyu wrote:
| keyme wrote:
| Not OP, but probably Russia. Not that there are no other
| examples in the last 20 years, it's just that some are more
| controversial to call out.
| watwut wrote:
| Or Hungary, tho less messy I guess.
| lossolo wrote:
| Russia never had fundaments for democracy, its democracy
| was a facade and still is, all state controlled media were
| brain washing society from the 90s, there is no rule of law
| for you in Russia if you are against someone from the party
| or local government.
| naoqj wrote:
| > all state controlled media were brain washing society
| from the 90s
|
| Name a country where that isn't true.
| mvc wrote:
| As an independence supporting Scot, I'm not much of a fan
| of the UK "state media" but even I can recognize that the
| BBC is no Rossiya. So that's who I name. UK.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > it all started with limits on the freedom of speech.
|
| Twitter has nothing to do with freedom of speech though.
|
| Or, to put it in a non-ambiguous way, Twitter is about freedom
| of speech as much as Coca-Cola is about "right to food, and its
| variations" [1].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_food
| antattack wrote:
| Speech is sending and receiving information.
|
| Speech/information needs to be processed/filtered/analyzed.
| People may not be equipped to deal with certain information -
| hence we try to manage it externally and internally.
|
| Suppressing from of information starts at early, at childhood.
| We try not bombard our children with all the information
| indiscriminately. We curate and provide age appropriate
| information to ensure optimal development and growth.
|
| Once a person becomes adult they are supposed to gather and
| process information on their own. However, even as adults we
| are susceptible to deception. Our judgement can be fooled,
| feeling can override our logic.
|
| In conclusion, I think there's a need for curation of the
| information/speech. Not forbidding it outright, but certainly
| to help humans discern facts from fiction, for example.
| mrtksn wrote:
| > Speech is sending and receiving information.
|
| I think that's wrong. Speech is sending signals that are
| converted into information. The difference is, the
| information can be good or bad depending on what you already
| have. If we go with the usual Hitler example, Hitler's speech
| makes people take other people into concentration camps only
| if they are already inclined into doing it(i.e. if you air
| the Hitler speech in USA, Americans don't start putting the
| Jews on trains). Therefore, limiting Hitler's speech is like
| fighting infection with painkillers when you actually need
| antibiotics.
| magpi3 wrote:
| Do you remember why Trump was banned on twitter? He was using
| his social media presence as part of a plan to overturn the
| results of the 2020 presidential election, and he was banned
| from both Twitter and Facebook after the U.S. Capitol building
| was essentially sacked due to these efforts. That sounds pretty
| dangerous to me.
|
| He, and others like him, never lost their right to free speech.
| Nothing stops them from creating their own website (which he
| has), or saying anything they want on the numerous platforms
| that do support them. They just lost access to social media
| platforms which by gamified design make spreading information
| (and misinformation) to the masses incredibly easy, so easy
| that a group of people were actually convinced that they had a
| mandate to attack the capitol to stop a cabal of pedophiles
| from stealing the 2020 election, a mandate from a president who
| at any time was going to unleash a flurry of indictments that
| would expose and jail the leaders of the Democratic Party.
|
| I don't know what the right answer is, but January 6th was an
| event that proved that something was truly out of control. The
| 1st amendment is not going anywhere, but I do support efforts
| to make it at least a little harder, or rather not so
| ridiculously easy, to spread lies that can ravage a country's
| democratic processes. I know that sounds anti-free speech, but
| again, the U.S. Capitol was sacked by a group of people
| inspired by lies on social media, and I think we need to
| acknowledge we live in a new world because of that.
| macawfish wrote:
| In some places it's not the capitol getting sacked but
| villages of families of a certain ethnicity. All because
| someone knew which button to push and had that ability to
| amplify it in social media.
|
| "Free speech absolutism"? Sounds more to me like ignorance
| that there are literally teams of data science monitoring
| social coordinated inauthentic behavior to nip mob violence
| in the bud. No I don't want Elon Musk anywhere near them.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| > Do you remember why Trump was banned on twitter?
|
| I remember Trump being suppressed for many months on Twitter,
| his tweets censored, labelled as misinformation, and
| information damaging to his opponent was suppressed and
| labelled as 'disinformation'. By now, many of those claims
| have been proven to be false.
|
| People cheering Trump's ban never ask themselves a question,
| what if this was a candidate they supported? They somehow
| magically think that no, they'll never be supporting such a
| horrible bad person so that the benevolent Twitter overlords
| would have to suppress. Yeah, that is absolutely impossible.
| Right. /s
| verisimi wrote:
| But its perfectly acceptable to delete the president's account
| (Trump) on platforms that are perceived to open (Twitter)!
| mcdonje wrote:
| I don't know why anyone would trust Musk to champion free
| speech.
|
| He has no background with any org that works on protecting free
| speech. He hasn't done work with the ACLU.
|
| Billionaires buying media companies has been great for
| broadcasting the billionaire perspective, but mixed at best on
| free speech.
|
| A lot of people currently decrying moderation activities on US
| social media sites as being against free speech are the same
| people supporting bills, mostly in state governments, that
| limit free speech.
| farmerstan wrote:
| ACLU of 2021 no longer supports free speech. The ACLU of the
| 80s and 90s were a bastion of free speech.
| themitigating wrote:
| Evidence?
| nickrubin wrote:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-
| speech.html
| farmerstan wrote:
| The former head of the ACLU from the 80s who famously
| defended the Nazis for free speech even though he is
| Jewish has been rallying against the current ACLU for
| precisely this reason.
| areyousure wrote:
| > He hasn't done work with the ACLU.
|
| https://twitter.com/aclu/status/1009186716593393664
|
| Contrast: https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-is-our-new-
| aclu-11589...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The WSJ, in that article, calls California's pandemic
| restrictions "The most sweeping restrictions on liberty
| ever seen", which is just an absurd assertion. Even if you
| scope it to the US or even California, where Japanese-
| American civilians, including children, were once relocated
| into internment camps.
|
| This is why people tend to roll their eyes at the WSJ
| opinion section. (The journalism side, to be clear, is top-
| notch.)
| marcusverus wrote:
| > The WSJ, in that article, calls California's pandemic
| restrictions "The most sweeping restrictions on liberty
| ever seen", which is just an absurd assertion. Even if
| you scope it to the US or even California, where
| Japanese-American civilians, including children, were
| once relocated into internment camps.
|
| Obviously the internment of Japanese folks during WWII
| was far more intrusive than the COVID restrictions. But
| that doesn't contradict the statement--they didn't say
| "the harshest restrictions" or "the most egregious
| restrictions", they said "the most sweeping
| restrictions". The word sweeping is an adjective meaning
| 'wide in range or effect'. It is simply a matter of fact
| that the COVID restrictions, which affected ~40 million
| people and resulted in the closure of 40,000 businesses,
| were a more sweeping restriction on liberty than the
| internment of 120,000 Japanese during the War.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| If you wanna be that charitable towards the claim, you've
| still got to contend with the draft, wartime rationing,
| censorship during WWII, the Sedition Acts, and many
| others.
| marcusverus wrote:
| > You've still got to contend with the draft, wartime
| rationing, censorship during WWII, the Sedition Acts, and
| many others.
|
| The only comparably broad measure you've listed is
| wartime rationing. But the fact that wartime rationing
| was as broad in scope as the COVID restrictions hardly
| renders the WSJ's claim _absurd_.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The draft permits the government to force any male
| citizen 17-45 into the military, where they lack
| significant Constitutional rights, can be sent to die in
| combat, and be summarily executed.
|
| The Sedition Acts variably restricted the First Amendment
| rights to criticize the government of anyone in the
| country.
|
| How are these not broad?
| shkkmo wrote:
| Yet all you have shown is that the WSG claim is
| debatable, not that it absurd.
|
| Is it possible that you, like the WSG, enganged in a bit
| of hyperbole to tru to make a point?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| No. California's restrictions haven't been "The most
| sweeping restrictions on liberty ever seen" no matter how
| charitably you approach and scope the claim. I entirely
| stand by my opinion that it's absurd to state that.
| shkkmo wrote:
| There exists entirely plausible interpretations of
| "sweeping" that place the california restrictions above
| the examples you cited. The draft only targeted males of
| specific ages, the sedition act removes a much "smaller"
| set of rights...etc
|
| To be clear, I think the WSG claim is hyperbole. However
| it is a claim that could be reasonably argued to be
| correct and is thus not literally "absurd". Thus I would
| class is as hyperbolic and your use of the word as
| figurative.
| nradov wrote:
| The ACLU no longer works on protecting some aspects of free
| speech.
|
| https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/558433-the-aclus-
| ci...
|
| Which state government bills are you referring to?
| mcdonje wrote:
| https://www.chalkbeat.org/22525983/map-critical-race-
| theory-...
| ohwellhere wrote:
| I live in Charlottesville and the ACLU caught a lot of flak
| for supporting the KKK in a rally earlier that summer
| before the August 12 Unite the Right rally. When they
| backed down was the first time I started to pay attention
| that maybe some of the criticism against the left's assault
| on speech was legitimate.
|
| (For the record, I am very far left, but from a time when
| true free speech was a sacred left value.)
| LanceH wrote:
| The left has numbers now and many are changing their tune
| to embrace an authoritarian stance on the "proper"
| issues.
| dahart wrote:
| That article is a discombobulated conservative rant that
| accuses all _corporate_ America of being leftist (please),
| and contains zero verifiable details that support the
| title, as far as I can tell.
|
| What, exactly, is it saying the ACLU did? What, exactly, is
| it referring to? The only sentence that even attempts to
| answer that question is: "an ACLU official said it was
| perfectly legitimate for his lawyers to decline to defend
| hate speech."
|
| That statement is a _fact_. Hate speech is explicitly
| exempt from U.S. Free Speech protections. If you're going
| to defend Free Speech, please read a little about the
| limitations on Free Speech, and some of the history that
| brought about those limitations.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech#Limitations
|
| Limits on Free Speech is as much a conservative value as a
| liberal value. Framing this as a leftist takeover of "woke"
| values is a thinly veiled misinformation FUD campaign
| designed to confuse you about what U.S. values are and
| convince you liberals are attacking, while hypocritically
| doing all the attacking. Don't let this junk work on you,
| stay curious and seek verifiable facts, not tribal opinion.
| refurb wrote:
| _Hate speech is explicitly exempt from U.S. Free Speech
| protections._
|
| That's not true. The US restricts speech that incites
| imminent criminal behavior. That's all.
|
| The ACLU is famous for defend a Nazi rally through a
| Jewish town of Skokie, IL.
|
| That ACLU is dead now.
| themitigating wrote:
| https://www.aclu.org/cases/shurtleff-v-city-boston-
| no-20-180...
|
| In an amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court, the ACLU
| and ACLU of Massachusetts argue that Boston's denial of
| Camp Constitution's request to display its flag violated
| the group's free-speech rights
|
| On March 2nd 2022. You made the claim the ACLU is dead ,
| what evidence do you have to support that?
| Hasu wrote:
| > Hate speech is explicitly exempt from U.S. Free Speech
| protections. If you're going to defend Free Speech,
| please read a little about the limitations on Free
| Speech, and some of the history that brought about those
| limitations.
|
| Your own link makes it clear that in the US, hate speech
| is protected speech.
|
| "Hate speech is also protected by the First Amendment in
| the United States, as decided in R.A.V. v. City of St.
| Paul, (1992) in which the Supreme Court ruled that hate
| speech is permissible, except in the case of imminent
| violence"
| nradov wrote:
| That is not legally correct. Hate speech is _not_
| explicitly exempt from US free speech protections. There
| is no such law, you 're just making things up. Unless it
| contains an explicit incitement to violence, hate speech
| is completely legal. The link you cited doesn't support
| your point.
|
| The internal ACLU policy is apparently now to consider
| politics when deciding which speech to defend. As a
| private organization they're free to make those choices
| but it's disappointing to see them retreat from the
| values that I and other liberals hold dear.
|
| https://fee.org/articles/the-aclu-is-no-longer-free-
| speechs-...
|
| And I am perfectly well aware of what real US values are.
| Condescending advice from someone ignorant about basic
| Constitutional law is not helpful or appreciated.
| legulere wrote:
| He tried to silence a teenager that was writing about him on
| twitter.
| missedthecue wrote:
| This is the weirdest criticism to me. That teenager had a
| very popular Twitter account shared in a couple major
| publications, whose sole purpose is to show the world
| Elon's live location.
|
| This is especially odd coming from the privacy maximalists
| at HN. How long would it take you to report a Twitter
| account that Tweeted out your live location daily? Be
| honest.
|
| And then you use the word 'silence' which is far more
| ominous than saying that he offered the kid $5000 for what
| was about 15 minutes of python.
| samstave wrote:
| Interested in hearing your take on Bill Gates' qualifications
| in various segments...
| mcdonje wrote:
| Mixed reviews. The Gates Foundation pushed an initiative to
| grade teachers based on student test scores, essentially.
| That only made problems in the education sector worse. Ask
| any teacher and they'll tell you what the problems are, and
| untalented teachers is pretty far down the list.
| themitigating wrote:
| That wasn't their intention, the Gates Foundation has
| done massive amounts of good work, just because there are
| unintended consequences doesn't change the intent
| mcdonje wrote:
| They swooped into a field they were not experts in and
| caused problems. Intentions are beside the point. They
| thought they were the smartest ones in the room but they
| didn't understand the underlying issues.
| rchaud wrote:
| Bill Gates spends his ill-gotten monopoly profits on
| funding research and wide scale critical public health and
| education programs across the world and including America.
|
| That's on an order of magnitude difference than the world's
| richest meme-sharer purchasing the software company that
| provides the meme-sharing infrastructure.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| > He has no background with any org that works on protecting
| free speech.
|
| I would argue Starlink occupies that role.
| dahart wrote:
| > I would argue Starlink occupies that role.
|
| Please do. What is Starlink doing to protect free speech?
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| Sending dishes to Ukraine?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Ukraine is currently under martial law and has
| significant restrictions on speech; it's (justifiably)
| illegal, for example, to report on troop positions.
| Starlink isn't changing that; it just provides internet
| access, filtered through a local ground station subject
| to any local laws and filtering that are applicable.
| China has internet access, but not free speech. Same for
| Russia.
| sofixa wrote:
| That's a very wild claim. How did you make that jump and
| why Starlink and not _every other_ ISP?
| kietay wrote:
| I'm assuming because they offer open ISP services inside
| jurisdictions where the government censors the Internet.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Not in its current iteration, which relies on ground
| stations in or near those countries. You're not gonna get
| Starlink service in China or Iran, even if you can get a
| dish.
| cmatthias wrote:
| You are conflating the concept of free speech with "free
| reach."
|
| At least in the US, you have always had the right to create
| your own web site and say whatever you want. That right should
| never be taken away. However, another privately-run website
| should never be forced to broadcast anyone's content to
| hundreds of millions of other people.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| When that privately-run website becomes the public square (as
| Twitter wants or has done), it should forfeit some moderation
| rights.
| wan23 wrote:
| Twitter is an influential platform, but most people aren't
| on it. It's not that big of a deal.
| detcader wrote:
| Newspapers are an influential platform, but most people
| aren't reading them. It's not that big of a deal if the
| government decided to censor them, agreed?
| themitigating wrote:
| I don't think you understand the original comment.
|
| 1. Newspapers and Twitter should be able to and often
| censor themselves 2. The government shouldn't censor
| newspapers or Twitter.
| cmatthias wrote:
| Wait, either I'm missing something huge or this analogy
| is fatally flawed.
|
| Are you claiming that the _government_ is censoring
| Twitter?
| yardie wrote:
| My city has a public square and a privately owned mall.
| Just short of being violent you are allowed to do and say
| as you wish in the public square. But most people prefer to
| go to the much cleaner, privately owned mall. Where our
| values and polite society are reaffirmed.
|
| We choose moderation constantly in our lives,
| intentionally.
| detcader wrote:
| Do you ask the Chamber of Commerce which malls and stores
| to frequent whenever you want to shop? I think that would
| be a great way to avoid the bad areas with all the hobos
| and sketchy businesses that are probably fronts for drug
| dealers anyway.
|
| You can "choose moderation" by not viewing Twitter
| accounts and conversations you don't care about and
| muting words you dislike.
| 7steps2much wrote:
| > You can "choose moderation" by not viewing Twitter
| accounts and conversations you don't care about and
| muting words you dislike.
|
| In that case however I would also like the possibility to
| turn off any algorithms that recommend stuff to me. I
| want to see only things i put on my whitelist, otherwise
| i will have to constantly moderate and it will take up
| loads of my time.
|
| As long as that doesn't happen I am more than happy to
| let others do the moderation based on some frameworks
| that I agreed on (ToS in Twitters case).
| stale2002 wrote:
| > My city has a public square and a privately owned mall
|
| Interesting that you bring up that example, because
| private malls are absolutely required to follow certain
| public accommodations laws, depending on the
| jurisdiction.
|
| So, just like private malls are forced to do certain
| things by the government, people are saying that a
| similar set of public accommodations, that we already
| force malls to do, should be extended to other platforms.
|
| EX: https://www.aclusocal.org/en/know-your-
| rights/protesters
|
| "Shopping malls must allow speech activity subject to
| reasonable time, place and manner rules-- ask your local
| mall for their rules."
| yardie wrote:
| This rule is almost certainly applicable to California.
| Most mall protests that I've seen happen near the mall or
| in front of the mall, rarely inside the plaza. And
| usually with the agreement of the owners.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _When that privately-run website becomes the public
| square (as Twitter wants or has done), it should forfeit
| some moderation rights_
|
| That's fair. Twitter is far from the public square. To lazy
| journalists and addicts, sure. But plenty of discourse
| manages just fine without it.
| zionic wrote:
| > you have always had the right to create your own web site
| and say whatever you want
|
| Try it. The DNS providers will delist you, cloudfare will ban
| you, AWS etc etc. You'll lose your bank accounts too.
|
| This isn't a game to the other side, we have freedom in
| theory but little in practice.
| needlefish wrote:
| contravariant wrote:
| The problem with this narrow definition is that in it you
| _don 't_ have the right to create your own website, nobody is
| forced to sell you the IP, hostname or bandwidth, and to the
| extent that they are it's because letting private companies
| dictate public discourse is a bad idea.
|
| There's a fine line between not amplifying someone and
| silencing them, and when the choices of very few privately
| run websites affect who gets heard and who not then we should
| be wary about them amplifying harmful speech and equally wary
| about them silencing speech harmfully.
| sidlls wrote:
| We don't consider something a right based on whether it
| costs money or not.
| judge2020 wrote:
| I think they're saying that private companies aren't
| forced to actually rent you out a server, in which they
| aren't, but that's simply those companies' own free
| speech at work allowing them to choose who to associate
| with. The same freedom to not rent out servers to some
| racist/twitter canceled person gives them the freedom to
| not associate with people who want to host vile and
| disgusting porn on their servers.
| cmatthias wrote:
| I reject the notion that this is a narrow definition. In
| the US, it's the _standard_ definition that was widely
| accepted until the recent advent of the "but muh free
| speech" people on twitter and other social media.
|
| I'm also quite skeptical of the "slippery slope"-style
| argument regarding IP connectivity. The number of available
| ISPs, web hosts, domain registrars, etc is pretty large.
| There are even web hosts that have an explicit policy of
| letting you host _any_ content you want as long as it's not
| against the law in their jurisdiction[0]. And they'll even
| host it on a subdomain of theirs, if for some reason you
| have trouble getting a hostname for your hateful or crazy
| (but legally protected from censorship by the government)
| blog. And if laws are ever made restricting what those web
| hosts can do, then we're getting into the realm of the
| government restricting free speech, which is a different
| conversation entirely.
|
| Regarding your second paragraph, the right to "get heard"
| is not a right guaranteed to anyone, at least not in the
| US. If you are spewing garbage, no one should be forced to
| hear it.
|
| (caveat: I'm in the US, so my opinions are US-centric)
|
| [0] for example, https://nearlyfreespeech.net
| foxhill wrote:
| > In the US, it's the _standard_ definition that was
| widely accepted
|
| citation needed
|
| > There are even web hosts that have an explicit policy
| of letting you host _any_ content you want as long as
| it's not against the law in their jurisdiction
|
| perhaps, but how much pressure do you think _they_ could
| take, if pressured to take down your content by other
| private individuals & corporations?
|
| > the right to "get heard" is not a right guaranteed to
| anyone, at least not in the US. If you are spewing
| garbage, no one should be forced to hear it.
|
| i don't think anyone is claiming that there is or should
| be a right to be heard. this is an issue of control over
| who _can_ be heard, and the distinction is important.
|
| for example, in a "free" twitter, i could post some
| racist tirade, and expect it to gain no traction/retweets
| from my followers & some random others. people might see
| it, but it is principally no different to making the same
| speech in the city center: i'm going to be heard, but no
| one is going to listen.
|
| we're all talking in extremes here too, which really
| isn't helping. yes, moderated platforms can remove
| racism, abusive content, etc., but they can (and do) also
| remove regular speech: more realistically, above, i would
| have been more likely tweeting about the lab-leak
| hypothesis of covid, back in the time where any proposed
| cause other than the wet-market exposure hypothesis was
| being labeled as racist. do you think people that have
| been deplatformed/decried/cancelled for opinions like
| that were retroactively recognized as being legitimate?
| if so, where's the profit motivation in that?
| themitigating wrote:
| What would be worse for someone with a large number of
| followers, like the president, to tweet?
|
| Calling a black person the N word or accusing that person
| of rape without evidence?
|
| If removing racism is acceptable why not the latter?
| cmatthias wrote:
| > citation needed
|
| Uh, the US constitution and a few centuries of case law?
|
| > perhaps, but how much pressure do you think they could
| take, if pressured to take down your content by other
| private individuals & corporations?
|
| The one example host I gave has been around 20 years. I
| trust that they have a good legal team and have faced
| mobs of angry people before, and that they'll continue to
| be around for a while longer.
|
| One problem that I didn't bring up in my original post is
| that as soon as someone _can_ be heard on twitter, their
| content is subject to algorithmic manipulation. So
| someone 's fringe opinion could be broadcast to thousands
| or millions of eyeballs and made to seem like much more
| of a mainstream opinion like than it actually is.
|
| In a perfect world, where no manipulation is possible, I
| do agree with you that making sure people _can_ be heard
| is the correct solution. But until or unless we get
| there, my opinion is that letting the platform have
| leeway to moderate content is the best path forward. If
| people tweeting about covid lab leaks (which I 'm still
| not sure would be considered a non-fringe opinion in
| 2022) get caught up in that, then that sucks for them,
| but the alternative is worse. They are still free to set
| up their own site to discuss their theories.
| foxhill wrote:
| > Uh, the US constitution and a few centuries of case
| law?
|
| i'm sorry, i interpreted your point to broadly be "free
| speech with limits", which i understand to be at-odds
| with the constitutional definition.
|
| > The one example host I gave has been around 20 years.
|
| no offense intended to them when i say i don't recall
| ever hearing about them in any setting, controversial or
| otherwise, which would lead me to believe they haven't
| experienced significant pressure to remove anything.
|
| > [...] their content is subject to algorithmic
| manipulation
|
| yes, i agree. "the algorithm" makes astroturfing much
| easier to perform and be effective.
|
| > In a perfect world [...]
|
| well then there's a bit of a bootstrapping problem here,
| no? principles like free-speech were idealized and create
| in order to _make_ the perfect world (for some values of
| "perfect"). hell, in the "perfect" world, free-speech
| wouldn't even _need_ protection. i don 't think it's
| sensible to mandate a principle after the fact.
|
| > which I'm still not sure would be considered a non-
| fringe opinion in 2022
|
| there is no scientific consensus yet - surprise surprise
| - but we are at least now talking about it[1].
|
| > but the alternative is worse
|
| i'm not sure i agree with you here.
|
| [1]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/another-potential-
| covid-19-lab-...
| cmatthias wrote:
| > i'm sorry, i interpreted your point to broadly be "free
| speech with limits", which i understand to be at-odds
| with the constitutional definition.
|
| Ugh, my main point is that the concept of "free speech"
| in the US _is not relevant at all_ to the question of
| whether a private entity can remove you from their
| platform for saying something they don 't like.
|
| You can claim that in the colloquial sense, the phrase is
| used more liberally to mean any censorship whatsoever,
| and that may be true. But in my opinion that is
| conflating two concepts, and those doing so are either 1)
| confused or 2) being deliberately dishonest by trying to
| smuggle some sense of constitutional/government mandate
| into the conversation.
| foxhill wrote:
| > Ugh, my main point is that the concept of "free speech"
| in the US is not relevant at all to the question of
| whether a private entity can remove you from their
| platform for saying something they don't like.
|
| and i'm saying that you appear to treat social media and
| digital identity as some superfluous luxury that can be
| revoked without consequence from an individual as
| punishment (or for more dubious reasons), much like how
| republicans view health care and social welfare: with the
| notable exception of the US and one or two others,
| _every_ country recognizes that private corporations must
| provide health care (or the means to it - i 'm talking
| about the equipment, education, etc. being provided
| largely by non-governmental institutions), and citizens
| must be allowed to access to it regardless of who they
| are and what they've said, or even done.
|
| yes, you are correct that the constitution does not
| prevent private corporations from removing content that
| they do not like, that is the point here. there is no
| question over the legality of such removals, and i don't
| think anyone here has tried to raise one.
|
| i'm not trying to _smuggle_ constitutional /government
| mandate, i'm _explicitly_ trying to discuss the notion of
| whether or not it should exist.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > the concept of "free speech" in the US is not relevant
| at all to the question of whether a private entity can
| remove you from their platform for saying something they
| don't like.
|
| You seem to be confusing "free speech", the concept, with
| "free speech", the legal right.
|
| Most codifications of the legal right limit themselves to
| protecting against certain types of government
| interference.
|
| However, the concept itself is absolutely not limited to
| contexts where censorship is imposed by a government. To
| try to impose this limitation is 1984-style thought
| policing that tries to remove existing language to
| control what can be said.
|
| I'm not talking about some colloquial meaning, but the
| core meaning of the concept of "freedom of speech".
| cmatthias wrote:
| I think we are actually saying the same thing, and my
| language was imprecise, so I apologize.
|
| My point is that in the US, the narrower
| legal/constitutional concept of free speech is often
| implied, inadvertently or deliberately, when people are
| actually only referring to it in the broader sense that
| you describe. For example, a banned Twitter user might
| say things like "Twitter is a disgrace to democracy"[0]
| which confuses others into thinking there is some
| constitutional or legal harm being done when in fact
| there is none.
|
| I have no problem with having a debate about whether the
| core concept of free speech is a universal right that
| should be guaranteed everywhere (surprise: I don't think
| it should be a universal right and I think it's downright
| dangerous to society to force all private entities to
| respect it). But I see the two meanings get confused so
| much that I felt a need to call it out.
|
| [0] https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-news-twitter-
| marjorie-...
| shkkmo wrote:
| > and I think it's downright dangerous to society to
| force all private entities to respect it.
|
| I would whole heartdly agree with that, but only because
| you added "all".
|
| I think just as there is a balance in placing limitations
| of corporate freedom of association just like placing
| limits on free speech.
|
| I do think that free speech is valuable enough that we
| should carefully consider placing restrictions on how and
| why large, oligopolistic corporations can exercise their
| right to freedom of association.
|
| I think a lot of this can be solved with a "user's bill
| of rights" that protects users from arbitrary and
| capricious enforcement of nebulous terms by service
| providers.
|
| I think most of the rest of this would be ideally solved
| by narrowing or eliminating the types of moderation a
| corporation can engage in while maintaining liability
| protection under section 230. Possibly with language
| giving special exemptions to community run moderation.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > for example, in a "free" twitter, i could post some
| racist tirade, and expect it to gain no traction/retweets
| from my followers & some random others.
|
| Nah, you'd get a whole bunch of followers who are happy
| to see someone say the quiet parts out loud and would
| retweet.
|
| Without social media, overt racists have to meet in
| private and the effects are local. With social media,
| they get a microphone that reaches the world and it
| spreads worldwide.
| moduspol wrote:
| > I'm also quite skeptical of the "slippery slope"-style
| argument regarding IP connectivity. The number of
| available ISPs, web hosts, domain registrars, etc is
| pretty large.
|
| We've already seen the goalposts move when AWS and CDNs
| were dropping politically unpopular clients.
|
| If it helps, we're already pretty close to the end of the
| slope. There's a very limited number of last-mile ISPs,
| so we're only one Twitter mob / protest away from Comcast
| / Verizon / Cox / AT&T holding press conferences about
| how they're blocking politically problematic domains and
| IP addresses. Then it'll only be tech-savvy users with
| VPNs that can access "free speech," at least until those
| become the target of the mob, too.
| cmatthias wrote:
| I disagree that we're close to the end of the slope, but
| I guess if you're right we'll find out soon enough.
|
| I'm not a libertarian by any means but I do have some
| amount of faith that if what you're describing comes to
| pass, the free market will provide alternatives, if
| demand exists. VPNs are one such alternative.
|
| I truly believe that it's harmful to society to guarantee
| free reach to everyone. It's kind of like the paradox of
| tolerance, if you've heard of that -- if private entities
| are barred from moderating content on their systems, the
| discourse will devolve more than it already has into
| conspiracy, hate, and other forms of unwanted content.
| shkkmo wrote:
| I don't think that the argument is that no platforms
| should be able to moderate. Moderation is a high value
| activity that is hard to do well.
|
| The argument is that moderation should be done by
| publishing companies and who face liability for their
| content. It should not be done poorly, en-mass by
| platform companies who do it at scale using automation
| and don't face legal liability when they mess up.
|
| The only exception I see to this is to allow community
| organized and run moderation for noncommercial
| communities.
| themitigating wrote:
| If publishing companies were liable for their content
| wouldn't they censor more?
| stale2002 wrote:
| Publishing companies are already liable for their
| content.
|
| The argument is that, instead, these other, non-
| publishing, major communication platforms should be
| treated how we run other major communication platforms in
| the past, such as the telephone network.
|
| We have existing laws, that could be extend to cover
| other communication platforms.
|
| Telephone companies have been required to do certain
| things for decades, and the world hasn't collapsed
| because of it.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > If publishing companies were liable for their content
| wouldn't they censor more?
|
| They would - and and they are. That's why it's easier to
| publish fanfic on the internet than with an actual
| publisher. Tumblr is not on the hook for unauthorized
| titillating usage of copyrighted Disney characters, but
| HarperCollins would get sued to bankruptcy if they
| attempted the same. This is why the calls to repeal
| section 319 is idiotic - it will lead to more
| "censorship"
| overrun11 wrote:
| You claim to support private companies adopting whatever
| moderation policies you want and yet your examples of
| "hate/conspiracy bullshit" go against this. If you believe
| this absolutely then _what_ is being censored would be
| unimportant.
|
| You are unwilling to confront the idea of Twitter censoring
| true things that you agree with but by your own principles
| you'd find this agreeable.
| cmatthias wrote:
| I'm sorry if "hate/conspiracy bullshit" was too
| inflammatory or specific here. I meant it as a stand in for
| "any content that most would find objectionable." I've
| edited my post to remove that language. You are correct
| that I do believe that what is being censored is
| unimportant.
|
| Please don't presume what I am or am not willing to do.
|
| I am perfectly willing to confront the idea that Twitter is
| censoring true things that I agree with: it's fine with me.
| I'm not sure if they're already doing that, but they have
| every right to, just as I have every right to use (or
| create) an alternative platform.
| soundnote wrote:
| I propose that water companies don't have to promote your
| ability to speak either by selling you water. You can collect
| rainwater provided by nature just fine. Same with gas
| stations and transport: You're not owed free reach, people
| back in the day just walked where they wanted to get to.
| Cars, electricity and running water are just modern
| conveniences.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| This is a poor metaphor. Water companies provide something
| essential for life and are de facto gov't entities. It's
| unclear if your objective was to change people's minds, or
| just to mock OP with a shallow dismissal, but either way
| it's a weak argument unless you establish why these
| comparisons are valid.
| snarf21 wrote:
| Wow, that is an amazing way to describe it. I've never heard
| that before. That is a great framing of the debate: free
| speech doesn't mean free reach. I don't know who made it up
| (kudos to you if you did) but having terms to describe each
| part of the issue is very helpful. TIL
| rchaud wrote:
| It's a useful framing to to have, because "reach" is indeed
| the issue. Analogies to "guy yelling in the town square"
| aren't valid with Twitter because the town square doesn't
| have algorithms that moderate how often the town crier is
| audible to the public. And the town square also never had
| automated bots that parrot the criers' views (or contrary
| view) at zero marginal cost.
|
| if Musk takes over Twitter, we'll be able to see how much
| 'freedom' he tolerates when the topics are things he has
| personal interests in.
| aqsalose wrote:
| So, what if all the publishers in one country _just so
| happen_ to decide that Mr. Solzhenitsyn 's book "Gulag
| Archipelago" is politically very uncomfortable to the
| ruling elite and all decline to publish it? This was
| Finlandized Finland in the 1970s. (To be clear, government
| didn't formally ban it. All publishing houses were
| privately owned companies. Yet somehow the decision was
| made.)
|
| Maybe nobody is entitled to book publishers providing "free
| reach" of publishing your book, especially in thousands of
| copies. Yet something went wrong there. I don't have a
| catchy slogan for it, but sometimes the decisions to
| prevent reach are functionally antithetical to the purpose
| of free press.
| cmatthias wrote:
| Thank you! I did not make it up but I don't recall where I
| first heard it, unfortunately. But I am definitely not
| claiming credit for it! :)
| jrsj wrote:
| These companies all spy on you on behalf of the government
| and have censored legitimate news stories in a coordinated
| fashion to manipulate an election. Their connections to
| intelligence agencies alone make them effectively public
| institutions in my view.
| judge2020 wrote:
| If you have any proof feel free to drop it.
|
| The thing that has historically made a company bound to
| free speech is whether or not the government requires them
| to specifically search for certain types of infringing
| content. Coincidentally, this is the current legal
| framework that makes reporting images of child abuse legal:
| companies can voluntarily choose to to either not scan for
| CSAM, or can choose to scan for CSAM and must report it to
| NCMEC if they find any, and Apple is a prime example of a
| company that doesn't scan for it[0].
|
| If the government is asking a company to go searching for
| specific otherwise legal content, that would be pretty good
| evidence for a court case to be made.
|
| 0: "Of all of the companies identified by NCMEC, I only saw
| one that had an unexpected decrease in reporting: Apple.
| According to NMEC, Apple submitted 205 reports in 2019 (a
| third my my reporting volume). Apple increased a little, to
| 265 in 2020, but then dropped in 2021 to only 160 reports.
| That's nearly a 22% decrease over two years!" https://www.h
| ackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/955-NC...
| jrsj wrote:
| Hunter Biden laptop story was legit & censoring it across
| all social media simultaneously was absurd. Considering
| his financial connections to Ukraine & current events
| it's even more fucked up that it was censored.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Proof that it was censored by the United States
| government is what decides if it's legal censorship.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| No I'm not conflating these concepts.
|
| No, you can not create your own website. Take this Parler
| debacle: booted off appstores, AWS, DNS providers,
| Cloudflare, etc.
|
| Go build your own internet, we're in a free country? Not that
| I have sympathies for Parler folks, but I was horrified when
| people even here were cheering at Parler's demise. Don't you
| look somewhat ahead? Don't you see how many centralized
| gatekeepers are now everywhere? The potential of abuse to
| quash dissent is immense, and the possibility of all
| gatekeepers closely allying with the government is not alien
| to me. I have seen this happen right in front of me. When it
| will happen in your country, it'll be too late.
|
| The reality is that some companies are so dominant in their
| respective fields, that it is in the interests of society
| they _should not_ discriminate anyone if they don 't like
| their views. Google and Apple should not be the ones to
| decide if the user can install the app on his device, even if
| this app is made by a militant far-right neo-nazi group. DNS
| providers should do their technical job and not engage in
| censoring websites spreading views they don't like.
| cmatthias wrote:
| > No, you can not create your own website.
|
| Yes, in the US, you can. Giving me an example of one site
| that was booted off a small set of providers does not
| disprove that.
|
| I do completely agree with you that having e.g. Apple be
| the sole gatekeeper of what users can install on their
| platform is problematic, but I view this as somewhat
| orthogonal to the Twitter censorship question. IMHO Apple
| should be required to allow users to install apps
| downloaded from alternative sources, however I still don't
| feel they should be compelled to host apps in their own
| store.
|
| I'm not sure there's a great way to map the above opinion
| to Twitter -- maybe something like forcing twitter to
| become federated/decentralized would be the closest. But I
| am not convinced that Twitter is of the same size as Apple
| where we should mandate that. I don't regularly use twitter
| and I don't feel that we, as a society, are nearly as
| dependent on it as we are on phone manufacturers.
| psyc wrote:
| The ability to do this depends on the will of private hosting
| providers and ISPs. It's the same problem. It's infeasible to
| maintain a site that permits all legal speech. It's a
| constant legal battle and you'd better know a great lawyer
| who believes in the cause enough to work pro bono.
| judge2020 wrote:
| For reference, Compuserve was an ISP that historically
| didn't moderate ony of its content on its forums, under the
| legal framework that not moderating anything meant
| Compuserve wasn't liable for any of its content, while
| another ISP Prodigy lost a defamation lawsuit because they
| did moderate their forum's content. This gave rise to the
| Communications Decency Act which allows these services to
| moderate some content without being civilly liable for all
| of the content on their service.
|
| Compuserve:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompuServe#Legal_cases
|
| Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co.: https://en.
| wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prod....
|
| Legal Eagle video if you prefer his video format:
| https://youtu.be/eUWIi-Ppe5k?t=243
| foxhill wrote:
| where does this argument end, exactly?
|
| it seems that the majority of people grossly underestimate
| corporation's level of involvement in our every day lives: if
| i were to become a persona non grata to google, apple, HN,
| social media, etc., how would i talk to _anyone_? how could i
| do _anything_? isolation will cause more harm than
| incarceration, yet i am not recognized a right to trial. not
| that it would matter anyway, the decision would likely be
| made algorithmically, without any one human knowing _why_ it
| 's happened.
|
| what i'm saying is: corporations have come to own the
| infrastructure of our modern society. the protections that
| freedom of speech gave were (and still are) valuable in the
| context in which they were made. they don't address the
| reality that communication is fundamentally different to how
| it was in the 19th century.
| judge2020 wrote:
| But would this still extend to 'free reach'? ie. if I go on
| Twitter, and say horrible things, then everyone blocks me,
| is my free speech being impeded because Twitter allows
| these people to block me? What about the algorithm, if
| Instagram's stories feature tries to show new videos based
| on people's interests, can I sue them for not showing my
| videos to other people?
| foxhill wrote:
| > is my free speech being impeded because Twitter allows
| these people to block me?
|
| of course not. if you choose to block me, i am not
| prevented from communicating with others.
|
| > What about the algorithm, if Instagram's stories
| feature tries to show new videos based on people's
| interests, can I sue them for not showing my videos to
| other people?
|
| the algorithm is the problem: if you subscribe/follow,
| you should see all the content (this is how facebook used
| to be).
| themitigating wrote:
| What if I agree to let Twitter block people for me in
| order to make the platform a better experience?
|
| When you sign up for a service that moderates content
| that's what happens.
| judge2020 wrote:
| TikTok is only as big as it is because of its efficient
| and useful algorithm/'for you' page. It's a testament to
| the fact that even the small amount of friction
| introduced in signing up and managing a friends list is
| too much for most people.
| cmatthias wrote:
| > if i were to become a persona non grata to google, apple,
| HN, social media, etc., how would i talk to anyone? how
| could i do anything?
|
| I honestly don't understand this argument at all.
|
| To answer your question, you could:
|
| - Use one of the thousands of other available email
| hosts/search engines/cloud providers/etc besides Google or
| Apple - Pick up the phone and talk to people to get things
| done - Leave your house to talk to people and do things -
| Find something enjoyable to do with all of the free time
| you've gained now that you're off of social media and HN
|
| But more importantly, you're saying that without those
| companies you somehow can't live your life? In that case I
| just flat-out disagree. I believe that most people make
| social media out to be more important than it is, and this
| feels like the extreme of that style of argument.
| foxhill wrote:
| > Use one of the thousands of other available email hosts
|
| when was the last time you sent (or received) an e-mail
| outside of the context of work, or to interact with a
| company?
|
| > Pick up the phone
|
| apple and google make the phones! my network provider is
| also a private company, too, they have no requirement to
| provide me a phone service.
|
| > Leave your house to talk to people and do things
|
| people no longer go to their friends front doors without
| calling ahead/planning first. millennials (my generation)
| aren't great at spontaneity in this regard. gen Z are
| even worse.
|
| > Find something enjoyable to do with all of the free
| time you've gained now that you're off of social media
| and HN
|
| i _already_ don 't use most social media. i don't go on
| facebook, twitter, tik tok, etc. i watch youtube videos
| and go on hacker news, and even then i rarely interact.
|
| but if apple cut me off of icloud, facebook from
| whatsapp, etc. my life would be difficult enough. it
| would only take a couple of other companies to make it a
| nightmare. how many stories have landed on the HN front
| page about how a sudden dismissal from google has really
| screwed up someones online (and often real) life? and
| these are just the ones we here about..
|
| private _social media_ isn 't the problem (although it
| _is_ a problem). i 'm saying that so much of our lives
| are very tightly embedded with a handful of private
| companies, and them having control over that isn't a
| great way to be.
| cmatthias wrote:
| > when was the last time you sent (or received) an e-mail
| outside of the context of work, or to interact with a
| company?
|
| This morning, a few hours ago.
|
| > apple and google make the phones! my network provider
| is also a private company, too, they have no requirement
| to provide me a phone service.
|
| No, there are plenty of other phone manufacturers besides
| Apple and Google. Just as there are plenty of phone
| service providers, both mobile and VoIP. If they are all
| blocking/refusing you service, that would be quite a
| story, and I might change my opinion, but I've never
| heard of that happening.
|
| > millennials (my generation) aren't great at spontaneity
| in this regard. gen Z are even worse.
|
| I'm a older/early millenial (Xennial to some people). I
| agree with you but I don't see how you'd ever be
| completely blocked from using a phone.
|
| > private social media isn't the problem (although it is
| a problem). i'm saying that so much of our lives are very
| tightly embedded with a handful of private companies, and
| them having control over that isn't a great way to be.
|
| I agree with you 100%. The way to regain control is not
| to use the government to force them to provide a platform
| to racists, it's to ensure that you disentangle yourself
| from their systems as much as you can. Make sure you have
| a plan for what to do if your Whatsapp or iCloud account
| is banned by an algorithm with no recourse.
|
| Are irreversible algorithmic bans the best way for
| companies to operate? Clearly not, it sucks. And maybe
| there's room for legal solutions to mandate open appeals
| processes, etc. But the alternative of forcing companies
| to give everyone a platform is way worse, IMHO.
| foxhill wrote:
| > This morning, a few hours ago.
|
| surely you must recognize that you are likely in the
| minority of e-mail users?
|
| > Just as there are plenty of phone service providers
|
| two or three, really. and many areas in the US are
| limited to one or two.
|
| > If they are all blocking/refusing you service, that
| would be quite a story, and I might change my opinion,
| but I've never heard of that happening.
|
| didn't trump's twitter platform get banned from all the
| common cloud providers? is it that much more ridiculous
| to think that they would be unable to colo with anyone?
|
| to be clear, i'm personally happy that it doesn't exist,
| and this isn't the same thing. but just because i don't
| agree with it... i know it's not the same thing as what
| we're talking about, but i don't think you don't need to
| squint too hard to see the parallel and the precedent.
|
| > but I don't see how you'd ever be completely blocked
| from using a phone
|
| indeed, i'd still be able to use my nokia 3310, and
| predictive text my way around social life, but it would
| be an incomplete existence (these days).
|
| in any case, you don't need to be blocked from using a
| _phone_. you need only be blocked from using the various
| platforms that people use today.
| cmatthias wrote:
| > surely you must recognize that you are likely in the
| minority of e-mail users?
|
| No, I don't recognize that. Citation needed.
|
| > didn't trump's twitter platform get banned from all the
| common cloud providers? is it that much more ridiculous
| to think that they would be unable to colo with anyone?
|
| I don't know, but as to your last question, yes, that's
| ridiculous, as there are thousands of datacenters out
| there.
|
| Besides, Trump's twitter platform is not a person. It's a
| business with many more resources than the the vast
| majority of individuals have. It's dangerous to start
| from the principle that this organization should have the
| same rights as a natural person.
|
| > two or three, really. and many areas in the US are
| limited to one or two.
|
| You're talking about mobile providers. I specifically
| mentioned mobile and VoIP and you cut that part out. I'm
| done here as you don't seem to be willing to have an
| honest discussion.
| foxhill wrote:
| > No, I don't recognize that. Citation needed.
|
| fair enough. finding data wasn't easy. the best i could
| get that is somewhat related was this article from 2015
| on teenage communication habits, which states that around
| 6% of teens use e-mail to communicate daily with their
| friends[1] (making it the least used form of
| communication). and this is pre-tiktok, so i'd _expect_
| this number to have decreased.
|
| > Besides, Trump's twitter platform is not a person.
|
| indeed, but the people using probably were. not that
| that's important: constitutionally, corporations have the
| same protections as people, indeed the US legal fiction
| of corporate personhood is practically a meme now. from
| [2]:
|
| > Since the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v.
| Federal Election Commission in 2010, upholding the rights
| of corporations to make unlimited political expenditures
| under the First Amendment [...]
|
| so it appears the supreme court agrees that free-speech
| protections apply to corporations.
|
| > yes, that's ridiculous, as there are thousands of
| datacenters out there.
|
| well then, where is the site now?
|
| > I specifically mentioned mobile and VoIP and you cut
| that part out.
|
| apologies, i presumed you understood that the IP in VoIP
| indicates that an internet connection is required for the
| voice to go over, and that without a mobile service
| provider, that could be.. logistically challenging :)
|
| > I'm done here as you don't seem to be willing to have
| an honest discussion.
|
| :/ ok then, i guess.
|
| [1]:
| https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2015/08/06/teens-
| techno...
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood
| jackallis wrote:
| along this point, if you beleive in free speech if you have to
| defend speech that you don't like/disgree with/...
| petilon wrote:
| I think a distinction should be made between restrictions (on
| speech) by government, and restrictions by private entities.
| The former is dangerous, the latter is necessary.
|
| Societal attitudes towards free speech have changed a lot in
| recent times. I believe this is related to technological
| advancement and the rise of social media. The advent of social
| media has made it too easy to spread dangerous levels of hate
| and false information online. Malicious individuals and groups
| now have the power to reach hundreds of millions instantly, at
| no cost to themselves. It started off innocently enough, with
| cat videos uploaded to YouTube, but soon extremists were taking
| advantage of social media for radicalization purposes,
| adversarial nations were spreading fake news to influence who
| gets elected, and others were even live-streaming mass murders.
| This has caused an upheaval in attitudes towards free speech.
| Enough is enough! There needs to be limits. Communities started
| imposing limits to free speech. Society -- as opposed to
| governments -- have decided that some censorship is in order.
| This is a natural evolution of societal norms. This particular
| evolution was a reaction to the excesses and abuses seen in
| social media. Some censorship, by private parties such as
| Twitter, as opposed to absolute free speech, will be the new
| normal.
|
| We live in a new world; the old norms no longer apply.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > a distinction should be made between restrictions (on
| speech) by government, and restrictions by private entities.
| The former is dangerous, the latter is necessary.
|
| Both are both. There is no country (AFAIK) in the world where
| there are no restrictions on speech.
|
| I think another distinction needs to be drawn: Moderation of
| communities that is organized and controlled by the community
| is structurally different from externally imposed rules and
| standards.
|
| There are structural power issues with the latter that need
| to be acknowledged and which should lead to to try to limit
| it where feasible.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| So you're against any limits on speech whatsoever, including
| the proverbial "shouting Fire! in a crowded theater" and
| inciting an angry mob to lynch their victim?
| suction wrote:
| sounds like it. Or maybe he (and others like him) just lack
| the ability to think it through.
| ryeights wrote:
| >shouting Fire! in a crowded theater
|
| Please stop using this quote...
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/shouting-f.
| ..
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-
| tim...
| [deleted]
| boppo1 wrote:
| Which country? Somewhere in the Middle East?
| ransom1538 wrote:
| We must stop free speech! I am against Musk's actions - he will
| end up letting people speak. Saying what you want is too
| dangerous! When guests speak at colleges scream and yell! We
| must fight for no free speech!!! I beg you our democracy[1] is
| at stake! Ban all free thinking discussions!
|
| [1] democracy is a system that only works if everyone thinks
| the same.
| consumer451 wrote:
| Please give me specific examples of exactly what you mean by
| "free speech."
| yummybear wrote:
| I understand what you're saying. A problem is we have enemies
| weaponizing free speech as propaganda through social media. We
| have fascist wannabe dictators with a speaker in every citizens
| wallet. We have role models peddeling antiscientific junk to
| our kids.
|
| This isn't the free speech of the 1900's. Social media is a
| game changer and a possible weapon of mass destruction - imo.
|
| Free speech to me doesn't mean you get to say everything
| everywere. Try standing up in a restaurant and shout political
| propaganda - you're gonna get thrown out.
| throwaway4aday wrote:
| This is great evidence that most people know nothing about
| history. The same arguments have been made about TV, Radio,
| Magazines, Newspapers, Books, Philosophy and practically any
| other medium that people have used to convey ideas. This is
| exactly why you need to protect an individuals rights to free
| speech and expression from anyone with power because chances
| are that they'll have a biased streak a mile wide and won't
| be ashamed to impose their personal view of how the world
| should be on everyone around them no matter how much human
| suffering it produces. The only way to have a free society is
| to realize that everyone, the president, your hairdresser,
| doctors, factory workers, lawyers, farmers, journalists,
| grocery store clerks and you and me are all flawed, weak,
| limited human beings who are mostly trying to be good but are
| perfectly capable of evil at any turn and so we have to all
| agree to limit anyone's power over anyone else to the largest
| extent possible. If we misjudge and allow too much power to
| collect in any one office then we will inevitably be
| subjugated by it as it uses that power to accrue more and
| more influence over time and as we roll the dice with every
| new person that takes control of it. This has played out
| throughout all of human history and there's absolutely
| nothing about our time that guarantees it won't happen again.
| sofixa wrote:
| And TV, Radio, Books, Magazines, newspapers were time and
| again weaponised against democracy, up to and including
| genocides. The Nazis, RTLM, Pravda, Facebook, Murdoch to
| name just a few examples.
| throwaway4aday wrote:
| Any tool can be a weapon. Those communication media have
| also spread democracy and toppled dictatorships as often
| as they have been perverted by them. Crippling those
| tools only favors the people in power and those people
| will be tyrants sooner or later.
| watwut wrote:
| This meme about first world countries not valuing freedom and
| freespeach while people from formerly authoritarian place
| understand it better if common on HN.
|
| But meanwhile, first world countries are significantly less
| likely to slip into full on authoritarianism and generally do
| better in that regards.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Lots of extremists, especially in the authoritarian[0] or
| right-wing edges of the political compass, practice various
| forms of censorship. This isn't merely "let's pass a law to
| make it illegal to say a thing", but would also include things
| like harassing other people in public forae with sock-puppets,
| ballot-stuffing online polls to make their side look more
| publicly favored, flooding websites with expensive HTTP
| requests (DDoSing), or publishing personal or hidden
| information in an attempt to scare someone into not speaking
| (doxxing). All of the above behaviors should be considered just
| as censorious as vanilla-flavor state-actors censorship.
|
| Furthermore, because these behaviors nominally involve
| something that _resembles_ an act of speech, people
| occasionally try to defend said acts on "free speech" grounds
| and call the curtailment of censorship acts itself a form of
| censorship. This is a mistake. Fringe extremists are not merely
| "spreading their ideas", they are chilling other people's
| speech. This is just as much of a danger to society as the
| banning of other people's views that you mentioned.
|
| [0] auth-left inclusive, fuck tankies
| ladyattis wrote:
| >Sometimes even coming to such views as "free speech is
| dangerous" and that "we should limit free speech" (by blocking
| the views I don't like).
|
| Yeah right, saying me not listening to a screaming preacher on
| the street is the same as the state locking them away is why I
| don't listen to free speech absolutists. Me having a blocklist
| or using an app to construct one is not an impediment to your
| freedom anymore than me changing the channel on my TV is an
| impediment to the freedom of a random news anchor
| editorializing.
|
| If you really want to support free speech then support the
| right to not listen. They go hand in hand. Stop trying to force
| people to be captive audiences then we might have a starting
| point.
| badrabbit wrote:
| Twitter and freedom of speech are unrelated topics. You don't
| understand freedom of speech. I can literally censor you in
| public and that has nothing to do with freedom of speech. Also,
| tell Rwandans spreading propaganda is better than not being
| able to say what you want (genocide and all).
| wwweston wrote:
| I'll worry the moment the state makes expression of ideas
| illegal.
|
| When it comes to private vehicles for speech, the right to
| amplify or attenuate speech carried on these vehicles _is
| itself a free speech right_.
|
| Newspapers can exercise editorial judgment. Forums can create
| policies. These policies can be regarding how discourse is
| conducted, they can even be topical. Your Math Professor can
| shut down your classmate's extemporaneous treatise about the
| gold standard taking up time in linear algebra class. Time,
| place, and manner matter.
|
| Everyone has a right and a responsibility to curate
| conversation in a way that serves the discourse for their
| sphere of influence -- except the state itself.
|
| Everyone also has the right and responsibility to create a new
| forum or sphere to discuss ideas they feel aren't being poorly
| served elsewhere. Or, if they wish, any ideas without
| limitation at all.
| Pxtl wrote:
| > I'll worry the moment the state makes expression of ideas
| illegal.
|
| Uh, we already do that. Fraud, defamation, uttering threats,
| false advertising, perjury, filing a false report, etc.
|
| At this point the distinction that matters is what we choose
| to protect from such ideas.
|
| "Keira Knightly is anorexic" is an idea that is illegal -- ht
| tps://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/may/24/dailymail.pres...
|
| "Climate change is fake" is, apparently, not one.
| wwweston wrote:
| > Uh, we already do that. Fraud, defamation, uttering
| threats, false advertising, perjury, filing a false report,
| etc.
|
| Sometimes I think "free speech" is a misnomer, and the
| common phrase should be "freedom of discourse."
|
| Fraud, defamation, threats, perjury etc aren't really
| discourse. They don't serve ideas (and in fact, tend to do
| violence to ideas).
|
| In any case, you're correct that 1st amendment and other
| free speech rights are not unlimited indulgences that
| excuse one from certain legal obligations to be truthful,
| or to not threaten. In spite of this, the US and most
| industrialized democracies remain remarkably supportive of
| freedom of discourse from a state perspective.
| Pxtl wrote:
| The question is where's the line?
|
| ---
|
| 1) "I'm skeptical about climate change"
|
| 2) "Climate science is obviously very wrong, the Earth is
| changing on its own."
|
| 3) "Climate change is fake and it's a conspiracy"
|
| 4) "Climate change is fake because George Soros is trying
| to hurt America so his secret Jewish cabal can rule the
| world"
|
| 5) "Climate change is fake because George Soros is trying
| to hurt America so his secret Jewish cabal can rule the
| world and here are specific plans for the violence
| necessary to stop it"
|
| ---
|
| We cross the line into "not truthful" at 2. Moderation
| doesn't take it seriously until 4. Law enforcement
| doesn't take it seriously until 5, if ever.
| wwweston wrote:
| Moderation in a private vehicle for speech _could_ take
| it seriously at any stage they choose (and I 'd argue
| that the freedom to decide where the line is inside
| private stewardship is in fact part of freedom of
| discourse).
|
| And there probably _should_ be forums which have content
| standards based on truth according to the best efforts of
| those running the place to determine the truth. Perhaps
| not _every_ forum should be that way, but some could be,
| and I think that 's the standard that things like
| scientific journals aspire to.
|
| #4/#5 -- I have questions about whether police/executive
| enforcement should be directly dealing with cases like
| this, but it certainly seems to me that people would be
| within their freedom of discourse rights to take someone
| making those statements to court. And courts are also
| places where questions of truth/fact are taken seriously
| along with questions of law, and obligation to be
| truthful solidly outweighs any freedom some might imagine
| they have to lie.
| themitigating wrote:
| The difference between a fact and an opinion.
|
| 1 and 2 are opinions
|
| 3, 4, and 5 are false
|
| An opinion can't be falsifiable
| bdcravens wrote:
| > Coming from a country that had made a transition from a
| (rather messy) democracy to an authoritarian fascist police
| state in just 15 years, I tell you this: it all started with
| limits on the freedom of speech.
|
| Was this the government restricting speech, or private
| enterprise?
| kingkawn wrote:
| Next up on the agenda at the straw man convention...
| suction wrote:
| Your personal story might colour your preference here. I still
| think the Western European model of "Free Speech with
| consequences" is the best one around.
|
| If you have a huge following and use Twitter to say without
| evidence "restaurant xyz uses rat meat don't go eat there, or
| 'Tim Cook has AIDS and will die in 3 months'", then that would
| be protected by free speech like the right-wingers want it.
|
| But in the Western European model, you could be sued for making
| those claims and effectively hurting the restaurant, Tim Cook,
| and the Apple stock price.
|
| I'd rather live in a society where that's not possible without
| dire consequences for the fraudulent "free speech" abuser.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > f you have a huge following and use Twitter to say without
| evidence "restaurant xyz uses rat meat don't go eat there, or
| 'Tim Cook has AIDS and will die in 3 months'", then that
| would be protected by free speech like the right-wingers want
| it.
|
| ridiculous strawman. thats called defamation and you will be
| sued everywhere for it.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Remember the time Elon Musk called someone a "pedo guy"?
| ekianjo wrote:
| And he was sued.
| cduzz wrote:
| I believe you can sue anyone for anything. I don't think
| anything happened except people wasted time. There were
| no outright consequences for calling someone "pedo guy".
| The threat of law suits has certainly not bothered Alex
| Jones much.
|
| You've got more free speech if you've got more money.
|
| https://www.gawker.com/how-things-work-1785604699
| ekianjo wrote:
| You have got more of everything when you have more money.
| Thats not a very insightful observation to make.
| suction wrote:
| But the thing is, defamation would be legal under absolute
| free speech. Nobody could sue for it.
| qsi wrote:
| Perhaps "free speech absolutism" isn't quite the right
| framing here, but more "First Amendment absolutism," with
| all the known bounds and checks (defamation, libel,
| incitement to violence). It does give a US-centric bias,
| but may better convey the meaning and intent.
|
| "Go lynch this man" is speech, but is not protected under
| the First Amendment. And the First Amendment gives much
| broader protection than most countries' legal systems do.
| ekianjo wrote:
| The first amendment does not protect anyone who says fire
| in a theater. Dont make the argument more absurd that it
| needs to be.
| BrianOnHN wrote:
| "Abuse" is mostly subjective.
|
| There need to be equal repercussions for fraudulently
| claiming abuse, too. Search SLAPP to learn more about the
| current lack of repercussions against wealthy entities suing
| journalists.
| TimPC wrote:
| SLAPP may be too strong but I don't think it's an
| unreasonable position that libel rights be enforceable at
| reasonable levels of financial risk. Some lawsuits are lost
| on technicalities and missing a technicality shouldn't
| force someone to pay not only their own legal bills but
| also the journalist's. There should be a very high bar for
| having to pay someone else's legal fees, especially in
| situations where a publisher can use disproportionate
| resources in representation. The NYT is likely to spend
| over 10x on their defence as I spend on my case if they
| libel me. Do we want the financial bar to being able to
| defend oneself to raise by an order of magnitude?
| [deleted]
| suction wrote:
| Nope, nothing subjective about the examples I gave there.
| Try harder.
| [deleted]
| lm28469 wrote:
| Most laws are subjectively applied. That's what happens in
| societies made of men with opinions and not made of robots,
| always has been, always will be, the case of free speech
| isn't an exception
| refurb wrote:
| I have no idea how Europe handles libel, but it's interesting
| how Singapore uses it. The Prime Minister regularly sues
| people who accuse him of corruption. Most of it is deserved,
| but the requirements for libel are so low that conviction is
| more likely than not.
|
| Interestingly, if fined more than $2,000 (most libel fines
| are in $100,000's), _you are no longer able to hold political
| office in Singapore_. That 's also true in the UK (no idea
| the threshold - I think it's a prison term?).
|
| Interesting way to silence any opposition.
| simondotau wrote:
| I agree with the sentiment, but only because the government
| restrictions on speech are tested in courtrooms that have at
| least some degree of impartiality and transparency.
|
| The problem with "Free Speech with consequences" arises when
| the consequences are increasingly policed by private
| corporations. Yes, host your own web server etc etc etc, but
| in reality, Twitter and Facebook really are the new town
| square.
| [deleted]
| wdb wrote:
| Buying Twitter is probably an easy way to get that Twitter
| account tracking his airplane to be closed down
|
| Personally, I am seeing this a potential way to limit the freedom
| even more on Twitter than already happening.
| mlindner wrote:
| Why do people keep thinking this is about petty minor things?
| sigmar wrote:
| I mean, the above comment leaves open that there are many
| reasons. Is it so crazy that he would use money to take down
| the account after offering money for the owner to take down
| the account?
| H8crilA wrote:
| Lol. There will be about 99 new accounts sharing the same
| information, since ADS-B data is public information.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| Let me guess, the 2020 election was stolen and you also
| believed in Pizzagate?
| chasd00 wrote:
| Elon, if you're reading, pull the plug. Nuke the entire site from
| orbit, it's the only way to be sure.
| tempfs wrote:
| I really wish this situation was anything close to a real
| effort to protect free speech or even better to nuke Twitter
| from orbit.
|
| I hope people realize that he is just trying to protect his
| favorite stock manipulation platform.
| basisword wrote:
| Anyone else curious how Musk would handle that Twitter account
| tweeting about his private jet flights if he owned Twitter?
| Strange to think that might be the real litmus test of how much
| he cares about free speech.
| tomlin wrote:
| He said he'd keep it. I don't even know what this gets
| mentioned so often. He has barely ever talked about it.
| oldstrangers wrote:
| He also said he was making a Tesla Roadster. And a Tesla
| Cybertruck.
| tomlin wrote:
| So your logical conclusion is to make up a scenario? k.
| [deleted]
| beeboop wrote:
| Giga Texas literally has the machinery in place to start
| building Cybertruck. It's happening. Roadster isn't far
| behind.
| Hamuko wrote:
| I don't really trust Musk on his word.
| coolso wrote:
| It's so strange. At first it was intriguing since I had never
| heard of it before, but now given how often it's brought up,
| I suspect some sort of forced Streisand effect deal is at
| play from all the people who don't like Elon or are using it
| as a speculative argument of how he's ackshually not
| technically free speech because clearly he spent billions
| just to take that account down.
| t3pfaff wrote:
| > Anyone else curious how Musk would handle that Twitter
| account tweeting about his private jet flights if he owned
| Twitter? Strange to think that might be the real litmus test of
| how much he cares about free speech.
|
| He would probably do nothing. Even under Twitter's currently
| very vague rules, that Twitter account didn't violate anything
| so I don't know how it would with even more specific ones he
| wants them to implement. All that information is already public
| record (you can lookup any plane like that's flight logs). He
| was probably just annoyed by it constantly popping up in his
| feed so he told an assistant to offer his equivalent of a
| couple dollars to the kid to stop.
| basisword wrote:
| >> Even under Twitter's currently very vague rules, that
| Twitter account didn't violate anything so I don't know how
| it would with even more specific ones he wants them to
| implement.
|
| Rules don't matter though. If it's a private company owned by
| Musk he can just delete the account. No recourse for the
| user.
| RickJWagner wrote:
| Hee hee.
|
| Let's see what The Babylon Bee has to say about this.
| SalmoShalazar wrote:
| I'm sure The Onion, but for morons, will have some great
| insightful takes
| dmead wrote:
| I'm sure it consists of owning the libs and maybe other things.
| ausbah wrote:
| some horrible bit of "satire" right, something about "two
| genders" like 99% of their content?
| danShumway wrote:
| I'm not sure Musk knows what he's doing, this feels like a
| personal vendetta. I'm also not sure he has any likelihood of
| succeeding in the first place, I wouldn't necessarily assume
| anyone is going to take him up at that price. And (quite frankly)
| I don't think that Musk is a very good free speech activist. I
| think he's regularly hypocritical about free speech and regularly
| engages in his own forms of censorship; I don't think he has a
| particularly coherent philosophy about how to approach free
| speech.
|
| All that being said, I don't really see the problem with him
| trying this, and I don't necessarily see a ton of downside to him
| succeeding or failing. I'm perfectly willing to grab the popcorn
| and just watch.
|
| Twitter is not a great social network, and I don't think it's
| amazingly well managed. If it gets worse and Musk does a bunch of
| radical changes, maybe more people will start using Mastodon. If
| he fails, no harm done. If he joins on and does nothing and just
| monetizes it more aggressively, then :shrug:, Twitter is probably
| eventually headed in that direction anyway.
|
| Go for it. I've got no confidence that Musk can actually innovate
| in this space, and little to no confidence that he'll actually
| even get the control he wants, and he might actually make things
| worse if he does succeed, but on a certain level who cares?
|
| It really stinks for artists/communities on Twitter that might be
| hurt by that happening, but again, I don't really have a lot of
| confidence that Twitter isn't going to start hurting them anyway,
| so I don't know that this really matters all that much for them.
|
| :shrug: Maybe 2 years from now I'll look back at this comment and
| think it's naive.
| loceng wrote:
| He arguably didn't know what he was doing with Tesla or SpaceX,
| nor The Boring Company et al, though he seems quite good at
| solving for problems he deems worthy enough of his attention -
| or that draw his attention strongly enough.
|
| Elon also doesn't need to innovate himself, he simply needs to
| be a signal, a beacon or lighthouse to others who know they are
| capable of innovating - and where they may now actually attempt
| to work for/at Twitter/with Elon because they may now believe
| they have a chance of implementing systems as they may believe
| Elon will be able to understand their design - and therefore
| getting approval.
| dmix wrote:
| > he simply needs to be a signal, a beacon or lighthouse to
| others who know they are capable of innovating
|
| There's nothing wrong with that. It's immensely valuable to
| society to be able to inspire, attract, and organize talent.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| The obvious question is, "What problem is he seeking to
| solve?"
| smt88 wrote:
| SpaceX seems like a success. Starlink probably will be, too.
|
| Tesla survived because of government subsidies and a
| neverending deluge of hype from Musk. Boring Company is utter
| nonsense and a huge failure.
|
| That track record seems... pretty random. Maybe Musk was an
| important factor, maybe his engineering and marketing teams
| were, maybe luck was the most important thing.
| cduzz wrote:
| Regarding tesla, lots of companies survive entirely because
| of Government Subsidies. Resource extraction from public
| lands, no bid cost + contracts for defense department
| projects, last mile monopolies for cable companies.
|
| You going to then argue "but we'd have it all better if
| there were no meddling government!" ? There are plenty of
| places that have no government and they seem pretty
| miserable.
|
| People (ideally) select other people every interval of time
| to make important decisions (aka "government"); sometimes
| those decisions adversely affect some people and help
| others disproportionately (your job is cutting down trees
| and 99% of the trees are gone? Well, you may lose your job
| before cutting down that last 1% because the trees have
| value as trees instead of lumber; sorry them's the breaks).
|
| Life is hard and full of difficult choices. There are
| winners and losers. It's better for everyone to make
| decisions by discussion and consensus rather than violence.
|
| But free speech is "will the government arrest/fine/murder
| you for what you say (or don't say)" not "do I have to
| listen to you blather on when I'd rather not".
|
| There's tremendous nuance to "free speech". If I'm a cake
| maker and you ask me to make a cake saying "Fuck Jewish
| Space Lasers!" can I say no I'd rather not? I'm not sure.
| Maybe I've got terms of service already, maybe I'm just a
| harried cake maker trying to be civil and a good person and
| I'd rather not be an asshole even by proxy. You could
| probably switch the message to "Happy anniversary Steve and
| Paul!" and offend some other set of people.
|
| We seem to live in a society where some set of people just
| want to be rude and uncivil and force us all to watch like
| we're in a clockwork orange needing programming. Please no,
| and while you're at it I'd rather you stop pouring garbage
| into my father in law.
| smt88 wrote:
| I don't know where all of that came from. My point is
| just that there's no proof Musk is a better CEO/visionary
| than thousands of other business leaders. You seem to
| have constructed a lot of other points that I was not
| commenting on at all.
|
| I agree that many of businesses survive only because of
| subsidies and that "free speech" does not mean that
| private entities cannot censor themselves.
| cduzz wrote:
| Yes... sorry to imply any particular viewpoint on your
| part.
|
| Musk's particular talent, in my view, is his ability to
| manage exponential growth where there's an extremely
| narrow set of possibly successful outcomes given a set of
| constraints.
|
| Maybe he sees a way to get twitter back to exponential
| growth? I don't.
|
| I appreciate your nuance, patience, and civility.
| parineum wrote:
| > My point is just that there's no proof Musk is a better
| CEO/visionary than thousands of other business leaders.
|
| The objective measure of a business leader's success
| seems pretty obviously the value of their businesses, is
| it not?
| smt88 wrote:
| No. Leaders are a small factor in the success of a
| business. Other, bigger factors usually include:
|
| - luck/timing
|
| - investor enthusiasm (longer runway)
|
| - regulatory environment
|
| - early hires
|
| - later hires
|
| etc.
| slibhb wrote:
| > I don't think he has a particularly coherent philosophy about
| how to approach free speech.
|
| The only people with coherent philosophies of free speech are
| for absolute freedom of speech or absolutely no freedom of
| speech.
|
| It's by pusuring incoherence, by threading the needle between
| those extremes that we create an open, free speech culture
| where freedom is the norm and censorship occurs only in extreme
| situations.
|
| I generally agree with the rest of your post ("who cares?"). I
| would add that if Elon buys twitter and deletes it, I would be
| fine with it.
| danShumway wrote:
| > I would add that if Elon buys twitter and deletes it, I
| would be fine with it.
|
| This is completely off topic and not at all your fault, but
| even though we are actively talking about Elon Musk and he
| should have been the primary person in my head, and even
| though the spelling is different -- for some reason my brain
| still interpreted "Elon" in the above sentence as Ellen
| DeGeneres, and I got really confused for about 10 seconds
| about why you felt the need to add that you would also be OK
| with her specifically buying Twitter.
| richliss wrote:
| I think Musk believes that Twitter is the primary meeting place
| and seemingly unified-ish mouthpiece of anti-capitalists in the
| west and he's seeing that they are making dangerous progress.
| He's someone who is a capitalist and feels that $50B is a
| worthy investment to disrupt anti-capitalist momentum.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| I think that is a very narrow view on events.
|
| First, I really do not think twitter is a anticapitalist
| forum and second, controlling twitter communication yields
| quite some power.
|
| Single tweets made furor on the stock market.
|
| It is probably way more about money, than anti activism, or
| pro free speech activism. (plus the personal vendetta of the
| twitter bot, who published Elons flights).
| parineum wrote:
| > they are making dangerous progress
|
| lol
|
| Twitter has 400 million users GLOBALLY. How many are bots?
| How many are active? How many are "anti-capitalists"?
|
| Twitter is not representative of anything except twitter.
| nomorecomp wrote:
| You say that, but the memes and quotes generated from
| twitter posts and threads spread far and wide. You'll see
| people who don't even use Twitter quoting things almost
| verbatim 3 months after it blew up. Same with 4chan and the
| fringe right sadly. The memes, like "OK Groomer" start out
| in some weird radical place but then catch elsewhere if
| they are viral enough.
| aasasd wrote:
| _maybe more people will start using Mastodon_
|
| For sure. Dozens of users will migrate to Mastodon.
| specialist wrote:
| Yup.
|
| Anything pushed to its logical extreme becomes its own
| opposite. Since society can't or won't reign in either
| corporate or social media, perhaps we should remove all
| restraints and let then destroy themselves, and hopefully each
| other.
|
| Further, how could Musk possibly be any worse than @jack, Zuck
| & Sandberg, Murdochs, Theil, etc, etc.
|
| Pox on all their houses.
| Jsebast23 wrote:
| Abishek_Muthian wrote:
| I agree with your statements.
|
| Every Billionaire who recently acquired a large media house[1]
| mentioned in the interviews as doing it for 'Upholding
| Journalism' or something of those lines which also implicitly
| meant 'Supporting right to free speech'.
|
| But I'm bewildered about how this particular acquisition is
| only about 'Right to Free speech' vs 'No Right to Free Speech'
| and not really about hostile takeover of a business by a Ultra-
| Billionaire with impunity?
|
| I guess that has something to do with how good Elon is at
| controlling the narrative, Even reputable news agencies start
| with 'Elon who claims himself as a free speech absolutist...'.
| And that was before he controlled Twitter.
|
| Anyways, Two major social media firms seems to have
| consolidated with individuals who are supposed to run a social
| media firm.
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45550747
| [deleted]
| Traster wrote:
| I think the one thing you're missing out is the true potential
| downside. Which is that over the last decade Silicon Valley
| social media companies have taken an extra-ordinarily long and
| painful path to understanding how they need to handle speech on
| their platforms. Musk's position is basically "Do what Mark
| Zuckerberg did in the early 2010s". There is a _reason_ why
| facebook no longer acts like that, there 's a reason facebook
| has changed it's name to disassociate from that. And Facebook
| didn't suffer from their actions there - the commonwealth did.
|
| Potentially this is Musk bringing back systematic
| misinformation, troll farms, accidentallly enabling genocides
| etc. etc.
| danShumway wrote:
| You're not necessarily wrong, but Twitter's moderation policy
| is already basically terrible and I have very little
| confidence that they'll be able to improve it significantly
| in the future with or without Musk. Most of the moderation
| policies that they are proposing are regularly co-opted to
| target oppressed or minority groups. They don't seem to be
| particularly consistent or great about catching abuse in the
| first place. The site's structure itself seems to encourage
| bad actors.
|
| It's certainly the case that Musk could potentially make that
| worse, but I guess I have so little confidence in Twitter's
| ability to get better on that front that I'm not sure it
| matters all that much in the long run.
|
| Better moderation on these platforms requires a large re-
| think in how we approach moderation in the first place, and
| it requires a more socially responsible perspective about the
| platform's purpose. I don't think that Musk being in charge
| or not will make that happen, and if he does turn Twitter
| into even more of a cesspool, then maybe that'll encourage
| alternatives.
|
| I'm not an accelerationist when it comes to social media, but
| I think that Musk/Twitter's attitudes towards free speech
| online are often both naive and incompetent and the site
| continuing to worsen might be the only way to get people off
| of it; and I'm not sure what blocking Musk actually preserves
| about the site (other than possibly that Musk might push for
| more aggressive monetization). There are people right now who
| rely on it that would need to find other hosting, and that
| does genuinely stink. But... I mean, it's gonna get worse for
| them regardless.
|
| > Silicon Valley social media companies have taken an extra-
| ordinarily long and painful path to understanding how they
| need to handle speech on their platforms
|
| I don't want to be pessimistic, but I don't really feel like
| social media companies _have_ learned how to handle speech or
| that they 've become competent about doing moderation at
| scale. I don't think there ever was a point where they
| figured it out. If we've learned anything it's that
| moderation at a global scale is kind of unworkable, and
| that's why having smaller communities that pay more attention
| to the content they host is so important. I'm particularly
| pessimistic about the possibility of AI/algorithmic
| moderation (which many of these companies are leaning into
| more and more), mostly because I don't see a ton of evidence
| that it's good enough at scale to replace human moderation.
|
| So I'm not worried about Musk bringing back systematic
| misinformation or troll farms or accidentally enabling
| genocide because as far as I can tell Twitter already has
| that problem; I don't think Musk can bring it back because I
| don't think it ever went away.
| splatcollision wrote:
| Maybe we'll see less links to unreadable twitter threads posted
| here. One can only hope!
| dmix wrote:
| Nothing makes me roll my eyes than seeing a tweet have 1/24.
| Pigeonholing stuff onto platforms where it doesn't fit.
|
| Reddit is turning into a Tiktok aggregator as well,
| overbearing music, aggressive edits, and juvenile takes. At
| least those are short though.
| sonicggg wrote:
| Musk does not hold any position in the government. My
| understanding is that the fight for free speech is about the
| government censoring individuals. The first amendment of the US
| already protects people from that. Any private platform can do
| whatever they want though.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| One could argue that Twitter is a de-facto public place. The
| Supreme Court opined:
|
| _"the more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his
| property for use by the public in general, the more do his
| rights become circumscribed by the statutory and
| constitutional rights of those who use it." (Marsh v.
| Alabama, 326 U.S. 501, 506 (1946)_
|
| They have since narrowed their interpretation somewhat, but
| some states (including California) have ruled that de-facto
| public gathering places such as shopping malls are areas
| where free speech is protected, even though they are
| privately owned.
|
| So generally, yes a private platform can do what they want,
| but if their primary focus is to be open to the public, they
| may be more bound to providing first amendment protections.
|
| AFAIK no court has specifically ruled on whether online
| public spaces should be treated the same as physical public
| spaces.
| travisathougies wrote:
| It doesn't really matter though, because in California, the
| state constitution explicitly states that privately owned
| spaces open to the public (so twitter) must guarantee
| freedom of expression. The case law is pretty absolute and
| settled in this regard. Most famously... shopping malls in
| California have to allow union protests within the malls
| (with only mild regulation, mainly around safety / opening
| hours). Thus, by the Supreme Law of the state of
| California, as a private company, Twitter is legally
| obligated to -- at least for California residents -- not
| restrict their legally protected speech. Twitter frequently
| does this to california residents, thus violating
| California law. If the law was applied equally, they would
| be fined and censured as the malls were who tried to union
| bust.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > the fight for free speech is about the government censoring
| individuals
|
| It is not. The first amendment of the constitution of the
| United States is, but freedom of speech is just freedom of
| speech.
| tinybrotosaurus wrote:
| What is worse, government censorship or digital censorship
| through big tech? Remember when all these corporations banned
| Trump at the same time? Imagine not being able to buy from
| Amazon when there is no retailer left. Imagine not being able
| to listen to music or watch movies when all of it is only
| available through streaming. What about having all your email
| deleted because a Google bot flagged your account. Or being
| shadow banned in social media, having no impact on any
| discussion.
| pacerwpg wrote:
| As somebody who is banned on Twitter for unclear reasons, I
| can unequivocally say that this is preferable to being
| thrown in jail or fined by the government
| themitigating wrote:
| but there isn't one retailer or one social media service so
| why should I imagine fictional scenarios when considering
| your question?
| CrazyStat wrote:
| > What is worse, government censorship or digital
| censorship through big tech?
|
| Government, no question about it. Twitter doesn't throw you
| in jail.
| SllX wrote:
| You're half correct.
|
| A culture of free speech is just as important as a law
| prohibiting Congress from abridging it. It is true that
| private companies have their own free speech and private
| property interests they should safeguard, but that does not
| mean they cannot do more to raise a culture of free speech on
| their platforms, and they should!
| dpbriggs wrote:
| There's the ideal and ethic of free speech which isn't
| "provided" by the government. It's ok to be annoyed or
| disagree with private censorship.
|
| Good or bad Musk wants to open the platform up. Whether that
| will just change the speech to what he likes or actually
| broaden it we'll see.
| blendergeek wrote:
| While freedom from goverent censorship of speech is one
| battle that has been (mostly) won in the USA, some want to
| take the concept of free speech even further. Some want to
| see corporations choose to uphold the value of "free speech".
| This is seperate from any goveremt regulation of speech.
| rwmj wrote:
| I think he's dumb wasting so much money on this, but why on
| earth wouldn't shareholders want to sell out to him? If I held
| Twitter shares I'd be quite keen to get rid of them.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| "The billionaire businessman who led the resurrection of the
| electric vehicle industry and the birth of the private
| spaceflight industry is an idiot." - internet commenter.
|
| Musk has proven himself to be a very savvy investor. And his
| operational track record is nearly unmatched. Particularly
| because it straddles so many different industries: internet
| 1.0 (Zip2), banking and payments (PayPal), manufacturing and
| transportation (Tesla), aerospace engineering and spaceflight
| (SpaceX). If there is anyone in the world who could pull this
| off, my money would be on him.
| Jasper_ wrote:
| SolarCity was such a bad investment he had to hide the
| financials by stuffing it inside of Tesla
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| SolarCity was a worthwhile cause at least. He often says
| that money isn't his motivator and I believe him about
| that. And something may yet come of it.
| blip54321 wrote:
| It's very hard for my explain, within my company, that
| "failure" isn't the opposite if "success."
|
| ... if you're not failing some of the time, you're not
| trying things ambitious enough ...
| sintaxi wrote:
| Proven ability to mitigate failures.
| archagon wrote:
| "Billionaires shouldn't be criticized unless you also
| happen to be a billionaire." -next_xibalba
| ddoolin wrote:
| I know you're being snarky, but success as a hyper-
| capitalist is less and less a good thing to many people,
| and not really a sign of great intelligence (more
| psychopathy, if anything). His behavior is very often so
| incredibly childlike that it's hard to excuse on his
| business success. Even this! A share price based on $4.20;
| Really?! Again with that? He is clearly trolling and it's
| working because here everyone is talking about it.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| I don't agree with your claims, but they are beside the
| point.
|
| His track record speaks for itself. I would certainly
| have far more confidence in Musk than the current
| leadership team.
|
| Musk is at least competent in software engineering,
| aerospace engineering, and finance. It is hard not to see
| that as a strong indicator of an intelligence well above
| average. People bend over backwards to look past the
| glaring facts about Musk that contradict their biases.
|
| Musk is hyper intelligent. Musk is one the most
| successful business people of all time.
| 2fast4you wrote:
| Why are you deifying him? He's not anymore special than
| the rest of us, he just has a lot of money.
| Tepix wrote:
| Not selling the stock of his own companies makes him "a
| very savy investor"?
| next_xibalba wrote:
| How did he "get" the stock of his own companies? Who
| allocated the capital within those companies? Is not
| Musk's time a considerably valuable investment unto
| itself?
|
| Also, reminder, he didn't found Tesla. He was one of its
| initial investors.
|
| We can split hairs and refine definitions until we
| exclude him from the category of successful investors,
| but, at a certain point, it's a little hard to believe.
|
| In any event, it is quite clear that Musk has no
| intention of being a silent investor. Rather, he's going
| to be an operator. And in that regard, he is nearly
| unparalleled.
| mbesto wrote:
| > If there is anyone in the world who could pull this off,
| my money would be on him.
|
| And since he's got so many projects on-going, you think he
| has all of the time in the world to pull this one off?
| Explain that ONE to me?
| cma wrote:
| He had that whole fake solar shingle scam presentation
| thing to bail out his own cousins and self.
| schoolornot wrote:
| At some point I stopped investing in companies and started
| investing in people. There's a small group of businessmen
| out there that have the Midas touch.
| danShumway wrote:
| This is just opinion-me, but I think he might be undervaluing
| the shares in the long-term. It's hard for me to square the
| price he's offering with the promises he's making about
| Twitter's potential profitability.
|
| I guess for cashing out though it doesn't matter, since the
| shareholders won't need to care about what Twitter's stock
| does in the future. So, maybe you're right.
|
| Easy to verify, we'll just have to wait and see if he
| succeeds.
| jhugo wrote:
| > It's hard for me to square the price he's offering with
| the promises he's making about Twitter's potential
| profitability.
|
| Those promises are predicated on him owning it though.
|
| I'm doubtful of Twitter's LTV whether he owns it or not,
| but then again I've never had an account and now that you
| pretty much can't read it without one, I basically don't
| use it at all. So I may not be a qualified observer, but to
| me Twitter seems to only get worse for years now.
|
| If that price isn't reasonable for Twitter long-term then
| you must have someone other than the current management in
| mind to realise that value...
| danShumway wrote:
| I do think that Twitter's been getting steadily worse,
| but I'm not convinced that means they'll be less valuable
| in the future.
|
| I think if I were an investor, my thought might be that
| Musk might not be necessary to realize that growth
| (again, speaking in the long term, not that the current
| price is wrong). But I'm not an investor, I don't really
| know Twitter's numbers.
|
| I guess the caveat I should give is that if I were an
| investor and I thought Twitter was falling and that Musk
| _couldn 't_ save it, this would be a particularly good
| opportunity to jump ship. So that could also be an angle
| I'm not thinking of.
| intrasight wrote:
| > we'll just have to wait and see if he succeeds.
|
| He or anyone else
|
| Twitter is a natural monopoly - evidenced by it's not
| having any real competition. Will it be a regulated
| monopoly? In that case, it should be valued like a water
| company. Is it an unregulated monopoly? In that case the
| market will decide if it can turn that monopoly into
| profits. There are a lot of commercial Twitter users.
| Charge them all ten cents a tweet. That adds up to about
| $10m per day.
| mulmen wrote:
| You're kidding. It's a monopoly if you define the market
| as "Twitter". There is no shortage of social networks.
| mulmen wrote:
| You're kidding. It's a monopoly if you define the market
| as "Twitter". There is no shortage of social networks.
| Certainly nothing about Twitter is a _natural_ monopoly.
| Nothing prevents starting up a competitor or even a
| clone. The issue of locked in networks can be solved with
| regulation to open the data. It isn't required that a
| single company own microblogging.
| jeremyjh wrote:
| The market disagrees with you.
| lukifer wrote:
| The market is an unreliable narrator:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest
| [deleted]
| didibus wrote:
| I feel the stock of Twitter could easy go above 54$ in less
| than 2 or 3 years no?
|
| I guess it depends on that, do you think Twitter stock will
| just keep going down, or could it relatively quickly
| outperform that offer?
| aerovistae wrote:
| Agree with everything you wrote except "maybe more people will
| start using Mastodon".
|
| I didn't even know this existed until you said it, which
| doesn't bode well for mass adoption given that I'm someone
| who's on the internet daily.
|
| Moreover, Mastodon.com is owned by a forestry machine business,
| and googling Mastodon gives a first result for a rock/metal
| band. I think "Mastodon.social" might be about as bad as a web
| address can get for mass appeal / catchiness.
| riffic wrote:
| > mass adoption
|
| is absolutely not a priority for the Mastodon software
| project.
|
| Try looking on Github:
|
| https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon
| carride wrote:
| Why is this discussion only about the free speech on the
| internet? This is a business news story about an SEC filing.
| There is certainly other possible interesting discussions in
| regards to the financial aspects of this story.
|
| If it cannot happen here in this discussion, HN should not be so
| quick to flag/dupe/dead the other submissions which are from
| other business or news publications.
| jcadam wrote:
| So what I'm hearing is, there may be some job openings at Twitter
| soon.
| tikiman163 wrote:
| I cannot think that Elon Musk owning/controlling Twitter will go
| even half the way he expects. He clearly only sees it as a
| potential platform for disseminating his opinions, which have
| regularly been wrong when it came to things like the pandemic.
| He's a potentially dangerous egomaniac and if he is allowed to
| own Twitter the best case scenario is that Twitter experiences a
| mass user exodus, worst case it turns into a social media
| platform for crazy nonsense like Newsmax and OAN. Sure, it could
| just turn into a Fox News equivalent, but that's barely better.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| He wants to make the Twitter algorithm open source. Complete
| transparency whether something is demoted or promoted.
|
| Anything _but_ is terrifying. The current status quo of few SF
| algorithmists controlling the world is far worse than putting
| up with Elon 's bs.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Both of your cases seem quite implausible to me. Sounds like
| cynical wishful thinking.
| MichaelRazum wrote:
| Why not. Makes totally sense. Twitter gets a better image. Right
| now there is a real risk that something like gettr will take off.
| lorenzfx wrote:
| You live in a very different world than I if for you, the
| associating of Twitter with Mr. Musk _improves_ Twitters image.
| ctvo wrote:
| I don't know what I worry about more, sinkholes swallowing my
| car whole on the way to work or needing to register on Gettr
| when it replaces Twitter.
| IYasha wrote:
| Removed my tw?tter account in a week, after reading the Terms of
| Service. Won't regret even if it dies.
| ProAm wrote:
| Twitter would have killed for this type of buyout offer 6 years
| ago.
| timoteostewart wrote:
| Let the "420" aspect of the share price offer be lost on no
| one...
| endisneigh wrote:
| It's interesting to contextualize this with a regular persons
| life. This amount will present about 1/7 of his net worth.
|
| However unlike a traditional purchase this will be n investment
| and depending on how it goes, he can get even more money.
|
| If an average person had a max net worth of 3 million this would
| be like them deciding to buy a 400K investment property, or a
| laundry mat.
|
| That aside, this is also a great example of how easy it is to
| become richer if you're rich.
|
| Musk buys at $39 pumps all month to $54. He can either sell and
| easily make billions profit or take over the entire company at
| what can only be described as a discount compared to potential.
|
| Not to mention twitters stock hardly does well. He can just try
| again on the next dip if he likes.
| instakill wrote:
| 400k is an insane amount for a laundry mat
| bdavis__ wrote:
| not with building.
| bombcar wrote:
| Here's one for $450, saw another for $375:
| https://www.bizbuysell.com/Business-Opportunity/self-
| serve-l... - and they don't even own the building.
|
| Machines alone are $1-3k each depending on how old and
| repaired they are.
| qsi wrote:
| That's not quite how it works if you make a formal takeover
| offer. It's basically telling existing shareholders that he'll
| buy their stock at $54. If enough of them don't want to sell
| (depending on how it's structured), the deal falls through.
| It's a one-off purchase at $54 if it does go through. He can't
| buy more stock in the interim (I think).
| chernevik wrote:
| I think this is an offer to the board, proposing that it
| compel all shareholders to sell at $54/share. The board can
| decide on the proposal without consulting the shareholders.
|
| In practice the board will do what management thinks best.
| The various directors probably have legal duties as
| fiduciaries and will want to act in a manner such that they
| can demonstrate they performed those duties in good faith,
| but they will have enormous latitude so long as they observe
| certain forms.
|
| There are likely procedures by which someone can force a
| shareholder vote on a proposal, but Musk isn't using them
| here. These are probably structured by the company bylaws.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > compel all shareholders to sell at $54/share
|
| The board doesn't have that power. If a majority of
| shareholders do not want to sell, they'll just replace the
| board if it tried such a thing.
|
| In this case, the top 10 shareholders are almost 50% of the
| shareholders all by themselves, so this really comes down
| to what _they_ decide to do.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Yes, but if they do not agree the price will:
|
| 1. Go to above $54, in which case musk profits and he can try
| again later (headwinds are strong in tech generally right
| now)
|
| 2. Go between $39 and $54 in which musk profits
|
| 3. Drop under $39 in which musk can further solidify his
| stake, for much cheaper than his takeover offer.
|
| There's basically no scenario in which musk loses assuming
| he's serious and is willing to play the long game. Musk will
| either make a lot of money, or own Twitter.
| asdfaoeu wrote:
| > Musk will either make a lot of money, or own Twitter.
|
| I mean maybe he still acquires Twitter but that could be in
| 20 years after it's been run into the ground.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I don't see why he couldn't buy more stock at the current
| selling price? As long as someone is willing to sell anyway.
|
| This takeover is aimed at people that wouldn't ordinarily
| sell their stock at this point in time.
| qsi wrote:
| IIRC the regulations are such that if you make a takeover
| offer, you can't do that? Not sure though, my work is only
| M&A-adjacent, so I'm not an expert.
| koolba wrote:
| > Musk buys at $39 pumps all month to $54. He can either sell
| and easily make billions profit or take over the entire company
| at what can only be described as a discount compared to
| potential.
|
| He can't sell his whole stake for a profit. There's nowhere
| near enough liquidity. The moment he tries to sell billions of
| dollars of stock it'd tank.
| qsi wrote:
| He'll have to do it the same way he bought his current stake:
| slowly, over weeks and months, a little bit every day. A
| totally standard thing to ask your investment bank to do.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| He bought 4.6% of Twitter in the two weeks he went from 5%
| to 9.6% when he filed. That's not super slow.
| qsi wrote:
| He owns about 70 million shares. Before he announced his
| stake, the stock had a daily trading volume of about 20
| million. I agree it's not super slow, but also not super
| fast. Probably a reasonable speed given the volume.
| H8crilA wrote:
| He can't sell after a move like this, it would be illegal.
| He's announcing his plans to not just hold but also to
| _control_ the company, specifically to unlock value - means
| making some top level choices that makes Twitter stock move
| valuable. Had he dumped immediately after purchase he 'd be
| prosecuted for market manipulation (realities of liquidity
| notwithstanding).
| endisneigh wrote:
| Musk is not obligated to hold his shares indefinitely. Yes
| he can't sell, say, tomorrow. But he can sell in the
| future.
| H8crilA wrote:
| Yes, the exact timing is up to the circumstances. But
| selling a significant amount within the next month would
| almost certainly be considered an obvious manipulation
| attempt
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| When has this stopped him? He already violated securities
| laws several times and merely got slapped in the wrist
| for it.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Wouldn't be first time of him doing some blatantly against
| rules... Remember the tweets of taking Tesla private...
| jcadam wrote:
| > The moment he tries to sell billions of dollars of stock
| it'd tank.
|
| Hence the implied threat of doing so if they don't agree to
| his terms.
| [deleted]
| quxbar wrote:
| How would the price tank if he holds all the shares?
| aliswe wrote:
| because the price itself only indicaes that there is
| someone wantin to buy shares at that price - it doesnt
| indicate the number of shares that would go would he accept
| that price.
| asdfaoeu wrote:
| Isn't the premise that he's selling them?
| mlindner wrote:
| The post you're responding to is talking about Tesla
| shares, not Twitter shares.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Ah yes, the average multimillionaire.
| loceng wrote:
| It's not an obvious good idea to buy Twitter though - and is
| especially risky if you're not wanting to just continue to run
| the business as is without potentially de-stabilizing it and
| destroying it in the process.
| MichaelMoser123 wrote:
| Elon Musk is into politics, isn't that looking strange somehow? I
| mean he wants to go to Mars, his project was "Flyin' mother
| nature's silver seed to a new home in the sun", and now he goes
| right in the opposite direction. Did he have any major setbacks
| with his Starship?
| Zigurd wrote:
| Twitter shouldn't have part time leadership.
|
| So now Twitter _should_ have part time leadership.
|
| I'm being unfair, right? So let's qualify that: Twitter shouldn't
| have part time leadership that is distracted by cryptocurrency.
|
| Wait, no...
| MrMan wrote:
| ttt
| molticrystal wrote:
| Just to verify that I understood the concept I looked up the
| definition of "hostile takeover" from various places, its common
| theme is taking over a company without approval of the board.
|
| The actual offer states [0]:
|
| >As a result, I am offering to buy 100% of Twitter for $54.20 per
| share in cash, a 54% premium over the day before I began
| investing in Twitter and a 38% premium over the day before my
| investment was publicly announced. My offer is my best and final
| offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my
| position as a shareholder.
|
| Which means he is asking for approval, which seems to contradict
| the headline and the quote from Mirabaud Equity Research which
| was used to make the headline more sensational as they were
| quoted saying "This becomes a hostile takeover offer which is
| going to cost a serious amount of cash".
|
| If the board disapproves of the offer and he acquires a larger
| stake of ownership, that would be more inline with what a hostile
| takeover is.
|
| [0]
| https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/000110465...
| bombcar wrote:
| Any hostile takeover becomes non-hostile if the
| board/shareholders acquiesce.
| kyle_martin1 wrote:
| Agreed. The title should be neutralized to something like "Elon
| Musk offers to purchase Twitter for $43B"
| zwily wrote:
| That's correct - his offer is not hostile. If they reject it,
| he could attempt a hostile takeover by buying up enough stock
| to install his own board.
| Maursault wrote:
| I think you're right, but you almost nailed it. Musk low-
| balled because he wants the offer to be rejected, so the
| stock price dips, so he can buy up enough stock at discount
| for a hostile takeover.
| daenz wrote:
| That's pretty brilliant. He's in a win-win situation, it
| seems like.
| kbenson wrote:
| Is it brilliant, or is it standard operating procedure
| for stuff like this? I would assume most hostile
| takeovers follow some similar path and also try to
| manipulate the stock a bit in a way favorable to
| themselves with their actions prior to the actual final
| takeover attempt.
| daenz wrote:
| That's fair. I've never followed something like this
| before, but what you say makes sense.
| paparush wrote:
| Agreed. It's just another example of his incessant market
| manipulation.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| I think the brilliant part was where he got 1M+ responses
| to his polls about the problems with Twitter. The timing
| for that prior to rejecting the board seat was pre-
| meditated brilliancy.
| zwily wrote:
| So far he's played it all perfectly. No matter how it
| ends up, fascinating drama to watch.
| chippiewill wrote:
| The offer is hostile because he made the offer at the same
| time he announced his intention to buy the company and he did
| it publicly.
| singlow wrote:
| But that is the opposite of hostile. He made an offer to
| the board and he did it publicly.
|
| If it were a hostile takeover he would buy enough shares to
| elect his own board.
| mohanmcgeek wrote:
| This isn't what a hostile takeover is. Is it?
| pyb wrote:
| Buying a company through a tender offer in order to replace the
| management is your textbook hostile takeover.
| DigiDigiorno wrote:
| I understand hostility isn't a term-of-art or something
| special, but in business parlance the sources I've read seem
| to point at hostility being the practical term for "without
| board/director/management approval"
|
| The board determines management, and it appears the offer is
| only to the board at this time. Hostility depends on the
| board's lack of approval and continuation of the offer.
|
| Maybe I've missed some news, but I only see Musk making a
| request to the board at this time. Although everything else
| seems to fit the normal fact-pattern of hostility (wanting
| change, not being satisfied with current power, escalation,
| etc.), technically I don't think we are there yet.
| Kapura wrote:
| It's sorta funny; I had a call scheduled to talk to a recruiter
| at Tesla but seeing this reminded me just what kind of guy is
| ultimately the CEO of the company. I feel very strongly that
| company culture permeates from the top, and I don't want to swim
| in whatever cesspool is leaking from the top of that pyramid.
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| How did it actually get to the situation that none of the Twitter
| co-founders have any significant ownership?
| aliswe wrote:
| external capital exchanged for shares. Twitter has been a loss
| making company for most of the years
| traviswt wrote:
| Maybe losing faith and selling out?
| mynameishere wrote:
| When someone gives you a million dollars for a weekend
| project you take the million dollars.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Twitter never issued supervoting shares like most tech other
| companies did to the founders.
| michelb wrote:
| What a clown. Probably made the offer knowing it won't get
| accepted anyway. Then sells his shares at a nice profit and goes
| on with his day.
|
| That said, it would be interesting to see how Musk would destroy
| Twitter, instead of seeing Twitter continue to do it themselves.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| How is that not market manipulation? Isn't this sort of thing
| regulated?
| baq wrote:
| wouldn't be the first fine he got from the SEC... he'll get
| the laws changed at some point if he keeps being himself,
| maybe that's half the point?
| rcstank wrote:
| Why would he get a fine from the SEC? He filed this
| takeover with the SEC in the first place. He's following
| all of their rules.
| qsi wrote:
| Because he filed the takeover offer with the SEC (the
| regulator) today. This is the way it should be done.
| BukhariH wrote:
| He made the offer at a 40% premium on the April 1st close.
|
| Twitter is a dying social network - sounds like a pretty good
| deal.
| Zigurd wrote:
| The offer will fail: The tell is that it is a "final" offer. In
| fact, if the offer were accepted, Elon would be hard pressed to
| come up with the actual cash for an all-cash offer. The offer
| isn't meant to be taken seriously.
|
| After his "final" offer is rejected, Elon will rage quit his
| position in Twitter.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| My prediction: this is how democracy ends.
| tofuahdude wrote:
| That's insanely hyperbolic.
| tapatio wrote:
| This is awesome. Way to go Elon!!!
| TimPC wrote:
| Twitter and Facebook should either be forced to accept regulation
| around banning and denial of access to their content or should be
| forced to remove accounts of government officials and government
| utilities. It's somehow become the defacto standard that
| government can release updates on social media at faster rates
| than any other channel of communication that they use and that
| people can be banned from accessing that communication. I think
| it's disingenuous to say Twitter is not a public utility given
| the way it is used by government offices and politicians to
| communicate. Especially given the way Twitter had actively worked
| to facilitate that.
|
| Barring a legal requirement for government to share all
| information to citizens on other channels at the same pace as
| they do on Twitter, being banned from Twitter prevents access to
| information that one is legally entitled to. That is clearly
| unacceptable.
|
| I think Twitter should be able to moderate content as a private
| entity. But they've knowingly created a situation where outright
| banning is a powder keg and I feel like they've mostly lost the
| right to do so. They should have a good case for making accounts
| read only but they are definitely causing huge problems when they
| ban someone.
| HPsquared wrote:
| If this was enacted, they'd probably just change the effect of
| a ban such that banned users can view "utility" / "government"
| content (but no other?)
|
| Also, can't unregistered users see that information anyway?
| deltaonefour wrote:
| Free speech is an ideal that doesn't really exist. Even in the
| USA I can't threaten to kill you or announce that a bomb is in
| the building.
| imiric wrote:
| Free speech must have sane boundaries drawn at some arbitrary
| level. Death threats and terrorism surely go beyond what should
| be acceptable.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| As much as I very much admire the output of Elon's various
| ventures, I'm not sure of the value of this move, either for him
| or Twitter.
|
| I think Twitter often brings out the worst of his character (or
| perhaps "reveals"?)
|
| I wonder if he might be too emotionally invested in how Twitter
| operates for this to be a good move, given his numerous Twitter-
| led controversies. I worry about the motivations behind him
| trying to do this.
|
| But I could be wrong. And to be fair, I can think of worse
| owners...
| thethimble wrote:
| I'd be very surprised if this is emotional thrashing from
| someone who has been very long-term focused and first
| principles oriented in all of his other endeavors.
| mhh__ wrote:
| What does first principles even mean in this context?
|
| It's not like he's ever been vindictive... (He has)
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| That's a reasonable opinion.
|
| I guess I'm judging him based on his moments of "unwise"
| behaviour on Twitter, but perhaps that's focussing on the
| wrong thing when compared to the progress of the likes of
| SpaceX and Tesla.
| enumjorge wrote:
| It's amazing to me that people really think someone like Musk
| would a good steward of free speech. This idea that the obscenely
| wealthy are going to come in and save us from ourselves, if only
| we can let them be in charge, is a tale as old as time, yet
| people keep believing it.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| Didn't he also try to shut down a Twitter bot that publishes
| flights of his private jet?
|
| I also recall him firing people who supported unionization and
| employees who talked to reporters.
| tedivm wrote:
| Yup. He's also removed people from Tesla beta programs if
| they say anything negative about the company. He's also
| accused people of being pedophiles for saying negative things
| about them- going so far as hiring people to try and prove
| the baseless accusations.
|
| Elon is not a free speech advocate. He'll pretend to be
| occasionally, but that's not the same thing.
| emptyfile wrote:
| Just a different kind of strongman political fantasy.
| naoqj wrote:
| As if the current board of directors were "ourselves" when they
| are nothing but rich people just like musk, just a left wing
| political leaning.
| pphysch wrote:
| The current "stewards of free speech" on Twitter appear to be
| from the military-industrial complex (recalling when Twitter
| implied "undermining faith in NATO" is a bannable offence,
| since confirmed, and unironically citing ASPI as an
| "independent source" on which accounts to ban), so I personally
| view an eccentric oligarch as an upgrade.
|
| Of course, he might just continue this trend.
| rebuilder wrote:
| It seems like a "bad king, good king" argument when the
| problem is that maybe a monarchy isn't that great in the
| first place .
| pphysch wrote:
| The current regime is not a monarchy (who do you think the
| "king" is...?), it's a shadowy extension of the MIC,
| apparently with the primary purpose of monitoring and
| managing narratives of importance to them.
| rebuilder wrote:
| I meant it as an analogy. My point is, a better person at
| the wheel won't fix a systemic problem.
| edgyquant wrote:
| Elon Musk isn't an oligarch that word has a specific meaning
| pphysch wrote:
| "Our billionaires, their oligarchs. Our trade associations,
| their cartels. Our corporate lobbying, their corruption..."
|
| Some people like to define oligarch to mean "non-American
| billionaire" but I personally don't. Musk has a lot of de
| facto political influence.
|
| Even if you don't think he is one right now, he would
| certainly become one after owning the platform that
| censored the sitting POTUS.
| memish wrote:
| The obscenely wealthy control it now. He would be a much better
| steward of free speech than they are, that much is obvious.
| Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| I would like to know on what basis this is _objectively_ true
| rather than _subjectively_. If he 's a better choice, surely
| you can defend it.
| whynotminot wrote:
| How would he be better? Is he just your preferred asshole?
|
| I don't see anything in his tweeting patterns to give me any
| sense that he'd be an improvement.
| memish wrote:
| His tweeting patterns reflect free speech ideals. I'm
| surprised you don't see that. He's also one of the ACLU's
| biggest donors.
| whynotminot wrote:
| Maybe you're the first to derive high-minded ideals from
| `Delete the w in twitter?`
| cinntaile wrote:
| Elon Musk IS the richest man in the world right now, there is
| nobody more wealthy than him.
| mattcwilson wrote:
| Do you have a counter-proposal?
| cinntaile wrote:
| Why would he need a counter proposal?
| thenoblesunfish wrote:
| The title of this should be changed to the title of the article,
| "Elon Musk Makes $43 Billion Unsolicited Bid to Take Twitter
| Private".
|
| The current title given here implies that Musk is likely to take
| over Twitter, which doesn't seem true after reading the article
| (which includes a quote about the proposed price being too low to
| be taken seriously).
| oska wrote:
| I'd suggest instead that the submission should be changed to
| point to Elon's actual official offer statement:
|
| https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/000110465...
|
| We don't need Bloomberg's analysis/interpretation, we can do
| that here.
| u801e wrote:
| The closest thing we had (have) to online free speech was (is)
| Usenet. But distributors of child porn along with Andrew Cuomo
| (when he was the New York state attorney general) making a deal
| with a number of major ISPs resulted in most ISPs discontinuing
| their Usenet service.
| imiric wrote:
| The unregulated nature of Usenet and spam/malware arguably
| killed it, not a NY politician. ISPs generally didn't carry a
| lot of newsgroups anyway, and the best service was always from
| dedicated Usenet providers.
|
| Sadly these days it's only useful for binary downloads if you
| also use an NZB indexer. Does anyone still use it for
| discussion?
| Gollapalli wrote:
| I used to just take accusations of CP at face value, but
| knowing how entrapment-happy and truth-ambivalent the US
| Government can be, I find myself wondering if the killing of
| usenet wasn't just a part of the "hacker crackdown" and the
| crackdown on piracy. Piracy in particular is not something that
| most people had/have any real or natural compunction against.
| htrp wrote:
| Madlad here....
| mlindner wrote:
| As a fan of Musk and his companies, I personally hope this fails.
| He's already busy enough running SpaceX and Tesla which matter
| significantly more to the future of humanity than a website that
| lets people type 280 characters.
| xwdv wrote:
| Social media has value to humanity.
|
| Long after people land on Mars and spread to the farthest
| reaches of the solar system, humans will still be social
| creatures, and thus there will be social media.
|
| All of mankind's achievements and technological advancements
| eventually culminate in more social media.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Social media, especially in a narrow sense (e.g. Facebook and
| Twitter are "social media", forums and chat programs are not)
| is not necessary for humans to interact. Nor is the current
| model of social media - with "influencers", viral content,
| and a strong incentive for performative interaction -
| necessarily the best one for society.
|
| Internet communication has value to humanity. I'm not so sure
| that's true about social media as it exists today.
| [deleted]
| qualudeheart wrote:
| Elon if you're reading this. Do it. They can't stop you. We
| believe in you!
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| This is the coolest mid-life crisis purchase I've ever seen. I
| hope he enjoys it and has some fun from the boring office work of
| rockets, tunnels, robots, AI, and of course bullet-proof trucks.
| xeromal wrote:
| Beats buying another middle-management Porsche. haha.
|
| Love your username.
| pera wrote:
| Imagine having the possibility of feeding millions in the
| Global South but instead decide to spend your money in bullshit
| like this...
| aero-glide2 wrote:
| US government spennt $6800B+ last year, why haven't they
| solved global hunger if it's so easy?
| jiveturkey42 wrote:
| I agree!
|
| I'm shocked to see a fun and positive comment on HN and not
| sarcasm, irony, or the endless steam of 'what I think the
| world's must successful man _should_ do '
| aerovistae wrote:
| > the boring office work of rockets, tunnels, robots, AI, and
| of course bullet-proof trucks.
|
| ..
|
| > not sarcasm
|
| hmm
| jiveturkey42 wrote:
| Sorry, sarcasm was the wrong word, I meant pedantic nit-
| pickers
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| I always enjoy calling out those excessively pedantic
| users. Their pedantry is just annoying, adds nothing to
| the conversation, and half the time is just outright
| incorrect.
|
| Luckily, HN is not as infested with them as it used to
| be.
| ResNet wrote:
| It can be easy for many on here (lots of lurkers too) to
| feel a sense of "HN imposter syndrome," believe it or
| not, so comments like this are really valuable in
| communicating that that sort of pedantry is not the norm!
| [deleted]
| mzs wrote:
| "This is the best purchase I've ever made!"
|
| https://www.facebook.com/legitstreetcars/posts/3871544467467.
| ..
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Musk is (to me) exactly what a billionaire should be: fixing
| all the things government can't be bothered with.
| [deleted]
| Communitivity wrote:
| Does anyone else think he is trying to do this so it gets
| accepted and announced on 4/20?
|
| I worry, because Twitter is a very real outlet for many oppressed
| people. Matrix technology is good, but nowhere near as widespread
| or easy to use yet. I worry that Twitter will be bought and Musk
| turns out to be a far-right or far-left extremist that makes
| Twitter into a much more biased political platform.
| nitestunk wrote:
| Twitter is already about as politically biased as they come.
| Removing its current censorship would improve the platform as
| an outlet for oppressed people.
| prepend wrote:
| I think social media is a real negative force in the world and
| welcome this as potentially a way to make it better, or at least
| destroy Twitter and remove one outlet.
|
| I don't think public companies can reform social media because
| it's too profitable. As a private company it may be possible to
| reform it to still be profitable, but not in a way that harms
| people.
| [deleted]
| evancoop wrote:
| Bezos buys the Washington Post, Musk buys Twitter...Now we need
| to long for the world where megalomaniacal billionaires just
| bought football teams?
| janekg wrote:
| Well done, he won't be on the Supervisory Board - so bought the
| shares for useless. Now complete takeover announced - rejected -
| share price rises - shares sold again, good money made
| owlbynight wrote:
| It will be fun when the Internet mobilizes a mass exodus to a new
| or competing platform to fuck him over. He lives his online life
| with a foot three inches from his mouth, cocked and loaded, and
| waiting to scatter his brains to the wind. The first time it goes
| off after the takeover, Twitter will burn to the ground.
|
| Because at its core, woke culture isn't righteous; it's petty and
| it's fueled by have nots fucking with haves because they can.
| [deleted]
| sixhobbits wrote:
| Elon being in headlines is good for him and his companies. Making
| noise related to Twitter gets Elon in headlines.
|
| It's the good old trick of 'there is no such thing as bad
| publicity' that Trump used so effectively too.
|
| I feel like this is a huge publicity stunt and he would probably
| not follow through with it even if Twitter shareholders wanted
| it.
| lumost wrote:
| My take, this is about putting a valuation on non-twitter social.
| Reddit has more users than Twitter, and a valuation 1/5th of
| twitters. If Twitter is worth 47 billion to someone, then reddit
| should be worth 50-100 billion.
|
| Unfortunately it's not possible to know if Elon has a major stake
| in any privately held social companies.
| jdrc wrote:
| The media is usually not profitable, they have other uses.
| Countless newspaper and tv networks go bankrupt
| Tenoke wrote:
| >As a result, I am offering to buy 100% of Twitter for $54.20 per
| share in cash, a 54% premium over the day before I began
| investing in Twitter and a 38% premium over the day before my
| investment was publicly announced. My offer is my best and final
| offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my
| position as a shareholder.
|
| This seems like he's mostly trolling them or looking for an
| excuse to sell. The chances they accept and he can get 100% seem
| low, this is a one-time offer with something of an ultimatum, and
| it seems a bit unlikely he wants to share that much Tesla to get
| the money in the first place.
| aliswe wrote:
| Excuse to sell? by doing this and then selling though would
| dump the stock price.
|
| Why not just simply sell?
| Tenoke wrote:
| Because then he'd have created less pandemonium AND looked
| even worse (especially with the late filling).
| peeters wrote:
| Private takeovers usually assume a premium share price. The
| more credible a buyout offer is, the closer the stock price
| will rise to the offered price. It's exactly what got Musk in
| trouble for tweeting about taking Tesla private in 2018.
| rosndo wrote:
| That's not how any of this works.
| asdfaoeu wrote:
| He only needs a majority of the shareholders to agree.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| This seems like a massive waste of money. Firstly, it will kill
| remaining trust in twitter and secondly the opportunity cost of
| spending that much money, like why not expand Telsa into India,
| or Asia in a big way.
| belter wrote:
| Look at Oligarchs Yachts and that tells you everything about
| the ego of Billionaires. It is not about the money.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| Yeah, I get that, but for someone who talks a lot about his
| singular desire to do more space exploration, things like a
| tunneling company, a rocket company and an electric car
| company make sense. Twitter doesn't fit in that group too
| easily.
| Iolaum wrote:
| Elon's ventures are big enough now that they are a key
| thing in the politics game. I 'd wager one aspect of this
| is making sure his voice stands out (to be able to
| influence politicians 'bottom up').
| gonzo41 wrote:
| Seems like a cheaper move to open a PAC.
| Ekaros wrote:
| What I missing about this is that is he actually going to
| take it private or fold it to some other company with
| massive over valuation like Tesla... In later case it
| will make money for him, because people are stupid... In
| first case it really seem expensive wasteful thing,
| billions buy lot of lobbying power...
| m1117 wrote:
| I don't understand how making twitter private will be beneficial
| for free speech? Isn't it the point that the company ownership is
| distributed?
| jesusofnazarath wrote:
| another_devy wrote:
| It's never about free speech its about investment, money and
| control over digital media
| yumraj wrote:
| I am 100% convinced that this is driven by the failure of Trump's
| social media platform which leave Trump without a megaphone.
|
| Elon Musk wants to deliver Trump the Twitter megaphone before the
| elections.
| justforfunhere wrote:
| Any twitter employees here?
|
| Whats your take on this? Do you feel happy or anxious or do not
| care?
| bombcar wrote:
| Given the reports of how freaked out employees were on the
| possibility of Musk on the board, they must be fleeing in
| droves now that he'd own the company.
| Havoc wrote:
| I doubt any of them are stupid enough to comment publicly on
| hostile takeovers...
| gigglesupstairs wrote:
| No one is verifying their identity here, if they want to make
| a comment, they very well can
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| This feels more like hes trying to make the Twitter stakeholder
| lawsuit go away by announcing an offer (who wants to be suing
| their new boss?) than an actual acquisition attempt.
| sidcool wrote:
| I am a Musk fanboy. But I don't think he should be a gatekeeper
| for free speech evangelism. No matter how fair Elon thinks he is,
| a completely private entity or person cannot guarantee unbiased
| free speech. There has to be regulation and oversight.
|
| So if Musk wants to take over Twitter, sure, no one's going to
| stop him. But let's not expect it means that free speech
| principles will be upheld. It's probable that under Elon's
| regime, Twitter might suppress anti-Tesla topics.
| brink wrote:
| > No matter how fair Elon thinks he is, a completely private
| entity or person cannot guarantee unbiased free speech.
|
| The gov has shown to be unwilling to hold free speech laws to
| social media companies, and Twitter has been so aggressive in
| censoring dissident political opinion.. what else are you
| proposing we do?
| bhelkey wrote:
| Ironically, I suspect Musk publicly buying Twitter is likely
| the shortest path to regulation. Talk of regulation and
| oversight has been going on for years but I suspect that this
| could be the trigger for such legislation.
| dgellow wrote:
| Nobody saw it coming... /s
| thebackstall17 wrote:
| All
| grammers wrote:
| So when is he finally going to Mars?
| WalterBright wrote:
| I have some Twitter stock, and will be happy to transmorgrify it
| into another Musk company!
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Elon just tweeted:
|
| > Will endeavor to keep as many shareholders in privatized
| Twitter as allowed by law
|
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1514681422212128770
|
| So I now wonder what is the % of shares one has to hold to
| obtain private investor status _by law_?
| partiallypro wrote:
| I've always felt Twitter has been poorly run, it's almost like
| the people that work for the company don't actually use it often
| and are completely disconnected from the userbase. Remember when
| they completely screwed API users? Various Twitter third parties
| had to shut down entirely because of it. Twitter has some of the
| most valuable and useful realtime information in the world, but
| everyone there seems content on not using it for anything worth
| anything.
|
| They even killed Vine, which is basically the exact same thing as
| Tiktok and Stories...years before both. Then tried to push their
| own version of stories, which was just awful. Jack and the
| current CEO seem(ed)s totally disconnected from any sort of
| reality going on with their own product.
|
| Even Jack, while he was still in power, seemed confused by
| Twitter's own censorship/moderation rules at times. How is that
| possible? Moderation is also totally uneven with some accounts
| getting away with certain jokes (or outright threats) and others
| are completely immune to it. I personally love Twitter as a
| product, but it's so insane to me how the current CEO has his
| job, or how Jack was able to remain CEO for so long when he had
| clearly long abandoned it for Square.
|
| For major news, no one talks about
| Facebook/Tiktok/Instagram...they talk about Twitter. It's so
| incredibly valuable, and it's shackled by sheer incompetent and
| complacency. If it's not Elon, someone needs to come in and
| restructure it and get rid of those holding it back.
| Kye wrote:
| >> _" I've always felt Twitter has been poorly run, it's almost
| like the people that work for the company don't actually use it
| often and are completely disconnected from the userbase.
| Remember when they completely screwed API users? Various
| Twitter third parties had to shut down entirely because of
| it."_
|
| They did this to make sure people saw ads. It's why Twitter is
| profitable now. The vast majority of people on Twitter never
| knew Twitter had a vibrant developer ecosystem in the distant
| past.
| panick21_ wrote:
| I don't think on Twitter we should be 'free speech absolutists'.
| Its a private company, no need for lots of people.
|
| What I would actually like is seriously shooting down these
| idiotic bots. Like seriously, they have the exact same name and
| picture as the main account. How the fuck do we not have machine
| learning, fuck a bunch of bash-scripts to figure this out?
|
| It makes the platform borderline unusable how much crypto spam
| bots exist on it.
|
| That said, not a fan of Musk waste his time with Twitter. SpaceX,
| Tesla are plenty.
| somehnacct3757 wrote:
| The bots are necessary for the quarterly user counts to look
| good during the shareholder report.
|
| Once they've finished pretending the bot accounts have ad-
| watching eyeballs, they follow up a couple months later with a
| token crackdown of some small amount of them.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Maybe less relevant if it were private.
| trollied wrote:
| Musk already proposed a small fee per user to verify them. This
| would add a cost to bots, which would dramatically reduce the
| numbers. https://techxplore.com/news/2022-04-musk-twitter-
| dogecoin.ht...
| mrkramer wrote:
| What a drama queen. He says Twitter is important for freedom of
| speech but it is not even open, it is walled garden just like FB,
| IG etc.
| pastor_bob wrote:
| just adding to this historic post
| lampshades wrote:
| me too bob
| taf2 wrote:
| My only issue is they used the wrong name.. he now goes by Elona
| thepasswordis wrote:
| Can anybody make a good argument as to why Twitter (in its
| current form) isn't a major detriment to society?
|
| If Twitter poofed out of existence today, it would be a major win
| for this planet. People talk about a frightening future with a
| human hostile AI that wants to destroy humanity. That exists,
| it's twitter.
|
| Elon buying it, even if he runs it into the ground is a good
| thing. Getting rid of some of the hostile AI is a good thing.
| itslennysfault wrote:
| Twitter (the community, people, concept) is going to exist.
| Period.
|
| If Twitter (the website / company) was shut down today
| something else would fill that vacuum almost immediately.
| julienb_sea wrote:
| The cat is entirely out of the bag. There are many competitors
| to Twitter (Facebook comes to mind, albeit somewhat different)
| and the concept of an open online discussion forum, with all
| its toxicity but also its potential for timely and impactful
| communication, is not going away. Users have clearly proven
| they want myriad large scale social media platforms, and
| Twitter provides a niche and UX that appeals to a lot of
| people.
|
| You can argue that people are stupid and these platforms are
| detrimental to society. This is entirely subjective. I would
| argue that attempting to kill such platforms would be more
| detrimental, as it will push people to decentralized platforms
| that are even worse echo chambers. So this is a story of lesser
| of two evils.
| voldacar wrote:
| Facebook is not a competitor to twitter. It is culturally
| just a dead space. Nothing interesting happens there, I can't
| think of the last time an interesting subculture or meme
| originated on facebook. It's this bizarre place where you're
| surrounded by old people but at the same time you're
| subjected to infantilizing speech restrictions that make you
| feel like you're in some kind of adult kindergarten or
| something. You can't make fun of journalists or do anything
| subversive or culturally alive, it's a place where there is
| no fun allowed.
| mrleinad wrote:
| > I would argue that attempting to kill such platforms would
| be more detrimental, as it will push people to decentralized
| platforms that are even worse echo chambers
|
| I see how this argument would be true. Thank you, that's
| actually quite insightful.
| fullshark wrote:
| Twitter is where you can see journalists craft narratives and
| talking points about news stories in real time. It's been
| incredibly revealing imo.
| tjpnz wrote:
| At the very least it does reveal why the narratives
| constructed by some journalists are so utterly divorced from
| reality.
| asdff wrote:
| I hate reading news in real time. Its never significant or
| relevant to what you are doing, but you couldn't tell that by
| the frantic tone and the sense that you must remain tuned
| into whatever is unfolding this time on the internet. Much
| better to get the complete picture after the dust actually
| settles and you know what pieces were truly important.
| superdude12 wrote:
| Can you elaborate on this? Perhaps share some threads or an
| article summarizing the effect?
| fullshark wrote:
| I don't know of any good article on the subject, but I
| think the red/blue war in America is where you can see some
| of the most extreme examples of this. A simple illustrative
| example that comes to mind: A politician on the other side
| of the aisle makes a gaffe, a journalist amplifies the
| video/text of their statement, based on their followers'
| reaction a journalist decides if it's something their
| followers care about and either writes a piece about it
| with supporting information about just how wrong they are
| and takes on it from their followers/colleagues or just
| ignores it and moves on trying to find more red meat for
| the political partisans that read them.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| Amazing displays of the New York Times A-B testing its
| copaganda headlines in this thread here:
|
| https://twitter.com/nyt_diff/status/1513873661547143176
|
| That account is dedicated to documenting changes to NYT
| headlines in real-time.
| rglover wrote:
| Pick any news story and a journalist (from an outlet like
| NYT, Politico, etc).
|
| Watch the timeline of that journalist's original opinions
| (and their level of aggression/assertiveness) and then
| watch how that cascades to either more extremism--if the
| evolution of the story agrees with their chosen narrative--
| or, to absolute abandonment of/ignorance of the thing they
| so fervently held an opinion about a few hours earlier.
|
| Once you start observing this behavior, you will see it
| happen for nearly all stories. It's like watching rats
| press a lever to release food pellets and then scattering
| off to a corner to digest.
| psophis wrote:
| The argument [0] has been made that Twitter was why the US had
| as good of a response to COVID-19 as it did.
|
| [0]: https://stratechery.com/2020/defining-information/
| LocalPCGuy wrote:
| Only 23% of the US public uses Twitter, and of that 23%, 80% of
| the posts come from about 10% of those users. These are the
| numbers I point to when people want to call Twitter the "modern
| day public square". I don't buy it, and think that the only
| real significant problem with Twitter is how much credence
| folks that are on it (including media personalities) give it.
| OliverGilan wrote:
| This is true and I bring this up as well BUT consider this:
| probably less than 23% of US citizens make 90% of the
| important decisions for this country (the power law still
| holds) and if all of those people are on Twitter then OP's
| point still stands. I deleted Twitter about 3 months ago and
| it's been great. I can just focus on life and talking to my
| friends still on the platform I realize just how much of a
| bubble it really is and how most of the issues everyone gets
| hysterical about is just irrelevant in my life. That being
| said it seems to hold an insane amount of influence in the
| minds of journalists, business leaders, and politicians and
| thus it is an incredibly powerful platform.
| LocalPCGuy wrote:
| I suppose you could say it's like the public square in that
| only 3 of the 10 citizens in that mythical town actually go
| to the square and debate/decide anything, and the rest just
| stay home.
|
| But I'm not convinced the folks on Twitter truly have that
| much power because they have those discussions on Twitter
| (and most would probably have that power whether Twitter
| exists or not and the discussions on Twitter from those in
| power seem to be mostly just an extension of their other
| media presences). It does make some folks more accessible,
| and their (curated) thoughts more public in some cases.
|
| I've spent some time recently to curate who/what I follow
| on Twitter to be more relevant and less hysterical (it
| still creeps in tho), and that has actually made me more
| likely to actually engage there now, as it's often with
| things I'm actually interested in.
| narag wrote:
| What if most readers think that writers somehow represent
| a majority of Twitter or even the whole society? That
| belief, true or false, would leverage the influence of
| writers.
| LocalPCGuy wrote:
| Sounds like we need to do a better job of explaining why
| that isn't the case (at least, that is my belief, I
| believe the most extreme are those most likely to be
| prolific on Twitter, not those with the most
| representative beliefs).
| RangerScience wrote:
| > These are the numbers I point to
|
| IDK, that sounds like more participation (in speaking and
| listening) than I'd expect out of a literal public square,
| although not by a whole lot.
|
| I remember coming across street preachers on the Santa Monica
| promenade. I want to say 10-20 people would stop to listen,
| where 1-2 people would be speaking (preacher and a possible
| commenter). I don't even know how to estimate how many people
| simply walked by, but the audience being less than 20% of
| that sounds very likely.
|
| TL;DR Anecdotal experience in one _actual_ public square,
| estimates less than 20% of the physically present public
| participating, and less than 10% of that speaking.
| eric_cc wrote:
| A lot of us are afraid to post on Twitter because of the woke
| crowd and cancel culture.
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| Who is "us"?
|
| And what exactly are you afraid of, someone judging you by
| what you say?
| xanaxagoras wrote:
| You can only pen your honest opinion under your own name if
| you agree with the heterodoxy of the authoritarian left.
| This is what passes for liberalism in America today.
| mywittyname wrote:
| They aren't going away. No matter who buys Twitter, you're
| still going to get called out for this shithead things you
| say on the platform. If you're honestly afraid of being
| cancelled, then you should support current Twitter
| moderation, as it's saving you from yourself.
| the_doctah wrote:
| Because Twitter is great for pushing narratives while silencing
| "wrongthink".
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I would say:
|
| (1) Twitter is a poorly managed company and has been for a long
| time. A shake up could be a good thing.
|
| (2) I don't see Musk as the person to do it. Mostly he uses
| Twitter to shoot himself in the foot and his free-speech
| fetishism doesn't ring true. Is he going to reinstate Trump's
| Twitter account? Is he going to encourage Narendra Modi to use
| Twitter to organize pogroms next?
| refurb wrote:
| Sometimes being reckless and a heretic helps society move
| forward.
|
| I'm starting to become a fan of Musk. Guy is sitting on $256B in
| net worth. That's so rich it's like trying to picture the
| distance from the earth to the sun, your brain struggles.
|
| I get the sense he's going to be the Howard Hughes of our time.
| Weird ideas and a ton of money make for some interesting moves.
| Not everything he does will be positive, but his imprint will be
| one for the history books.
| john_the_writer wrote:
| When I hear people bag on him I ask a few questions..
|
| Name one man who has done more for EV and by extension the
| environment?
|
| Name one man who has done more for SelfDriving, and by
| extension road safety?
|
| Space travel?
|
| He might fail at half what he does, but yeah..
| suction wrote:
| The most American take possible, I guess.
| blackearl wrote:
| Twitter is trash and I'm happy when any chaotic nonsense is
| happening to it.
| ecf wrote:
| Every second my brain spends thinking about this man is
| unsolicited.
| suction wrote:
| So if he purports that Twitter now limits freedom of speech, the
| only thing he can mean by that is hate speech, dangerous medical
| misinformation, conspiracy bs, or calls to violence.
|
| I've always had a gut feeling that Musk is politically on the far
| right spectrum farther than most people would believe, but now
| that he has joined the ranks of these misguided new right-wing
| "muh freedom of speech"-warriors, who never had any point to
| begin with, it's a strong indicator rather than just a feeling.
| scurraorbis wrote:
| Hackernews is just as censorious as twitter. Comments get flagged
| and moderated solely by the positions taken within and then
| system has the gall to then tell you to read the comment policies
| which you didn't violate as they are from the libertine age that
| preceded this one.
|
| Controversial post rarely reach the front page anymore and if
| they do they are full of reasonable and true comments fading into
| gray and finally away. Meanwhile the most on the nose, vile and
| hateful propaganda get's voted to the top with rarely anyone
| speaking against it.
|
| I understand you do this for a good cause, because you think it
| will save lives or make society better. It won't.
|
| There is an underlying reality with it's ground truth and that
| can only ever be glimpsed through the verbal sparring of ideas
| and ideologies.
|
| To those truly concerned about "harmful misinformation", you
| should know that the greatest atrocities in human history were
| committed when one side, faction or ideology could dictated what
| everyone said and wrote.
|
| This is not an accident.
|
| The most harmful misinformation is that which no one is allowed
| to correct.
| jandrusk wrote:
| If the bid is accepted, he's going to want to build his own app
| store otherwise Google & Apple will kick the Twitter app off if
| his version of free speech doesn't align with their version of
| censorship.
|
| Gab discovered this early on and pivoted accordingly.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Gab isn't Twitter.
|
| If the two app stores tried to deplatform Twitter there would
| be a landmark court case which would likely reach the Supreme
| Court.
| cwkoss wrote:
| The twitter app is unnecessary - works fine in a browser.
| jdrc wrote:
| Well you should have nationalized it while you could've
|
| BTW why is this called hostile?
| refurb wrote:
| Nothing better than the CIA having a say on what tweets are
| allowed.
| neonnoodle wrote:
| Standard terminology for when an acquisition is pitched
| directly to the shareholders against the wishes (or
| irrespective of the wishes) of the board.
| k8sToGo wrote:
| Who is you?
| jdrc wrote:
| americans. we had a discussion about that a few days ago
| [deleted]
| xxs wrote:
| Non-hostile version of a takeover requires a board approval at
| least. Depending on the jurisdiction and the company bylaws
| certain amount of the shareholders (say 75%+) has to vote for
| the takeover to actually happen.
|
| Edit: Under normal circumstance, single entities cannot
| 'easily' obtain a large share of the stocks even if they
| actively buy.
| alphabetting wrote:
| If I was an investor in Tesla or SpaceX I'd be extremely opposed
| to this. Calling the shots at three important companies is
| basically a disaster waiting to happen, especially if you spend a
| lot of time posting memes on Twitter.
| hayd wrote:
| This already happened with Solar City and share holders [in all
| three companies] are doing just fine.
| HstryrsrBttn wrote:
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| What's the relationship between Jack and Musk? Are they buddies?
| Do they hate each other? Is that relationship a factor here?
| api wrote:
| What a profound waste of his time and talent.
| fullshark wrote:
| Is he able to sell his 9% stake while the board mulls his offer?
| Jyaif wrote:
| I want to know the answer to this question.
| bombcar wrote:
| I suspect his shares are now "locked" whilst the offer is
| considered; perhaps he can acquire more but I suspect he
| cannot sell, as it would be an obvious deception.
|
| He would have to announce the withdrawal of the offer and
| then I assume he can begin selling.
|
| Note: I am not an SEC.
| adamrezich wrote:
| pretty crazy to see the sheer unadulterated terror that the mere
| possibility of free speech absolutism instills in people. this
| way of thinking was not common like sixteen years ago--what
| changed?
| fareesh wrote:
| My hope is that he does things that the "Twitter is a private
| company and they can do what they want" crowd hates. Twitter may
| cost $43B or more, but to witness the prostration of that crowd
| is truly priceless.
| voldacar wrote:
| Journalists and bluechecks seem to be particularly mad about
| this. I guess they don't like the prospect of having to follow
| rules that are transparently enforced rather than the current
| system of favoritism and opacity
| jasonhansel wrote:
| And if there's anything Elon Musk is known for, it's being
| completely transparent and unbiased! /s
| outoftheabyss wrote:
| Always a good barometer of the merits of an idea
| mouzogu wrote:
| $43 billion to stop some kid from tracking your flights.
| TeeWEE wrote:
| Since Elon bought his 9% stake, the value of Twitter increased.
| He mentions selling his shares if the takeover is not accepted.
| That would make him a lot of money!
|
| His offer is also on the high side, this might make people
| bullish about twitter. On the other hand, I do think he is
| genuinely interested in buying twitter.
|
| But can't help to feel this might also be lucrative for him if
| the deal doesn't go through.
|
| It seems like Musk has a love hate relationship public
| companies... That's why SpaceX is still private.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Of course, if the deal doesn't go through, the price will
| collapse before he can sell...
| themitigating wrote:
| This isn't illegal?
| joshmlewis wrote:
| He's not going to be able to sell his 9% stake at the current
| price without the market reacting negatively. The share price
| would drop because of the immense selling pressure it would
| cause. Unless there is another billionaire wanting to eat up
| all those shares, the supply would simply overwhelm the demand
| which in turn causes the price to drop until the market was
| able to meet the supply.
| hayd wrote:
| Another thing that makes this take over hostile. If it's
| rejected, Musk begins to sell his 9%, the stock price
| tumbles... and share-holders will sue the board.
|
| I don't see how they don't have a fiduciary responsibility to
| sell here.
| dang wrote:
| All: speech here isn't very free when the server can't stay up,
| and it's smoking right now, for obvious reasons.
|
| I'm going to prune some of the top-heavy subthreads and possibly
| restrict the page size a bit. There are over 2500 comments in
| this thread, and if you want to read them all you're going to
| have to click "More" at the bottom of each page, or go like this:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31025061&p=2
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31025061&p=3
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31025061&p=4
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31025061&p=5
|
| ...and so on. Sorry everyone! (Yes, fixes are coming, yes it's
| all very slow.)
|
| Edit: also, if some of you would log out for the day, that would
| ease the load considerably. (I hate to ask that, but it's true.
| Make sure you haven't lost your password!)
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| "Elon Musk's raging narcissism launches all-out $43B assault on
| his credibility and fortune"
|
| Without any understanding that the his right-wing narcissistic
| suppliers who rage in public about being prevented from raging in
| public are not the sort of people who become good paying
| customers for a free platform.
|
| This is like the universe seeing Elon Musk and issuing a course
| correction.
|
| For the avoidance of doubt: this is dreadful for Twitter's
| longevity. Twitter's only sustainable future while staying true
| to its roots, is as a market utility co-owned by media companies.
|
| A billionaire pouring money into a money-pit is fine only for as
| long as it holds his interest as a plaything (which might be a
| long time, considering his narcissism)
| floatinglotus wrote:
| Elon Musk is trying to out-troll current world champion Kanye
| West.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Kanye is just a clown, far from the greatest troll in the
| world.
| 40acres wrote:
| I don't know about the validity of the bid (fifty.. four twenty?)
| but man does Twitter need a kick in the ass. The product has been
| stagnant since birth but has so much potential, I'd be interested
| to see what reforms Elon would bring in.
| sidcool wrote:
| A major Twitter shareholder and Saudi prince Alwaleed rejects
| Elon's offer to takeover Twitter.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/technology/saudi-prince-alwaleed-bin...
| jtdev wrote:
| systemvoltage wrote:
| I just learned this today, a bit shocked. Isn't anyone
| concerned that Saudi Arabia - not exactly a beacon of human
| rights and dignity for all people - holds 5% stake in Twitter?
| cwkoss wrote:
| definitely an order of magnitude more concerning than elon's
| stake
| sdfjkl wrote:
| I hope the Fediverse can handle the onslaught of two consecutive
| marketing campaigns.
| jdrc wrote:
| Time to dust off those RSS readers
| bambax wrote:
| I personally dislike Musk and most things he says and does, but I
| am grateful for the fact that his actions lead to more hilarious
| chronicles by Matt Levine (Money Stuff).
|
| Can't wait for today's installment!!!
| bombastry wrote:
| Unfortunately the newsletter is on break until Monday, although
| he did end up writing a column about Musk on one of his days
| off a week ago[1].
|
| We may be limited for now to his brief reactions to news on
| Twitter[2][3].
|
| [1]
| https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-04-04/elon-m...
| [2] https://twitter.com/matt_levine/status/1514549976910770182
| [3] https://twitter.com/matt_levine/status/1514562166740992005
| 542458 wrote:
| As somebody from the first world who has had the experience of
| moderating Internet forums... free speech in the sense of "the
| government generally shouldn't control people's speech, with
| limited exceptions" is good and necessary. Free speech in the
| sense of "everybody should be forced to platform every idea" is
| silly IMO. Left alone user content rapidly devolves into the most
| low-effort salient content - flame wars, political proselytizing
| and porn, mostly. If you want your platform to be about anything
| other than those, you need curation and moderation. This is key
| for a good user experience.
|
| Note that you're choosing to spend your time on HN (a relatively
| strongly moderated forum) instead of a less moderated forum like
| 8chan's /b/.
| nradov wrote:
| Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas suggested extending
| common carrier legislation to cover social media platforms.
| That would essentially prevent them from censoring any content
| legal in the US.
|
| https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2021/04/09/justice-t...
|
| I don't understand your point about user experience. Twitter is
| already mostly low effort flame wars, political proselytizing,
| and porn. But people seem to still use it anyway.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| The difference between the two is less significant when a few
| large tech companies monopolise online discourse. Water an
| electricity is considered a "utility" but still delivered by
| many private companies - why isn't the same argument used
| there? I'm sure plenty of people would support cutting off
| utilities for neo-nazis; that doesn't men it's a good
| precedent.
|
| Consider gabber et al was cut off by their _hosting_ companies,
| a much harder space to enter for non-established companies -
| maybe net-neutrality should be extended from traffic to hosting
| /computing facilities?
|
| > Left alone user content rapidly devolves
|
| > you need curation and moderation
|
| the thing about online content is that it doesn't work like a
| free-speech bazaar. You can choose which soapbox you want to
| visit. You can choose what networks to participate in.
|
| Also, it should be noted that that these types of places
| sometime devolve _because_ of bubbles /moderation; e.g. reddit
| /politics/ is a toxic echo chamber because it bans/downvotes
| dissenting opinion, resulting in a groupthink-mentality.
|
| > instead of a less moderated forum like 8chan's
|
| and that's a choice, until it isn't (e.g. 8chan is
| banned/blocked/deplatformed)
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| > Note that you're choosing to spend your time on HN (a
| relatively strongly moderated forum) instead of a less
| moderated forum like 8chan's
|
| This is a good point!
|
| I agree with both you and the parent - which is to say that I'm
| entirely torn on this subject.
|
| Moderation on platforms makes sense. Trying to work out where
| to draw the line is difficult. And free speech is incredibly
| important.
|
| How to balance these competing concerns is really beyond me.
|
| I'm a proponent of the idea of "the solution to bad speech, is
| more speech", but if you take this to its logical conclusion on
| the internet, you often end up in the wild west.
| deadpannini wrote:
| I think this only _appears_ to be a contradiction, because
| your concerns apply at different scales.
|
| You can reconcile the tension by insisting that the public
| utility platforms (e.g., Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, etc.)
| remain neutral with respect to non-criminal content, but give
| people the tools to moderate and curate speech at a more
| granular level (like subreddits, or tools to filter who you
| see on Twitter).
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| I like this idea, but things like "tools to filter who you
| see on Twitter" rely on self moderating of content you're
| exposed to. We all already have that capability in many
| respects.
|
| Eg I don't really use Twitter at all apart from the odd
| tweet that will be referred to me. I moderate what I see by
| actively avoiding most social media (aside from HN of
| course) because I've decided that this is the easiest way
| to avoid sub-standard content that doesn't add value for
| me. (A sweeping statement but just for sake of argument).
|
| So let's say someone says something extremely insulting
| about a minority group - just on the right side of legal,
| but otherwise a disgusting remark when measured against
| social norms.
|
| Do we say that the utility platforms shouldn't touch this
| because it's not illegal?
|
| Because some of those subgroups of people and individuals
| with the moderation/curation responsibilities will
| proliferate that content rather than moderate it.
|
| I'm not saying you're wrong, and I'm not arguing for strong
| censorship - I don't have a counter suggestion, I'm just
| thinking it through...
| themitigating wrote:
| "I'm a proponent of the idea of "the solution to bad speech,
| is more speech", but if you take this to its logical
| conclusion on the internet, you often end up in the wild
| west."
|
| If that's the logical conclusion, and I'm making the
| assumption this based on your observations, why are you a
| proponent of it?
|
| "I think this is for the best, however it always leads to
| problems"
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| > "I think this is for the best, however it always leads to
| problems"
|
| Well to be fair, I did say I was torn on this and have no
| answers :)
|
| The concept of "the solution to bad speech, being more
| speech" is somewhat of a _safe default_ to me. All things
| being equal, I think it 's more important to err on the
| side of protecting the voices of those who should and need
| to be heard, while accepting the risk that these very
| protections may also inadvertently benefit "extremists" in
| that they too are more likely to be heard.
|
| I prefer this balance, as opposed to the opposite, of
| strict moderation. Silencing the voices of those with
| something important to say, in order to ensure that we
| don't let any extremists get their views out.
|
| So that's my default starting position.
|
| But I'm not absolutist about it. I think we can't be too
| binary about it, at either end of the spectrum. The answer
| is not one of two choices, "100% no free speech" or "100%
| free speech". Instead, it's presumably somewhere in the
| middle.
|
| So the answer is probably, "light touch, _just enough_
| moderation, based on some form of consensus ".
|
| How you define "just enough" is a tough problem.
|
| Perhaps it's the _consensus_ part that 's missing at the
| moment.
| Geee wrote:
| I don't think it's a free speech issue. It's just a
| scalability / UX issue arising from the problem that 100,000
| people are trying to communicate in the same room, and 99% of
| those people have nothing new to add to the conversation. The
| self-moderation features on Reddit and HN are a step in the
| right direction. On Twitter and Facebook, there is no
| downvoting, which amplifies low quality content. This
| decision is tied to their revenue generation models, because
| they don't want to limit participation. Reddit and HN focus
| on improving signal to noise-ratio, which is more important
| metric, and I think even more can be done in this direction.
| mc32 wrote:
| HN may be "heavily" as you say, moderated, but you are allowed
| to discuss things that counter any narrative as long as you
| make a reasonable effort at presenting your ideas in a
| reasonable way.
|
| You don't get banned for criticizing bitcoin, VCs, Hunter
| Biden, US policies, BLM, the police, inflation, gender,
| feminism, masculinity, etc., etc, whereas Twitter tends to ban
| things that go counter to particular narratives even in the
| face of evidence. You're a epidemiologist and critique Covid
| policies? Not allowed!!!
| SirHound wrote:
| Drawing equivalence between Twitter bans and government
| censorship is the height of western privileged ignorance.
| scurraorbis wrote:
| philistine wrote:
| The only time I see rank propaganda on HN, it's about
| stuff Elon Musk loves, like the blockchain or self-
| driving cars. I dread what he'll do to Twitter.
| scurraorbis wrote:
| jrsj wrote:
| Not when there's bidirectional communication happening
| between govt and tech companies on these issues. We've seen
| them coordinate to erase particular stories from the public
| narrative etc. They literally have manipulated elections by
| doing this.
|
| These companies were engaged in a covert surveillance
| program on behalf of intelligence agencies too. That by
| itself makes them effectively an extension of the state.
| mc32 wrote:
| Not when the government lobbies the companies for certain
| viewpoints.
| nokcha wrote:
| For Twitter, perhaps a good compromise would be: instead of
| banning problematic accounts, set to them a "default-mute"
| state where only people who choose to follow the account can
| see its tweets.
|
| See also Section 1.F of
| https://www.journaloffreespeechlaw.org/volokh.pdf , which
| distinguishes how Twitter's 'hosting' function might be treated
| differently from its curation functions.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| There is a difference between a civil discourse and abuse
| filled with obscenities. There is also a difference between
| fair moderation and suppression of dissent.
|
| When I post on HN anything about Trump or vaccines, HN doesn't
| add a note to my post informing readers about the 'correct'
| view on the problem. HN does restrict personal insults, and
| does it consistently for all sides of the conversation. That is
| fair moderation. Because it is fair, I don't feel that my (or
| anyone) right for free speech is limited here. The spirit of
| free speech principle is not violated.
|
| Twitter, on the other hand, was applying their rules very
| selectively, discrediting views that they consider 'incorrect'
| with various notices, and blocking or restricting users with
| political views they don't like. That's suppression.
|
| _Of course_ , Twitter, like other plaftorms, DOES have the
| right to run their platform as they see fit, private company
| and all, but here comes another facet of this problem:
| _everything_ can formally be a private platform, yet
| _everything_ can be run by the government. It is not a
| hypothetical situation, in Russia every remaining media source
| is directly or indirectly controlled by the government. Putin
| 's best friend, an oligarch, owns all social networks in
| Russia, and can just shut down any user that tries to oppose
| the war. No, not censorship, free enterprises.
|
| It is a known fact that oligarchy can merge with the government
| very closely, and do become a de-facto cernsorship arm of the
| ruling party, while formally retaining their rights to block
| anyone who's views they don't like. This is not a theoretical
| problem and this is what happening now.
|
| So the free world is not facing a difficult problem, how to
| balance the possibility (and dire necessity!) of having a
| public discourse on painful problems faced by the society with
| the rights of the commercial platforms that this discourse
| takes place on. I'd prefer Twitter to be politically neutral
| than trying to actively taking one side. That would be better
| for them, for their users, and basically for everybody. And it
| is actually fully within their rights.
| bko wrote:
| > This is key for a good user experience
|
| Do you think Twitter optimizes their speech policies for a good
| user experience? My impression is that things that are very
| mainstream are disallowed on Twitter while very fringe ideas as
| allowed
| 542458 wrote:
| I apologize if I was unclear - the post I was replying to was
| making a general statement about moderation, and so was I.
| Some level of moderation is essential to keep good user
| experience. I do not know enough about twitter's particular
| moderation policies to comment on them. It is possible (and
| likely) that they could be improved - but I do not think
| removing all moderation would be an improvement.
| bko wrote:
| Thanks for clearing that up. Moderation is definitely
| important but moderation, apart from the obvious abuse and
| illegality, should be done on the smallest level possible.
| Banning someone from a platform for expressing an offensive
| view is not moderation; its censorship. Creating
| customizable user filters or groups that hide these people
| is a better answer. Reddit has a lot of their own problems,
| but the federated model of subreddits works. The problem
| arises when some subreddits are banned or the overlap of
| mods on each subreddit, but in principal its correct.
|
| I would love shared filters on twitter. For instance, if I
| don't want to hear things about topic X, I can download a
| topic X filter that's community maintained that hides posts
| from troll accounts or keywords. You can mix and match
| filters. This is better than banning people. Is twitter
| going to allow back all those people that were banned for
| discussing lab theory?
| coldpie wrote:
| > Moderation is definitely important but moderation,
| apart from the obvious abuse and illegality, should be
| done on the smallest level possible.
|
| That's your opinion, and you're absolutely welcome to
| hold it. I understand that position, but I don't agree,
| and I would prefer a more strongly moderated platform.
| That's my opinion. If a platform has too little
| moderation for my tastes, I may choose to leave it, and
| that would be bad for an ad-based platform's
| profitability, not to mention network effects, etc. Given
| enough users (and employees!) who think like me, the
| platform has an incentive to perform stronger moderation.
|
| I think we should have more platforms to choose from, and
| maybe even require some kind of inter-operation between
| them. We should enforce existing anti-trust law on these
| big platforms, not try to force them to change their
| moderation policies.
| philistine wrote:
| Show me people banned for only discussing the lab theory.
| There was a global mistake in harshly categorizing the
| lab leak theory as wrong, but the people who were banned
| were banned because they used the theory (which it still
| is) to advance dangerous views that Twitter decided not
| to engage with.
|
| There's the word media in social media. A newspaper will
| carry a theory, but not an article using the theory to
| spuriously decry public health mesures.
| themitigating wrote:
| " apart from the obvious abuse.."
|
| "Banning someone from a platform for expressing an
| offensive view is not moderation"
|
| What if an offensive view creates abuse? Who defines
| obvious?
| bko wrote:
| Abuse is spam, doxxing, fraud, etc. Very narrow. I don't
| think this should include something like banning someone
| for saying "learn to code" because its a "targeted
| harassment campaign" [0]. However you can pose with the
| severed head of a sitting US president and that'll be
| okay and still standing up today [1] . Come on.
|
| [0] https://reason.com/2019/03/11/learn-to-code-twitter-
| harassme...
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/kathygriffin/status/1323893513226
| 870786
| simondotau wrote:
| Nearly all of the useful "moderation" on Twitter is _me
| choosing who I follow._ Some of it is me choosing who I
| block. Everything else is a rounding error by comparison.
| Or at least it _should be._ I 've no idea how involved
| Twitter's algorithms are in my experience and that scares
| me a little bit.
|
| I don't mind if Twitter wants to offer me their own opinion
| about which posts are bad and which people are bad, but I
| should be allowed to opt out of that. Better still, they
| could have multiple competing paid services offering
| filtering/blocking tailored to different themes. Paid--
| because if they have an economic incentive to satisfy their
| subscribers, they'll satisfy their subscribers. The problem
| with the free filtering done by Twitter today is that they
| have an economic incentive to satisfy their shareholders.
| fortran77 wrote:
| There are certain topics on twitter that if I say
| anything about them, even in passing, I'll get dozens of
| automated @ replies trying to spam something to me.
| Blocking accounts who use @ to spam would be an example
| of worthwhile moderation.
|
| On the other hand, blocking someone for making jokes
| about a celebrity's weight (which Twitter has done!), is
| something that, in my opinion, is an example of an
| overreach.
| simondotau wrote:
| The existence of spam is an immutable fact of any
| platform, the only question is how sophisticated they
| need to be to clear whatever hurdles are placed in front
| of them. Smarter filtering of spam will only lead to more
| sophisticated spammers.
| wokwokwok wrote:
| > Nearly all of the useful "moderation" on Twitter is me
| choosing who I follow. Some of it is me choosing who I
| block. Everything else is a rounding error by comparison.
| Or at least it should be.
|
| Not really.
|
| ...you appreciate the point being made by the parent post
| right?
|
| Unmoderated communities devolve, in practice, to porn,
| scams, flame wars and trolling. There's lots of evidence
| that's how things turn out.
|
| What you're after is _different_ moderation, not _no
| moderation_ ; what you see as excessive moderation can't
| be replaced with _no moderation_ without creating a clone
| of 4chan.
|
| So.. I guess.. just remember what you're asking for is
| actually a bad thing. What you actually want isn't what
| you're asking for; unless what you want is 4chan, in
| which case, you can just go hang out there instead of on
| twitter..
| simondotau wrote:
| For what it's worth, my day job is running a reasonably
| large discussion forum (whirlpool.net.au) which is
| relatively famous for its heavy-handed moderation. We
| aren't shy on banning people and we stamp down on trolls
| hard.
|
| But I don't see the parallel between that kind of
| moderation and a firehose like Twitter. My experience of
| twitter is almost entirely defined by the people I
| follow. Yes there's junk and the occasional troll, but
| I'm an adult capable of making observations about the
| properties of any "bad" content I might see. Expecting
| other people to sanitise my experience for me is
| unhealthy and doomed to failure.
| wokwokwok wrote:
| > My experience of twitter is almost entirely defined by
| the people I follow
|
| This is probably, broadly speaking, false.
|
| Maybe it was once true, and maybe it _should_ be true,
| but I guess it's more likely that most people (including
| you) see and interact with all the people you follow,
| interacting with all the people _they follow_ (retweets,
| etc.) interacting with all the people _they_ follow.
|
| 3 degrees of separation.
|
| If you never saw any tweets other than the _immediate
| people you follow_ tweeting _to each other_ , then
| perhaps... but, that's not how twitter works.
|
| ...and then on top of that, how did you end up following
| those people? Personal friends? Or perhaps, via twitters
| moderated hash tags?
|
| That's _different_ moderation, not _no moderation_.
|
| What you're describing is something closer to
| signal/WhatsApp groups; different, much less moderated
| personal groups. Sure. Good for what it is...
|
| There's an app for that; it's just not twitter.
| simondotau wrote:
| > Maybe it was once true, and maybe it should be true
|
| Which is pretty much exactly the point I was making in my
| original contribution to this thread.
|
| Yes to the degrees of separation. That's the point of
| following people--to be exposed to their curation. I
| followed many people because they were friends of
| friends; I've unfollowed many people because I wasn't
| impressed with the people they interacted with, even if I
| had no problem with them.
| spamizbad wrote:
| You raise a good point that does make me wonder: why isn't
| there more pressure from free speech advocates to liberalize
| moderation on HN?
| moduspol wrote:
| If the moderation here starts banning / shadow-banning /
| hiding prominent voices that run counter to HN's politics,
| they will.
| spamizbad wrote:
| Assuming the content is the same: why is censoring a
| prominent voice worse than censoring someone less well-
| known? Prominent voices inherently have greater platform
| access, professional clout, etc. Whereas lesser-known
| figures do not have such privileges and are therefor more
| greatly impacted by censorship.
| moduspol wrote:
| Prominence just makes it tougher for the platform to
| avoid ambiguity in their justifications. Some moderation
| is valid but other times it can be too much. None of us
| have the time to spend personally reviewing the claims of
| every contributor who feels like they were treated
| unfairly.
|
| We see this with Twitter now. People complain about
| various tweets being blocked, and there's always a "back-
| and-forth" about how Tweet A is against their guidelines
| but somehow Tweet B isn't. But when they outright ban
| (e.g.) Donald Trump, there's no ambiguity any more. The
| discussion moves beyond the minutia of spam / bot
| handling and into something more concrete.
|
| Though you're right: censorship of those with smaller
| voices is at least as problematic. We just all ultimately
| have limited resources available and focusing on the more
| clear-cut examples is more likely to be successful.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| I've not noticed a political slant to moderation here. The
| primary aim seems to just be keeping things civil.
| EL_Loco wrote:
| Because moderation here works quite well and they usually
| aren't the ones being moderated. Like someone wrote earlier
| in this thread, why aren't the free speech advocates using
| less HN to debate hacker/tech stuff and using more 8chan or
| something?
| bnralt wrote:
| > Because moderation here works quite well
|
| I think that probably stems mostly from Hacker News
| avoiding controversial subjects in general. When they do
| slip through, the moderation can be pretty bad,
| particularly when it comes to new accounts. I've seem
| innocuous comments shadowbanned for voicing fairly
| milquetoast heterodox opinions (with shadowbanning in
| general being a pretty unpleasant action). Usually that
| isn't an issue with accounts that have been here for a long
| time, but since Hacker News doesn't allow people to delete
| comments, you have to be comfortable with having that
| comment tied to you for decades to come (not always the
| safest thing in this environment).
|
| The whole thing ends up exerting a chilling effect on
| alternative opinions.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Relevant username ;)
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| This site self-selects. People who think the moderation is
| good stay, people who think it is bad leave. There are plenty
| of alternatives to this site, you can easily find one that
| suits your needs. It's not an effective monopoly like the big
| social media giants.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| As someone who sees dead comments, the moderation here is
| pretty damned good.
| P_I_Staker wrote:
| If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Discourse on HN is a breath
| of fresh air compared to reddit, where everything is a
| knockdown, dragout deathmatch.
| pwdisswordfish9 wrote:
| > Left alone user content rapidly devolves into the most low-
| effort salient content - flame wars, political proselytizing
| and porn, mostly.
|
| Polemics, porn, and politics
| LanceH wrote:
| It does become an issue of government censorship when the heads
| of these companies are hauled before congress with the threat
| of breakup or regulation, while simultaneously being questioned
| about the "incorrect" speech they allow on their platforms.
| parkingrift wrote:
| It is completely acceptable for you to choose to moderate your
| platform to only allow the content you choose.
|
| The caveat is that you should lose your 230 protections. We
| should only protect neutral, lawful, platforms from user
| generated content.
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| What if ISPs start really inspecting your traffic and then ban
| you when you start visiting certain sites they don't like? You
| going to say the same thing then especially when how ingrained
| the Internet has become in everyday life?
| chasd00 wrote:
| I'm surprised this hasn't already happened. If everyone's
| browsing history was published in the way everyone's opinion
| is published on twitter then I bet ISPs would be blocking
| sites left and right
| macspoofing wrote:
| >free speech in the sense of "everybody should be forced to
| platform every idea" is silly IMO.
|
| That's a red-herring. The debate isn't really about free speech
| rights on a private platform. 'Web-scale' platforms will always
| need a certain level of moderation. This debate is really about
| the who is within the Overton window and who isn't.
| Conservatives and certain parts of the Progressive Left want to
| be within this Overton window, while mainstream Democrats want
| to keep them out.
|
| Having said that, there is a related matter of government's
| indirect incursion into moderation policies of private social
| media companies, by way of use of executive and legislative
| threats, and what that actually means for constitutionally
| protected speech. Right now that part is ignored by the
| supporters of one political party because it serves their
| political goals.
| farmerstan wrote:
| It's not just the government. Companies like Twitter are so
| ubiquitous that they are a form of government entity now,
| especially when they enforce government talking points. When
| Twitter decides that talking about the lab leak theory gets you
| kicked off the platform, they are becoming nothing more than a
| government tool. This was the breaking point for Musk and for
| me as well.
|
| Not giving a "platform" to alternative views, no matter how
| "damaging" you or the government feels it is is crucial for a
| democracy.
| hwers wrote:
| I think we're not discussing the real point here which isn't
| whether "full completely unregulated free speech" should be the
| norm on twitter or not. Elon isn't proposing allowing CP or
| whatever the worst stuff you see on 8chan is. The battleground
| is simply in a much subtler grey area of idea space. Elon
| basically seems to think there's been push to disallow
| discussion about quite reasonable subjects (which indeed would
| have been allowed on HN too, e.g. covid vaccine pros and cons)
| and he'd like it to be allowed again.
|
| Note also that twitter is quite different from traditional
| forums in the way it's structured. You follow people, you can
| block people. The analogy to traditional forums needing
| moderation isn't really one-to-one.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| Indeed.
|
| The subtle point is that the public forum cannot be owned,
| and that while the public forum is subject to the law, no one
| can moderate its content.
|
| What has effectively happened is that the public forum has
| arisen in the cyberspace. We were not prepared for that since
| that has never happened.
|
| If the govt hired a contractor to oversee a public good, the
| contractor could not decide who was allowed in or not, or who
| was allowed to speak, that wouldn't fly under the law.
|
| Some of the large platforms have (accidentally?) come to own
| the commons. They cant exercise control just like any other
| standard property, while the commons are still subject to the
| law of the land.
|
| Instead of a blanket statement like "my property, my rules"
| we should be working to define the commons. That is a valid
| debate. We can debate that definition, which is similar to
| "what constitutes a monopoly?"
| bavell wrote:
| This is the correct perspective imo. Our tech has outpaced
| our laws. We as a society need to rethink how we operate
| and move forward with these new technologies without being
| buried under the wave of change they bring.
|
| Section 230 was our first attempt and it has served us
| decently. I think it's time for a tune-up with a fresh
| perspective now that we have a few decades of experience
| under our belt.
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| Pretty sure you can discuss cons of vaccinations as long as
| you don't delve into conspiracy theories / claims without
| scientific backing.
|
| Edit: But I do recall the COVID origin discussion being quite
| a censorship trainwreck.
| hwers wrote:
| Making claims without scientific backing probably shouldn't
| be a bannable offence. The spirit of science is about
| discussion and counter arguments and being open to being
| wrong or even the idea that the consensus might be invalid,
| not about coercion.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _spirit of science is about discussion and counter
| arguments and being open to being wrong or even the idea
| that the consensus might be invalid_
|
| I have seen very few antivax arguments made in the spirit
| of science. Those that were got repeated lacking the
| original comment's nuance.
|
| Keep in mind that the spirit of science was developed
| with the gates of wealth, literacy and education in mind.
| Remove those, add in anonymity, or even pseudonymity, and
| the system veers towards chaos. We are far more open,
| today, than the Enlightenment-era West was. That requires
| new tools and guardrails. (What this discussion, broadly,
| is about.)
| scurraorbis wrote:
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Well now you're just making a "no true vaccine
| skepticism" argument. We heard concerns about massive
| increases in blood clots, in infertility, that it would
| kill more people than covid, that it changed your DNA,
| that it increased rates of miscarriage, a ton of wild and
| crazy things and even more mundane things like because
| you could still get COVID afterwards the shot was
| worthless. You can't just say "well, us REAL sceptics
| (sic) only believed a and b, but not c-z, therefore all
| the skepticism was correct."
| simondotau wrote:
| Indeed. The only way any of the sceptics' claims have
| even a sliver of validity is as a _motte-and-bailey
| fallacy_ of their original claims. For example, the claim
| that the vaccine doesn 't work morphed into the claim
| that the vaccine doesn't stop transmission--a claim which
| wasn't even true until the delta strain showed up.
| Omicron has been a substantial challenge to vaccine
| efficacy (vaccines which, it's important to remember, are
| still only tuned to wild type COVID-19) but they're still
| providing significant protection as proven in large scale
| statistics.
| scurraorbis wrote:
| simondotau wrote:
| https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/15034206608692142
| 13?...
|
| End of story.
| scurraorbis wrote:
| scurraorbis wrote:
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I certainly can't address all your points as we're
| quickly spiraling into incomprehensibility, but I don't
| think it's unfair to say that for the majority of those
| points as "there's at least a small chance they are
| possible". That doesn't warrant a victory lap as any sort
| of triumph of the skeptical viewpoint. You've shifted
| your argument from your doubts have been proven true to
| your doubts still existing, which is incredibly fitting
| for the your initial argument and vaccine skepticism in
| general.
| scurraorbis wrote:
| Incomprehensibility? Where exactly is what I write
| incomprehensible? And the response to not understanding
| some points is that you don't address any points and
| declare victory? That's bad faith.
|
| Meanwhile my post fades into grey soon to be invisible
| and then the next person like you can claim that they
| just don't see those science-minded vaccine skepticism
| comments / posts.
|
| > You've shifted your argument from your doubts have been
| proven true
|
| No, that's not what I did. I showed that there is
| actually evidence for each of the points you brought up.
| bavell wrote:
| Keep in mind, Merriam-Webster changed the definition of
| 'anti-vax' to include being against vaccine mandates [0].
| So if you are against mandatory COVID vaccines for 5 year
| olds, you are technically an 'antivaxer'.
|
| I don't know how many people have gotten banned over this
| (though I'd guess nonzero) but it shows just how easy it
| is to fall under the new draconian speech policies
| enacted by the majority of social media.
|
| [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anti-
| vaxxer
| scurraorbis wrote:
| People get banned from yt and twitter for quoting
| scientific papers that don't align with "the message". In
| fact it's been yts official policy since mid 2020 to ban
| anything COVID that doesn't conform to what the WHO is
| saying.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| Thats _supposed_ to be how it works, but in reality the
| decisions skew much more towards 'that person disagrees
| with what I personally believe, so ban'
| LMYahooTFY wrote:
| You're arguing as if "platforms" exist in a vacuum, sealed off
| from the the 'free expression area'.
|
| How much do you think Twitter matters?
| jdrc wrote:
| what brought people here was not the moderation, but the
| (perceived) access to SV people and capital
| core-utility wrote:
| I think the large issue with some of these major platforms is
| that there's some pretty transparent government "suggestion"
| into these platforms regulating speech that the government
| doesn't like. It's along the lines of "take care of this or
| you'll be getting some "help" with your taxes, stocks, etc."
| kodah wrote:
| I think this topic is a little messier than how you put it.
|
| 4chan's /b/ is the same exact place that:
|
| - posted racist, misogynist, misandrist, and shocking porn
|
| - stood up to scientology
|
| - acted as an obfuscator for anonymous
|
| - led raids on other communities
|
| A normal person can pick the things out of that list they don't
| want and say "be gone". The problem is, the other things on
| that list don't exist without it. This is generally the
| allegory and type of connection that keeps our idea of
| "government free speech" tied somewhat closely with (what I
| call) "personal free speech".
|
| On the other hand, I moderate smaller communities than /b/ (and
| other large forums) and I agree, in these smaller settings
| there are left and right political grifters, there's content
| that will cause people to leave or backlash, and endless
| personal disputes that must be mediated.
|
| The problems between my small communities (a couple thousand)
| and large forums (hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions)
| are very different, and they serve a very different purpose in
| the larger ecosystem of communication that I think is difficult
| to quantify.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > "everybody should be forced to platform every idea"
|
| Not everybody should have to, but the behemoths that are the
| only thing that resembles a public square today, e.g.,
| Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit, should have to.
| rubyfan wrote:
| 100% agree. Freedom of speech protects you _from_ government.
| The idea that government should compel commercial or private
| entities to give all voices a megaphone is misguided.
| dmix wrote:
| Free speech is a cultural phenomenon in _addition_ to a
| constitutional policy.
|
| Everyone wants to reduce everything to laws for some reason
| when the whole reason they are laws is because we value them
| culturally. The law is a last resort. We shouldn't be setting
| societal boundaries merely on extreme limits of law.
|
| Trying to fix these cultural issues at gunpoint via courts is
| no better than trying to fix culture via censorship and
| social isolation.
| vsareto wrote:
| There is this constant borrowing of justification from the
| constitutional/legal side to argue that companies should
| moderate their platforms in a particular way.
|
| Then there is just a marketing angle of saying you're free
| speech to pull users from the platform that you think is
| against free speech.
|
| The whole thing feels really shaky as a genuine movement
| and feels more like regulating companies they don't like.
| alecbz wrote:
| This (the Musk thing) isn't about that though, right? It's
| just him wanting the platform to be more open, not wanting
| the government to require that any particular platform be
| open.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| >This (the Musk thing) isn't about that though, right? It's
| just him wanting the platform to be more open, not wanting
| the government to require that any particular platform be
| open.
|
| What is Musk's definition of open? How is that any better
| than the status quo? Because your bias happens to overlap
| with Musk's? Given his treatment of whistleblowers and
| employees at his current companies it's not at all clear
| that he actually values openness and free speech.
| detcader wrote:
| Which user in the chain of comments above is arguing that
| "government should compel commercial or private entities to
| give all voices a megaphone"?
| bko wrote:
| What about if the government tells private platforms what
| speech is acceptable, going so far as flagging "problematic"
| posts?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _What about if the government tells private platforms
| what speech is acceptable, going so far as flagging
| "problematic" posts?_
|
| Then it would be a clearly different situation.
| bko wrote:
| > Biden administration 'flagging problematic posts for
| Facebook,' Psaki says
|
| If you think that social medias speech policies are
| developed in a vacuum from influence from politicians,
| then you're mistaken. How could it be? Imagine being a
| CEO and getting dragged in front of Congress every 6
| months to explain yourself. Or politicians calling your
| platform a threat to democracy and threatening to break
| you up. You think that would have no impact on your
| speech policies?
|
| What would government restriction on speech look like if
| not soft (effective) influence on big media companies?
|
| https://news.yahoo.com/biden-administration-flagging-
| problem...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _if you think that social medias speech policies are
| developed in a vacuum from influence from politicians_
|
| Moving the goalpost. Nobody claimed private companies
| should _ignore_ government sources.
|
| You asked about "the government tell[ing] private
| platforms what speech is acceptable." That would be a
| First Amendment violation.
|
| > _What would government restriction on speech look like
| if not soft (effective) influence on big media
| companies?_
|
| Flippantly: Russia.
|
| Less flippantly: freedoms exist in balance. Taking an
| absolutist stance on individual speech curtails freedom
| of association. In practice, I suspect it will make most
| social media unusable in its current form. (Which may be
| for the worst.)
| xienze wrote:
| > Moving the goalpost. Nobody claimed private companies
| should ignore government sources.
|
| You asked about "the government tell[ing] private
| platforms what speech is acceptable." That would be a
| First Amendment violation.
|
| You saw the parent's linked article about the White House
| flagging posts for Facebook, right? Are you trying to
| make the argument that it's OK if the government
| "suggests" what Facebook/Twitter should do with posts on
| their platform, but they're only crossing the line if
| they _make_ Facebook/Twitter flag certain posts? I think
| it's a distinction without difference. The usual scenario
| I give people in this situation is, how would your view
| on this change if Trump "suggested" how Facebook could
| flag certain posts and then Facebook followed through
| with it. No demands, just "suggestions." Still OK with
| this relationship between the government and a private
| company?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Are you trying to make the argument that it 's OK if
| the government "suggests" what Facebook/Twitter should do
| with posts on their platform, but they're only crossing
| the line if they _make_ Facebook/Twitter flag certain
| posts?_
|
| No. Nobody was. That's why it was moving the goalpost
| [1].
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts
| enchiridion wrote:
| That's what the first amendment does.
|
| Free speech is a fundamental human right, outside of any
| document.
| themitigating wrote:
| Since that's not part of any document it's your opinion as
| to what "Free speech" is and if it's a human right
| P_I_Staker wrote:
| I don't. I agree approximately 60-85%. The reality is that
| big media companies can shape information. This has been
| going on for years and arguably had a role in getting us into
| the war in Iraq.
|
| Either way, we are shaping the landscape of free speech, when
| that's how the vast majority of communication, discussion and
| organizing happens.
|
| That said, I don't know how someone looks at the history of
| reddit and still wants uncheck free speech.
| nottorp wrote:
| That was before global social networking. Now if you're not
| on the big platforms your opinion may as well not exist.
|
| "Oligopoly".
|
| With the added problem that the big platforms are all subject
| to US "moral" censorship. Which a takeover by Musk won't fix.
| frob wrote:
| > Now if you're not on the big platforms your opinion may
| as well not exist.
|
| I'm no so sure about that. Since leaving social media, I've
| become quite involved in local politics. I now know some
| state legislators on a first-name basis and multiple
| directors of state departments in multiple states. I can
| call up people I've helped get elected and get my thoughts
| right to them. I find my opinion to effect much more change
| than it did when I was shouting into the digital void.
| nottorp wrote:
| > I can call up people I've helped get elected and get my
| thoughts right to them.
|
| How about regular citizens who voted for those people but
| didn't "help them get elected"? Do they get to voice
| their opinions? Or what you're saying is that your
| politicians only serve those who directly donated
| resources (time is a resource) to them? Even though they
| should theoretically serve their whole constituency?
| frob wrote:
| They absolutely do. The vast majority of the events I
| interact with these people at are open to the public with
| announcements in local news papers. They have dedicated
| communication channels. The last person I helped spent
| every Saturday for two months hanging out at the town
| dump to meet people and hear their concerns. He is
| planning on making it a monthly event going forward. It
| can be amazing how empty town, village, and county board
| meetings are. Show up, state your opinion in a respectful
| manner, come prepared with an informed argument, and take
| the time to chat with people afterwards. They'll remember
| you and if you have a consistent track record of being
| level-headed and productive, you can start to carry some
| real influence.
|
| Like much in life, half the battle is just showing up.
| jcranmer wrote:
| If you can't be bothered to contact your representative,
| how does your representative know your opinion?
|
| You don't need social media to inform your representative
| of your opinions--and quite frankly, more direct
| communication is probably _more effective_ in informing
| your representative of your opinions than social media.
| deelly wrote:
| > Since leaving social media
|
| Oh, irony..
| jameshart wrote:
| Are you somehow under the impression that having your
| opinion published on Twitter is the same as having your
| opinion _matter_?
| EL_Loco wrote:
| >Now if you're not on the big platforms your opinion may as
| well not exist.
|
| This view somewhat misses the point. If you get on the big
| platforms and become famous, TODAY, you might have an
| opinion that matters to quite a few people. What about
| BEFORE? What platform were the big youtubers using in 2002?
| The big instagram influencers, where were their voices
| being heard in 1998? Paraphrasing you, "their opinions
| didn't exist".
| smachiz wrote:
| The "Big Platforms" used to be newspapers, and then TV....
| there has always been editing and curation.
|
| Social Media actually was a huge "democratization" of the
| ability to give a very large voice to some very minority
| views.
|
| Previously we had subjective - but real - barriers to
| having a voice.
| themitigating wrote:
| Before global social media there were newspapers, TV
| networks, and books. If you weren't on them, which was much
| harder to get on, your opinion didn't matter
| lolinder wrote:
| > Now if you're not on the big platforms your opinion may
| as well not exist.
|
| As someone who lives in a deep red state, I can tell you
| that the banning of various alt-right voices from
| mainstream social media has amplified their appeal among
| those inclined to listen, not eliminated it. There are
| plenty of channels for sharing your ideas besides Facebook
| and Twitter, and they use them.
| samstave wrote:
| (Not related to FB's META)
|
| --
|
| But we live in a Meta-gopoly. Basically a control system by
| pseudo-chosen monopolies in various verticals that are all
| run by NGOs, but in bed with GOs.... with a revolving door
| of influence.
|
| Look at the revolving door between FB and the NSA, or the
| fact that Amazon is building, running GovCloud, or that the
| CEO owns one of the big media firms, and that he is able to
| get clearance for satellites and rocket launches...
|
| The non-existent lines between global corporate influence
| and which governments either benefit or suffer from the
| tech reach is quite disturbing.
| ss108 wrote:
| TIL that, despite the fact that I vote and write and
| discuss things with my friends, my opinion doesn't exist
| because I don't share it on Twitter or Facebook.
|
| come on man
| coldpie wrote:
| The solution to that is to break up big companies, not
| compel them to platform hate speech.
| Xylakant wrote:
| What about the people that get pushed off those large
| platforms through constant abuse, threats and trolling? Do
| their opinions not matter? Or more general: at what point
| does an utterance stop being an opinion and start being
| assault?
| [deleted]
| bogantech wrote:
| > at what point does an utterance stop being an opinion
| and start being assault?
|
| At the point defined by the letter of the law
| fortran77 wrote:
| > At the point defined by the letter of the law
|
| Well, then, it's interesting that Spike Lee's comments
| were judged to be threatening harassment (he settled
| after legal action was taken against him and a judge
| ruled the case could proceed), yet he was never banned or
| removed from twitter.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/nov/12/spike-lee-
| sued-...
|
| Let me be clear, this isn't about the Martin case -- this
| is about an uninvolved person who had nothing to do with
| the case at all being singled out for harassment by Spike
| Lee. And @Jack thought it was just fine. This isn't about
| supporting some stealth agenda; it's about not telling a
| posse to attack some innocent old man.
| Xylakant wrote:
| Which law? US law? German law? Chinese law?
|
| What about cases where the defendant can't pony up the
| money to sue? What about cases where the defendant has no
| viable way to sue in the US, where the social media
| networks mostly reside?
| bogantech wrote:
| > Which law? US law? German law? Chinese law? That
| depends on where the abuser is I guess?
|
| > What about cases where the defendant can't pony up the
| money to sue?
|
| You don't sue abusers and people who send you death
| threats you report them to the police
| Xylakant wrote:
| The police will do fuck nothing - if you excuse my
| language.
| zackees wrote:
| basisword wrote:
| >> Now if you're not on the big platforms your opinion may
| as well not exist.
|
| Before global social networks your opinion didn't matter
| either. And that was probably a good thing. People are
| entitled to their opinions but most peoples opinions are
| idiotic and shouldn't be broadcast around the world to be
| picked up and amplified by other idiots.
| nottorp wrote:
| >>> Now if you're not on the big platforms your opinion
| may as well not exist.
|
| > Before global social networks your opinion didn't
| matter either. And that was probably a good thing. People
| are entitled to their opinions but most peoples opinions
| are idiotic and shouldn't be broadcast around the world
| to be picked up and amplified by other idiots.
|
| Oh but who decides what opinions are idiotic? This is how
| the idea of free speech emerged :)
| smcl wrote:
| > Oh but who decides what opinions are idiotic?
|
| I'll gladly clear this one up for you. It is: whoever
| decided the T&Cs of the platform you're using - the ones
| you agreed to when you signed up.
|
| If you're banned from Twitter for posting white
| supremacist hate speech, paedophilia, for organizing
| targetted harrassment or anything else Twitter deems
| contrary to their T&Cs remember that (depending on where
| you live) while you may have the right to express
| yourself, I have the right as the operator of a platform
| not to listen to you or have you on my platform.
|
| What most of the people whining about being booted from
| Twitter are upset about is that they aren't able to annoy
| the people they want to anymore. I'm fine with this.
| wussboy wrote:
| Deleted by me
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _who decides what opinions are idiotic?_
|
| This is a valid question. The answer is clearly not a
| firehose--free speech absolutist forums are selected
| against by users for the toxic pits they devolve into.
|
| Multiple forums and the gating mechanisms of wealth and
| literacy were the Enlightenment era's filters. We don't
| want nor have those any more.
| ohwellhere wrote:
| The question is further interesting because social media
| already tried to answer it: you do, for yourself!
|
| At scale, with naive ML clustering algorithms that also
| prioritize engagement... that devolves into bubbles.
|
| (I think that's still the right answer, but the
| implementations need work.)
| BrianOnHN wrote:
| Do both democratic and meritocratic methods of polling
| suggest the opinion is harmful? Delete.
|
| Otherwise it stays until consensus.
|
| The edge cases pale in comparison to the broadly accepted
| manipulation of a near-majority. And furthermore compared
| to the point-of-no-return where the majority is
| sufficiently manipulated.
|
| Edit: downstream comments emphasizing the edge cases
| must've missed my last paragraph. The improvement only
| has to be better than doing nothing. Right now doing
| nothing is arguably acutely affecting almost 50% of the
| US population. No way the edge cases add up to that.
| nradov wrote:
| Should the majority be able to suppress the speech of
| minorities when they express unpopular opinions on, let's
| say, civil rights and equality? What is meritocratic
| polling and who specifically gets to evaluate merit?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _democratic and meritocratic methods of polling suggest
| the opinion is harmful? Delete._
|
| This is, in essence, selecting for experts spouting
| popular opinions. That's a dangerous incentive model.
| (All before we even get to the question of delineating
| the experts.)
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| it's almost as dangerous as non-experts spouting bad,
| counterfactual objective claims and pretending they are
| experts
| pigeonhole123 wrote:
| Which doesn't sound very dangerous to me
| monkey_monkey wrote:
| Except that in the last 12 months, people have literally
| died because they believed non-experts creating and
| amplifying anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.
|
| 'I wish I'd been jabbed'...
| BrianOnHN wrote:
| Thanks for this.
|
| It's like, other people would rather ignore reality, life
| and death, than budge on their uneducated opinions.
|
| Ego is the enemy.
| [deleted]
| samstave wrote:
| What a stupid and idiotic question! Why would you even
| think to ask such a thing?! I'll have you know that _my
| understanding_ of the situation is so much more evolved
| than yours, because I saw a headline referring to an
| article on another site that said that my assumption with
| no data is correct, as dictated by my emotions being
| reinforced with the multitude of soundbites affirming my
| smugness in my perceived expertise based on my OWN
| research!
| lubesGordi wrote:
| If I were to get on twitter right now and start posting
| my opinions, no one would give a shit. There's something
| else going on that is promoting polarizing opinions and
| making these forums devolve.
| basisword wrote:
| I think it's monetisation. In the past, monetising your
| opinion was difficult. It was limited to a select few who
| could get on the TV or in the print media. Now, people
| are incentivised to say things which will generate
| controversy because eyeballs == money. If you got on
| Twitter and started posting polarising opinions and
| worked on promoting those eventually the engagement will
| (possibly) reach a point where you can gain financially
| from it and you're now incentivised to continue posting
| polarising content. The content doesn't even need to be
| ethically right/wrong, it just needs to make one group of
| people angry and another defensive. There are plenty of
| things we need to have a debate about as a society
| (because they are not black/white and require nuance to
| solve) but they will never get solved properly because
| both sides refuse to discuss the issue.
| programmarchy wrote:
| The government grants charters to corporations. Corporations
| are thus franchisees of the state. The idea that corporations
| are sovereign rule makers for society and not bound to the
| laws of the land is misguided.
|
| If the government charters corporations that suppress free
| speech, then they are effectively making a law that abridges
| free speech.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| The complete merger of the 'private economy' and the 'state
| government' is a defining feature of both fascism and
| communism across the 20th century. Such relationships already
| exist to a large extent across the USA and Europe, notably
| defense contractors and their government partners, but also
| increasingly you see corporate media intertwined with state
| power as well.
| radu_floricica wrote:
| Some private enterprises are treated like government services
| and regulated as such. Utilities, for example. I doubt there
| are many countries where the electricity company can fire a
| paying client. The key is not who manages or owns the business,
| but whether it's a commons platform - something needed to
| function in society.
|
| So yeah, there's a pretty strong case to be made that certain
| internet companies are like that. Can you survive without
| social media? Sure, but you can also survive without sewer.
| It's just a lot harder to live a normal life.
| atourgates wrote:
| In those cases the solution isn't to force those companies to
| moderate their content differently, but to prevent them from
| becoming de-facto monopolies.
|
| The popularity of Twitter, Facebook, Amazon and Google's core
| products isn't the issue. The issue is that any time a
| successful competitor comes up, they can just buy them out.
|
| Imagine if Facebook wasn't able to buy Instagram, and it had
| survived as a competing platform?
|
| There's no need to apply the concept of "free speech" to
| private companies. There is every need to regulate monopolies
| so that a handful of tech giants don't have the power to
| effectively suppress content across the majority of the
| outlets people are using every day.
| Grazester wrote:
| If I didn't have a sewer in my city they would throw their
| shit on the streets like they did 150 years ago. If I didn't
| have social media absolutely nothing happens. It doesn't
| become a public safety issue...in fact the public will be
| better off for it.
| cycomanic wrote:
| So would you be happy to see ISIS recruiting videos in your
| feeds? What about your children's? I would consider the calls
| for free speech much more believable if they had been made
| when ISIS accounts were blocked. However, people only started
| calling out when it affected white supremacists or conspiracy
| theories popular with a portion of the white conservative
| constituency.
|
| This tells me that most people are quite happy with limits on
| free speech, just not "their side".
| jliptzin wrote:
| Comparing social media to sewage is appropriate because they
| are both filled with shit, not because they are both
| essential to living a normal life.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| I know plenty of people who don't have Twitter accounts and
| live extremely normal lives. Can you say the same thing about
| electricity?
| moduspol wrote:
| > I know plenty of people who don't have Twitter accounts
| and live extremely normal lives.
|
| Even this I'd say is a stretch. If they're consuming any
| kind of news or contemporary entertainment, Twitter is
| absolutely impacting their lives. The degree to which it
| quickly propagates groupthink and shared narratives is
| difficult to overstate.
| [deleted]
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Do you think pre-Internet mass media -- one-way
| communication from corporation to consumer -- does _not_
| propagate groupthink and shared narratives?
|
| We live in a society, so of course popular things will
| have nth-order effects on everyone's lives. TikTok,
| Facebook, Fox News, the New York Times, Disney, Nintendo,
| Steam, Itch, Bandcamp, your friend's podcast. It's
| extremely unclear to me why Twitter should be singled out
| here.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| Size. Market penetration of Twitter is orders of
| magnitude above that of Nintendo or your friend. You
| should rather ask: how does influence scale relative to
| size?
| moduspol wrote:
| > Do you think pre-Internet mass media -- one-way
| communication from corporation to consumer -- does not
| propagate groupthink and shared narratives?
|
| It certainly did, but not as quickly, and not in a
| separate channel from the media itself.
|
| Put bluntly: today's journalists, entertainers, and
| influencers can very quickly arrive at the same
| (sometimes factually incorrect) narrative through
| following the same in-group of people on Twitter, which
| then results in "real" news, entertainment, and other
| media being produced that share the same groupthink and
| narrative. This can happen in hours, even minutes.
|
| But it's not clear to your average consumer that what's
| dictating the stories on nightly news, Saturday Night
| Live, or the late night shows is actually Twitter, and
| the ease with which the same people can create the same
| bubbles without explicitly coordinating.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| Not long ago twitter, telephony/mobiles and electricity
| didn't exist, and people lived normal lives - but over time
| "normal" is redefined.
|
| The issue isn't twitter, but online discourse in general,
| and what happens when it becomes "normal". There is also an
| issue of choice - it is normal _not_ to read books, as many
| people do not; yet I wouldn 't accept this means you can
| deprive people who want to read of a library.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| The post you are responding to was talking about today,
| now, not "not long ago". Today, now, not having twitter
| is totally normal.
|
| If you think it might be a necessity in the future, then
| we can talk about it then, if you're right.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| By "then" it might be too late - lots of discussions
| leverage "too late to change now". This is how climate
| change is in such a horrible state.
|
| Also, who says when we "are there"? Maybe we are already?
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| I don't think it's worth entertaining every
| prognostication on the off chance that it may eventually
| one day be true.
|
| As you mentioned, some of them have a convincing case
| behind them, though, like climate change. Those are worth
| entertaining, IMO
| Chris2048 wrote:
| The implication here is that this doesn't have a
| convincing case behind it? Then when _would_ you act?
| There are already plenty of monopolies and "lobbies" in
| America on the basis of the same efficiency (not acting
| until it's a "problem") - maybe proactive caution around
| big business should be the norm given all the historical
| abuses, from beef to chemicals to medicine to tobacco?
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Right, and not long before that didn't have electricity
| before too. In 2022 in the US, living without electricity
| is very abnormal. Living without Twitter is... not.
|
| If your issue is online discourse in general, then we're
| in a good place: it's very easy to set up your own
| website and distribute whatever content you want without
| needing permission from corporations.
| rvr_ wrote:
| Me too. But they have FB accounts, IG accounts, TikTok
| accounts and so on. The share of people without any kind of
| social media presence or consumption is shrinking everyday.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Sure. So do we make _all_ of those "public squares"? How
| many "public squares" can we have before it becomes clear
| that they're not?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| Really? That question is presuming the outcome and has no
| place in a good faith discussion.
| recursive wrote:
| Does HN count as social media? If not, I haven't used
| social media in some years. And to see me on the street,
| you wouldn't even know I'm a weirdo.
| romeros wrote:
| Google, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Twitter are all
| private entities. Let's say they don't like the Democratic
| party. They can single handedly cause a media block out and
| be able to unfairly influence the elections, view of the
| world etc. You won't be able to find a single search result
| or a speech or tweet.
|
| In this context we can't afford to treat these companies as
| private entities. They should not be able to block/ban
| whoever they want just because they feel threatened and
| challenged by their views.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| You say "single handedly", but you just named five
| different services by three different companies. Do you
| see the problem here?
|
| Are all the radios broken? Do newspapers not exist? Has
| TV vanished? Fox News alone has millions of viewers every
| week. There are hundreds of other outlets from which
| people get their news.
|
| You really think Twitter can unilaterally erase something
| from public consciousness?
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the majority of
| those companies already did that with the Hunter Biden
| laptop story.
|
| If only Fox News is covering something and you're not
| allowed to talk about it on Twitter, Facebook, etc. then
| there's no effective way for it to reach everyone who
| doesn't watch Fox.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Right, which is fine. I don't watch Fox because I don't
| like the content Fox produces. You seem to be interested
| in turning Twitter into some sort of firehose wherein I'm
| _forced_ to consume Fox content anyway.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| This is taking away the very obvious point: at some
| point, lack of participation alone is seen as a sign of
| nonconformity. Which itself has caused enough issues for
| individuals while at least "making it seem" as if the
| majority are okay with the status quo.
|
| It's one thing to be denied access to these platforms.
| It's another thing entirely to see a specific opinion
| pushed on the young and the less critical, trickling down
| to actual demands, rules and restrictions. These
| platforms are powerful enough to do so. You can find many
| examples of misinformation translating to demands in CS
| and IT alone, and these are still relatively harmless.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| "single-handedly" is a red herring. None of the listed
| entities needs to band up with another to have a great
| effect on political or social outcomes.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| You're moving the goalposts. There are plenty of entities
| that can unilaterally have that great effect. That
| doesn't mean they're so vital to public wellbeing that
| the government needs to take them over or whatever it is
| we're talking about.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| I didn't set the goalposts :) I just noticed that there
| is a miscommunication.
|
| The miscommunication is that you presume "That doesn't
| mean", whereas the whole discussion is about whether
| that's desired or not.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| I actually don't think giant corporations are desirable.
| But that's not the discussion people are having here.
| They're claiming that Twitter is so indispensable, so
| woven into the fabric of everyday life that it's
| tantamount to a public utility, like electricity or
| sewage.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| Which is a perfectly reasonable claim. Rejecting it out
| of hand doesn't make anyone wiser.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Okay, but you're acting as though it's _the same claim_
| as "Twitter has a lot of power".
|
| I've explained my reasoning against the utility claim. If
| you want to defend it, do so. It might be reasonable, but
| you haven't offered anything other than substituting it
| with a different argument.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| It's not the same claim as being indispensible, but it's
| the same claim as being extremely vowen into everyday
| life. I think that claim reflects what is actually being
| discussed better. What I offer is not a defense of the
| claim, but a request to consider the claim seriously.
|
| In the public utility metaphor, utilities were not
| defined until they became defined. There's no reason to
| discount a possible category of "utilithing" that shares
| some properties with the existing one but not others.
|
| It might be that I missed your explanation (was it in a
| sibling thread?), but in this thread I don't see a
| consideration for that idea. "They are not so vital" is
| not an argument against it, but your personal value
| judgement.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| It's in my root comment in this thread. I'm not giving my
| personal value judgment -- it's the value judgment of the
| ~75% of adults in the US who don't use Twitter. It's a
| real stretch to say that something less than a quarter of
| the population uses is "vital" for everyday life. How
| many Americans do you think go a month without
| electricity or sewage?
| the_doctah wrote:
| And there's already clear evidence of collusion to censor
| certain entities between those companies. It's hardly a
| "what if?" scenario.
| danShumway wrote:
| > So yeah, there's a pretty strong case to be made that
| certain internet companies are like that. Can you survive
| without social media? Sure, but you can also survive without
| sewer. It's just a lot harder to live a normal life.
|
| Holy crud, then break them up if they're that powerful. The
| right to private moderation is part of the 1st Amendment and
| should only be abridged in very specific circumstances; don't
| get rid of the 1st Amendment just because you're scared of
| Facebook's lobby arm.
|
| There are lots of platforms other than Twitter/Facebook.
| Anti-monopoly regulation against tech companies has
| reasonably wide bipartisan support in the US. We also have
| more evidence nowadays that social media doesn't necessarily
| have to result in natural monopolies. There are so many
| things we could do rather than significantly abridge people's
| rights to free association.
|
| - The government could dump monetary grants into
| Mastodon/Matrix or otherwise subsidize federated/self-hosted
| alternatives the same way that we've subsidized renewable
| energy.
|
| - The government could stop allowing purchases by these tech
| giants in general.
|
| - The government could split up Facebook/Instagram/Horizon.
|
| - The government could push for more open app policies on
| stores or regulate sideloading (seriously, the amount of
| pushback this idea gets as a violation of Apple's rights,
| compared to the amount of support for _regulating social
| network moderation_ is wild to me. Both of those are an
| interference in private rights, but one of those things is
| also a significantly bigger restriction of 1st Amendment
| rights than the other).
|
| - The government could force open APIs between services
| (Europe is trying to do this, we'll see whether or not they
| get it right).
|
| - If that's too much interference into the market, the
| government could explicitly legalize adversarial
| interoperability and revise the CFAA to make it easier to
| scrape websites.
|
| - Then there's an entire conversation to be had about payment
| systems online and why we have some of the market forces that
| we do have around monetizing eyeballs and paying for content.
|
| ----
|
| But to immediately jump to treating Facebook as a public
| utility -- not only is that a really drastic step with a lot
| of 1st Amendment implications, it's also kind of a depressing
| step because it assumes we couldn't make better social
| networks than Facebook/Twitter, and I absolutely believe we
| could. It's depressing to think that we can't ever move past
| them and the only thing we could do is just try to reduce one
| specific problem that they have.
|
| I don't want Facebook to be an essential service; even if
| they didn't censor anything I don't want to use Facebook. I
| don't really care what their moderation policy is. I hate
| almost everything about the website; I want alternatives, not
| a more regulated monopoly. I don't even like the ad-supported
| model in the first place, I think that monetizing attention
| is antithetical to creating a good social network.
| glenstein wrote:
| >The government could dump monetary grants into
| Mastodon/Matrix or otherwise subsidize federated/self-
| hosted alternatives the same way that we've subsidized
| renewable energy.
|
| As one example, France has generous tax deductions that
| effectively triple the value of your contribution for
| places like Framasoft, although it's not necessarily
| targeted just at free software.
| ohwellhere wrote:
| I completely agree with you in the abstract, but I worry
| primarily about this chain of causality:
|
| Network effects -> market forces -> political will
|
| I think splitting up these giants is supremely important,
| but the only healthy approach long term is to require open
| APIs for cross-service interoperability. This is the only
| solution to separate network effects from market forces.
|
| It's not unreasonable to want to be able to communicate
| with your friends, family, and brands you like in a
| convenient way.
|
| _Either_ you require interoperability so that people can
| separate their (real) social networks from their choice of
| technological-implementation, _or_ you allow things to grow
| unbounded such that they become de facto utilities.
| danShumway wrote:
| Longer conversation than I'm willing to go into here, and
| I assume that you already know this anyway, but this is a
| point that Cory Doctorow pushes a lot. His take is that
| sites like Facebook in particular got where they are
| because they were able to scrape and remotely manage
| other sites, and that after they rose to dominance (among
| other things like buying competitors) they also pushed to
| shut down a lot of those systems and make it harder to do
| what they did.
|
| I'm interested in seeing how EU legislation works out
| here. I tend to sometimes be relatively skeptical about
| EU legislation because I think the final results tend to
| miss the mark or get compromised or have side-effects,
| but I have seen a lot of people that I respect a lot say
| that this legislation is good, so I'm really curious to
| see what happens with it.
|
| I don't personally think that network effects are the
| only thing that's factoring into current tech dominance
| -- my evidence for that is that Facebook has had to buy
| competitors before, and I don't think they would have
| felt that threat if they were confident in network
| effects alone to save them. I've also gone through enough
| internal emails from the various leaks from Facebook to
| where I can see some the anti-competitive strategies they
| tried that (in my mind) were in a very different category
| than just locking down an API. But network effects are
| certainly an important part of the puzzle, and even
| ignoring the market, having more user agency to remotely
| control accounts and build/use their own clients for
| services is (in my opinion) a really important part of
| individual freedom, so I'm all for improvements in that
| area.
|
| And highly agreed, the problem with Facebook is not that
| people want to talk to friends and family. I don't think
| that people's instincts to be connected to each other
| should be treated as something that's unreasonable or
| bad.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| I actually agree with the Mastodon/Matrix/federated
| approach, I'd just be worried about hosting/network
| neutrality. There is also a bit of a monopoly over popular
| protocols, esp. when it comes to Microsoft control over
| windows/edge and google search/chrome.
| danShumway wrote:
| I'll point out that the 1st Amendment implications of
| regulating hosting are much less severe than the
| implications over regulating moderation on sites
| themselves.
|
| Different people have different ideas about where to draw
| these lines: I personally am fairly skeptical about
| requiring hosting services to carry content, I think that
| has a lot more implications than people realize and I
| think that autonomy over how people manage computers and
| what content they serve is something we should try very
| hard to protect.
|
| On the other hand I was initially skeptical of network
| neutrality back when it was first entering the public
| debate, but ended up completely changing my views and
| supporting it pretty much wholesale, I think that there's
| decent historical evidence that Title 2 classification
| didn't harm Internet innovation last time we tried it (in
| fact, the opposite happened, innovation exploded), and
| also I think there's much stronger evidence that service
| providers are actually a natural monopoly and could be
| treated like a public service. And I think the risk of
| unintended consequences is much lower.
|
| And I also support either forcing Apple to allow
| alternative app stores or (possibly better) just forcing
| them to allow alternate web browsers and to loosen
| restrictions on what platforms/websites apps can tell the
| user about, so that PWAs can start making progress again
| on iOS and browsers can start to fill in the gaps in
| their platform -- which obviously is a restriction of
| their rights, I just think the benefits heavily outweigh
| the downsides.
|
| My feeling is that every time we go deeper down the chain
| and closer to the "bare metal" of how the Internet works,
| it becomes a little bit safer to regulate neutrality. We
| have a lot of low-level changes we can make to the
| Internet that could go a lot further towards correcting
| some of the actual flaws that the Internet has, rather
| than just trying to regulate symptoms of those flaws.
|
| The implications of FAANG moderation are only so serious
| because FAANG companies control so much of the market. It
| is better to actually fix that problem rather than to try
| and slap a band-aide on top of it (especially when that
| band-aide might carry a lot of unintended consequences).
| philistine wrote:
| The view that Facebook is an utility assumes the world only
| consists of the United States. If it's a utility and 75% of
| its users are outside the US, whose utility is it? The UN?
| danShumway wrote:
| That is a really good point. There is a certain kind of
| nationalism/exceptionalism inherent in the US deciding
| that Facebook is both too essential to be left to its own
| devices and that naturally the US should decide what its
| policies end up being for the rest of the world -- and I
| often forget that perspective because I'm in the US and
| to a certain extent guilty of forgetting about the wider
| implications of US policy sometimes.
|
| On the other hand, a robust market has fewer of those
| problems -- the US deciding "we don't want a US company
| to control the entire market, and we want more companies
| with differing policies" doesn't have the same
| implications as the US deciding, "we want the US company
| to do what we want everywhere." So there's a lot less
| exceptionalism rolled up in the idea of subsidizing
| alternatives; and non-US governments have already started
| to talk about either subsidizing some alternatives like
| Matrix or adopting them internally within government
| departments.
|
| Unless the idea is to only regulate how Facebook handles
| content being displayed to US users, but (while companies
| do often have country-specific policies), drastically
| increasing the scope of that kind of system has a lot of
| its own implications about filter bubbles and
| communication between countries.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| >So yeah, there's a pretty strong case to be made that
| certain internet companies are like that. Can you survive
| without social media? Sure, but you can also survive without
| sewer. It's just a lot harder to live a normal life.
|
| In my experience, there is actually not a pretty strong case
| to be made for that, as evidenced by all the people who say
| there is a strong case to be made, but then fail to make a
| strong case. Perhaps they mean, "a case which convinces me,
| specifically, 1 person who is already convinced"?
|
| Also, trying to survive without sewer is what led to The
| Plague's last big hit. Even the Romans knew it was unhealthy.
| Meanwhile, in this case, _INCREASED_ use of social media is
| what 's been shown to be unhealthy.
| wwweston wrote:
| > there is a strong case to be made, but then fail to make
| a strong case
|
| Especially given:
|
| 1) The number of digital outlets. Utilities tend to be
| regulated when there are no alternatives or merely 1
| alternative (especially when monopoly is being
| intentionally granted for the purposes of not duplicating
| infrastructure). We're not hurting for options in ways to
| talk to each other these days.
|
| 2) The abundance of _very_ diverse conversations on display
| on the most popular social media. Political poles are
| pretty well represented with content in proportion to their
| influence (and all this even considering that the right of
| private vehicles for speech to set rules for discussion and
| even make editorial choices _is itself a free speech right_
| ).
| ohwellhere wrote:
| > 1) The number of digital outlets. Utilities tend to be
| regulated when there are no alternatives or merely 1
| alternative (especially when monopoly is being
| intentionally granted for the purposes of not duplicating
| infrastructure). We're not hurting for options in ways to
| talk to each other these days.
|
| It's anecdotal, but I don't feel this to be true in my
| personal life. I am not on Facebook by choice. But I feel
| like it impoverishes my life in a number of ways:
|
| 1. Most of my family and friends post their life updates
| on Facebook. 2. My neighborhood uses a Facebook group for
| most communication and coordination. 3. Several local
| companies use their Facebook pages to broadcast their
| events, sales, etc, and as their primary form of
| outreach. 4. Several local hobby groups do the same.
|
| In each case, this is general communication and
| information that I want in my life, but I can't get it
| easily. Even when I go out of my way to get it (private
| conversations, visiting websites, etc), I still miss
| things because Facebook has the network and it's the
| primary way my communities communicate.
|
| So while in principle I agree with everything you said,
| in my own life I empathetically agree with the subjective
| sense that it feels like a utility. It feels like living
| without something important in some ways.
|
| (It was easier when I was married and my wife was on
| Facebook and could relay information to me. Also
| anecdotal, but I've heard of this arrangement a number of
| times.)
| lallysingh wrote:
| Yeah but Twitter just isn't that relevant. And social media
| is a many-dimensional gradient of often questionable value.
|
| Leaving FB properties, for example, is actually pretty nice
| when you've hit a certain spot in your life. Some forums give
| me much more than FB ever did. HN is more useful. There isn't
| some necessary set of social media sites everyone has to
| have.
| gitfan86 wrote:
| Electricity and Sewer can and will be cutoff if you do not
| follow the terms of service. If the electric company
| discovers that you do not have a circuit breaker you will be
| cutoff.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Sure, but the terms of service cannot legally include such
| things as "You have political opinions we dislike" as a
| valid reason for terminating service.
| glenstein wrote:
| >such things as "You have political opinions we dislike"
|
| If I wrote the rules, anytime someone used the phrase
| "political opinions you dislike" there would be a popup
| list for the following before you can submit your
| comment:
|
| * violent incitement
|
| * Al Qaeda and ISIS
|
| * state sponsored misinformation campaigns run by
| automated bots
|
| * coordinated messages from automated bots for marketing
| & brand management
|
| * harassment
|
| * doxxing
|
| * defamation
|
| * revenge porn & child porn
|
| * vaccine misinformation
|
| * election misinformation
|
| * spam and phishing attacks
|
| And next to each you can click a checkbox to indicate
| which ones you personally endorse being defended as
| protected speech, which you believe to be implicated.
| Then people can mouse over the part of your comment that
| says "political opinions", see the list of things you
| clicked on, and know what you are talking about.
|
| This way we don't have to worry that you're equivocating
| between garden variety political topics (e.g. the
| economy, taxes) and all the other stuff when you say
| "political opinions you dislike."
| cycrutchfield wrote:
| Which website contains "you have political opinions we
| dislike" as a valid reason for terminating service?
| Unless you are arguing that threats of violence are valid
| political opinions.
| glenstein wrote:
| What's interesting is that this is a new manifestation of
| the free speech argument, from new social and political
| quarters. Prior to this version of the free speech
| debate, the defenders of free speech would, say, donate
| to ACLU, oppose laws that criminalize protests, express
| concern over authoritarian countries jailing reporters,
| oppose prosecution of whistleblowers, oppose
| consolidation of corporate media, etc.
|
| But this new constituency emerged after events like
| Gamergate and Charlottesville protests, and they show up
| to defend participants in events like those but can't be
| mobilized to become active in other issues that
| historically have been ones where people become involved
| out of principle.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| All of them? That's the whole "We reserve the right to
| terminate your account for any reason" clause in most
| ToSes
| themitigating wrote:
| You're poor, a.k.a a class of society.
| gitfan86 wrote:
| Why would they? They are not providing a service for
| sharing opinions.
|
| Twitter is a service for sharing your opinions with the
| public. Obviously terms of service are going to include
| limits around your ability to share your opinions. If the
| service had no terms, that would mean that you could post
| 1 million spam replies to every single tweet anyone made.
|
| Similarly Twitter's TOS shouldn't include anything around
| electricity usage.
| matt_s wrote:
| Literally all social media platforms could cease to exist in
| a second and the world would continue to still function 100%
| fine.
| Dangeranger wrote:
| Electric utilities were granted monopoly status in order the
| treat them as utilities, prior to the 1930s they were just
| private companies that were wildly successful, and didn't
| want to expand into unprofitable rural markets.
|
| That's not the dynamic occurring today, social media is
| available in even the most rural setting, albeit in a reduced
| form to support low bandwidth.
|
| Do we really want to allow Facebook and Twitter monopoly
| status and then treat them as defacto government entities?
| Will that result in better services? I do not think so.
|
| As we've seen with TikTok's rise, competition within the
| space leads to better outcomes, not treating social media
| companies as "utilities". Social media companies are not in
| any way comparable to a sewer system, an electric grid, or a
| phone line network.
| radu_floricica wrote:
| History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
| Electric power, water, sewage, phone, internet access...
| each has its own specific history, times 170 countries. Not
| all identical, but the outcomes are pretty similar.
|
| SM is clearly different from that and very much still in
| flux, and overly regulating it would be more of a burden
| than an advantage. Some amount of regulation may help
| though, especially designed to encourage diversity of
| ideas.
|
| But mostly I wanted to counter the meme that "it's not
| censorship if it's a private company". Yes it is, when you
| have only one twitter and a handful of SM companies in
| total. It's not the ownership that matters, it's the
| ubiquity and the effect.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Some amount of regulation may help though, especially
| designed to encourage diversity of ideas_
|
| I wonder if limited Section 512 reform is the answer [1].
|
| Remove it for social media platforms over a certain size
| that sell ads. Create a safe harbour if they form an
| independent appeals commission, like the one Facebook
| did; but with teeth on enforcement, tightly-scoped but
| binding rulemaking powers, and rules about how its
| members are chosen. Company can flag and ban. Users can
| appeal. Commission can go to the courts to enforce its
| will or force discovery. (Maybe throw in a couple
| commission members elected by users, I don't know.)
|
| [1] https://www.justia.com/intellectual-
| property/copyright/copyr...
| btreecat wrote:
| >History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
| Electric power, water, sewage, phone, internet access...
| each has its own specific history, times 170 countries.
| Not all identical, but the outcomes are pretty similar.
|
| They all require physical infrastructure to every house,
| to provide service capacity. As such, we don't want 7
| different companies for each, laying 7 different sewer
| systems and 7 different electric grids.
|
| When the service is virtual, the same infrastructure
| limits don't materialize in the same way. We don't need
| to run new ISP lines to bring on a new platform.
|
| So while ISP are certainly more like classic utilities,
| websites and social platforms just aren't.
|
| >But mostly I wanted to counter the meme that "it's not
| censorship if it's a private company". Yes it is, when
| you have only one twitter and a handful of SM companies
| in total. It's not the ownership that matters, it's the
| ubiquity and the effect.
|
| Corporate censorship isn't a "free speech" problem. SM
| companies just aren't enough like a utility, they are not
| actually required to function in society (unlike
| electricity, and running water).
|
| Did you learn nothing from the battle over NetNeutrality?
| oceanplexian wrote:
| > As such, we don't want 7 different companies for each,
| laying 7 different sewer systems and 7 different electric
| grids.
|
| I think decentralization is better way than building one
| big ISP controlled by the government. I live in a place
| (Utah), that has a non profit owned fiber infrastructure
| and leases it out to different ISPs, where you can even
| buy the dark fiber yourself for like $2500. I can choose
| from 10-15 ISPs with highly competitive prices and
| service. The ISPs can have whatever policies they want
| but the free market will take care of them pretty fast.
| anamax wrote:
| FWIW, there is a precedent regarding shopping malls and
| the like. They are clearly private property, yet they
| must provide access for political activity.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v
| ._R...
| naravara wrote:
| > especially designed to encourage diversity of ideas.
|
| Exposure to diversity of ideas is not a problem on social
| media. What drowns out most ideas is actually threat of
| cyberbullying and internet mobs, being drowned out by
| bots, and algorithmic sorting that prioritizes
| controversial content over moderate voices. Only the last
| one is related to moderation/editorial choices by the
| company and it's rarely framed as a free speech issue.
| EL_Loco wrote:
| Except you can argue that we don't have only one twitter.
| We have many, and potentially thousands. I can fire up my
| own version of twitter in a couple of minutes. I (or my
| group, clan, subculture, whatever) can fire up my/our own
| facebook in minutes. OTOH I only have one electric power
| supplier to my home.
| tolmasky wrote:
| There are _some_ apt comparisons of social media to sewers,
| but not in their utility...
| Phenomenit wrote:
| SM is not a utility but the ability to disseminate
| information to huge number of peoples is and it's just as
| important to regulate as electricity and sewage. Moderation
| of information is the fourth arm of the government and
| needs to be developed if we're ever going to be able to
| trust each other again.
|
| It has never been an issue before because the means of
| communication have always been limited but modern
| electronic communication has changed all that and it's
| clear that we can't exist in this wild west phase anymore.
|
| SM had eroded the trust in institutions and between people
| and groups. It had put all of us in bubbles just to sell
| ads. Informational and cognitive hygiene must be recognized
| and taught to everyone so people can defend themselves and
| take care of what they hold dear and true.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > As we've seen with TikTok's rise, competition within the
| space leads to better outcomes
|
| I disagree. The whole social media industry is rotten and
| needs a dose of... something... to bring it back to sanity.
| Strict limits on user data collection and algorithmic
| "feeds" would be a good start IMHO. Otherwise the same
| patterns repeat themselves, where the most rage-inducing
| content gets spread the furthest.
| justaman wrote:
| I think bringing back the adventurous side of the
| internet is important. Back in the day if you wanted to
| find information about a specific topic you had to
| search(not google search) for it. In doing so, you
| weren't inundated with more and more information that
| starts relevant, but quickly devolves into whats trending
| to drive DAUs and add clicks.
| XorNot wrote:
| The HN front page is an algorithmic feed. Where and how
| do you draw that line?
| specialist wrote:
| Incentives. No ads. No engagement (paperclip) maximizers.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| This is important.
|
| I dont know where the line is, but we should agree that a
| line is needed.
|
| People are saying a line is _not_ necessary. That is at
| the core, the problem. We need to agree that these
| companies -by accident or otherwise- have become a common
| good, similar to a "utility"
|
| Take a similar example: at some point a company stops
| being a company...and becomes a monopoly. Where is that
| line? We dont know. However its important we recognize
| private companies operating as monopolies are not in the
| best interests of society.
|
| Private companies operating as common goods providers
| should be subject to additional rules. That is what we
| should agree on. Then let others define what that is.
| XorNot wrote:
| If you "do something" about algorithmic feeds then that
| law is going to be written by politicians or their
| advisers.
|
| If you, engaged user of a tech site, a developers forum,
| have no idea what that should look like, then why would
| the "something" from politicians work out better?
| specialist wrote:
| Which laws, regulations, rules are not written by
| politicians?
| scoutt wrote:
| If an electricity company sells electricity (to you), what
| does Twitter sell (to you)?
| typeofhuman wrote:
| The sell you the opportunity to share your thoughts with
| other users.
| XorNot wrote:
| You're missing the point: Twitter doesn't sell you
| anything, you're the product. They sell ads.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Twitter sells you a voice to a possibly broad audience
| depending on how many followers you have, the ads are a
| micro-currency to facilitate these transactions between
| voice haver and voice hearer.
| cbozeman wrote:
| That's been utterly ruined by the blue check mark
| verification system.
|
| Promoting a specific type of user over another is
| antithetical to the original ideals of Internet forums -
| whereby the most interesting / useful / "good" content
| filtered to the top regardless of authorship.
| krzyk wrote:
| Knowledge
| mvc wrote:
| > Sure, but you can also survive without sewer. It's just a
| lot harder to live a normal life.
|
| Not really but that sense of learned helplessness is
| certainly good for their bottom line. I imagine it increases
| your propensity to buy whatever crap they're spamming your
| feed with.
|
| In reality life without social media is a much happier
| existence.
| radu_floricica wrote:
| Some peopld say that about showering without soap. I tried,
| it stank.
|
| The whole point is for that to be a personal decision. Or
| if you think SM is bad, then it can be a collective
| decision to ban SM, like we ban heroin.
|
| But ostracism? "Free for all,except those 5". Nah, I don't
| see it as a good choice, society-wise.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| That specifically worked for Greek democracies, which
| were as much about the ability to exclude the most
| powerful as they were to enable the public participation
| in power.
| radu_floricica wrote:
| Worked until it didn't. When it was a small forum, yes.
| When it became just a popularity contest, much less so.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| That where the ostracism came in. When the most popular
| became the most powerful they often got booted...
| pooper wrote:
| > Or if you think SM is bad, then it can be a collective
| decision to ban SM, like we ban heroin.
|
| Off topic but I don't think banning heroin did anyone any
| good. We still need proper labeling, packaging, and
| storage laws. We still need laws that prohibit drugging
| someone without their explicit permission. We probably
| need laws that don't allow sale to minors. We probably
| need ban on advertising "controlled substances". We might
| even say certain things you can only get under medical
| supervision by a licensed medical professional.
|
| I just don't think possession ought to be a crime like it
| is today. Endangering others, sure but possession is just
| asking for abuse by law enforcement.
| rjzzleep wrote:
| There is a fairly interesting documentary of what Denmark
| thinks of free speech. To an extent where politicians are
| protected from setting the Quran on fire, full well knowing
| that it is designed to incite hatred. I don't know what the
| danish voice on silencing dissenting eastern perspectives on
| the war in Ukraine is, but the EU citizens seem to be
| themselves cheering on censorship more and more these days.
|
| The documentary itself is quite interesting in my opinion.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sM8p7hnprM
| oceanplexian wrote:
| Twitter is not a forum though. I understand the need to
| moderate a forum, since it's equivalent to a public place with
| a limited number of rooms.
|
| Twitter, on the other hand doesn't map to that model. If me and
| my friends want to tweet things to our group, no one is being
| forced to follow or read that content. I don't see any
| justification to moderate that, beyond content that's actually
| illegal like child porn, terrorism, etc.
| Mezzie wrote:
| I generally agree with you, but one thing that's been making me
| extremely uncomfortable lately (since 2016) is the attacking of
| alternate platforms/communities that are built. Back in The
| Day(TM), when people had issues with mod/admin decisions and
| they couldn't be resolved, they'd just spin off a new
| commmunity/chatroom/forum/etc. Some people would move, some
| would stay in both, and we'd wait to see if the disagreeing
| faction was large enough to sustain itself. If so, you'd just
| end up with 2/3 places to go to talk about X instead of 1.
|
| Now it's more common to try to get 'bad' platforms dehosted
| altogether (e.g. Parler/Gab), subreddits try to get their
| 'alternatives' banned, and any company/group that challenges a
| big group is going to be bought out or otherwise dealt with.
| (See: FB's gobbling of companies to try to keep people in their
| garden instead of letting people chose which gardens they
| enjoy.)
|
| We used to have the opportunity to walk into the woods and make
| our own playground. Now people will follow you and attack you
| for that. THAT'S the problem. Also we're becoming really fond
| of demanding community loyalty. HN doesn't have this problem
| (which is one reason I show up), but on other social media
| sites, it can be, for instance, forbidden to link to/talk about
| certain other sites. For example, on Reddit, it's common to ban
| people for posting in the 'wrong' Reddits, and on Twitter
| finding out somebody participates somewhere 'bad' is
| practically open season.
|
| I should be able to go on HN _and_ /b/, provided I follow my
| host's rules. I should also be able to set up my OWN site and
| explicitly say it's because I disagree with - say - HN's
| moderation policies without worrying about the site being
| attacked.
| ladyattis wrote:
| Dehosting is a problem of _capitalism_ which is why the
| erosion of the progressive era regulations and the attempts
| to prevent their reinforcement and update are things that
| need to be settled now. Today, we live in the second Gilded
| Age where maybe a dozen people can affect policies that
| impact millions of people. You want freedom then you have to
| put limits on what the rich can do or make it unlawful to be
| that rich (divestment and breakup).
| martimarkov wrote:
| I think you'd find dehosting was more prevalent in the USSR
| and the eastern block than the west even now.
| op00to wrote:
| I protested a war in front of the White House. Can't do
| that in Russia right now. I am far more worried about the
| effects of misinformation than I am about people getting
| booted off Twitter.
| ladyattis wrote:
| That's whataboutism. Should there be any concentration of
| productive forces such that a few people can command or
| influence others policies to adversely (or even
| positively) affect millions of people simply because they
| own stock in said companies?
| j-krieger wrote:
| Dehosting is insane when you consider that your domain
| registrar and DNS providers can deplatform you as well.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| No, dehosting is a problem common across all socio-economic
| systems. It is even _more_ prevalent in non-capitalist
| systems.
|
| Much of the driving force behind today's dehosting is a
| result of increasing government intrusion into how
| information is shared on the internet. Congress has been
| openly threatening tech companies about "misinformation"
| for the past decade or so and this is a very predictable
| result.
| Mezzie wrote:
| I agree. It's a 'power' problem.
|
| One historical example that comes to mind that has
| nothing to do with capitalism is the uproar around the
| translation of the Bible into vernacular languages
| because it broke the Church's moral information monopoly.
| SomeCallMeTim wrote:
| "Bad" platforms aren't bad because "we disagree with them."
|
| They're bad because they're _lying to people en masse and
| inciting rebellion._
|
| And yes, I absolutely think that behavior that reaches that
| bar should be squelched. The dangers of enabling the spread
| of misinformation are entirely too visible in today's
| society.
|
| The slippery slope argument is garbage in this case. No one
| has been banning _political_ speech from major platforms.
| Heck, they bent over backwards to allow Trump and company to
| say the most outrageous things for years before finally
| stepping in and putting a stop to it.
|
| And Parler being deplatformed for enabling the public
| organization of rebellion against the United States hardly
| seems like an "oh no, we're becoming Nazis!" moment.
|
| It's only the most extreme views that result in
| deplatforming; "your view on taxes is different than mine"
| will _never_ rise to that level, so there 's no slippery
| slope.
|
| So in what case can we justify enabling platforms to lie to
| people and incite violence? It simply can't be done.
| Mezzie wrote:
| Is the first or the second the issue?
|
| If it's the first, I can find a TON of lying and
| misinformation on 'mainstream' sites and institutions. Off
| the top of my head, I can think of examples in the past
| year where the NYT and ACLU lied or misrepresented
| information, for example. There's also a shit ton of
| information flying around respectable Dem Twitter and
| Reddit whenever news events happen. Remember how many
| people thought that the people Kyle Rittenhouse shot were
| black and tried to stoke racial tensions using that talking
| point?
|
| So obviously it's not the lying.
|
| So let's talk about 'inciting rebellion.'
|
| Everybody involved in the January 6th riot is a braindead
| moron. Trump is a braindead moron. And, frankly, if Trump
| were arrested, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. That
| doesn't mean we crack down on speech. It'd be like ordering
| the USPS to open letters and report people if they plotted
| their stupid Dollar Store peasant rebellion using paper
| letters, or tapping everybody's phones.
|
| I'm also exceptionally uncomfortable with the idea that
| inciting rebellion is inherently bad, as somebody who does
| believe we should resist tyranny and people have the right
| to rebel.
|
| They should have been able to talk about how much the
| government sucks all they want, they crossed the line when
| they showed up to break into Congress.
|
| > It's only the most extreme views that result in
| deplatforming; "your view on taxes is different than mine"
| will never rise to that level, so there's no slippery
| slope.
|
| Taxes, probably not, but it'll be really interesting to see
| how union discussions, for example, are handled. Also I
| could definitely come up with some tax policies that would
| get me deplatformed from the big spaces. We just haven't
| dragged taxes into the culture war yet.
| SomeCallMeTim wrote:
| When the NYT says something that is factually incorrect,
| they issue a retraction. Everything they do say is fact-
| checked, even if they make mistakes.
|
| That's not even _close_ to "lying".
|
| "Misrepresentation" can be a grey area that blends into
| framing and emphasizing certain parts over others. I
| didn't include misrepresentation on my list, and that was
| intentional. You can disagree with _how_ an event is
| reported without the report containing any actual lies--
| and that falls under "a matter of opinion."
|
| Things bouncing around "Dem Twitter," whatever that
| means, are hardly the fault of the NYT or ACLU. Whatever
| was said, it didn't enter _my_ bubble, in that I never
| saw a claim that Rittenhouse shot any black people.
|
| But I don't find Twitter useful, so I don't follow
| anything on it. Instead I read the NYT, and while I don't
| always agree with their editorials, I generally feel the
| information they publish as news is as accurate as they
| can figure out how to make it.
|
| > It'd be like ordering the USPS to open letters and
| report people if they plotted their stupid Dollar Store
| peasant rebellion using paper letters, or tapping
| everybody's phones.
|
| No, it really, really isn't like that.
|
| It's more like shutting down stations from using the
| licensed public airwaves to disseminate incitement to
| violence or to broadcast blatant lies--and then later
| argue in court that "no reasonable person" should have
| believed those lies. I'm sure you know the latter
| actually happened, and the former _was_ the law of the
| land until Reagan managed to tear down the Fairness
| Doctrine. [1] Which was found to be compatible with the
| First Amendment, and the only reason we don 't have law
| to replace the original FCC rule is that Reagan vetoed
| it.
|
| Regardless, my point is that there _is_ potentially a way
| to limit speech that doesn 't prevent people from
| complaining about the government but that also prohibits
| people from outright _lying_ about the government (or
| other facts).
|
| [1] https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/topic-
| guide/fairness-...
| twofornone wrote:
| >subreddits try to get their 'alternatives' banned
|
| Every once in a while I come across a rumor that AHS and
| affiliated subreddits employ a strategy of posting illegal
| content (like child pornography) on subreddits/platforms that
| they want shut down for wrongthink. At some point it doesn't
| matter that the government allows for free speech if a small
| minority is able to control the flow of ideas for the rest of
| society; the effect is the same and technically an
| authoritarian government could trivially benefit from such
| censorship while ostensibly remaining neutral.
|
| And, for the record, /b/ was the birthplace of hundreds of
| internet-wide memes in its heyday, with next to zero
| moderation. The fact that the average person can't stand an
| unmoderated forum doesn't mean that such fora have no place -
| especially considering the likelihood that there are
| campaigns (by the same type of people who try to get
| alternatives dehosted) to keep such places unusable by
| deliberately posting offensive and off topic content.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Well, that's where the whole business of Internet anonymity
| comes into play. What if people had to post their state-
| supplied identifying information at all times, so there was
| no doubt about who they were? This is more or less how
| traditional journalism works: the reporter doesn't
| generally get to hide behind a screen of anonymity.
| Editorial board op-eds are often unsigned, however.
|
| I think anonymity is OK personally, it falls into the
| tradition of anti-government pamphleteering in pre-
| Revolution colonial North America under British Royal rule,
| and samizdat literature in the USSR.
| jdmichal wrote:
| No, the journalist will just report from an "anonymous
| source" instead.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Now it's more common to try to get 'bad' platforms dehosted
| altogether (e.g. Parler/Gab)
|
| Well, no company can be forced to host antisemitism,
| holocaust denial and similar content [1] - most companies
| don't even _want_ to host such content, simply because of how
| despised (or, in the case of Europe, _illegal_ ) it is.
|
| [1] https://fortune.com/2020/11/13/parler-extremism-hate-
| conspir...
| Mezzie wrote:
| I am also an American who disagrees with those European
| laws, though I understand them and why they came to pass.
| It's one of the difficulties of the issue: Free speech used
| to be more of a national problem, now it's larger, and, as
| you mentioned, international law and culture add even more
| variables to consider.
|
| I understand the desire to abide by European standards,
| because the Holocaust in particular was so horrific, but
| there are countries that have laws against things like
| promoting homosexuality, so clearly legality can't be the
| only moral arbiter here because the laws are a.)
| contradictory and b.) we recognize authoritarian
| governments make oppressive laws and we shouldn't comply
| with them. Which means we need another standard, one that
| defines Holocaust denial as impermissible but discussions
| of being gay as fine.
|
| I don't think anybody should HAVE to host holocaust denial,
| but if somebody does, they shouldn't be attacked for it.
| (And 'attacked' meaning attempts made to take down the
| content/sue facetiously/DDOSing, etc. Nothing stopping
| people from mocking the host or pulling their money).
|
| I'm also wary of things like 'hosting anti-semitism' as a
| justification, because what is considered anti-semitic
| varies (like most kinds of bigotry). Is it anti-semitic to
| criticize the government of Israel? What about the gender
| issues in Ultra-Orthodox communities? (I'm not Jewish, but
| I feel the same way about groups that I _am_ a part of: I
| might not LIKE being called a dyke, seeing somebody say all
| homosexuals are depraved degenerates, etc. but that 's not
| the same as calling for my murder or trying to get me
| fired.)
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Which means we need another standard, one that defines
| Holocaust denial as impermissible but discussions of
| being gay as fine.
|
| We actually have, and that is the Declaration of Human
| Rights.
|
| Holocaust denial denies the very thing why this
| Declaration was formulated and accepted by all civilized
| nations. Discriminating against gay people violates
| Articles 1-3 of the Declaration.
|
| The problem is that the US, its constitution being way
| older than the Declaration, has a far wider understanding
| of "free speech" and the responsibilities associated with
| it.
| Mezzie wrote:
| I mean, if we got every internet company to agree and had
| some kind of public standards and the ability to vote or
| otherwise talk through borderline issues, I'd be fine
| with that as a solution, even as somebody who does hold
| the US view of free speech.
|
| The problem is that there's no way companies are going to
| leave money on the table or authoritarian governments are
| going to agree to that, so then you're right back to the
| two different set of standards where companies proclaim
| in the EU/US/etc. that they follow content moderation
| according to the DHR while letting some countries erase
| gay people and women, and if that happens, their claim to
| any kind of moral stand or objectivity can't be taken
| seriously.
|
| Frankly, I think this issue is going to require some VERY
| large changes to our systems to deal with, but first we
| have to go through the panic period where the people in
| power realized they fucked up and try to save the system
| that serves them well. I'm of the opinion our information
| expansion over the last 15 or so years is as monumental
| as the invention of writing or possibly even just the
| printing press. Social upheaval is going to follow, and
| until we establish new systems, it's hard to know how to
| use those systems to combat this problem.
|
| For example, I think the Constitution is outdated and we
| should rewrite it.
| javajosh wrote:
| _> most companies don't even want to host such content,
| simply because of how despised ... it is_
|
| I don't think that's true because the frequency of bad
| ideas is evenly distributed. I'm sure there are many
| company owners that have those bad ideas and want to host
| them.
|
| These ideas get suppressed because of societal norms. The
| problem here is when you disagree with the norm. I'm
| personally fine with making holocaust denial illegal, but
| it would be dishonest of me to claim that wasn't an
| authoritarian move, and that violates another, arguably
| more important norm! So we split the difference, and leave
| it up to individual choice. But that solution fractured
| when the internet split our norms into a thousand pieces,
| and has totally failed with the mainstream adoption of
| Trump and woke/cancel culture norms (both of which violate
| other, more important norms).
|
| Frankly its terrible to feel like you're 'losing' people to
| bad ideas, and allowing communities to form around bad
| ideas accelerates the loss. We intuitively understand that
| some bad ideas are bad enough to lead to war, and vast
| human suffering. And so we come back to a justification for
| limited authoritarianism, because war is even worse than
| that.
| adictator wrote:
| cycomanic wrote:
| I think you need to look at history, "following people into
| the woods" and much worse than deplatforming has been ongoing
| for most of the existence of the US (and most/all other
| countries, just keeping it limited to a US discussion). I
| mean just look at what happened to people who demonstrated or
| supported civil rights in the 60s (hint:some were lynched),
| or gay lesbians in the 80s and 90s (and still). I actually
| agree that we need to move past these issues, taking a free
| speech absolutist stance is not the way. This is part of how
| these groups were and still are discriminated against.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| << taking a free speech absolutist stance is not the way.
|
| I genuinely dislike this label. It is not an absolutist
| stance at all. If anything, it is simple a stance based on
| the foundational values of US as a country. And there is a
| reason for it. If you cannot express your real thoughts,
| the conversation gets confused with attempts to evade
| censor or completely incomprehensible since language gets
| too distorted to mean anything at all.
|
| It is getting tiring. I am saying this as an immigrant from
| the old country, where censorship was a thing ( with author
| writing cringy articles in defense of it -- sounds
| familiar? ). It is sad for me to see US going that route.
| cycomanic wrote:
| But the founding principles have always had restrictions
| build in. Try for example publically calling for the
| assassination of the president (or any other person) and
| see how you fare. Or army members not being allowed to
| talk about their missions. I don't buy that these are
| fundamentally different, it is simply drawing the line
| differently of what is permissable free speech.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| The comparison is not applicable. When you join the army,
| you give up certain rights to join that specific group.
| To make it even more important, the rules are clear and
| explicit.
|
| Now compare it to Twitter or Facebook. You don't know
| what you signing up for. Their TOS effectively say they
| can ban you for things they deem wrong. It is only
| recently that we know how they evaluate it ( see CNN
| discussion of FB speech violence tiers ).
|
| Free speech is just that. It is free speech. There is no
| TOS. It includes all sorts of nasty bits too, because
| that is what being human is. Trying to pretend otherwise
| is, at best, counterproductive.
|
| But here we are. Entire nation scared of reality and in
| dire need to cover it up with soft language.
|
| << But the founding principles have always had
| restrictions build in.
|
| Do they? I am reading the constitution and I don't see
| those restrictions. You may get a visit from some
| agencies, but that is to make sure you were not joking.
|
| On the other hand, I do see a mention of when slavery is
| ok in US and yet people seem surprised when it is pointed
| out.
| deanCommie wrote:
| > foundational values of US as a country
|
| > old country, where censorship was a thing. It is sad
| for me to see US going that route.
|
| Why does this keep coming up? Nobody, absolutely nobody,
| is advocating for government restriction of free speech.
| That is the foundation of the US as a country.
|
| Twitter didn't exist back then but newspapers certainly
| did. Town squares certainly did.
|
| If the founding fathers wanted to say "if someone is
| speaking in a town square you can't throw tomatoes at
| them or shout them down", they would have.
|
| Twitter moderating its content has zero to do with the
| foundations of America or censorship in other countries.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Sure. And the moment alternative to Twitter is even
| suggested, it is curbstomped from hackers, who see it as
| a 'permissible' target ( and seemingly it is based on the
| cheering that follows a hack ) and various service
| providers, who won't let it exist.
|
| It is all fine and dandy to say 'build your own public
| square', but its point is somewhat lost, when you have a
| hard time even getting basic materials.
| deanCommie wrote:
| Why is anyone entitled to their own public square.
|
| We Live In A Society. If you come to a public square -
| physically or on twitter, and scream something that the
| rest of society doesn't want to hear, you are exercising
| your free speech, and they are exercising theirs if they
| say they don't want to hear you.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| "Why is anyone entitled to their own public square."
|
| I think there may be a disconnect between what we are
| trying to convey.
|
| Public square is by definition.. public. It is not a
| possession of any one person. Anyone can grab a soapbox.
|
| What I see now.. is soapbox oligopoly. That is an issue.
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| Censorship is an indelible part of human relations. You
| can never truly speak your mind, partly because the other
| person cant have it, but fundamentally because you cant
| either.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| "You can never truly speak your mind"
|
| And that is a problem. Our communication depends on being
| able to articulate ourselves. Quality of our thoughts
| depend on the language. The quality of our discourse
| suffers, because our thoughts are being trained to offer
| 'safe' language.
|
| If you do not see it as a problem, we have a problem.
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| This is a fact of being human, and you will never "fix"
| it.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I disagree. And I disagree for one reason only. Never is
| an awful long time to state anything with any kind of
| certainty.
| theodric wrote:
| I think we've arrived at the point where all the town
| squares are owned by a private corporation who can - so I
| am told - do whatever they want on their property. I
| guess this was always the terminal destination of
| American society: stuck in a company town with nowhere to
| go, while the government just looks on saying "they're
| not doing anything illegal, so I can't help!"
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| This is effectively where we are. History does not repeat
| itself, but it does rhyme. I am personally saddened that
| it is not seen as a danger that it is.
| Mezzie wrote:
| Ironically, I'm a butch lesbian who came out in the 90s, so
| I'm well aware.
|
| One of my less popular opinions in the queer community is
| that I AM a free speech absolutist (or close to it), even
| if it does result in some discrimination. (Even against
| me.) Of course we should minimize and work to eliminate
| discrimination in society, but that isn't the only value we
| have, and unfortunately social policies are always a case
| of trade-offs.
|
| I also prefer to let the homophobes be open about it so a.)
| I know what they're saying and can undermine it and b.) so
| I know who to avoid. All pushing it underground does is
| make me nervous that everybody's a closet homophobe and
| means I can't change anybody's mind. (Which I have done on
| multiple occasions).
| beardedetim wrote:
| > so I know who to avoid
|
| This is a good point! I think that the concept of "who do
| I want to associate with" is a different way to view
| things than "everyone I see in the world needs to treat
| me with agency"
|
| I have a hard time knowing where that line is. Like you
| said,
|
| > I AM a free speech absolutist (or close to it), even if
| it does result in some discrimination. (Even against me.)
|
| People out there, due to their agency, may not agree with
| where my agency ends and theirs begins. I think if we
| have the privilege and feel able to "choose to avoid"
| those that we disagree with, we could have these
| discussions in the open without fear and actively change
| people's minds.
|
| I don't know how to though. I've written about it here
| [1] but I still don't have a good answer for how do we
| draw that line of where your agency ends and mine/theirs
| begin.
|
| [1] https://timonapath.com/articles/body-politic
| Mezzie wrote:
| I think it's such a hard question because the line moves
| in accordance to people's position in their culture and
| society. Even oppressed/marginalized people can have very
| different circumstances. For example, the 80s-00s were
| very homophobic, particularly in certain areas of the
| country, but one thing I had in my favor was a parent
| with their own household that supported me. That meant
| that if, say, my dad pushed the issue and was an ass, I
| just stopped visiting. And likewise, once he'd come
| around (took 3-4 years), if his family had been an ass to
| me, they would have lost us all because my immediate
| family was behind me.
|
| I also tested well enough (I was the top scorer in the
| county on all of our standardized tests) that it was
| worth shutting up about my being a big fat homo.
|
| That's a very different situation from a gay kid in an
| Evangelical home in rural Alabama in the 90s, or (moving
| outside of sexuality) an African American family in the
| US South in the 50s.
|
| Agency is very tied into a person's individual
| circumstances, and trying to legislate rules and policy
| around that is a nightmare, particularly given it can
| change on a dime. (My MS diagnosis knocked out a fair
| chunk of my agency).
|
| I think most people's instinct is to try to protect the
| most vulnerable, but that may end up stifling
| conversation to the point where the group dissolves/can't
| hold itself together OR opening people to being poached
| away to other groups OR other groups with different norms
| outcompeting or attacking that group.
|
| We need to be careful not to monkey's paw ourselves.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| I really want to believe in free speech absolutism, but have
| been really concerned how successful the "flooding the zone
| with shit" strategy in propaganda has been. This seems to
| have destabilized many western countries to varying degrees.
| The best solution I've heard for this is that we need better
| algorithms for what gets amplified by platforms and what
| doesn't. Similar to how thirty years ago I could have shouted
| all day about the moon landing being fake and it would have
| never made it into the evening news unless there was
| something more to it.
|
| What's your thoughts on how we can defend against the shit
| flooding? I find yhis entire problem area really hard.
| Mezzie wrote:
| The flipside is that the old ways enabled institutions to
| lie to the people more easily. Remember Iraq? I just bring
| this up to keep us from getting rose-tinted nostalgia
| glasses about how much better things were before.
|
| Another caveat to what I'm about to say is that I think
| we're in for a century of legal and political upheaval, so
| long term solutions will need to fit into whatever we build
| next.
|
| That said, I think that there some things we could do.
|
| I'd like to see/hear more about looking into the
| possibility of regulating sentiment, for example. Maybe you
| can write any POSITION you want on culture war issue X, but
| you can't write it in such a way it's only meant to inflame
| anger/cause despair/etc. Or perhaps you can, but you have
| to have some kind of warning label, or that content is
| allowed but turned off/blurred by default (like NSFW pics
| on Reddit), so you have to actively go out of your way to
| consume things that are 'bad' for you.
|
| Also give people more tools and nudges. Like let people
| click through a Twitter profile and see that 80% of a
| person's Tweets are angry or about political topics.
| Somebody brought up tax policy as an example of something
| that doesn't get this treatment, and that's because tax
| policy is BORING and Slate/Newsmax aren't writing hit
| pieces about tax policy. People care about culture topics
| because the media whips them into a frenzy.
|
| We could also force the companies to do due diligence in
| their R+D/feature implementations; maybe Twitter should be
| forced to prove that each new algorithm change makes people
| HAPPIER (or at least doesn't have terrible mental health
| effects).
|
| Also I advocate for digital history and basic internet
| infrastructure information to be taught at the K-12 level;
| so much of the problem is that people don't understand how
| any of this works at a VERY BASIC level.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| Thank you for your thoughtful response!
| starfallg wrote:
| That's really about monopolies on information and other
| gateways more than anything. We are so used to consolidation
| to one or few large platforms for us to access information or
| services. This is in large part due to network effects, but
| also due to poor regulation as well as us being lazy.
|
| So if we have lot of different options to access information
| and your views are still unwelcome in all but the most
| extreme places, then I think it reflects quite poorly on your
| views. You might not get a platform, but that doesn't mean
| you're being persecuted.
| 1234letshaveatw wrote:
| > So if we have lot of different options to access
| information and your views are still unwelcome in all but
| the most extreme places, then I think it reflects quite
| poorly on your views. You might not get a platform, but
| that doesn't mean you're being persecuted.
|
| Historically, this perspective has proven to be laughable.
| Criticism of Putin can hardly be found except for the most
| extreme places (in some locations)
| starfallg wrote:
| >Criticism of Putin can hardly be found except for the
| most extreme places (in some locations)
|
| That's driven by government persecution, so not really
| what we're talking about.
| 1234letshaveatw wrote:
| Meh- power is power. Fine, how about extreme positions
| like Jesus is god, earth is round, earth is not center of
| universe, slavery should be outlawed, women should not
| have to wear hijab, ...
| starfallg wrote:
| Those were all sanctioned by government, who decides what
| the law is and who breaks it. We're not talking about
| that.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _So if we have lot of different options to access
| information and your views are still unwelcome in all but
| the most extreme places, then I think it reflects quite
| poorly on your views._
|
| And then those "most extreme places" (Parler, Truth Social)
| invariably fail because of the "worst people problem".
|
| https://twitter.com/hankgreen/status/1348101443404787718
| Mezzie wrote:
| It is, but I would argue that was one of the reasons for
| the establishment of free speech. Back when we were
| conceiving of free speech as a right, it was in direct
| response to a monopoly on information. In that case, it was
| the government backing up their monopoly on information
| with their monopoly on force. Now, it's companies backing
| up their oligarchy on information with their resources.
|
| I think the problem is the monopoly on information, not its
| source. I understand some people disagree.
|
| > So if we have lot of different options to access
| information and your views are still unwelcome in all but
| the most extreme places, then I think it reflects quite
| poorly on your views. You might not get a platform, but
| that doesn't mean you're being persecuted.
|
| I agree with this. It's just important to still let those
| extreme places exist.
| starfallg wrote:
| From my understanding of history which is probably
| incomplete, free speech is freedom from government
| restriction and prosecution, not about availability of
| information in the private sector. It boils down to the
| principle that we can't force other people to repeat your
| views.
|
| Free speech as a concept has definitely been abused by
| people distributing mis-information. That's more of a
| modern problem as network effects and technology made
| mass distribution and co-ordination of mis-information
| affordable outside of governmental organisations.
|
| In terms of "extreme places", the Internet is pretty free
| from restrictions already. You can pretty much set up a
| website with content that's not acceptable on any of the
| large media platforms.
| Mezzie wrote:
| Yes, that is how and why free speech was established. My
| argument is that we actually were reacting to the
| availability of information, but since the government
| (and outside of the US in some places the Church for
| whatever religion the state follows) was the only source
| of the monopoly, we assumed the problem was government.
| Like if you have somebody running around committing arson
| and you exile them but don't bother criminalizing arson;
| you addressed that particular actor but not the
| underlying problem.
|
| > Free speech as a concept has definitely been abused by
| people distributing mis-information. That's more of a
| modern problem as network effects and technology made
| mass distribution and co-ordination of mis-information
| affordable outside of governmental organisations.
|
| This is true, however, I would say it needs to be
| balanced against the situation before, where institutions
| acted unchecked and it was often impossible to act at all
| outside of them. I am sympathetic to the argument that
| misinformation is a problem and I even agree with it, I
| just think the ways we discuss solving the problem would
| be worse. It's not enough to solve a problem: We should
| try to solve it in a productive way. Otherwise we end up
| with a Pyrrhic victory.
|
| > In terms of "extreme places", the Internet is pretty
| free from restrictions already. You can pretty much set
| up a website with content that's not acceptable on any of
| the large media platforms.
|
| This is why I focused on things like pressure to buy out,
| DDOSes, immense legal resources being brought to bear,
| etc. You can set up a website, but if it becomes big
| enough, people start going after it with things other
| than just speech, and THAT'S where I draw the line.
| tapatio wrote:
| Never heard of 8chan. Quick Google search indicates it is
| shutdown.
| mollusk_bound wrote:
| It's frustrating that this topic keeps being discussed as if
| there are only two options. Why not provide each individual
| users with powerful tools that let them specify the type of
| content they want to see and when. They can have a large amount
| of presets and with a single button click users can change what
| they'll be seeing or they can spend some time and modify it to
| their liking. People can also share the filters they created.
| Even better create an open API and let companies compete with
| each other over who provides the best filters.
|
| Moderation is important, but why leave it up to executives at
| these massive companies to decide what is acceptable and what
| isn't. Let each user decide for themselves.
| gedy wrote:
| > Why not provide each individual users with powerful tools
| that let them specify the type of content they want to see
| and when.
|
| Agreed, but that's the issue - many people don't want anyone
| to see some content because they are convinced such
| misinformation causes people they don't like to be elected,
| etc. I'm of the opinion that filtering is its own type of
| propaganda.
| 542458 wrote:
| > Why not provide each individual users with powerful tools
| that let them specify the type of content they want to see
| and when
|
| Tools like adblock/ublock/etc dramatically improve user
| experience and performance on the internet, yet less than 30%
| of desktop users employ adblocking. Requiring end-users to
| set up filters to not be accosted by content that most people
| find objectionable will generally not be a winning
| proposition.
| mollusk_bound wrote:
| I don't think that is a good analogy. In this case these
| filters would be presented to you as you setup your
| account. In addition with filter sharing any user would
| only be one button press away from adopting someones else's
| filter. There could be a wide diversity of filters and
| users can change their filter by the minute. Imagine if
| browsers treated adblock/ublock/etc as integral parts of
| your experience and not as an extra add-on.
| geodel wrote:
| It may be good idea hundred years back where (only?) government
| was being all powerful in a person's life . So if government
| denied people speech they are roughly blocked from everywhere.
|
| Now with huge dependency on cloud/ social platform to conduct
| daily life they are pretty much government. SO getting blocked
| from them has much larger impact then it would be 50-100 years
| back.
|
| Spending time or getting blocked on HN is not as materially
| impacting as it would be on big cloud services. So it does not
| compare well.
| rayiner wrote:
| Nobody is upset that Twitter is moderating porn. (And in fact
| it allows porn!) People are upset that Twitter censored what
| turned out to be a true story about the son of the now
| President, or that you can be blocked or banned for running
| afoul of rules of decorum embraced by a small minority of the
| population. If Twitter banned porn and not those other things,
| people wouldn't be complaining!
| 300bps wrote:
| Internet forum moderation is nothing like government
| censorship.
|
| If you don't like a forum's moderation policies, you can go to
| another forum.
|
| If you run afoul of your government's censorship, they can jail
| you or even end your life.
| Koshkin wrote:
| But some forums like Twitter (and HN, for that matter) are
| pretty unique, IMO.
| slibhb wrote:
| People have to understand that by accepting the concept of
| "platforming," they're joining the anti-free speech camp. The
| whole idea of "platforming" is that there should be no
| obligation to allow opinions with which the "platform"
| disagrees. Disagreement occurs whenever the least tolerant,
| most militant group of employees says so.
|
| Contrary to this, we should have a free speech culture where
| the norm is that people can say what they want. Moderation is
| necessary but it should always be an exception.
|
| > Note that you're choosing to spend your time on HN (a
| relatively strongly moderated forum) instead of a less
| moderated forum like 8chan's /b/.
|
| Moderation on HN is based on tone and quality, not content.
| This distinguishes it from almost everywhere else on the
| internet.
| the_doctah wrote:
| "Platforming" is just weasel wording by people who want to
| justify censorship. Just like "misinformation" has become a
| blanket justification to censor.
|
| Once you have human arbiters determining what is and what is
| not "good" information, and censoring based on it, you are
| acting in bad faith against free speech.
| smachiz wrote:
| Do you think they just let anyone publish in a newspaper?
| Outside of cable access, you couldn't just hop on TV
| previously either.
|
| This is entirely a social media age problem. This isn't
| "OMG, we're censoring" it's "we're applying the same
| limitations that have always existed on a new medium" -
| which is people deciding on what is in good taste (to them)
| and appropriate for their platform (to them).
| the_doctah wrote:
| Twitter is only barely comparable to a newspaper, and
| only in the ways that fit your narrative. It's almost
| like new technologies force us into new ways of thinking
| about things.
| slibhb wrote:
| They don't let "just anyone" publish in a newspaper but
| almost all major newspapers allow voices across the
| political spectrum in the form of letters and op-eds.
|
| That's what free speech culture is about. It's the idea
| that "everyone gets their say" and by disagreeing and
| arguing, we get closer to the truth. It's sad that more
| and more people are taking your view, which is that
| people _can_ publish contrary opinions but there 's no
| reason in particular to do so.
| [deleted]
| smachiz wrote:
| >They don't let "just anyone" publish in a newspaper but
| almost all major newspapers allow voices across the
| political spectrum in the form of letters and op-eds.
|
| Yes... that are heavily curated by _the Editors_. They
| don 't publish every OpEd, nor every Letter to the Editor
| they get. Yes, they post dissenting viewpoints constantly
| - that is the function. But that isn't free speech at all
| in the context of social media and what you're
| describing.
|
| >That's what free speech culture is about. It's the idea
| that "everyone gets their say"
|
| Again, not everyone - not even most people get their say.
| Certainly none of the rantings and ravings get published.
| Solid, cogent, fair or interesting letters get published
| in credible platforms (i.e. newspapers and TV) - as
| determined by the Editors or the OpEd review boards
| depending on the _governance_ of the particular platform.
|
| > and by disagreeing and arguing, we get closer to the
| truth.
|
| Agreed - but that has nothing to do with allowing all
| view points and anyone with an idea, no matter how
| dangerous or how bad. Hell, even in full page
| advertisements, Newspapers can and will choose not to
| take your money if it's something that they think is
| harmful or antithetical to their platform. And they
| always have.
|
| This isn't new or unique.
|
| >It's sad that more and more people are taking your view,
| which is that people can publish contrary opinions but
| there's no reason in particular to do so.
|
| What I'm trying to share with you is that _you_ are the
| outlier here. What everyone is describing is more or less
| status quo prior to social media taking an "anything
| goes" stance. That has _never_ been the reality prior to
| that.
| slibhb wrote:
| > Yes... that are heavily curated by the Editors. They
| don't publish every OpEd, nor every Letter to the Editor
| they get. Yes, they post dissenting viewpoints constantly
| - that is the function. But that isn't free speech at all
| in the context of social media and what you're
| describing.
|
| It's exactly free speech in the context I'm describing;
| the idea that dissent is good and everyone gets their
| say. Social media is free and open so it's quite clear
| that the bar for curation is going to be lower than a
| newspaper with finite space.
|
| > Again, not everyone - not even most people get their
| say. Certainly none of the rantings and ravings get
| published. They sure did on Twitter.
|
| Virtually everyone should get their say. The bar for
| censorship should be extremely high.
|
| > Agreed - but that has nothing to do with allowing all
| view points and anyone with an idea, no matter how
| dangerous or how bad.
|
| Yes it does. How could it not? And who determines what is
| "dangerous or bad"?
|
| > What I'm trying to share with you is that you are the
| outlier here. What everyone is describing is more or less
| status quo prior to social media taking an "anything
| goes" stance. That has never been the reality prior to
| that.
|
| It used to be the case that most speech was in-person and
| local. Most people were relatively tolerant and there
| wasn't a lot of curation. There was a consolidation in
| the 20th century, which is what you're referring to. Now
| things are opening back up.
| smachiz wrote:
| >It's exactly free speech in the context I'm describing;
| the idea that dissent is good and everyone gets their
| say. Social media is free and open so it's quite clear
| that the bar for curation is going to be lower than a
| newspaper with finite space.
|
| Explain to me how you would get your OpEd published or
| get on TV tomorrow, today, or 20 years ago. Explain to me
| how _everyone_ gets to do it.
|
| >Social media is free and open so it's quite clear that
| the bar for curation is going to be lower than a
| newspaper with finite space.
|
| The point is it doesn't need to be. Newspapers are now no
| longer constrained by how much paper they can fold. TV is
| no longer constrained by how many channels can be
| broadcast OTA or via Coax.
|
| >Virtually everyone should get their say. The bar for
| censorship should be extremely high.
|
| Censorship _is not the same thing_ as not publishing your
| drivel. Are you suggesting that if you submit an OpEd to
| the Wall Street Journal and they don 't publish it that
| they're censoring you? They're making a curated,
| editorial choice, it's not censorship - they are a
| private company with no obligation to publish or give
| platform to your ideas.
|
| >Yes it does. How could it not? And who determines what
| is "dangerous or bad"?
|
| This is what I'm telling you - in all media formats prior
| to The Internet, the owner of the platform or editor of
| the platform or governance for OpEds determined what was
| worth publishing/platforming and what wasn't.
|
| >It used to be the case that most speech was in-person
| and local.
|
| Is that good or bad?
|
| >Most people were relatively tolerant and there wasn't a
| lot of curation.
|
| We burned "witches". There has never been a time in human
| history where we were more tolerant than today.
|
| The Catholic Church murdered people for suggesting that
| our solar system was heliocentric.
|
| We have less curation than we've ever had in human
| history - by miles. We may have over-rotated.
|
| >There was a consolidation in the 20th century, which is
| what you're referring to. Now things are opening back up.
|
| There has always been consolidation - through money and
| power. There was an opening in the 20th century, and
| we've been less constrained every day since the invention
| of the printing press.
| slibhb wrote:
| Newspapers are a red herring because they have limited
| space and don't solicit opinion pieces from random
| people. It is censorship to obstruct someone from posting
| on some social media site because their post is
| bad/wrong/dangerous. What else could it be?
|
| Under some conditions censorship is acceptable. The law,
| for example, sets those conditions at "incitement to
| imminent lawless action". Private companies need to set
| their own conditions for censorhip. My argument is that
| the bar should be high, much higher that it is on most
| sites, and that free speech culture is extremely
| valuable.
|
| My historical argument is simply that, in the US, there
| was a period of openness followed by a period of
| consolidation. This was the result of the media that
| existed (nationally prominent papers and tv channels are
| necessarily centralized). We're heading back to openness
| due to the internet. Enjoy the ride.
| smachiz wrote:
| > Newspapers are a red herring because they have limited
| space and don't solicit opinion pieces from random
| people.
|
| As I said, Newspapers haven't been constrained by space
| for 20 years. More than half of their subscribers are
| digital only.
|
| Anyone is free to submit a letter to the editor or an
| oped. They don't inherently solicit them. They just
| actually curate, moderate and only publish the ones they
| deem worth publishing.
|
| >It is censorship to obstruct someone from posting on
| some social media site because their post is
| bad/wrong/dangerous.
|
| Why? If it's my social media site, and I don't like what
| you're saying, how am I censoring you by saying you can't
| do it on _my_ platform?
|
| >What else could it be?
|
| Me exerting my rights on my property (my social media
| platform). Same way I don't have to let you scream
| whatever you want from my front lawn.
|
| >Under some conditions censorship is acceptable. The law,
| for example, sets those conditions at "incitement to
| imminent lawless action". Private companies need to set
| their own conditions for censorhip. My argument is that
| the bar should be high, much higher that it is on most
| sites, and that free speech culture is extremely
| valuable.
|
| The bar seems very high already for most social media
| platforms, honestly. Do you believe it is censorship to
| choose not to allow things to be platformed/printed that
| are clearly lies?
|
| Is it OK to print lies if no one is harmed (i.e. you're
| selling crystals to make your sleep better)? What if
| you're selling crystals that cure cancer and someone buys
| that instead of actually going to a cancer doctor?
|
| >My historical argument is simply that, in the US, there
| was a period of openness followed by a period of
| consolidation. This was the result of the media that
| existed (nationally prominent papers and tv channels are
| necessarily centralized). We're heading back to openness
| due to the internet. Enjoy the ride.
|
| That's just the cycle of things - everything bounces
| between the extremes. We go too hard one direction, then
| overcorrect in the other.
|
| The social media age is probably an over correction to
| openness, with no one fact checking anything, spreading
| lies rampantly. This was analogous to the snake oil that
| was the plague of the early 1900s. Do you believe we
| should go back to that? We stamped that out through
| regulation and limiting the claims people can make. Is
| that censorship? Is it bad?
|
| I'm not going to reply anymore, it was good discussing
| with you.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > Moderation on HN is based on tone and quality, not content.
|
| ... That is still content-based moderation, since it's based
| on the actual text being written and not the circumstances
| (time, place, manner) of its writing.
| slibhb wrote:
| Content may have been a poor word choice. What I meant is
| that comments here are rarely moderated because the message
| in the comment is deemed wrong by the moderators.
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31025740.
|
| (Not for moderation reasons--simply to prune the thread so the
| server isn't quite as overwhelmed.)
| moffkalast wrote:
| You guys should start a fundraiser or something, so you can
| stop hosting this on your basement Raspberry Pi cluster and
| finally rent out some proper cloud hosting :D
| [deleted]
| jansen555 wrote:
| jelder wrote:
| Not enough people are aware of the Paradox of Tolerance:
|
| "The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant
| without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized
| or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the
| seemingly paradoxical idea that in order to maintain a tolerant
| society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of
| intolerance."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
| refurb wrote:
| I find it hilarious when this paradox is trotted out because
| Popper's final conclusion was _we should tolerate
| intolerance_ up until it promotes imminent violence.
|
| He'd be entirely opposed to censoring intolerant views the
| way most people think of intolerance.
| popper_bot wrote:
| I think everyone on the Internet has heard of that paradox by
| now, and it is always misinterpreted by people who only want
| _their_ speech to be allowed.
|
| Popper was talking about literal Nazis. We do not know what
| percentage of the numerous Twitter bans he would have
| approved (my guess is around 5%). We do not know if he would
| have been astonished by the fact that proponents of his
| paradox never use it against overt communist propaganda but
| only against alleged fascist propaganda (the bar for being
| called a Nazi has never been lower).
| jrsj wrote:
| Hacker News isn't comparable to Twitter. They're not doing
| coordinated censorship with other big tech companies or working
| on behalf of intelligence agencies to spy on their users etc.
| Twitter & other large corps aren't just private companies
| because they have such strong relationships with the
| government. Politicians also threaten to penalize them for not
| doing censorship the way that they want, so they aren't really
| acting in a free market regardless.
| philistine wrote:
| Looking at what is not allowed on HN, the same things are
| disallowed here. How is that not the same?
|
| Elon will either let Twitter be run over by political spam
| and see it lose its value, or realize he needs to healthily
| stifle some speech to maintain his investment.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> Looking at what is not allowed on HN, the same things
| are disallowed here. How is that not the same?
|
| Not true. If Donald trump wanted to post here on tech or
| business I think he'd be allowed. The ban hammer might come
| quick not because of his views, but his inflamitory style.
| Twitter sensors ideas, not language.
| themitigating wrote:
| What idea have they censored?
| phkahler wrote:
| >> What idea have they censored?
|
| Why did they cancel Donald Trump?
|
| BTW I'm not supporting him, just pointing out censorship.
| philjohn wrote:
| Do they? In my experience they don't - e.g. the lab leak
| hypothesis.
|
| If you hypothesise about it, that's A OK, if you claim
| that it's 100% verified, that's not, because it's not
| been proven one way or the other.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> If you hypothesise about it, that's A OK, if you claim
| that it's 100% verified, that's not, because it's not
| been proven one way or the other.
|
| But what is used as the ground truth? For the lab leak it
| will likely never be known. Even so, if Twitter is
| declaring certain parties as authorities on subjects
| that's not good - particularly in highly politicized
| situations.
| jameshart wrote:
| > They're not doing coordinated censorship with other big
| tech companies
|
| You ever notice how you're not permitted to comment on
| Y-combinator company announcement posts on HN?
| jrsj wrote:
| Not really in the same ballpark as simultaneously banning
| an individual or a news story across every social media
| platform
| saagarjha wrote:
| You can comment on anything but job ads on this site.
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| People keep moving the goalposts and it never ends up making
| sense. The fact of the matter is that HN has moderation which
| people enjoy. You can't come in here talking about whatever
| you want, however you want. The same goes for Twitter. Trying
| to split them apart by size, audience or whatever is
| meaningless.
| overrun11 wrote:
| People like the moderation policies of Hacker News but not
| the ones of Twitter. This isn't some grand hypocrisy.
| jrsj wrote:
| HN has generally good & reasonable moderation and isn't
| engaged in blatant political censorship, it's not that
| complicated.
| thaway2839 wrote:
| It's, in fact, the opposite of free speech.
|
| Now, there may be an argument that Twitter, for example, has
| become such an integral part of the public square that the
| government SHOULD compel Twitter to allow every form of speech
| on it. And that could be a reasonable argument to make.
|
| What it wouldn't be is free speech. It would, in fact, be
| coerced speech.
| bluescrn wrote:
| Governments don't control these massively influential
| communications platforms (Maybe they should?)
|
| In some ways, huge tech companies are more powerful than
| governments. So why should they have the power to essentially
| remove ideas from public discussion?
| emteycz wrote:
| What? I am not aware of a single company that is at least as
| powerful as the smallest government. What do you mean?
| [deleted]
| kevingadd wrote:
| Try paying for things at a shop or service that only
| accepts credit cards when you've been banned from having
| one. Who bans you from that? Payment processors.
|
| If all the insurance companies decide they won't insure
| you, how will you get health care? The government had to
| intervene (with the ACA) because that particular problem
| was so bad.
|
| People trying to immigrate often have to use email to
| communicate with government agencies. If gmail bans their
| account, they can no longer talk to the immigration agency.
| I've seen a couple different people have this exact
| problem.
|
| There are plenty of other examples.
|
| Certainly governments have the power to do all these things
| as well, but large influential companies can absolutely
| ruin your life if you get the wrong kind of attention (or
| in the case of automated policy decisions, get unlucky).
| emteycz wrote:
| This is something much different from the previous claim
| (that companies are as powerful as states). None of this
| means that the company is more powerful than any state.
|
| And regardless - no business is going to send you to
| prison, while the state can. No business will shoot you,
| while the state can. So even in this interpretation of
| "how much can they fuck up my life" the state wins.
| kevingadd wrote:
| Many of the things I cited are powers that businesses
| have and the US government does not have. I don't know
| why this is hard to understand.
|
| Businesses are free to shoot you as well, private
| security guards can carry guns in most parts of the US.
| Businesses can also send you to prison via false police
| reports, which is a thing that has happened periodically.
| emteycz wrote:
| All things you listed are entirely in the power of
| governments - even the smallest ones. I'm actually
| fighting with the state about one of these you listed as
| we speak (healthcare insurance).
| bluescrn wrote:
| While governments technically have the power, they are
| easily manipulated by interests with large amounts of
| money.
| emteycz wrote:
| Why are my large amounts of money not helping at all,
| then?
| sp332 wrote:
| That sounds like an argument against monopolies, not and
| argument against moderation.
| mab122 wrote:
| or argument *for* inter-op of those platforms (reducing
| network effects of monopolies)
| boplicity wrote:
| > So why should they have the power to essentially remove
| ideas from public discussion?
|
| They don't. They never have. You're ascribing way more power
| to tech companies than they've ever had.
|
| That being said, the combined power of tech companies and
| media companies -- of which there are many -- does have the
| ability you're talking about. (For example, Fox, Warner,
| Google, Nytimes, etc.) The lines certainly have become a bit
| blurred, with Comcast and Verizon buying media companies
| though.
| ccn0p wrote:
| I agree a single company doesn't have all the power, but
| for some reason they generally seem to act in concert with
| one another. Take for example the Hunter Biden laptop
| story. It was suppressed "by mistake" according to Jack
| himself [1]. Later, survey indicated many voters believed
| it was a "very important" story [2].
|
| Another example is lab leak.
|
| Thus, yes, yes they do.
|
| [1] https://nypost.com/2021/03/25/dorsey-says-blocking-
| posts-hun...
|
| [2] https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politic
| s/gen...
| boplicity wrote:
| Strangely, practically everyone knows about the Hunter
| Biden laptop story, so no, that was certainly not very
| suppressed -- and you certainly _did_ see articles about
| it in established media organizations, just not all of
| them. So, no, it was not "essentially removed" from
| "public discussion" as the OP claimed.
|
| In fact, your bringing up the story (which I immediately
| recognized) proves the point. It is indeed, part of
| public discussion.
| overrun11 wrote:
| Yes now it is. It wasn't nearly as well known _before_
| the election.
| boplicity wrote:
| There were articles about the story published by many
| mainstream news organizations before the election --
| including the Washington Post, The New York Times,
| Politico, Vox, Techcrunch, CNN, CBS News, and USA Today,
| among others. I fail to see the "supression" of the story
| from the public discussion, based on the reality of the
| situation.
|
| Edit: The point is that the story was part of the "public
| discussion" -- though I understand that some people
| disagree with some of the articles that were part of the
| public discussion. Disagreement is a normal part of
| "discussion." The original claim I was responding to was
| that this story was "suppressed" from "public
| discussion." It was not.
| overrun11 wrote:
| You're making no distinction between the content of the
| coverage. The Hunter Biden laptop story was widely
| covered pre-election in the context of it being false or
| disinfo.
|
| Politico: "Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens
| of former intel officials say" source:
| https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/19/hunter-biden-
| story-...
|
| NPR: "Analysis: Questionable 'N.Y. Post' Scoop Driven By
| Ex-Hannity Producer And Giuliani" source:
| https://www.npr.org/2020/10/17/924506867/analysis-
| questionab...
|
| Compilation of journalists calling it disinfo: https://tw
| itter.com/tomselliott/status/1440402740409110528
|
| I honestly don't think I am following your argument at
| all. The fact that they wrongly reported on something
| without evidence is exactly the point.
| WaxedChewbacca wrote:
| themitigating wrote:
| It was extremely well known. What you're doing is how
| Foxnews, the number one cable news network in many
| situations, claims a story isn't being reported on by the
| "main stream media".
| the_doctah wrote:
| Streisand effect.
| themitigating wrote:
| Do you have any evidence the laptop story suppression
| wasn't a mistake?
| overrun11 wrote:
| Do you have evidence that it wasn't? Why do you get to
| decide the null hypothesis?
| themitigating wrote:
| Twitter claimed it was a mistake, that's all the
| information we have. You're claiming they are lying, you
| have to offer evidence to prove that claim.
| overrun11 wrote:
| You've ignored the point. Twitter made the claim that
| they made a mistake, should they be held to your standard
| that "you have to offer evidence to prove that claim."
| the_doctah wrote:
| I'm sorry, you think every social media company censoring
| a story _at the same time_ was somehow a mistake??
| 542458 wrote:
| If social media companies actually had the true power to
| remove topics from public discussion, there would not be
| public discussion on increasing regulation on these companies
| or breaking them up.
| ccn0p wrote:
| the key word we might be hung up on is "remove". they can't
| just remove, but they can sway just enough to have real
| social impact.
| themitigating wrote:
| And yet Trump was elected in 2016 and almost in 2020.
| Polls also indicate he would win an election between him
| and Biden right now.
| https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/600146-poll-trump-
| lead...
|
| 33% of the US population thinks the 2020 election was
| stolen https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021
| -12-28/pol...
|
| What evidence do you have that they hold sway over
| society?
| Iwan-Zotow wrote:
| Ever heard about HB laptop?
| themitigating wrote:
| Yes, what about it?
| refurb wrote:
| Well the former Democratic PAC leader now Facebook PR
| executive had that story pulled until such time it could
| be "fact checked". Still waiting 16 months later.
|
| https://twitter.com/andymstone/status/1316395902479872000
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| > So why should they have the power to essentially remove
| ideas from public discussion?
|
| A private company is not required to publish your rants on
| the current state of underground mole peoples' infiltration
| of the highest offices of the world's governments. If you
| somehow get it onto the platform, and they are made aware of
| it, they can unpublished it.
|
| Just like the NYT is not required to post every opinion piece
| that is submitted to them.
| nottorp wrote:
| > Just like the NYT is not required to post every opinion
| piece that is submitted to them.
|
| That worked when there were more than two platforms to post
| your opinions on.
| Avshalom wrote:
| We didn't even have those two platforms during most of my
| life.
| rosndo wrote:
| Today there are more platforms to post your opinions on
| than ever before.
| mojzu wrote:
| And very easy ways for people to create their own
| platforms/blogs with their own rules too, they almost
| certainly won't have the same reach as the larger
| platforms but it seems to be a common view that
| Facebook/Twitter/etc. owe people access to their platform
| and maximum potential audience for some reason.
| Personally I really don't understand how those espousing
| free speech principles are making arguments that seem to
| require other private individuals and companies to
| repeat/amplify speech they don't want to
| nottorp wrote:
| > And very easy ways for people to create their own
| platforms/blogs with their own rules too, they almost
| certainly _won 't have the same reach as the larger
| platforms_
|
| That's the point. FB/Twitter are now public utility size
| and usefulness. Your blog, not so much.
| mojzu wrote:
| I'm sympathetic to the argument that
| Facebook/Twitter/etc. are too large and have too much
| power for lobbying/influencing public discourse, although
| I think if anything making them a public utility would
| make that situation far worse as opposed to just breaking
| them up or something else to make the market more
| competitive
|
| But also just because they are big platforms why does
| that give people a right to be on them? Is my speech less
| free because I have a smaller audience?
| rosndo wrote:
| Okay, but how is the situation worse than it was before
| FB and twitter existed?
|
| The amount of eyeballs available today for even small
| sites is far greater than it used to be pre-facebook.
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| So this is all about, as another commenter said,
| complaining that you can't get the largest audience for
| your mole people rant. Facebook and Twitter are both very
| large social hubs, but they still get to pick what they
| publish. They are giving you the ability to publish
| anything you want until enough people (or the right
| people) complain about it.
|
| It is democratized moderation. If your following is small
| enough to skirt the mods, then you can post what ever you
| want. If your following is huge and you post a bunch of
| lies about sewer mutants, or that the covid vaccine gives
| you rabies, or that Hillary Clinton is actually a space
| alien in cahoots with Planned Parenthood to subsist off
| the flesh of aborted 6 year olds, then YES, they will
| remove your posts, and potentially ban you for a period
| of time.
|
| This literally happens to my aunt every few weeks. She
| gets a weeks long ban for basically reposting only
| Russian spam, gets her account back and does it again. It
| has never even been permanent.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| This is complaining that you won't be able to get all the
| audience you want for a deranged mole people rant. It
| wasn't too long ago that there were only one or two TV
| channels in any one area - should the mole people rant
| have been a mandatory presence on those media as well?
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| You say that like there aren't hundreds of social media
| platforms out there now and like it isn't trivial for a
| technical person to set up your own social media service
| on some "bulletproof host" in Lithuania or Russia.
|
| There isn't a dearth of social media. There are a couple
| of GIANT social media websites that have sprung up in the
| last 2 decades, but there are dozens of semi-popular
| niche-ier forums that cater to any rant you might want to
| leave.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| The NYT can control what they print, and they are also
| _responsible_ for what they print.
|
| Twitter can control what it "prints", but is _not_
| responsible.
|
| Those situations aren't the same. At all.
|
| Historically, there were platforms (like newspapers) that
| had full control of what information they disseminated and
| had full responsibility for that information, and "common
| carrier" platforms (like the phone company) that did _not_
| control what information was disseminated and accordingly
| were not responsible for it.
|
| Twitter and its brethren want the best of both worlds --
| freedom to censor, but no responsibility.
|
| They should have to choose one or the other.
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| > Twitter can control what it "prints", but is not
| responsible.
|
| I agree that this is a problem that I wish was addressed,
| but honestly, I dont know what kind of overreaching,
| anti-freedom (/s kind of?) law would need to be passed.
| The reason it worked for news papers was they were
| printing news, and news has to be true (or at least not
| outright lies).
|
| Twitter, Facebook, *chan, parlor, Truth social (is that
| actually a thing yet?) would all just say they dont print
| the news, and that every post is opinion.
|
| Which even the NYT opinion pieces don't fall under the
| same editorial scrutiny as their news, and legally are
| completely separate.
| sethrin wrote:
| I think you'll find that both print media and online
| media have substantially similar protections for third-
| party content.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| I think you'll find that online media is explicitly
| protected from being sued for defamatory or infringing
| content under the DMCA, as long as they take the material
| down.
|
| No such protection exists for print media.
| Iwan-Zotow wrote:
| > The NYT can control what they print, and they are also
| responsible for what they print.
|
| Nonsense
|
| You should look at the thingy called "Opinion", and what
| kind of disclaimer NYT put around it
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| Labeling it "opinion" does not protect you from being
| sued for libel, or for copyright infringement, or...
|
| Someone is spouting nonsense here, but it isn't me.
| themitigating wrote:
| Why can't they not be responsible and censor, how are
| these related?
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| Because power without responsibility is a recipe for
| abuse.
| themitigating wrote:
| If they are responsible for the comments they'll censor
| more.
| the_doctah wrote:
| >If you somehow get it onto the platform, and they are made
| aware of it, they can unpublished it.
|
| And that's called censorship.
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| You are absolutely correct. Do you remember when your
| parents would have some weird rule you didn't agree with,
| and their justification was "my house, my rules." This is
| basically the same thing. You don't have to follow the
| rules, but if you get caught breaking them, there could
| be some grounding and privileges taken away.
|
| I do not get why people are under the impression that
| Twitter has to indulge their every tweet. They do not,
| will not, should not, and have not since the founding of
| the platform.
|
| If you walk into a McDonalds and start selling your own
| hamburgers out of the bathroom unbeknownst to them, is it
| censorship when they finally discover the atrocity and
| have you removed? Is it stifling competition or free
| speech? Probably, but their house, their rules.
| zamfi wrote:
| > In some ways, huge tech companies are more powerful than
| governments
|
| Sure, but in _other_ ways, they are not.
|
| They do not, for example, break the government's monopoly on
| force; tech companies generally cannot compel you to pay
| taxes or imprison you. If you make them unhappy, mostly the
| worst thing they can do is ignore you -- and unlike a
| government, they cannot force _others_ to ignore you, and
| they cannot much affect your life outside of their own
| transactions with you.
|
| The centralization of multiple forms of power is more
| concerning than the mere existence of power in separate
| spheres. You say "maybe they should?" but collaboration
| between the organization that controls force and the
| organizations that control speech seems like an opportunity
| for much more substantial oppression.
| wsc981 wrote:
| _> Governments don't control these massively influential
| communications platforms (Maybe they should?)_
|
| Trusted News Initiative says otherwise. Which is why all big
| platforms either censor or warn public on information that is
| counter to the Western governments narratives.
| tomp wrote:
| This is a false dichotomy.
|
| There are other ways to implement moderation that isn't
| censorship.
|
| I've proposed "blocklists" before, where users could create
| different blocklists (e.g. "no vegans"), other users could
| subscribe to them, and there would be some default blocklists
| (e.g. "no porn" and "no gore") that people could also
| unsubscribe...
| bcrl wrote:
| The only problem with that idea is that the blocklists will
| inevitably end up being used to slander and malign other
| groups as people will use them to assign unpleasant labels to
| others. In the end, someone will need to moderate the lists,
| so you're right back at the same moderation problem. Humans
| on the internet tend to find all the creative ways to be
| assholes-at-scale.
| dataduck wrote:
| So long as everyone using the platform can modify their own
| list, no it's not the same problem at all. The question is:
| do I get to decide who I listen to, or do you?
| philistine wrote:
| Do you get to decide who can use Twitter, or does
| Twitter?
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| Who to listen to, where? Out on the street? You do. On
| someone else's platform? Also you.
|
| You choosing to listen to something doesn't mean you also
| get to force whatever platforms you want, to carry
| whatever you choose to listen to.
|
| I find it hard to believe that there is someone you want
| to listen to, who you currently aren't able to, because
| twitter deplatformed them.
| bcrl wrote:
| You can already block people on Twitter. The problem
| arises with shared blocklists. How is a shared blocklist
| identified? Well, the odds are that it will probably need
| to have a name. You now have the following problem: the
| name can be used to promote hate if the name of that
| blocklist is visible to other users, or to falsely
| associate a given user with other nefarious groups, as
| Google will probably crawl the lists and the results will
| show up in searches. The whole thing ends up being
| _exactly_ an added moderation mess, just like what you
| started with, but with a few more layers of indirection
| and different ways it can be abused. Plus you still have
| the original problem of moderating messages that needs to
| be solved.
|
| Solutions like this look great initially if everyone uses
| them properly, but everything falls apart when people
| inevitably start actively abusing the new feature. The
| design needs to handle assholes-at-scale from the outset.
| titzer wrote:
| I liked Elon Musk better when he was less focused on a being a
| celebrity and trying to protect his effectively infinite stack of
| virtual cash. At one point he was worth $300 billion--today it is
| merely $265 billion. He could literally retire 100,000 times over
| (a comfortable middle-class $80k/yr lifestyle)--or maybe just
| 10,000 times over (comfortably in the 1% at $800k/yr).
|
| Money aside, clearly that's just not enough for him anymore. He
| got sucked into the fame game and inevitably had to step on faces
| to keep climbing. And that made him a target, and now he's going
| to go punish those Twitter trolls like a baby with an enormous
| wallet.
| [deleted]
| gotaquestion wrote:
| If he's so rich and smart, just make a better Twitter and people
| will flock to it, right?
|
| I mean, I thought he's for the invisible hand of the market yadda
| yadda yadda.
| funshed wrote:
| If he's so rich and sport, buy twitter and build on the
| shoulders of a giant.
| gotaquestion wrote:
| But Elon is a disruptor, no?
| danlugo92 wrote:
| What is network effects?
| seanw444 wrote:
| Exactly. Better things are overshadowed by more established
| things all the time.
| [deleted]
| gotaquestion wrote:
| Seems very non-Elon, because he's about disrupting
| established things, right? Or no. Pick one.
| TimMeade wrote:
| I am just going to throw something new out here.
|
| EVERYTHING Elon does is circled around his belief that we need to
| be living on Mars. Spaceships to get there. Satellites for
| communications when we get there. Electrical cars since no oil to
| drive there. Tunnel boring to make the roads and cities there.
|
| Why would buying Twitter be any different? He currently is
| meeting serious resistance from USGOV and FAA on launching
| Starships. Postponed many times and may be postponed yet again
| due to environmental studies in TX.
|
| Maybe; just maybe; total guess here; He thinks twitter would be a
| benefit to him during future elections to help either steer the
| future governments to directions he wants; or at a minimum move
| away from the one currently in power that's holding him back. I
| can certainly see it helping with his mantra "Going to Mars
| soon". Just another cog in the engine.
|
| I just do not think this is about the money. A lot of people are
| talking about his stock price etc. Elon has never been about the
| money. It is about his end goals. Either the purchase of twitter
| is his repairing a social injustice he perceives, not normally on
| his radar. Or; it is a move to further his goal.
| The_rationalist wrote:
| hayd wrote:
| > postponed yet again due to environmental studies in TX.
|
| If Biden picked up the phone to Dickson over at the FAA that
| PEA could be done in days. Likewise if Biden asked him to "make
| sure it's all done right" (or something) we're looking at many
| more months of waiting... and Musk is going to get
| bored/creative and do stuff like this!
| thebradbain wrote:
| I really think this whole "everything Elon does is for Mars" is
| yet another story/myth he's perpetuated.
|
| He's a businessman. He wants money; he wants respect; he wants
| power. Like most businessmen/politicians/people of stature of
| that caliber, he's just couching it all within a story that's
| much more palatable to the general public than saying that.
|
| Also, I personally have always found how Tesla fits into this
| Mars equation laughable: why are we building sprawling
| infrastructure that needs cars on Mars? Is his imagination
| limited to Atherton, but on Mars? A much better use of limited
| resources (and oxygen) to build infrastructure would be to
| build denser, walkable colonies with major corridors served by
| public transit. Electric light rail or self-guided people
| movers are not new or novel, but we all know how Elon feels
| about public transit.
| TimMeade wrote:
| I think it fits in that he is engineering electrical
| vehicles. He is building the tech base. He will need that.
| beefbudd69 wrote:
| sounds good to me
| TheDesolate0 wrote:
| beowulfey wrote:
| Has Musk made it clear why he thinks Twitter doesn't serve the
| goal of free speech with explicit reasons? I don't follow him so
| he may have mentioned them in the past.
| overrun11 wrote:
| I suspect most of the commenters supporting the right of a
| private company to moderate content is completely contingent on
| what those moderation policies are. Commenters feign holding an
| absolute position but would certainly balk if the moderation ever
| turned against them and the idea they support.
|
| If you believe on principle, the right of private companies to
| moderate content, then you must support all kinds of absurd
| outcomes: Twitter deciding to subtly push pro-Russian viewpoints,
| Facebook deciding to boost antivax content etc.
| frabcus wrote:
| Well, I also believe that no single company should be allowed
| to have more than 10% market share in _any_ market. So I would
| have competition, with different companies having different
| moderation policies.
| afrodc_ wrote:
| How would you even enforce this? You'd require a minimum of
| 10 companies at all times and mandate user distribution? That
| wouldn't work
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Isn't the free-market answer to this problem for users to move
| to other social media platforms that moderate in a way they
| prefer? The problem here is how powerful and walled-off
| Facebook and Twitter are, making competing difficult if not
| impossible. Perhaps if we solve that problem, _everyone_ can
| get what they want.
|
| I think saying that, on principle, companies should _not_
| moderate content at all is equally absurd as it would allow
| malware, CP, abusive content, and spam to run rampant. All we
| 're really arguing about here is to what extent do we want
| these platforms to moderate content. Should they be limited to
| only removing illegal content? What's the line on "illegal" (no
| company could afford to consult lawyers for every post they
| remove)? What about spam, which is not necessarily illegal but
| disruptive to the service?
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| If I remember correctly, Google put a ton of resources into a
| Facebook competitor and failed spectacularly. A well funded,
| immediate millions of users, and an unrivaled ad network...
| fell on its face (for reasons of course, but none nullify the
| above facts).
|
| Now, please make the case for any startup to compete with
| Google's resources.
|
| If the only case you can make is time, there is a problem
| with this monopolistic system.
| smcl wrote:
| You're effectively saying that Google failed, therefore
| nobody can succeed. This suggests that Google threw all its
| might and resources behind Google+ and still came up short.
| I don't think that's true, but even if they did, throwing
| sufficient resources at the problem was not the issue, the
| problem seemed to be poorly understood within Google. They
| seemed to be building "Facebook but Google-branded, but
| also somehow not Facebook" and then when it was struggling
| early on instead of trying to fix it, they just went "Ok
| all Google users have a Google+ now" and acted like they
| were blowing up.
|
| There is a _very_ interesting counterexample. A company
| that Facebook saw as enough of a threat that they bit the
| bullet and spent what was at the time an eyewatering amount
| of money on a company with a product that was built by a
| tiny team - Instagram.
|
| We can't ever know what would have become of Instagram had
| it not been acquired, maybe it would just be the
| aspirational selfies-and-travel-pics app or maybe it would
| grow and become something altogether different. But it is
| certainly clear to me that the failure of Google+ does not
| mean someone can't build a company that could grow to rival
| Facebook. They may seem dominant in social media now, but
| companies which have been completely dominant in their
| field have been known to totally collapse - remember Nokia?
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Absolutely there is a problem. That was my point. If we fix
| the monopolization of these industries, we solve the
| moderation issue as well via the free market.
|
| Obviously solving the kind of monopolies created by social
| networks is hard. The best proposals I've heard is forcing
| them to open up their social graphs/APIs to competitors,
| but that's not without its own issues (e.g. bad actors
| siphoning off user data, like Cambridge Analytica).
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| > Isn't the free-market answer to this problem for users to
| move to other social media platforms that moderate in a way
| they prefer?
|
| It's not that easy. You want to be where your audience is.
| People are on Twitter since there is a huge (potential)
| audience. Thus if the moderation only affects a small group
| and majority doesn't even notice others being moderated it is
| a tough game.
| goatcode wrote:
| >I suspect most of the commenters supporting the right of a
| private company to moderate content is completely contingent on
| what those moderation policies are.
|
| Of course it is. Reading "Rules for Radicals" helps calm the
| nerves when you see previously anti-governance "anarchists"
| cheering for governments and private corporations. You make
| your enemies play by their own rules, then disregard the rules
| when they're no longer useful to you.
| akhmatova wrote:
| And if _don 't_ you believe on principle in the right of
| private companies to moderate content -- you arrive at even
| more absurd outcomes.
|
| Like the idea that a private company has no such right, for
| example,
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Honestly, this challenged my view a bit, because I _am_ a
| person who believes a private company has a right to moderate
| content, and I think you 're right, I've been resting on that
| view because largely companies seem to have not done anything
| insane (IMO) with that.
|
| Looking at it now, I honestly think it's totally okay for Elon
| Musk to buy Twitter and change fundamentally what its policies
| are. I think it'd be devastating for the platform, and I think
| a competitor would swoop in and scoop up the vast majority of
| folks who would find a "free speech site" repugnant, but I
| believe that's up to the platform to decide (right up until the
| platform violates a law, of course).
|
| Out of all of this, I'm just kicking myself for not being that
| competitor. There's a _ton_ of turmoil here, I think a Twitter-
| That-Is-The-Same-Except-Not-Named-Twitter could do real well
| right now.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| Kind of a ridiculous statement. "If you support any laws
| whatsoever, then you also support laws forcing Russian
| viewpoints, laws against vaccines, etc."
| klyrs wrote:
| > I suspect most of the commenters supporting the right of a
| private company to moderate content is completely contingent on
| what those moderation policies are.
|
| I'm one of those commenters, and I'd point to Gab, Parler etc
| as companies who are already doing exactly that and are well
| within their rights to do so. And of course, their free speech
| (curation and flagging) is balanced by their users' freedom of
| association: if twitter radically changes their moderation
| policies, they could risk driving away their userbase and even
| their developers.
| Spivak wrote:
| Right but this kind of reasoning presumes a world where
| everything is equal, truth in unknowable, and our priors for
| two statements like "women should be allowed to vote" and "a
| woman's place is in the home and they are too emotional for
| politics [1]" are that they're equally valid and likely to be
| correct.
|
| So I can totally understand why basically no moderation is in
| this world is appealing but surely we can do better than that.
| Who's gonna argue that the _extremely racist_ "Obama is a
| Kenyan Muslim baby photoshop" is well reasoned take that isn't
| based in hate? So when I say I like having moderation I'm not
| arguing that I'm fine with literally arbitrary completely
| unaccountable moderation.
|
| [1] This was a real anti-suffragist take in the early 1900s.
| Which is hilarious because 100 years later it's overwhelmingly
| the men in politics having public emotional outbursts.
| Imnimo wrote:
| I believe those things would be within Twitter's rights, but
| would object to them as being bad ideas that would make me not
| want to use the platform. That isn't the same as saying I think
| Twitter doesn't have the right to do them, though.
| daenz wrote:
| What if Twitter employees threaten to leave en-masse? I'd seen
| some reports that people quit when he became the largest
| shareholder. It's not outside the realm of possibility.
| no-dr-onboard wrote:
| I can't recall a time where a tech corp has been significantly
| burdened by an employee strike.
|
| Netflix employee tantrums over Chapelle was the most recent one
| that comes to mind.
| daenz wrote:
| The tech industry appears to be closer to favoring
| unionization than we ever have been. I take your point, but
| the Chapelle outrage is a very small example compared to
| what's happening here.
|
| Tech workers are poised to leave their jobs far more readily
| than many other professions.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Why would they do that? Do the current owners have any kind of
| noble motive that would be undermined?
| daenz wrote:
| My read on it is that the employees who work at Twitter, when
| they can work at any other tech company, prefer to work at
| Twitter because they think that by moderating the world's
| messages, they are making it a better place.
| thejackgoode wrote:
| Mostly but not entirely off topic, just something I thought about
| this morning, a hypothetical feature of twitter.
|
| Imagine being able to flip a switch (a "green profile check
| mark") that would disable banning and muting features for you.
| And will only allow another green check marks to engage in
| conversations with you.
|
| Will this help break the echo chambers, or will it create a
| tyrannical majority? Both?
| heartbreak wrote:
| This site has a feature called showdead, and I imagine this
| hypothetical green checkmark would be about as useful.
| firstSpeaker wrote:
| It will be end of Twitter, or beginning of the end.
| themitigating wrote:
| based on what?
| firstSpeaker wrote:
| Elon Musk is The genius for manufacturing, super deep
| research, and science as evident with success he has.
|
| He has no experience, or at least none that I read about.
| Social media is complex simply because of human element
| involvement and immense regulatory push and pull.
|
| Given that, I cannot see how he can replicate the success for
| science, manufacturing, tech in the social scene.
| gigatexal wrote:
| No. No. Do not want. Why is he going to ruin something good? I
| hope the shareholders reject this.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Everyone here is talking about free speech and Twitter
| censorship, but I have a different take:
|
| How do we know Elon Musk won't just ban criticism of him or his
| business ventures (Tesla / SpaceX / The Boring Company / Starlink
| / etc)?
|
| We know that his claims of being a "free speech absolutist" are
| absolute bullshit, because the moment the speech is about him he
| turns to every trick in the book to try and censor it[0]. This
| includes firing internal critics of himself and getting dox on
| anonymous bloggers so he could threaten to sue their employers.
|
| If Elon buys Twitter and makes any major changes to it's
| policies, it will be for the worse. I probably will delete my
| account at that point.
|
| [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/free-speech-absolutist-
| elon-...
| zackmorris wrote:
| Your sentiment was my first instinct as well, that the only
| power worth that kind of money is the power to erase history.
| It's not about who's got the most bullets, it's about who
| controls the information.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk0Mzci2Sks
| mrtksn wrote:
| I don't have an opinion over the consequences for politics over
| this, I'm just excited over the potential shakedown of the social
| media landscape that I grew to despise. Musk is an activist, can
| make it or break it.
|
| He is absolutely right over its enormous potential, all the
| problems it has - as a business or ones it creates for the
| society - can be solved.
|
| Free speech absolutism is possible and is beneficial once you
| ensure that someone is not gaming the system, i.e. someone
| pretending to be more than one person. Add some other social
| mechanisms that we organically use in our daily lives to combat
| bad actors, for example if someone is caught BS'ing degrade their
| reputation and amplify the defence of the victims(thus, solve the
| problem of sensational lie being viewed a million times and no
| one seeing the correction).
|
| Filter bubbles? Doesn't have to be a thing, you have all the data
| to detect bubbles and pop them by introducing them to each other.
| "More from the same" algos are a choice, TikTok successfully
| serves you new content - doesn't think that just because you
| liked a cat you want cats and cats only.
| lossolo wrote:
| > once you ensure that someone is not gaming the system, i.e.
| someone pretending to be more than one person
|
| For this to work you would need a worldwide government identity
| check protocol implemented by all participating countries,
| something like OAuth so you could register only one account
| connected to that real identity, it could still be anonymous
| from other users perspective. Problem here is that even if that
| would make bot problem less significant it would not eliminate
| it. You would have farms of hacked identities and then in
| countries with really low income you could buy those identities
| (digital access) for a few dollars per piece.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Free speech absolutism is possible and is beneficial once you
| ensure that someone is not gaming the system, i.e. someone
| pretending to be more than one person.
|
| And how is one supposed to do that, especially against nation-
| state actors such as Russia and China, both of which have been
| caught or implicated _multiple times_ now, or against ordinary
| criminals?
|
| > Filter bubbles? Doesn't have to be a thing, you have all the
| data to detect bubbles and pop them by introducing them to each
| other.
|
| Great idea, expose LGBT people to Christian fundamentalists,
| it's not like harassment from these groups and their ideology
| isn't one of the leading causes of suicide of LGBT people.
|
| "Filter bubbles" _are_ the self-organized "social mechanisms
| that we organically use in our daily lives to combat bad
| actors" you were talking about.
| glenstein wrote:
| Completely agree. People who think unmoderated online
| platforms are equivalent to a flourishing state of nature
| have not really thought one or two steps ahead.
|
| No thought whatsoever about the fact that increasing
| automation makes astroturfing, propaganda, "coordinated
| inauthentic activity" possible in a way that was not easily
| practical before.
|
| Additionally, no one thinks about what filter bubbles really
| are in practice, or models what they imagine to be the
| healthy exchange of ideas, or whether our present choices to
| be selective about information have broader array of
| functional purposes than are captured by an oversimplifying
| term like "filter bubble."
|
| I feel like this is a conversation about free speech on the
| internet that is due to mature, and that as it matures there
| will be a new inventory of 101-level fallacies broadly
| understood by everybody. One fallacy would be the idea that
| bots, trolls, harassment campaigns, mob mentality and
| coordinated state-based campaigns are the same as a "free
| market of ideas" that leads to the optimal state of exchange
| of ideas. Another fallacy would be the notion that any act of
| preferentially selecting sources is comprehensively analyzed
| and understood by labeling it a "filter bubble."
| ss108 wrote:
| I don't think we will get to that level of maturity, and
| part of the problem is unbridled free speech itself lol
|
| In contemporary society, it seems that the kind of free
| speech we have seems only to lead to greater stupidity by
| helping bad ideas propagate.
|
| > People who think unmoderated online platforms are
| equivalent to a flourishing state of nature have not really
| thought one or two steps ahead.
|
| They don't look two steps behind either. All their
| historical analogies, for example, are sophomoric crap.
| blenderdt wrote:
| I think there is a huge distinction between the potential
| business opportunity and the potential social opportunity
| Twitter is offering.
| [deleted]
| pstuart wrote:
| > Free speech absolutism is possible and is beneficial once you
| ensure that someone is not gaming the system
|
| First and foremost gaming seems to be nigh on unavoidable.
|
| Secondly and most importantly, "absolutism" is not a good
| thing. I know I'll get downvotes but it needs to be said: some
| speech is not healthy for society, primarily hate speech.
|
| And we have that today in Fox News -- actively promoting hate
| speech and helping to widen the divide in the US.
|
| edit: yes, much news is garbage (CNN et al), but my point
| remains that speech designed to foster hate of others is not
| healthy and welcome dialog in this regard.
|
| Divide and conquer for the win.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Musk may be about to make the biggest mistake of his career.
|
| This BBC article [1] posted a little earlier seems to indicate
| it's not NFT's that are slipping here so much as interest in
| Twitter.
|
| He seems to be acquiring this for the wrong motives when he
| could easily build a much better rival with different values.
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61102759
| Zigurd wrote:
| Nobody has yet been able to "build a much better rival with
| different values."
|
| If there isn't a good theory about why that is, reshaping
| Twitter to be more like those failed experiments is a not a
| likely path to success.
| outsb wrote:
| > easily build a much better rival
|
| Bootstrapping a network the size of Twitter is nothing like
| easy, and might even be impossible this late in the game.
| Gold rushes of new users tend to wear off as new areas
| calcify into established concepts.
|
| (The same would be true for launching a modern day FriendFeed
| / Bebo / MySpace etc)
| WJW wrote:
| Musk has had success with Paypal, Tesla and SpaceX. All of
| those are/were mostly engineering problems first and then
| marketing problems second. None of the major problems at
| Twitter these days are engineering problems, but rather
| they are all related to politics and human group
| psychology. I don't see what Elon could bring to the table
| that Twitter does not already have.
| shafyy wrote:
| PayPal wasn't rally an engineering problem, at least not
| at the scale of Tesla and SpaceX.
|
| I'm torn. I think he has some good ideas (more open, paid
| vs. ads, crack down on bots), and for sure the necessary
| leadership to focus resources on those topics. On the
| other hand, it's not good that rich people own more
| media.
| kylecordes wrote:
| For PayPal to succeed it had to viciously hammer on a
| huge number of users who it algorithmically suspected
| might maybe be scammers. Blocking a tremendous amount of
| free activity in the process, punishing many innocent in
| addition to the guilty. This was done to create something
| that felt safe enough to get mainstream use.
|
| That sounds somewhat like the Twitter of today, and not
| much like a hypothetical super-free-ified twitter.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > Gold rushes of new users tend to wear off as new areas
| calcify into established concepts.
|
| I hear ya. It's the crowd he's buying. But to me Twitter
| has no "established concept". Maybe I'm the stupidest
| person on the planet right now, but what exactly _is_
| Twitter? Does Musk have a brilliant solution looking for a
| problem. Or is this just playing games with money and power
| for it 's own sake?
| outsb wrote:
| It is a bit like coal mining.. even the default new
| account experience encourages subscribing to a bunch of
| spam, when what is needed is mining one seam in that mess
| containing just the desired content (people).
|
| Finding a tight-knit specialist community goes against
| everything the Twitter UI encourages, but it's how most
| folk who are deeply loyal to the platform actually use
| it. When configured well, the timeline should be
| significantly comprised of conversations between known
| people talking about desirable topics.
|
| Personally I think this is the core of the tool - free,
| open access to specialist communities with no membership
| requirements, and no need for upfront reputation. If some
| conversation between experts interests you and you have a
| question, you can just ask.
|
| One approach is to start by following one account you
| really like, then mining their replies following the folk
| they actively engage with. Do this for a few iterations
| and the result will quickly become an extremely intimate,
| engaging, and topical timeline. It only takes a few
| meaningful questions and comments added to these
| conversations for the follows and inclusion to start
| flowing your way.
| wyre wrote:
| My conspiracy theory is that Musk foresees the decline of
| society and owning a massive platform of communication
| provides him with a lot of power. Why buy a newspaper
| when you can buy the communication of so-much-more?
| fsloth wrote:
| "but what exactly is Twitter?"
|
| It's like a watercooler around which a huge bunch of
| people with interesting takes and things to say on lots
| of different interesting things have gathered. It takes a
| while to find the information streams as they are not
| made obvious, but at least for me I got much better first
| hand information of both Covid and Ukrainian war from the
| people I follow before media.
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| Simultaneously, Twitter is an algorithmic echo chamber. I
| had the opposite experience: fear porn scaremongering
| throughout the pandemic with microchips in the vaccines,
| 5G nonsense, graphene in the vaccines, the evils of Bill
| Gates, and far more. My interest in Twitter has declined
| massively year-on-year. I used to use it as an IRC
| replacement with hashtags in TweetDeck in place of
| channels. Now all the fun stuff is happening on Matrix
| protocol in Matrix Spaces.
| fsloth wrote:
| "fear porn scaremongering throughout the pandemic with
| microchips in the vaccines,"
|
| Any of the algorithmic timelines are generally horrible,
| agreed.
|
| I follow only people who tweet and retweet reasonable
| things. I use the timeline with content only from the
| people I choose to follow ("Latest"), and don't follow
| lunatics. This is a fairly nice experience, but needs a
| curated list of people to follow, building of which needs
| a while.
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| The only way I can stomach Twitter is using a browser
| extension that removes retweets and likes from others,
| and recommended stuff from Twitter. Also removed the
| Trending/News area, and the Explore tab. Added a
| chronological timeline back too, but really don't use it
| much, and feel a lot better for it.
|
| I don't think it's even necessarily about who you follow,
| there's a lot of pushing celebrities who are into this
| rubbish.
| paulcole wrote:
| > Or is this just playing games with money and power for
| it's own sake?
|
| Can't be. This doesn't sound like something Elon Musk
| would do.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Cant tell if this is written in jest
| paulcole wrote:
| That's the vibe I'm going for here.
| [deleted]
| version_five wrote:
| I'd add that even if by doing this he ends up destroying
| twitter, it will still leave room for the growth of
| something new. Twitter has a lot of legacy baggage, and
| either it had to be shaken up dramatically or burned to the
| ground in order for this social media landscape to change.
| This could go either way.
| Aeolun wrote:
| If there is anyone on the planet that can start a new
| social network and get millions to join just by asking it's
| probably Elon.
| themitigating wrote:
| I would have thought that before it failed to happen for
| "Truth Social"
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Trump never posting on TruthSocial seems to be a pretty
| low commitment from him. Or maybe he sent a welcome/test
| message. Meanwhile, he doesn't even have someone
| crossload his blog entries.
| bdavis__ wrote:
| The main draw for Truth Social is not posting on it. If
| he was "truthing" 50 times a day, they would be doing a
| lot better. I suspect some negotiation is going on. The
| main content creator wants a bigger slice of the
| business.
| themitigating wrote:
| What makes your suspect this?
| danso wrote:
| Musk realizing the difficulty of building a competitor vs
| just outright buying Twitter is the best argument in favor of
| his wisdom.
| WaxedChewbacca wrote:
| fsloth wrote:
| "he could easily build a much better rival with different
| values."
|
| Steretypically of social media - I see Twitters greatest
| asset being it's current network of influencers, analysts,
| thinkers, artists and colleagues. All the people I want to
| follow are already on twitter. I don't care about the
| platform or the tech, I care about all of the interesting
| people posting there. I would claim that is the true power of
| the platform atm - it's network.
| paulgb wrote:
| > This BBC article [1] posted a little earlier seems to
| indicate it's not NFT's that are slipping here so much as
| interest in Twitter.
|
| That's not how I read the article at all, and Google trends
| confirms that NFT interest has trended down whilst Twitter
| holds steady.
|
| https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=Nft,Twitte.
| ..
| seventytwo wrote:
| > Free speech absolutism is possible and is beneficial once you
| ensure that someone is not gaming the system
|
| This is unbelievably naive. It's like saying "a perfectly
| lassie-faire economy is possible, if no one is greedy".
|
| Someone will ALWAYS be trying to game the system.
| skybrian wrote:
| Free speech absolutism and "ensure that someone is not gaming
| the system" are opposites. Having multiple accounts isn't the
| only way to game the system. There are plenty of trolls out
| there and they are creative.
|
| Once you are large enough to attract some trolls, if you don't
| have good moderation, comment quality goes to hell, and users
| care about that. Running a large social media site isn't kind
| to people who aren't willing to do what works for ideological
| reasons. You are fighting the trolls with a deliberate handicap
| and they will absolutely take advantage. So are you going to
| ban people who are disruptive or not?
|
| TikTok is heavily moderated. That's why they became popular -
| the moderation was better than the competition.
| bluescrn wrote:
| Heavy moderation can potentially work. But it needs to try
| and be objective and politically neutral, not based on mobs
| of activists actively trying to get their opponents
| banned/silenced.
| yibg wrote:
| There is no such thing as objective and politically
| neutral. If you moderate any topic, I can find a way to
| claim it was politically motivated.
| glenstein wrote:
| Concepts like "objective" and "politically neutral" are
| what Walter Bryce Gallie called "essentially contested
| concepts."
|
| Even in a system where moderation was administered
| perfectly, there would be some percentage of people who
| fundamentally objected to the accuracy and even legitimacy
| of moderation based on its outcome. A "correctly"
| administered system would probably still be one in which
| disgruntled people dismissed "correct" choices as activism,
| biased motives, etc.
|
| Getting rid of vaccine misinformation would lead to antivax
| cranks saying the pharmaceutical industry is using their
| financial power to influence moderating. Getting rid of
| 2020 election misinformation will lead to conservative
| narratives about "mainstream" media silencing their voices
| out of political bias. The liberal narrative on moderation
| decisions would say it excludes minority and disempowered
| voices. And all sides would invoke concepts like
| "objectivity."
|
| The problem is that not that all sides do it, but the
| opposite, that there really is a real underlying truth out
| there, and it really will be the case that some people are
| going to be systematically wrong at every level at which
| they register objections to moderation, and the correct
| response is that their concerns are unfounded.
|
| Of course that won't make people happy, but it shows that
| the limits of what is possible are limits relating to human
| nature that won't be uniformly satisfied by any system.
| danShumway wrote:
| But this is nonsense -- what does "politically neutral"
| even mean in this context?
|
| > not based on mobs of activists actively trying to get
| their opponents banned/silenced.
|
| Moderation literally is silencing/banning someone.
|
| ----
|
| My (slightly uncharitable) take is that when "non-
| political" or "objective" gets brought up in this context
| it usually means anything that the poster already agrees
| with, and "political" or "subjective" means value
| judgements that the poster disagrees with.
|
| But any moderation policy you bring up in a private space
| -- from banning alt-coin scams to blocking pornography to
| deciding what does and doesn't constitute harassment -- all
| of that is a balance between protecting communities and
| allowing people more space to speak, and making political
| decisions about what content does and doesn't belong in
| those categories.
|
| All of these categories are socially constructed and based
| in part on group consensus about the types of content and
| people we would like to see banned/silenced.
|
| ----
|
| I'll also point out that using a word like "objective" can
| sometimes make free speech policies _more strict_. There
| have been multiple points in history where we believed
| something to be objective and settled truth that later
| turned out to be false.
|
| So not only does this ignore the reality that moderation is
| inherently somewhat subjective and political and needs to
| be in order to protect communities, it also ignores the
| reality that moderation is inherently somewhat subjective
| and political and needs to be in order to avoid _over_
| -censorship.
|
| What is and is not settled knowledge is often a contentious
| debate, and by treating it like it's not a contentious
| debate and like the decisions about what to ban are just
| fully impersonal and objective, we open the door both to
| people who want under-moderation and (surprisingly) also to
| people who want over-moderation or want to quell criticism
| of establishment ideas. By treating these moderation
| decisions like they're not _decisions_ , we allow both
| over-aggressive and under-aggressive moderators to hide
| behind a veil of objectivity and to avoid responsibility
| for the choices they make about the content they allow.
| px43 wrote:
| > Free speech absolutism is possible and is beneficial ..
|
| We (the internet) tried that with 8chan. Things kept escalating
| to the point where a bunch of people got murdered in a
| synagogue. Condoning violent echo chambers will always _ALWAYS_
| lead to significant violence.
| delfinom wrote:
| > Free speech absolutism is possible and is beneficial
|
| What?
|
| As it stands, free speech absolutism is being weaponized by
| those with the money to manipulate the crap out of it. It has
| no benefit in a society that is driven by the highest bidder
| writes the rules _and now the news_.
| c1yd3i wrote:
| Citation? What are you talking about?
| notahacker wrote:
| > Free speech absolutism is possible and is beneficial once you
| ensure that someone is not gaming the system, i.e. someone
| pretending to be more than one person
|
| You can have free speech absolutism or controls to stop gaming
| the system. Pick one.
|
| After that it becomes a debate over _which_ controls to have,
| and the argument that multiple accounts is worse than
| incitement to racial hatred or antivax nonsense isn 't a clear
| cut one.
|
| A lot of the "free speech" complaints about social media amount
| to complaints about social media platforms adding content
| warnings about [alleged] sensational lies or penalising their
| reputation anyway.
| nxm wrote:
| Facebook blocking valid NY Post articles (just one last week)
| is not a content warning... it's flat out censorship
| delfinom wrote:
| You realize NYPost are the ones who slutshame a NYC EMT for
| moonlighting on OnlyFans to make ends meet because their
| salary is criminally low? You know, they find the fact
| she's making some X-rated content more wrong than her
| salary being at the poverty level.
|
| There is no "valid" content from that tabloid.
| c1yd3i wrote:
| OK... who cares? Who's to say that your world view /
| morality is more correct than the view in the NYPost
| article?
| pilsetnieks wrote:
| The Universal Declaration of Human Rights should be a
| pretty good baseline.
|
| > Art. 12: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary
| interference with his privacy, family, home or
| correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and
| reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of
| the law against such interference or attacks.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Who 's to say that your world view / morality is more
| correct than the view in the NYPost article?_
|
| The platform you're using to blast it, within the
| confines of their platform.
| c1yd3i wrote:
| And, I don't want my platform to say _anything_ about
| this. See
| https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/about/terms#tcontent for
| the proper model.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I don 't want my platform to say anything about this_
|
| You should have the freedom to start such a forum without
| being regulated out of existence and join such a forum
| without fear of isolation. You should not be able to
| force other privately owned forums to adopt your view.
| c1yd3i wrote:
| By this logic, it seems like you're asking Twitter to
| adopt _your_ view. Screw mine and anyone else 's and
| derank discussion that _you_ don 't agree with.
| jerkstate wrote:
| This is exactly what's going on. Twitter censors one type
| of opinion and elevates another. People with the opinions
| which are currently being elevated are terrified of the
| potential loss of social power.
|
| For what it's worth, I think this fear is misplaced.
| Unless Elon can figure out how to run Twitter without
| ads, woke-bigotry is safe as long as advertisers are
| using woke politics to distract from their evils.
| lovich wrote:
| If they ask Twitter or some other platform to derank your
| view and manage to convince the platform to do so, that's
| an end result of free speech.
|
| One of the main arguments for free speech is that you let
| everyone talk without government interference and let
| private actors decide what are good and bad ideas.
|
| Everyone in this post who wants these public platforms to
| be forced to host all speech sound like what they really
| need is to have these platforms to be nationalized and
| run with government rules. What's confusing to me is the
| majority of the people I see who want these platforms to
| host all speech are also in the same group that thinks
| everything should be done by companies and not the
| government
| [deleted]
| themitigating wrote:
| Which article is currently being blocked?
| glenstein wrote:
| And, as is always the question, to what extent is this
| one-off example representative of the totality of
| Facebook's efforts to stop the spread of misinformation?
|
| Are 50% of the "censored" posts regular reporting? 1%?
| 0.00001%? Shouldn't a detail like that matter?
|
| If I could make the rules, my rule for conversations
| about one-off examples would be that you have to
| immediately follow up by talking about how representative
| that example is of the phenomenon you are using it to
| illustrate.
| glenstein wrote:
| >A lot of the "free speech" complaints about social media
| amount to complaints about social media platforms adding
| content warnings about [alleged] sensational lies or
| penalising their reputation anyway.
|
| Exactly. And I would add, nobody who claims they are a "free
| speech absolutist" can stay consistent with that declaration
| after even one or two simple questions.
|
| Does free speech absolutism mean unmoderated ISIS and Al-
| Qaeda posts are fine? Because we need to expose them to
| healthy debate for the benefit of societal progress? The
| answer typically is "well that's not speech, that's _____",
| and then it's a debate over why there's a special different
| word for the type of speech they want to prohibit.
| tomp wrote:
| > Does free speech absolutism mean unmoderated ISIS and Al-
| Qaeda posts are fine?
|
| As a free speech absolutist, "yes".
|
| That's literally literally what the word "absolutism" in
| "free speech absolutism" means.
| notahacker wrote:
| You may do, but the self-proclaimed "free speech
| absolutist" trying to buy Twitter thinks that making
| certain claims and revealing certain information about
| his companies is not at all fine, hence all the
| litigation against critical former employees
| glenstein wrote:
| That is a laudable position of intellectual consistency!
| I agree that it is what the "absolutism" part means.
| rpmisms wrote:
| > nobody who claims they are a "free speech absolutist" can
| stay consistent with that declaration after even one or two
| simple questions.
|
| Try me.
| TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
| Free speech absolutism is a choice that does not promote the
| open discussion of ideas. It is a choice that promotes the
| loudest and nastiest voices and pushes out everyone else.
| refurb wrote:
| What if the loudest and nastiest voices are the only ones
| speaking the truth?
| themitigating wrote:
| That would be great but it's a hypothetical.
|
| How would you prove that's happening?
| refurb wrote:
| That's the point - you can't tell.
| krapp wrote:
| They aren't.
| zakk wrote:
| The problem is that the alternative is way worse... You have
| to create some authority that decides what constitutes a
| nasty opinion and what doesn't.
|
| And the moral of the history is: in 2020 the COVID lab-leak
| hypothesis was considered a nasty idea, one that only
| uneducated, bitter conspiracy theorists could support. People
| have been banned from the effective monopolists of public
| discourse over this idea.
|
| Then sometime around 2021 the same idea became acceptable.
|
| Not surprisingly, this change in the public perception of
| this idea over social media followed the viewpoint of the
| major political party the owners of social media cheer for.
|
| This is bad, bad, bad for political discourse and rational
| thinking!!
|
| As far as I am concerned: long love the free market of ideas!
| ss108 wrote:
| Assuming the factual premises of what you're saying are
| true, the problem with the lab-leak thing was that it was
| bandied about by Trump and his supporters as some kind of
| excuse for his poor handling of the pandemic (which began
| before the pandemic even started via his dismantling of
| certain government functions meant to deal with such
| outbreaks). They also were people who wanted to downplay
| the severity of the disease overall, act like everything
| could continue as normal (for largely selfish reasons),
| etc.
|
| Don't get me wrong--I think the initial response to Covid
| was probably overzealous, and it has lasted way too long
| (once we had vax, everyone should have been done with it).
|
| My point is simply that they wielded the info/idea in an
| ideological way, and this led to it being dismissed,
| whereas if the idea was discussed and established among
| experts first, it would have been taken more seriously. In
| other words, bare, unregulated, irresponsible free speech
| did harm in advancing this idea.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| You are clearly differentiating between Trump's experts
| and current experts. You either believe in the
| infallibility of experts or you don't. There can't be
| "poor handling of the pandemic" unless you are willing to
| contradict the infallibility of experts.
| ss108 wrote:
| Fields of expertise have their own internal ways of
| determining authority; the Trump side of things has
| tended on the whole to not go with the most authoritative
| of thought-out views of things.
| seventytwo wrote:
| Yes. Just like an absolutely free market promotes warlords
| and cartels.
|
| Someone will ALWAYS try to game the system.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Atheism is probably considered very nasty in Saudi Arabia.
| Support for LGBT rights as well. Depicting Mohammad in a
| cartoon too.
|
| If anything, with a majority of the world population living
| in illiberal or semi-liberal regimes, we need free speech
| absolutism more than before.
| mint2 wrote:
| That doesn't follow. In an illiberal country they'll just
| ban any large platform that allows anything. How would free
| speech absolutism on a platform or in some other country
| have any impact on a state like that?
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Banning a platform outright isn't as easy. Some countries
| like Russia are absolutely willing to do that, but a lot
| of smaller illiberal countries still need to curry
| favours with their own population and banning a popular
| platform will cause some unrest.
|
| For example, Turkey banned and unbanned Facebook several
| times.
| phatfish wrote:
| The only way it works is if people have some skin in the
| game.
|
| To go the "free speech" route everyone should have to use
| their real identity. I realise this excludes people under
| repressive governments where free speech has really been
| lost, and you can be thrown in jail or worse for a seemingly
| mundane opinion.
|
| But for those living in a democracy make them use their real
| identity. Otherwise everyone is just trolling with zero
| consequences.
| bmitc wrote:
| Musk is not an activist. At this point, I'd consider him a cult
| leader and an opportunist. He does not have people's best
| interest at heart.
| dpbriggs wrote:
| Why do people use the word cult when it's someone popular who
| they dislike? It's inaccurate and a waste of connotation.
|
| He's not a cult leader as he's not doing cult things. Musk
| isn't making a new religion, he just has fans. No less than
| Justin Bieber annoyingly had.
|
| He's an activist as he's trying (and succeeding) at affecting
| change according to his beliefs. He's also certainly an
| opportunist as he's an entrepreneur. What point are you
| trying to make with "people's best interests"? He holds his
| interests to heart and that might happen to align with some
| people.
| bmitc wrote:
| Look up the phrases "cult of personality" and "personality
| cult". These are not new or controversial terms, and it's
| certainly not a novel application to Elon Musk's mythos,
| one in which he actively participates in crafting and
| molding. You would be naive to think this is an inaccurate
| portrayal.
| schleck8 wrote:
| > Free speech absolutism is possible and is beneficial
|
| How can Twitter possibly get even more liberal in terms of free
| speech? Just look at the trends occasionally, they are really,
| really stressing the boundaries of free speech and crossing
| into defamation territory without being censored in any way.
| You can't start a trend comparing a democratically elected
| politician to Hitler and expect no repercussions.
| throwawaylinux wrote:
| Not banning and suspending people or hiding tweets for
| alleged violations of vague and arbitrary standards would be
| great, to start with.
|
| Go to any political tweet and you'll see countless hateful
| messages, why aren't they banned, yet others are? I've never
| seen any reason for it. Clearly they take a side or draw a
| line on some issues they consider important to control, but
| not others.
|
| It seems to me it would be far better in my opinion for
| twitter to foster strength rather than fragility by
| empowering users to take responsibility for their own
| feelings and have the tools and maturity to not read things
| they can't cope with, rather than trying to police what
| people write centrally. It absolutely could be the modern
| town square and would be great if it supported real freedom
| of speech, in my opinion.
| themitigating wrote:
| If that was true why are unregulated platforms, like 4chan,
| not popular?
| throwawaylinux wrote:
| If what was true?
| themitigating wrote:
| "...absolutely could be the modern town square and would
| be great if it supported real freedom of speech, in my
| opinion."
|
| My claim is that (in the US) if a platform allowed
| everything that was legal it wouldn't be popular.
| throwawaylinux wrote:
| I don't see how a comparison with 4chan is any evidence
| for that. There are also heavily regulated forums which
| are not popular. So clearly that's not the reason for
| whether or not one is going to be popular.
| themitigating wrote:
| Per you: how regulated/censored a platform is doesn't
| have an effect on its popularity
|
| However your first comment says "far better in my opinion
| for twitter..."
| WithinReason wrote:
| It's not difficult to understand the argument: 4chan is
| the largest unregulated platform, much smaller than the
| largest regulated platforms.
| [deleted]
| zakk wrote:
| Are you joking? You can easily find a very long list of
| conservative/right wing personalities banned from Twitter.
| CaptArmchair wrote:
| The problem with Twitter - and any social medium - is that
| moderation is very hard to scale. And that's exactly the
| trade-off big platforms have made in order to grow their
| userbase. That's just one problem.
|
| Centralization also generates other problems: authority and
| lack of partipation. These platforms lack proper affordances
| regarding discovery and curation. As a user, you're
| automatically gravitating towards the loudest voices, the
| biggest or most active communities.
|
| For instance, on Reddit, there's a canonical /r/sports
| subreddit. It has 20 million fans, but it's mostly focussed
| on american / UK sports. Searching for "sports"doesn't yield
| anything comparable. Only a fraction of those 20 million fans
| is really active posting and commenting. There's an
| /r/worldsports subreddit but has a grand total of 350
| redditors.
|
| When it comes to Twitter, the net result is that only a
| fraction of users is responsible for the vast amount of
| tweets, while about 50% are basically lurkers. [1][2] In that
| regard, the "free speech" argument is only a real concern for
| a very small, yet extremely vocal fraction of Twitter users.
| The same applies to Reddit as well.
|
| The worrying part isn't the "free speech" argument such as it
| is posited. It's that all of this results in a lack of
| participation in any debate. The userbases of social media
| might be more akin to the placid crowd on a market place
| listening to someone ranting of a soapbox, and less a salon
| where everyone actively engages and interacts with each
| other.
|
| [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/03/16/5-facts-
| abo... [2] https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/11/15/2-
| comparing-...
| gwd wrote:
| > You can't start a trend comparing a democratically elected
| politician to Hitler and expect no repercussions.
|
| You realize that Hitler was literally democratically elected?
|
| He and his party were democratically elected to the German
| parliament. They proposed to form a coalition government with
| some other parties, which was approved by the (separately
| democratically-elected) president. Then he proposed
| legislation which would give himself wide-ranged emergency
| powers, which was approved by the democratically-elected
| parliament. Everything he did was technically legal and
| constitutional.
|
| So ask yourself: When would _you_ have blocked literal Hitler
| from Twitter?
|
| I think the take-away lesson from Nazi Germany is that we
| need to start fighting fascism and authoritarianism much
| earlier in the process.
| schleck8 wrote:
| > Then he proposed legislation which would give himself
| wide-ranged emergency powers, which was approved by the
| democratically-elected parliament
|
| I'm German and graduate with polish-german history as
| honors class.
|
| Where to even start.....
|
| First of all, the only reason they took the political path
| was because Hitler's coup against the German government in
| 1923 failed.
|
| The "democratic" approval you paint here happened while the
| SA, the NSDAP's personal thug squad, as well as the SS (no
| introduction necessary) had infiltrated the building and
| were "observing" the voting procedure. This was illegal,
| especially since they were uniformed for intimidation.
|
| You are also ignoring the fact that this "technically
| constitutional" decision was only possible because they
| spontaneously (same day) changed the legal framework in a
| way that meant that non-present (intimidated)
| representatives count as present. Only this way they
| achieved the necessary votes.
|
| What even legitimized this situation in the first place was
| an exploitation of the weak Weimar constitution (as in
| abuse of loopholes due to it's young nature of 20 years,
| same applies to the German democratic history as a whole,
| first time a democratic persistent government was in power
| was in 1918).
|
| You are completely ignoring the Reichtagsbrandverordnung
| which eradicated the fundamental rights as well as the
| divison of powers (!) which should not have been able to be
| touched. This was a breach of the Weimar constitution by
| the way, so the Nazi rise to power was 100 % not
| constitutional.
|
| And lastly you decontextualized the comparison since Hitler
| obviously did a lot more than just being a cheater in
| politics
| gwd wrote:
| I realize technical accuracy is important, but I don't
| think any of your points take away from the main point I
| was making: Hitler was a democratically-elected
| politician; so comparing other democratically-elected
| politicians to Hitler is not an automatic non-sequitir;
| and blocking democratically-elected politicians who
| exhibit fascist and authoritarian behavior is a
| reasonable choice.
|
| > First of all, the only reason they took the political
| path was because Hitler's coup against the German
| government in 1923 failed.
|
| Sure; I knew about that (and other illegal activities)
| and was trying to think of a way to make it clear I
| wasn't including that in "everything". It wasn't really
| possible without being awkward and taking away from the
| main point; so I relied on my readers to understand the
| implicit limitation of "everything".
|
| As for the rest, I could have said "mostly constitutional
| with some bending" and it would have had the same point.
| Obviously digging into it, the fact that Germany at that
| time didn't have a tradition of democracy, and its
| constitution was problematic, is important to know. But
| most people in the US, at least, don't realize that
| Hitler took a mostly legal route to power at all. That's
| the main thing I want to get across to people.
| mrtksn wrote:
| > You can't start a trend comparing a democratically elected
| politician to Hitler and
|
| See, in my opinion, you should be absolutely fee to do that
|
| > expect no repercussions.
|
| The first "repercussion" that comes to mind is to block their
| account or something like that but I think this is the wrong
| course. When they do or say something stupid In real life,
| the repercussions are that they are judged as a stupid person
| and not simply silenced. I think, this must be the norm in
| social media too. Just make sure that whatever they say
| sticks to their identity and if later they change their mind,
| they can apologise and ask for forgiveness.
|
| I have this idea where your identity can be secret to the
| society but known to the platform. I.e. the platform knows
| you as a real person, you have just one account but you have
| an option to post anonymously too. You use your anonymous
| account to engage with the community about stuff that you
| normally wouldn't dare(i.e. controversial political stance,
| your sexual orientation kind of stuff).
|
| If you post something very bad with your anonymous
| account(i.e. call for violence, hate speech etc), you get
| your anonymous posting rights revoked and your posts deleted.
| You can override the deletion by de-anonimization of the
| posts. If whatever you said is something criminal(plans to
| attack this, kill that, sell dirty bomb etc), the law
| enforcement takes care of it and the platform stops acting as
| a police.
|
| edit: Oh I missed the part where your identity is actually
| encrypted, not known to the platform in plain format. To
| challenge the platform censorship and put back your removed
| comments you decrypt your identity. If you are afraid of
| state actors coming after you, you simply move on and your
| identity stays secret. The platform doesn't need to be
| solving all the problems if the world. For example, if you
| are Russian dissident in Russia you first need replace Putin
| IRL, then you can use it as a westerner, challenging the
| politicians.
| john_the_writer wrote:
| So.. now the platform knows your name. And the
| Afghan/Saudi/Russian/China gov tell twitter to release the
| name of the user. Sounds like a great result for the LGBT
| users.
| mrtksn wrote:
| > So.. now the platform knows your name. And the
| Afghan/Saudi/Russian/China gov tell twitter to release
| the name of the user. Sounds like a great result for the
| LGBT users.
|
| Oh I missed the part where your identity is actually
| encrypted, not known to the platform in plain format. To
| challenge the platform censorship and put back your
| removed comments you decrypt your identity. If you are
| afraid of state actors coming after you, you simply move
| on and your identity stays secret.
|
| The platform doesn't need to be solving all the problems
| if the world. For example, if you are Russian dissident
| in Russia you first need replace Putin IRL, then you can
| use it as a westerner to engage in politics.
| bbarnett wrote:
| The repercussion is civil court. Same as for bs in a
| newspaper, TV.
| whitepaint wrote:
| > How can Twitter possibly get even more liberal in terms of
| free speech?
|
| They literally banned the President of USA. Are you seriously
| asking this question?
| themitigating wrote:
| What is the relation between a user of a service and what
| they do off that service ?
| schleck8 wrote:
| He got banned as a citizen of the united states, welcome to
| people's sovereignity where the politicians have the same
| fundamental rights as the citizens they represent.
|
| The governmental account is still active.
| throwmeariver1 wrote:
| They banned the personal account of the president not the
| official account. The official account was tweeting until
| after the election. I would have loved to see if they would
| have banned the potus account if he tweeted from there but
| we'll never know.
| postingawayonhn wrote:
| Should the US president get some special protection because
| of his job? Surely the same standards should be applied to
| all users?
| whitepaint wrote:
| https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspen
| sio...
| roenxi wrote:
| The US president has just won the largest popularity
| contest in the world, and by nature of the role has a
| mandate to bring ideas into the political discourse for a
| couple of years. It isn't so much that there should be
| special protection. If Twitter's policy bans the
| president it is way out of line with actual as-measured
| community expectations.
| mickotron wrote:
| The POTUS should be treated as just a person to Twitter.
| However, that person has the resources of the world's
| most powerful government. POTUS doesn't need Twitter to
| get a message out.
| themitigating wrote:
| Meeting the expectations of a community is a business
| decision.
| krapp wrote:
| Trump was allowed to run rampant bringing "ideas into the
| political discourse" for his entire term. Also, it was
| his personal account that was banned. The official
| presidential account is still there.
|
| And as the president, he had the entire American media
| apparatus at his disposal. The premise that somehow an
| American president can't effectively communicate policy
| without a Twitter account is absurd. Previous presidents
| have been able to manage just fine.
| mminer237 wrote:
| Implying that morality is just whatever is popular? Do
| you think Middle Eastern Twitter should allow people to
| talk about how they're going to exterminate the Jewish
| and gay people? And Russian Twitter should allow calling
| out locations of humanitarian corridors so the military
| and mine them? And Chinese Twitter should ban all
| discussion of faults of the CCP? Because those things are
| often community expectations.
|
| The US is very, very divided. Trump won with basically
| 50% support, he lost re-election, and then lost even
| further support when he started making up lies about
| election fraud. Even if morality was derived from
| popularity (or just profitability, if that's what you
| think Twitter did it for), Trump no longer had close to a
| majority. Maybe his comments were in line with
| expectations of 60% of Republicans, but the other 70% of
| the country thought that was what was unacceptable.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Let's not get hyperbolic; it's the largest political
| popularity contest in the US. In India, 600 Million
| people voted in the 2019 Indian General Election.
| Eurovision is also bigger than the US General Election,
| at least by viewership (I couldn't find televoting
| numbers).
| roenxi wrote:
| Sorry India. 2nd largest.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| That sounds like the opposite of liberal ideals, where
| the system treats everybody the same.
| josefx wrote:
| > Surely the same standards should be applied to all
| users?
|
| The standard under discussion seems to be free speech
| absolutism with the question "how much more liberal could
| twitter get". The ban of Trump just makes a good high
| profile example of Twitters current limitations on free
| speech.
| throwmeariver1 wrote:
| The problem is not if there is free speech on the platform
| but how it's perceived you will always have an extrem loud
| minority (no matter what political orientation) that will
| drown out the rest of the platform just by crying about
| censorship. It will be interesting to see what will happen to
| them when there is nothing to cry about anymore.
| cinntaile wrote:
| Advertisers don't tend to like free speech absolutism.
| benreesman wrote:
| That's all very nice sounding, but there's a kind of gritty
| assembly language that this all compiles down to: "I want the
| high-speed electronic dissemination of information shaped like
| _this_."
|
| It's an open question whether or not it's possible to avoid
| shaping the firehouse in a modern liberal democracy, but you
| could go your whole life and never meet a person truly
| disinterested in bending it towards their particular tribalism.
|
| The whole time I was at FB I had two groups of people, each
| screaming in one ear, that we were not doing enough to suppress
| the "other" people.
|
| How do you put shit on a global electronic network without
| "gaming the system"? Have no bias? You got that down we should
| make you king.
| tarsinge wrote:
| > Free speech absolutism is possible and is beneficial
|
| The jury is out for me, how can we say it's automatically
| beneficial if it's not sacred and only a mean to an end for
| society/people, that end depending on your views (GDP,
| happiness, sustainability...)?
|
| Also IMHO like any liberal absolutism, the forces will
| inevitably make who has the more money own and game the system,
| it's a proxy for Oligarchy. It can be good but only under
| certain philosophical positions and economic theories that not
| everyone agree on.
| e12e wrote:
| > TikTok successfully serves you new content - doesn't think
| that just because you liked a cat you want cats and cats only.
|
| I agree with most of your comment - but tiktok might be a
| terrible example:
|
| "One App - Two Worlds: This Is TikTok in Russia and Ukraine
| (nrk.no)"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30917474
| sabertoothed wrote:
| "Free speech absolutism is possible and is beneficial [once
| ...]"
|
| I hope you know what free speech absolutism entails. I don't
| think your statement is true at all.
|
| Absolute (really, absolute and complete) free speech would
| allow companies to lie about the efficacy of medication, lie
| about the ingredients of products, permit lying under oath,
| allow libel, insults, threats of violence etc. I am not sure I
| want that. I prefer clear, written rules for that.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I think that's alright. They lie, get sued, pay fines. That's
| why we have regulations for food and drugs.
|
| I don't advocate that speech shouldn't have consequences. I
| advocate that speech shouldn't be blocked. Twitter, or any
| platform, shouldn't be doing the police work. They should be
| indifferent to the speech like a telephone company is
| indifferent on what people speak on the phone and those who
| create problems should be dealt with appropriately through
| relevant channels.
|
| If J&J claims that their talc powder is good for you, their
| false claim shouldn't be deleted by Twitter. Instead, the
| appropriate authority should take care of it and victims
| should collect damages. Their tweet should stay there as a
| relic.
| jmull wrote:
| > I don't advocate that speech shouldn't have consequences.
|
| By that definition the entire world is an absolute free
| speech paradise already.
|
| You can say anything you want. Sure you might be canceled,
| jailed, fined, killed, tortured, or anything else --
| depending on what you say, who you say it to and where you
| say it. But you're absolutely free to say it!
| notahacker wrote:
| Compelling companies to host stuff in its original context
| in perpetuity even if they want to remove it because it
| continues to harm people and whilst trying to resolve
| social media cesspits with more aggressive real world
| policing and punishments sounds like the worst of both
| worlds...
| mrtksn wrote:
| I don't know anything about compelling companies but
| speech by itself cannot harm anybody.
|
| Stuff that Hitler said are benign within the context of
| knowing what happened in WW2, his words are merely a
| historic relic and no one start putting Jews in camps
| just by reading his words. His words are not a spell that
| makes people do things when you read them. Back then his
| words caused harm because they were said within the
| context of 1930s-1940s Europe.
|
| The context doesn't disappear when you block speech. Let
| the speech exists and enable fair pushback for the
| opponents of the said speech is the way to handle it,
| IMHO.
|
| For example, instead of pretending that racists don't
| exists by deleting their arguments and accounts, let them
| say the things they have to say and enable the opponents
| of it have the same reach.
| [deleted]
| notahacker wrote:
| > speech by itself cannot harm anybody
|
| The "by itself" is doing a _lot_ of work in that
| sentence. Sure, if you post someone 's home address with
| an allegation that they're a paedophile, the
| _instruction_ to attack them doesn 't harm them, it's
| people following the instruction. And the bombardment of
| words sent to harassment victims isn't the _sole_ factor
| in the emotional state of harassment victims, and it 's
| the virus that kills not the antivax sentiment etc etc.
|
| But they harm people rather more directly than Twitter
| having the freedom to delete those words if its
| management feels that would be the responsible thing to
| do does...
| mrtksn wrote:
| These things happen only in consequence free
| environments(deleting a comment or blocking an account is
| not a the kind of consequence I'm talking about).
|
| That's why I advocate for platforms with structured
| identity secrecy. Here are some more details:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31025271
| mellavora wrote:
| > They should be indifferent to the speech like a telephone
| company is indifferent on what people speak on the phone
|
| So what is your view on content ranking algorithms? Should
| those be illegal, to ensure that the platform is indeed
| completely indifferent?
|
| and if you disallow content ranking algos on twitter, then
| how do you search? Who or what gets to determine what is
| similar and/or relevant?
| seventytwo wrote:
| if you can sue them, and their right to speech is absolute,
| then you won't win.
|
| See the problem here?
| bmitc wrote:
| > I don't advocate that speech shouldn't have consequences.
|
| We already have free speech and consequences. Twitter and
| Musk have nothing to do with free speech issues.
|
| You want absolute freedom of speech but then you want to
| limit a company and platform in what it says, which it does
| by allowing or disallowing certain content? And you would
| prefer a single person, who has a history of devious
| activity, having totalitarian control over said company and
| platform? It doesn't make sense.
| mrtksn wrote:
| > We already have free speech and consequences
|
| No we don't have it on the Internet. On the
| internet(including YC), the norm is that your speech is
| removed and/or you are blocked from further speech (as a
| consequence) if you say the wrong thing where "wrong" is
| defined by the platform operators.
|
| Musk may choose to make Twitter an absolute free speech
| platform but he might choose to make it something else. I
| hope for the former. He might end up to turn it into
| something horrible or just leave it as is but I don't
| know why would you spend $50B to do just that.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| > They lie, get sued, pay fines.
|
| That sure stopped Purdue from telling everyone Oxycontin
| isn't addictive.
| edc117 wrote:
| Suing and paying fines as a means of preventing abuse of
| free speech isn't working. Very rich individuals can pay
| fines without blinking, but the really pernicious one is
| the lawsuits - a large legal team can make it hell for any
| smaller actor, can delay and run the case down, can settle
| privately and completely bury the issue, etc.
|
| I'd rather see us fix our enforcement mechanisms to work
| better before trying to take off the filters on dangerous
| and violent free speech.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Free speech absolutism means spam, child porn, revenge porn,
| death threats, sexual harassment and defamation are all
| allowed. You're cool with all that?
| ransom1538 wrote:
| END FREE SPEECH. We can't possibly live in this world. Things
| must be controlled! THINK of all the bad things we could
| hear!
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| So again, you're down with people disseminating child porn
| and sexually harassing their coworkers? Unmoderated Viagra
| ads and phishing scams on social networks? Because those
| are direct consequences of free speech absolutism.
| ransom1538 wrote:
| Exactly we need an END TO FREE SPEECH. I propose a list!
| We make a list of things that are "OK" and ALLOWED --
| LIKE KINGS of 14th century.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Platforms like Twitter have become de facto utilities. They
| should be prevented from censoring anything that is not
| breaking the law, which means filtering tweets on a per country
| basis to comply with national laws, nothing less, nothing more.
| themitigating wrote:
| So I want to spam the n word on twitter as replies to popular
| users that should be ok even if it causes users to leave and
| damage the business?
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| It's legal to use the n word in the US as far as I know,
| but I think harassment probably isn't ('spamming' sounds
| like harassment), that's where the balancing act is. Now,
| it is not legal to throw the n word at someone in most
| European countries. Hence why I said that these platforms
| need to filter on a per country basis for all countries
| they want to operate in.
|
| As I said, Twitter and other major platforms have become de
| facto utilities and it's no longer a valid argument to
| claim that as private businesses they are free to do as
| they please because they yield too much power.
| themitigating wrote:
| Define a utility
| ss108 wrote:
| It's not a "utility". It's a social media site that is
| arguably a net negative for society irrespective of what
| kinds of moderation policies it has.
| zaphirplane wrote:
| Not you specifically.
|
| The free speech advocates really confuse free speech (in
| the global sense not just the American amendment) with
| saying anything
|
| Free speech isn't freedom to plan a drug deal or anything
| or illegal
|
| There are definitely unenforced laws regarding harassment
| but they fall into the illegal category
|
| Where it's interesting is silencing say a pro Russia person
| or an anti vax person
| UncleMeat wrote:
| This is circular. "All speech is legal because illegal
| speech isn't speech".
| Gigachad wrote:
| You can do that on email, irl, with real letters, etc. It
| hasn't been a problem. If someone is particularly harassing
| you then it becomes a legal issue.
|
| What Twitter could do is just stop promoting and spreading
| content people don't like. Rather than completely ban
| problem users like trump, just stop showing them in
| trending feeds and give people the option to block the
| users so you don't see them.
| danso wrote:
| Neither email nor written letters are a public forum.
| themitigating wrote:
| "What Twitter could do is just stop promoting and
| spreading content people don't like."
|
| Isn't this censorship?
| philjohn wrote:
| Yes - a lot of people claim that shadow banning,
| downranking etc. are censorship. I disagree, they
| necessary to keep online places as civil as they are.
|
| There's also content that is regarded by mental health
| experts as harmful in large quantities - downranking that
| is also important to not cause existential harm to
| people.
| [deleted]
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _Platforms like Twitter have become de facto utilities._
|
| No, they have not.
|
| I cannot live without water or electricity; perhaps also a
| general Internet connection (in the modern world). I live my
| life just fine without Twitter.
|
| Twitter is an online service that some people find useful and
| others ignore completely. There is nothing utility-like about
| it.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Can political or civil society organisations exist without
| access to social media platforms these days? No. These
| platforms are utilities of the modern democratic and
| pluralistic society.
| grnmamba wrote:
| You offer zero evidence for this claim.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Because this is well established fact. You can research
| the topic for yourself if you wish. Just a quick
| Googling: [1]
|
| Social media have been key to political campaigning in
| the last 10 years or so. This made headlines in relations
| to the Brexit referendum in the UK and it had made
| headlines after Obama's first presidential campaign which
| was a pioneer.
|
| If you're not on social media you're toast.
|
| [1] https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/how-
| social-media...
| basisword wrote:
| Lots of politicians have chosen to make Twitter their main
| method of communication. I am able to speak to my
| representatives via Twitter quite easily while they ignore
| my emails. They can choose (if they wish) to block me on
| Twitter and limit my ability to communicate with them or
| see important information they post there and not
| elsewhere. Either it's a utility or our politicians need to
| be held to stricter rules re communication with their
| constituents.
| krapp wrote:
| If politicians _choose_ to use Twitter, but could just as
| easily _choose_ communication on the web by other means
| (like email, or another platform) then that makes Twitter
| merely convenient, not a "de facto utility".
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Modern political campaigns are fought and won on social
| media. Politicians do not choose to use them, they have
| to use them to have a chance to get their message across.
| themitigating wrote:
| Trump utilized newspapers, TV news networks, rallies, and
| word of mouth as well. He's banned from twitter right now
| but still tops the poll of who would win the next
| election
| krapp wrote:
| Trump didn't win because he personally had social media
| accounts from which he spread his message - canvassing by
| his followers (until they kept going Nazi and getting
| banned) were what was effective. Trump's own social media
| use has been a net negative for him, he mostly just rants
| and shitposts. If he'd been banned from Twitter earlier,
| he might have gotten more accomplished.
|
| Also, coverage of Trump by the mainstream media was
| likely far more effective than social media at getting
| him elected. If nothing else, it provided the material
| that got spread across social media.
|
| Obama's victory was due in large part to social media as
| well, but not due to Obama's personal accounts.
| cableshaft wrote:
| I have a Twitter account but I've barely used it ever, and do
| okay for myself socially. I don't think it's a utility. I
| have plenty of options, and use the ones that interest me
| most.
| whyoh wrote:
| So the governments would pay Twitter for moderation and for
| subsidizing the platform, if advertisers leave in response?
|
| I think that the governments should treat social media
| platforms similarly to other addictive/harmful substances,
| such as junk food, sugary drinks or tobacco... with a focus
| on prevention and education.
|
| And using these platforms for official communication (from
| elected officials and public services) should be either
| prohibited or heavily discouraged.
| john_the_writer wrote:
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| I'm not sure I really get the points you're making here. You've
| said "I don't have an opinion over the consequences for
| politics over this" but also "free speech absolutism is
| possible and is beneficial". And "Filter bubbles? Doesn't have
| to be a thing" but also "degrade [bad actors] reputation and
| amplify the defence of the victims".
|
| I don't (apparently controversially) think that a lack of "free
| speech" is anywhere near top of the list of Twitter's problems.
| It's way more pressing that the amazing content on it has
| become completely drowned out by a cacophony of bad actors.
| It's not just the bot armies, but the legions of individual
| contributors posting and sharing obvious churnalism and outrage
| bait that it's _impossible_ to escape from.
|
| I had to stop using Twitter regularly maybe a year or so ago
| for my own health. I could feel my blood pressure spiking every
| time I opened the app, and it wasn't because of algorithms or
| filter bubbles or censorship - if anything, the opposite. It
| was just increasingly not possible to use it for the things I
| had always loved about it--breaking news, shared conversations,
| interesting updates etc. from people and organisations I was
| interested in--without having to wade through buckets of
| deliberately rage-inducing shit.
|
| Twitter itself might bear some responsibility for that. The
| obvious bot problem is out of control, and it was becoming
| increasingly user hostile to anyone who wanted to _avoid_ their
| attempts at "bubble popping". But maybe the bigger problem is
| that it's fundamentally hard to get people to behave
| respectfully in a a global public forum like that.
| frabcus wrote:
| The only way I've dealt with this is, every couple of years,
| to unfollow _everyone_ and carefully pick who I follow again
| in a niche community that is interesting to me at the time.
| jfk13 wrote:
| > all the problems it has ... can be solved.
|
| I'm not sure I see much reason to share your optimism about
| this.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| TikTok does have filter bubbles, they're just geographic rather
| than profile specific. eg you wouldn't find any content on the
| Ukraine invasion from a Russian IP.
| imbnwa wrote:
| TikTok also figures out your racial identification and
| political orientation if you let either actively or passively
| luciusdomitius wrote:
| "Free speech absolutism is possible and is beneficial once you
| ensure that someone is not gaming the system, i.e. someone
| pretending to be more than one person."
|
| This is probably the core motivation behind the $2/month blue
| checkmark fee proposed by him. You don't need to moderate
| social media if you can just send the cops credit card details
| of the person spam-posting swastikas, agitating for violence or
| breaking other established laws. I hope we all agree that laws
| against libel, glorification of crime, threatening people are
| not exactly censorship.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| > I hope we all agree that laws against libel, glorification
| of crime, threatening people are not exactly censorship.
|
| As far as I'm concerned, if you want to force a business to
| censor speech, get a court order.
| icoder wrote:
| I which counter?
| clucas wrote:
| Wait, just for clarification... do you believe a company
| should be allowed to censor speech on its own platform if
| it _wants_ to do so? Or are you saying a business should
| not be allowed to remove any posts unless a court has given
| its approval?
| UncleMeat wrote:
| That sounds like the opposite of free speech absolutism.
| This is the government silencing speech!
| GeekyBear wrote:
| >This is the government silencing speech!
|
| Which they can do, once you get over a very high bar
| indeed.
|
| We have literally seen the Supreme Court protect speech
| advocating for violence against the Government.
|
| >Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969), was a landmark
| decision of the United States Supreme Court interpreting
| the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Court
| held that the government cannot punish inflammatory
| speech unless that speech is "directed to inciting or
| producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite
| or produce such action".
|
| Specifically, the Court struck down Ohio's criminal
| syndicalism statute, because that statute broadly
| prohibited the mere advocacy of violence.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio
|
| I much prefer the rule of law to the rule of Twitter mob.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| But what about free speech absolutism! "Yeah of course
| the government can silence people" doesn't sound like
| absolutism to me.
| paganel wrote:
| > he would be sued for enabling the NYC subway terrorist
|
| The problem with that is that yesterday it was swastikas,
| today is the letter Z, tomorrow who knows what else we might
| have in store?
|
| Also, putting in prison all the people who have displayed
| their swastika-love thingie online [1] would have meant
| Mariupol falling sooner to the Russians, a thing contrary to
| the beliefs of many who propose laws like that.
|
| [1]
| https://twitter.com/tyengeni1954/status/1503955204059938817
| criddell wrote:
| I think about Twitter occasionally and I'm always amazed that
| the company has thousands of employees.
|
| If he charged $2 / month for an individual to get a blue
| check and $100 / month for a company to get verified then
| eliminated ads, could he get the staff count down to under
| 100 people?
|
| I remember when Facebook bought Instagram. Instagram had
| something like 13 employees. Why does Twitter need two orders
| of magnitude more?
| memish wrote:
| Elon will be able to remove 90% and turn twitter HQ into a
| homeless shelter. SF and the world will be better off.
| mrfusion wrote:
| > I think about Twitter occasionally and I'm always amazed
| that the company has thousands of employees.
|
| Once a company gets big enough, 95% of an employees job is
| navigating the bureaucracy. So the head count goes way up.
| paulcole wrote:
| Of the fewer than 100 employees:
|
| * How many are engineers?
|
| * How many work in customer service?
|
| * How many are in compliance?
|
| * How many are in marketing?
|
| * How many are ICs and how many are managers?
|
| * How many are in HR?
|
| * How many are in finance?
| criddell wrote:
| Do you happen to know the breakdown of Instagram's 13
| employees?
| paulcole wrote:
| No. But I know that Twitter today is a very different
| company from Instagram in 2012.
| criddell wrote:
| Definitely is. I'm just wondering if they can move closer
| to that model.
| paulcole wrote:
| They can not.
| MrBlueIncognito wrote:
| > I remember when Facebook bought Instagram. Instagram had
| something like 13 employees. Why does Twitter need two
| orders of magnitude more?
|
| Companies tend to hire more employees as long as the
| marginal benefit to doing so is greater than the marginal
| cost. Even minor improvements to a product like Twitter can
| boost revenue by millions. Reducing the headcount might not
| maximise their income.
|
| There will be exceptions though. Valve does lot more than
| most video-game companies with far fewer employees.
| fknorangesite wrote:
| > Valve does lot more than most video-game companies with
| far fewer employees.
|
| Wait a minute when did Valve go back to being a video
| game company?
| saalweachter wrote:
| So to replace Twitter's current revenue at those rates,
| you'd need something like 170 million blue check marks or 3
| million corporate accounts.
|
| How many do you think is realistic? Reducing your revenue
| by an order of magnitude to reduce your headcount by an
| order of magnitude seems like a bad plan.
| criddell wrote:
| Why focus on revenue rather than profit?
| saalweachter wrote:
| Revenue puts a ceiling on profit. You can't sell at a
| loss and make it up in volume, but you also can't make
| more profits than revenue.
|
| Right now there are 360,000 blue check marks on Twitter.
| If I spot you the first million blue checkmarks and the
| first 100,000 business profiles, that's only $144M of
| revenue per year. Even if that is 90% profit, $130M /
| year profit on a $50B investment is not particularly
| brag-worthy.
| zenithd wrote:
| criddell wrote:
| I assume Musk needs Twitter to be profitable, but as
| somebody trying to sell cars, and satellites and big
| solar projects and space launches around the world, the
| platform can help him in other ways too.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Electric cars are a bad plan if you are an oil company,
| its a great plan for the rest of society
| saalweachter wrote:
| Electric cars are a great plan if you're an electric car
| company, though.
| banannaise wrote:
| > glorification of crime
|
| This runs into a problem because of the inherent inequality
| of "crime".
|
| The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor
| alike to sleep under bridges.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Any argument for legalizing something illegal can be seen
| as "glorification of crime".
| kevingadd wrote:
| The assumption that cops in the US actually care about
| someone posting swastikas is questionable. We already have
| lots of people posting about crimes on twitter accounts under
| their real names, and the cops very frequently don't do
| anything about it. A sizable number of the swastika posters
| are cops, too, as demonstrated by the periodic investigations
| into police departments that reveal those sorts of things.
|
| P.S. Requiring someone to have a credit card doesn't feel
| like free speech absolutism to me. A pretty big number of
| people don't have the ability to make credit card payments.
| Do their voices not matter?
| agentdrtran wrote:
| > I hope we all agree that laws against libel, glorification
| of crime, threatening people are not exactly censorship.
|
| No, this isn't free speech absolutism, and adding a paywall
| to any conversation on twitter would kill the site.
| paulgb wrote:
| It's not such a bad idea, and it was the initial intent of
| blue checks: proving that an account wasn't impersonated. But
| they couldn't roll out verification at scale, so they only
| verified high-ish profile accounts. As a result, over time,
| the blue check has come to be a sort of class signifier and
| lost its original purpose (I sometimes see verified anon
| accounts, what even was verified?)
|
| Rolling it out at scale could improve the rampant
| spam/astroturfing problem, even if it would be imperfect.
| bartimus wrote:
| Also makes it a lot harder to set up an army of bots.
| luciusdomitius wrote:
| Also, if there are people complaining of censorship you can
| always give them a '4-chan mode' and watch them come back
| asking how to switch it off after 5 min.
| zppln wrote:
| Meh, the "containment board" model used by 4chan and some
| other "freedom of speech" oriented forums work
| surprisingly well.
| pooper wrote:
| > Also, if there are people complaining of censorship you
| can always give them a '4-chan mode' and watch them come
| back asking how to switch it off after 5 min.
|
| I'm not so sure what a four chan mode would look like.
| Can you please elaborate? Inspite of the constant mockery
| of the janitors, my understanding is they work
| practically around the clock for zero pay trying to keep
| the boards (not that I go to /b/ much) as clean as
| possible. It definitely is not a free for all and my
| understanding is most people gladly support heavy handed
| IP bans for example if someone posts commercial
| pornography on a "work safe" four channel board like
| technolo/g/y.
|
| Moreover, some of the boards are very slow to the point
| that frequenters seem to get annoyed by a low quality
| post pushing down better posts by saying things like
| "thank you for your blog post" (I assume sarcasm, I don't
| know for sure) or "a thread died for this".
|
| Also there are (from what I've read) filters available to
| filter out posts with certain keywords and people coming
| up with ways to have their posts show up for people with
| filters using different techniques.
|
| I don't post anything on 4chan as I don't feel like a
| part of the in-crowd though and would genuinely like to
| know what a 4 Chan mode would look like.
| mbreese wrote:
| _> I don 't post anything on 4chan as I don't feel like a
| part of the in-crowd though and would genuinely like to
| know what a 4 Chan mode would look like._
|
| I don't think there is a requirement for being part of
| the in crowd to post on 4chan. Then again, I've never
| posted there either.
|
| I think the point is that 4chan mode would be the
| "absolute free speech" mode. And if that is where we are
| going, it will be quite a ride. I can't imagine Twitter
| surviving it, but it will be interesting.
| pooper wrote:
| > I think the point is that 4chan mode would be the
| "absolute free speech" mode. And if that is where we are
| going, it will be quite a ride. I can't imagine Twitter
| surviving it, but it will be interesting.
|
| I think what I've learned from 4chan is that words like
| (redacted) shit general in /g/ or calling OP a (redacted)
| is ok on 4chan specifically. Except the name(redacted)
| and trip(redacted), we are all pseudonymous there so when
| someone says you are a (redacted), they don't mean to say
| you are of a specific ethnicity or gender. It means you
| are acting like an idiot or something they disapprove of?
|
| I can imagine a 21+ social media network that has no
| explicit moderation but you would still need protection
| from spam, flooding, and other bad actors once you get to
| a certain size.
| luciusdomitius wrote:
| I will be honest, my experience on 4c was 15+ years ago
| and only on /random. I just used it (most probably
| incorrectly) as an example of anarchy.
| 113 wrote:
| scythe wrote:
| >Free speech absolutism is possible and is beneficial
|
| I'm not sure why everyone is talking about this as though it's
| on the horizon? The article doesn't mention "free speech" as a
| goal, it mentions:
|
| - selling account privileges
|
| - making HQ a homeless shelter
|
| - edit button
|
| In other words, monetization and PR.
|
| The major free speech issue on Twitter is not whether certain
| people are allowed to be on Twitter. It's whether Twitter
| enables its users in carrying out harassment campaigns against
| people whose speech they don't like. These campaigns often
| feature unethical and fraudulent behavior, e.g. fake anonymous
| Yelp reviews complaining about an employee,
| encouraging/performing vandalism of the business, phone calls
| in the middle of the night, borderline slanderous exaggerations
| sent through anonymous channels, etc. It's quite misleading to
| characterize these internet mobs as "people exercising their
| right to criticism", and they tend to rely on the ability of
| people to anonymously take action against someone who is not
| anonymous. Fixing it would require more controls on Twitter,
| not fewer.
| deanCommie wrote:
| > I'm not sure why everyone is talking about this as though
| it's on the horizon? The article doesn't mention "free
| speech"
|
| Because if Musk said "I have no problem with Trump or Nazis
| on the platform and would unban them", he wouldn't have
| nearly the same support as he does now.
|
| Instead people's reaction is "yay, edit button! Go Musk
| Daddy!"
| scythe wrote:
| >Because if Musk said "I have no problem with Trump or
| Nazis on the platform and would unban them", he wouldn't
| have nearly the same support as he does now.
|
| This remains true after he acquires it. The claim that one
| of the most image-obsessed investors in the world is going
| to make changes that are obviously unpopular seems dubious
| and frankly paranoid.
| ckastner wrote:
| > _He is absolutely right over its enormous potential_
|
| What unrealized potential does Twitter have left after 16 years
| of existence?
|
| Twitter is incredibly popular, but as Docker already showed,
| being incredibly popular doesn't have to translate to financial
| success.
| roenxi wrote:
| > What unrealized potential does Twitter have left after 16
| years of existence?
|
| How much potential communication was left in the human race
| have after the first 7,000 years since written script started
| appearing? The answer is, most potential was still
| unexplored.
|
| Everything in modern civilisation is still young. Especially
| new communication platforms.
| ckastner wrote:
| That's a hand-wavy platitude about the general human
| condition that has nothing to do with Twitter specifically.
|
| Yes, global communication marches on, but that says nothing
| about specific platforms. Just look at MySpace.
| roenxi wrote:
| The potential value of a communications platform is
| always handwavy up to the point the revenue is realised.
| It is well-nigh impossible to forecast what the social
| media landscape will look like in the medium-long term;
| especially if someone cares about profit. Twitter has
| only been experimenting with making money since 2018.
| SantalBlush wrote:
| So in other words, you don't know either. And that is
| fine.
| ckastner wrote:
| Twitter had ample time before 2018 to experiment with
| making money, though. I'm not saying that Twitter should
| have known how to do that in 2006, but they probably
| should have by the time they IPO'ed 8 years later, in
| 2013.
|
| And Glancing over their S-1, they're making money now
| with the same means that they were planning to in 2013.
| mrtksn wrote:
| It's popular but it's mostly garbage where people scream at
| each other, among the bots and scammers. You can improve the
| interaction modes, improve discoverability etc. thus
| improving its value per user instead of inflating total
| number of users.
| nemothekid wrote:
| Make Twitter more popular by turning it into the same
| algorithmic garbage as every other platform.
| wyre wrote:
| And potential doesn't have to translate to financial success.
| ckastner wrote:
| It has to, if you want to keep employing the engineers who
| build and run the system.
| yibg wrote:
| Twitter can employ the engineers to build and run the
| system just fine today.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Musk can just bankroll Twitter as his pet project. Think
| Bezos and the Washington Post.
| cyberlurker wrote:
| Huge segments of the world don't see value in Twitter (and
| they might have a point) and don't use it. It's the "public
| square" of a subset of people.
|
| I'm interested and a bit nervous in what changes Musk will
| usher in. But I definitely see the opportunity for him to
| make a lot of money.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| And they're never GOING to use it, because Twitter isn't
| for them.
|
| The Tiktok crowd is not the Twitter crowd. The Twitter
| crowd is not the Facebook crowd. The only platform that
| truly has cross-group viability is instagram, and that's
| only because it's a visual platform.
|
| Twitter is a place where you make short, concise statements
| and people yell at you. Remove the character limit and it's
| just a feature-barren Facebook but with a bunch of people
| you don't even personally know. Everybody has been crying
| that it can "be more." It doesn't want to "be more." "Being
| more" is antithetical to the spirit of the enterprise and
| will kill it.
| skybrian wrote:
| Financially, I think it's pretty simple: charge more. There
| are core users who are addicted. It seems like something Musk
| would do?
| Zigurd wrote:
| > What unrealized potential does Twitter have left after 16
| years of existence?
|
| If there is unrealized potential, the "free speech" sites,
| like Gettr, etc. have not found much of it.
| xnx wrote:
| Twitter totally missed the opportunity to turn Vine into
| Tiktok.
| danShumway wrote:
| > Free speech absolutism is possible and is beneficial once you
| ensure that someone is not gaming the system, i.e. someone
| pretending to be more than one person.
|
| Regardless of whether or not it would be a good idea for
| Twitter to remove moderation, personally my feeling is that if
| someone says they're a free speech absolutist and they oppose
| burner accounts and anonymity, then they're not actually a free
| speech absolutist.
|
| It's become more common in certain circles to say that free
| speech is fine as long as people have a persistent ID and
| reputation, and I do like reputation systems to a certain
| degree -- but I want to point out that "a persistent ID and a
| reputation system" is just "social consequences" with extra
| steps.
|
| I sometimes suspect that the people who propose those systems
| are (unintentionally) arguing for a world with even more self-
| policing about what people say online, and I have over time
| come to suspect that a world with lots of communities that have
| strict moderation policies and that are occasionally closed off
| entirely, but that generally allow more anonymous accounts --
| is probably a world with more free speech (and hopefully less
| free speech of a harmful kind) than a world where everybody
| gets one voice and it's tracked everywhere. Again that's a
| separate conversation, but the point is that if your definition
| of free speech absolutism is that anyone can say anything they
| want wherever they are without social or political
| consequences, then (regardless whether or not that's a good
| idea) persistent identifiers are a step backwards from that
| goal.
| jaidhyani wrote:
| Tell me you've never worked on a team trying to address these
| issues without telling me you've never worked on a team trying
| to address these issues.
| hintymad wrote:
| I just despise Twitter for its double standard. It allows the
| tweet of Khamenei to call for "eradication" of Israel and its
| people, yet it blocks so many people in the name of "inciting
| violence". It blocked people who called for wearing masks or
| SIP in early 2020, but later blocked people who cited Nature
| paper. If Twitter were in the middle ages, they would for sure
| ban Galileo, and if they were in 19th century, they would for
| sure ban Darwin -- because one can't be anti-science and
| science can't be wrong, right?
|
| Twitter is a disgrace to the modern society. Their hypocrisy
| goes to no end.
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| >Free speech absolutism
|
| Musk's actions show he doesn't support that.
| yibg wrote:
| How do you define free speech absolutism? Is it literally
| anything goes? Anything legal? Is porn ok?
| gaws wrote:
| > How do you define free speech absolutism?
|
| The ability for people to call a black Twitter user the
| N-word, a female user to "fuck off and get raped," a
| liberal/conservative user to eat a bullet, as well as
| spreading known falsehoods and toxic content (either as
| gospel or for the lulz) -- all without getting banned for
| having "alternative views."
| Zigurd wrote:
| What the right calls "free speech" has been tried by several
| investor-backed social media startups. In every case it has
| turned into a sewer of racism, misogyny, death threats, and
| non-monetizable yuckkyiness.
|
| Nobody has an answer to that problem, yet. If there is no
| answer, turning Twitter into a desolation for trolls will not
| help Twitter.
|
| These trolls want to go back to Twitter to torment everyone who
| rejected them. Good luck creating shareholder value that way.
| basisword wrote:
| I guess the solution would be tying your identify to your
| account. If you do something illegal then you can be held
| accountable. The problem is, how many of twitters users would
| vanish if they suddenly needed to be identifiable?
| themitigating wrote:
| Failure of a business can still occur with legal speech,
| like racism. How would tying your identity to an account
| help in that situation?
| basisword wrote:
| Depends on your jurisdiction. Racist is certainly not
| legal in the UK and people have been prosecuted for
| tweeting racist messages.
| QuadmasterXLII wrote:
| I assume you don't mean 'you can have free speech
| absolutism by making it easier to have real life
| consequences for saying the wrong thing'
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| The consequences for politics are literally the only thing that
| matters here. Even if Musk doesn't intend to reinstate Trump's
| account (and certainly, nothing he's said indicates he wouldn't
| do that), the second he controls Twitter he will be under
| _enormous pressure to do so._ If he declines to do so, it will
| be damaging to his business with government. If he agrees to do
| so, there will be a huge amount of public discontent with Musk
| and his companies.
|
| Worse, from that point on everything that happens as a result
| will be on Musk and his companies. There won't be any more
| repercussions for powerful politically-motivated speakers, even
| if they explicitly call for violence. This will motivate
| extreme behavior and extreme responses. Boycotts for Tesla and
| Starlink (whose customers almost certainly tip liberal) will
| absolutely be on the table.
|
| Even if you personally love Musk, the success of his consumer-
| facing businesses depends on broad adoption by consumers.
| That's all at risk now. CEOs of this kind of business may have
| politics, but they traditionally avoid political firestorms
| because of these concerns. Musk is obviously rich enough that
| he doesn't care, but his shareholders probably should.
| sarsway wrote:
| I hope he shuts it down.
|
| Literally the only people that care about any of that, are
| the ones deep lost in the Twitter funnel. Here's the truth:
| Whatever happens on Twitter, it's going to have zero effect
| on your personal life. All these 140 character blurps about
| politics, the virtue signaling, the constant anger, outrage
| and cancel culture, it has melted people brains. It's all
| just an echo chamber, tightly kept in within bounds, and
| people will sell their soul, define their inner being, say
| whatever it takes, for bogus dopamine hits. Nobody has morals
| or ideology on Twitter, they are all just optimizing for
| likes.
| Hamuko wrote:
| What an incredibly narrow and US-centric view of Twitter.
| tazjin wrote:
| It's only "US-centric" if you _include_ its vassal states
| in the definition, more correct to say "West-centric
| view" probably.
|
| That's of course assuming these things aren't happening
| on Twitter in other spheres (which would be an
| interesting data point - it would indicate that it may
| not be something intrinsic to the format, but with
| current issues in Western culture).
|
| How large is Twitters non-Western user base anyways, in
| percentages?
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _How large is Twitters non-Western user base anyways,
| in percentages?_
|
| Japan and India alone account for 14.0% and 5.6% of
| Twitter's users, which together are higher than the
| amount of users in the US at 18.4%.
| ss108 wrote:
| > If he declines to do so, it will be damaging to his
| business with government.
|
| How would failing to reinstate Trump's account be damaging to
| his business with the government? Wouldn't it matter whether
| the Federal government is under a Democrat or Republican
| executive?
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| Republicans control a minority of Congress right now but
| will likely control a majority by 2022. Maybe both branches
| and the Presidency in 2024. Ordinarily we like to pretend
| that political action doesn't affect your business, but
| Trump made it pretty clear that he's willing to retaliate
| against political enemies using the power of the state [1].
| This feeling may not be broadly shared, but currently Trump
| is the most influential person in the GOP and a leading
| candidate for 2024.
|
| [1] https://slate.com/business/2018/03/donald-trump-wants-
| to-get...
| ss108 wrote:
| Yeah, I agree with you generally (I don't think Congress
| is that important in this context; it's more the
| Executive Branch), I just don't see how that supports the
| above poster, unless one assumes that a Republican is
| going to win in 2024.
|
| But at this point, who knows who will win?
|
| edit: oh you are the above poster lol
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| If there are two parties and you think one party _might_
| abuse the Presidency to help /harm your business, and the
| other won't... which one are you going to spend time
| ingratiating yourself with?
| ss108 wrote:
| Wouldn't the prudent course be to avoid making oneself a
| political character at all?
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| Yes. It really would. Which is why I think he's going to
| back off of this bid after bidding the price up and
| flirting with it.
| cloutchaser wrote:
| Sounds to me like this guy is a deep state insider and
| understands what the FBI and CIA would do if trump was
| reinstated LOL
| gruturo wrote:
| I was recently looking at the payment options for a M3 RWD
| and have actually paused everything last week when the first
| Twitter news came out, because that's exactly where my mind
| went too.
|
| If this whole move ends up with trump reinstated, I just
| cannot support any of his companies with my money, ever. And
| I'll do what I can to dissuade colleagues if their values
| align with mine.
| Zhenya wrote:
| I assume you don't buy German cars as well?
| [deleted]
| gruturo wrote:
| I currently live in Germany, where German cars are very
| common, but yeah, I was trying NOT to give money to a
| German car manufacturer already before Ukraine got
| invaded, because they have immense influence on the local
| government and are to (co-)blame for the sad delay in
| adopting EV and government incentives (and when
| incentives come out, they try to structure them to
| exclude Tesla as much as possible). Plus the diesel
| scandals.
|
| I guess I'll wait and see. But wanting an EV, not wanting
| something as small as a Zoe, or too expensive, and hating
| SUVs (I know, I know, too many conditions), it's hard to
| find an alternative. I may have to settle for an ID.3 or
| a Cupra if Tesla is no longer an option.
|
| For the record, I currently do have a German car - bought
| it used, 12ish years.
| jupp0r wrote:
| The Germans want to reinstate Trump's Twitter account,
| too?
| basisword wrote:
| This is quite interesting. Regardless of which way you vote
| when it comes election time, Trump would have a much better
| chance if he had social media access again. If Musk takes
| control of Twitter and gives Trump access again it could have
| an enormous impact on the outcome of that election and the
| future of America. It's interesting (and terrifying) that
| someone could take Twitter private and exercise that level of
| power. I can't imagine it would be long until the government
| regulated it at that point but given the US strong
| protections for free speech I'm not sure how much regulation
| can occur.
| bogantech wrote:
| > It's interesting (and terrifying) that someone could take
| Twitter private and exercise that level of power.
|
| It's terrifying that a company has that power (and has
| already used it) regardless of who owns it.
| themitigating wrote:
| Rather have a group of people control something than one
| person
| basisword wrote:
| Agreed but the fact that one person could single handedly
| choose to (potentially) impact an entire country's future
| on a whim is mind blowing.
| themitigating wrote:
| You'd think the CEO of an electric car company, that was
| started to help the environment, would cater to a difference
| audience
| ss108 wrote:
| You think he really wants to help the environment?
| tasubotadas wrote:
| This is great news.
|
| Twitter definitely has potential but at the moment it is a
| cespool of triggered personalities where the voice of the sane
| and interesting people is drowned in an endless screaming.
| dorkwood wrote:
| Is Elon one of the interesting people? Let's look at a couple
| of his most recent tweets:
|
| "Weather is fake. I seen Truman Show!"
|
| "69.420% of statistics are false"
|
| Personally, this content is exactly the type of thing I try to
| filter out. Unfunny, uninteresting fluff.
| mhh__ wrote:
| He genuinely isn't funny. Even Trump had a certain
| traumatized stand-up element to his rambling, whereas Elon
| just sounds like a man surrounded by people telling him how
| smart he is all the time.
| phamtrungkt wrote:
| Wow
| marricks wrote:
| There's an account called Elon Jet which uses publicly available
| information to track Elon's private jet and post take off and
| landings. Elon offered 5k to the owner to take it down[1]. He has
| blocked loads of people for mocking or disagreeing with him.
|
| Are those actions evil or wrong? Not really, but I also don't
| think they're the actions of an ardent believer in free speech
| which this thread is making him out to be.
|
| Saying you believe in free speech and acting out a belief that
| everyone should have an equal right to say their piece without
| fear of being silenced are two different things.
|
| 1 https://www.techtimes.com/articles/271211/20220130/elon-musk...
| cseleborg wrote:
| That's not what free speech is about. Free speech protects your
| opinions from the state. Someone offering you money to take
| down public information about them is just a transaction
| between citizens. Nothing to see here.
| bena wrote:
| You're confusing free speech with the First Amendment.
| cseleborg wrote:
| To be fair, I'm a European citizen, so I'm not too familiar
| with the first amendment. I believe the basic princies hold
| true on both sides of the pond, though.
|
| What would you say free speech means?
| bena wrote:
| Free speech is just the ability to speak your mind
| without fear of reprisal or censorship.
|
| It is not something we technically have here on HN or on
| twitter or in other such places.
|
| Most governments that claim to value the concept of free
| speech usually have it said somewhere in their governing
| documents that the government will honor this concept.
| cseleborg wrote:
| Right, but censorship can only happen at the state level.
| The New York Times not letting Alex Jones write a column
| is not censorship or reprisal, it's an editorial
| decision. Same for Twitter or HN. The Douma deciding to
| ban certain words like "war" or "invasion" in relation to
| Ukraine, or the executive arresting bloggers on planes,
| that's censorship.
|
| However the law has to put boundaries on free speech,
| because it can easily infringe on someone else's basic
| rights, so there is no such thing as completely free
| speech in practice. Even within the circle of your best
| friends, there would be limits to what you can say,
| wouldn't there?
|
| I do believe we agree. I'm merely trying to be precise in
| my use of words like censorship, lest they become
| meaningless.
| themitigating wrote:
| And any moderation that twitter does is between a corporation
| and a person, it doesn't involve the government so it's not
| about free speech.
| swayvil wrote:
| Yes, you can block malicious actors and still be a proponent of
| free speech.
| lovich wrote:
| Can't really call yourself a free speech absolutist at the
| same time though unless you're comfortable with blatant lies.
| Malicious/manipulative speech is still speech
| themitigating wrote:
| Can Twitter block malicious actors and still be a proponent
| of free speech?
| marricks wrote:
| Does everyone consider Elon Jet a malicious actor? Who
| determines what a malicious actor is? I guess soon it could
| be Elon!
| swayvil wrote:
| That's an interesting question. I have been thinking about
| how social media might be run in a way that allows for such
| filtering, but without a centralized filtering authority.
|
| Maybe you could rate actors. And you could also refer to
| actors' ratings of other actors. Weighted by the rating of
| the actor.
|
| No doubt it's been done. But maybe something like that.
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| Publicizing the movements of people in real time is not a good
| faith example of free speech. Banning such accounts is
| reasonable under any framework of ownership, public or private.
| There is no good faith need for anyone to know private
| information like this.
|
| Blocking people from interacting with you on twitter is an
| exercise of free association, also a right embodied in the
| first amendment of the US constitution.
|
| Freedom of speech is not the right to an audience, nor is it a
| right to stalk.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Offering money to take down a twitter account seems totally
| reasonable. If you're saying that Elon would've terminated the
| account if he owned Twitter, I don't think there's any evidence
| to support that.
| SomeCallMeTim wrote:
| No, there's no evidence.
|
| But it seems trivially obvious that, if Musk owned Twitter,
| that account and ones like it that target Musk will
| disappear.
|
| As much as I like Tesla and respect SpaceX, I do note that
| Musk rarely misses an opportunity to benefit himself.
|
| The whole crypto market manipulation event is one obvious
| example; what abstract ethical behavior was driving that
| debacle? I say there was none and that it was a transparent
| attempt to make money while trolling the crypto community.
|
| Not that I actually fault him for doing that. It just points
| out how broken the entire cryptoverse is. But my point is
| that he is prone to doing things for his own benefit and/or
| without regard for the consequences.
|
| What I haven't seen is evidence that he would take some kind
| of high moral position on free speech absolutism against his
| own self interest. To me it's more a question of "prove that
| he won't do it" than to prove he will.
|
| If he ends up buying Twitter, we'll find out either way.
| t3pfaff wrote:
| That is entirely baseless. I'm fairly certain that whole
| affair was just some social media assistant offering money
| to someone for Musk to have slightly increased privacy and
| PR(since private jet use is really bad for the
| environment). They offered like $5k to take itf down which
| to Musk is literally like giving a homeless person a couple
| quarters. All flight traffic is public though. Banning a
| Twitter account would do nothing as all that information is
| already public record. You can track whoever you want on
| sites like Flightradar. I really doubt Musk cares that much
| at all, if he was ever actually even aware that the Twitter
| account existed.
| [deleted]
| Crabber wrote:
| Stalking is not free speech
| marricks wrote:
| "Stalking" is doing a lot of work there, it's publicly
| available information. The account isn't literally tailing
| his jet.
|
| If you're a billionaire and buy a private jet you naturally
| have less privacy than other people and that's the breaks. If
| you go on SNL hold wild press conferences you will have even
| less privacy. That's the cost.
|
| You cannot be rich, ostentatious, and private. Gotta pick
| just two.
| Crabber wrote:
| >it's publicly available information
|
| Irrelevant distinction. Most doxxing is just collecting
| publicly accessible information. Stalking and intimidation
| is still stalking and intimidation whether you use public
| information or not.
| retrocryptid wrote:
| buying twitter will not make people like you.
| PokestarFan wrote:
| Absolute idiocy going on with Elon, man is sorta like Kanye but
| also the richest in the world and has no verifiable mental
| illness yet
| culitrum wrote:
| Wow
| trynewideas wrote:
| That's cool. When I'm bored I usually just fire up a game in my
| Steam backlog, but whatever.
| seanw444 wrote:
| Elon has Twitter in his Steam backlog.
| alberth wrote:
| Dumb question: what makes this a " _hostile_ takeover"?
|
| Elon's bid was non-binding, and unless I'm unaware - he isn't
| trying to actively change the board or management.
|
| So what makes this "hostile"?
| peeters wrote:
| By definition a hostile takeover is one that is done without
| the blessing/recommendation of the current board of directors.
|
| Most private takeovers are negotiated by the board/management
| (ostensibly on behalf of the shareholders). Going over their
| head and straight to shareholders is when it's called a hostile
| takeover.
|
| As far as Elon not planning to replace the board/management. I
| would say that it is a foregone conclusion that he will clean
| house if his takeover succeeds. He has been actively critical
| of their management.
| ChrisPebble wrote:
| Which this is not. He is making an offer to buy which the
| board has to approve. The title is wrong in this case.
| peeters wrote:
| I'm not sure what is needed from the board here, but I
| think there's a difference between a board recommending
| something, and having a fiduciary duty to present an offer
| to shareholders. Where are you reading that this needs the
| board's blessing?
| bombcar wrote:
| If the board doesn't approve, he goes to the shareholders
| and asks them to replace the board (or becomes such a
| large shareholder he can do it himself).
| ChrisPebble wrote:
| Twitter's bylaws contain anti-takeover provisions which
| would make a hostile takeover difficult. In their latest
| 10K they list these provisions which includes
| "authorizing 'blank check' preferred stock, which could
| be issued by our board of directors without stockholder
| approval and may contain voting, liquidation, dividend
| and other rights superior to our common stock". So if
| Musk attempted to get shareholders to vote out the board,
| the board could issue preferred stock with voting rights
| which could dilute Musk's votes.
|
| Link: https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-000141809
| 1/947c0c3...
| bombcar wrote:
| People complain about fiduciary duty lawsuits but
| "authorizing 'blank check' preferred stock, which could
| be issued by our board of directors without stockholder
| approval and may contain voting, liquidation, dividend
| and other rights superior to our common stock" and then
| using it to go against a vast majority of shareholders
| could result in a huge court fight.
| edent wrote:
| So he is pumping up the share price and, if he doesn't get his
| way he will dump his shares.
|
| I wonder if there's a name for this sort of behaviour?
| bogantech wrote:
| BDE
| robjan wrote:
| If the hostile takeover fails the price will tank before he
| exits.
| rdsubhas wrote:
| > price will tank
|
| making a subsequent buy/takeover even more easier?
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I wonder who is his ally (inside and financial). This could be
| interesting.
| shmde wrote:
| I really hope twitter burns to the ground.
| incomingpain wrote:
| Who didn't know this was coming?
|
| Imagine you're Musk. You have a bijjilion and 1 $. You use
| twitter heavily and see huge issues, you even see the results of
| your poll. You buy it for $50 billion and you fix those huge
| issues because they are in fact trivial to solve. The valuation
| of twitter would only go up, but Musk isn't even looking at it
| from a value investing point of view. He's looking at it from a
| societal point of view. He's looking at it from a 'worth more
| than currency' value.
|
| Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by
| understanding.
|
| -Albert Einstein
|
| This isn't about nation to nation. This is about so many
| subjects. The peace between the republicans and democrats is only
| being kept by force right now. Censoring your political opponents
| eliminates the possibility of understanding.
| officeplant wrote:
| Prediction: I delete my twitter account and move on to a new
| platform because none of this matters and that's the cycle of
| online platforms.
| no-dr-onboard wrote:
| Followup Prediction: You join the ranks of many other people
| who leave for alternative platforms only to return less than
| 6mo later.
|
| Not an insult, just speaking from experience.
| officeplant wrote:
| Oh I know, this is like twitter account number 5 since
| twitters introduction. I tried Mastadon, Diaspora, and many
| others over the years. The only platform I've managed to
| leave for good (5 years and counting) is anything associated
| with facebook because that's the easiest set of platforms
| drop.
| garbagetime wrote:
| Is that the cycle? I've been using Twitter for 10+ years and I
| doubt I'll stop anytime soon. Heck, I still use Reddit daily
| despite it having been in steady decline for many years now.
|
| Personally, I suppose that the internet has become
| significantly more stable over the years.
| wnevets wrote:
| That is certainly one way to kill twitter
| RustyConsul wrote:
| > "if my offer is rejected i will reconsider my ownership in
| twitter."
|
| Thats an immense amount of selling pressure on the stock... This
| is a threat. He's negotiating with a gun to their head.
| thebradbain wrote:
| I read it as a threat too... is it not against the SEC's rules
| for market manipulation?
| no-dr-onboard wrote:
| Certainly someone out there agrees with you. Realistically, a
| lawsuit would certainly quell the interest in this and drag
| this issue into relative obscurity over the course of years.
| Timeless tactic.
| colechristensen wrote:
| It is almost certain that whatever happens, there will be a
| lawsuit. Suing twitter, the board, elon, maybe the SEC
| (possibly multiple in different directions). It happens
| with almost any large move where there is even a hint that
| something happened incorrectly.
| rrdharan wrote:
| More like it happens with any large move period, no hints
| needed, because the expected value payoff of a lawsuit in
| that case typically makes it a worthwhile exercise.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Musk being known as a long-time fan of the SEC with a respect
| for their rules.
| [deleted]
| coffeeblack wrote:
| How so? He is even giving more information about his future
| intention than he had to.
| thebradbain wrote:
| That's where the market manipulation comes into play.
| Acknowledging/threatening a _possible_ pump and dump _if he
| doesn 't get his way_ could clear the SEC's bar of
| "Intentional or willful conduct designed to deceive or
| defraud investors by controlling or artificially affecting
| the price of securities, or ... designed to drive a stock's
| price up or down"
|
| Someone much smarter than I could likely argue that the
| "threat" of Elon possibly pulling out his investment in a
| company is affecting the stock price, and now suddenly Elon
| is in control of the direction of the stock, even though
| the underlying fundamentals have not been changed.
|
| https://www.sec.gov/files/Market%20Manipulations%20and%20Ca
| s...
| dleslie wrote:
| AFAICT, there's no deception or fraud in his behaviour;
| nor is there anything artificial - he's put real money
| down, and is offering real money. It's not like he's made
| a one-off tweet about it.
| thebradbain wrote:
| Not to get pedantic, but if you read their definition of
| market manipulation, there's another point that's
| unrelated to the deception/fraud clause (though those are
| loaded terms legally, and one again likely could argue
| they are)
|
| "Intentional interference with the free forces of supply
| and demand"
|
| He put money down (a lot of money down!), but that
| doesn't give him the right to manipulate the stock price
| purely based on the fact he has a stake on it or not; in
| fact it gives him a duty not to do so, because he now has
| a motive/vested interest in profiting off of it. There's
| rules to follow and forms to file to protect against
| that, and he's already has one lawsuit against him in
| that vein:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/14/business/twitter-
| lawsuit-...
| dleslie wrote:
| It sounds to me that you're interpreting that in such a
| broad way that you could argue that any stock purchases
| he makes would be in violation of this.
| thebradbain wrote:
| If the market decides the stock should go up or down
| after someone invests/divests (or files the applicable,
| standard form), that's one thing.
|
| If he's prematurely saying what direction he's going to
| go one way or another, that's another thing. You don't
| see Vanguard tweeting "we're going to invest in this
| company if X happens and divest if not" to the general
| public, especially if they're trying to influence X to
| happen.
|
| This essentially why he got in trouble with Tesla for
| tweeting he wanted to take it private at $420/share,
| immediately making the stock price jump up, even though
| he did not have "funding secured" and did not take it
| private. And he almost lost the ability to be a CEO or on
| a board of a public company for 10 years because of that!
|
| https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-226
| causalmodels wrote:
| > If he's prematurely saying what direction he's going to
| go one way or another, that's another thing. You don't
| see Vanguard tweeting "we're going to invest in this
| company if X happens and divest if not" to the general
| public, especially if they're trying to influence X to
| happen.
|
| Because Vanguard is a passive fund. Activist funds do
| this all the time.
| thebradbain wrote:
| And Elon initially filed as a passive investor.
| PeterisP wrote:
| Him putting money down literally is a free market demand
| for that security, and his ability to freely publicly
| offer lots of money literally is the "free forces of
| supply and demand" that's not supposed to be interfered
| with.
|
| This clause is explicitly not intended to do what you
| imply, it does not restrict this particular action by
| Musk at all.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > is it not against the SEC's rules for market manipulation?
|
| Maybe, but he's also being sued over a violation of market
| manipulation rules with regard to non-disclosure of his
| recent Twitter purchase, and that's not the first problem
| he's had with those rules.
|
| "Elon Musk" and "securities rules" don't really go together.
| thebradbain wrote:
| I know; But I can't help but feel the SEC is just waiting
| to build up an open-and-shut case to really make an example
| out of him, as they usually do to high profile people who
| openly challenge them. Of course the richest man in the
| world is going to put up a very strong fight in court, and
| the SEC will not risk its authority by losing, so there
| can't be much ambiguity in any evidence they present
| coffeeblack wrote:
| Not a threat. If Musk can't fix Tw, then the share value will
| further decrease, so it's just rational for him to then sell.
| And good for him to be honest about it from the start.
| joshspankit wrote:
| As another commenter pointed out: It's Elon Musk.
|
| While selling all his shares would make the price dip short-
| term, no one who knows his tactics will take that as a serious
| commentary on the viability of Twitter itself.
| jslaby wrote:
| The price is currently $46 and considering the stock market is
| down as a whole, the $54 price will easily be eclipsed in the
| near future imo. Granted Musk will sell his stock and that
| price will go down, but I would balk at this offer if I had any
| skin in the game.
| gpm wrote:
| If you're basing this on the stock market as a whole being
| down, surely you'd make more money by selling to Elon at $54
| while it's still down, and re-investing your money in other
| stocks - letting you get the upside twice, once from Elon and
| once from the stock market going up.
| snarf21 wrote:
| I hope the short sellers who have a long standing hatred of
| Musk short the hell out of Twitter and make a ton when this
| offer is rejected.
| furyofantares wrote:
| I'd expect the more they short it, the more likely it is to
| be accepted.
| ncmncm wrote:
| To me, the main message is that he wasn't really serious about
| Mars at all, or even about SpaceX, or Tesla -- never mind
| _global climate catastrophe_.
|
| Were I a Twitter stockholder I might perceive a different
| emphasis.
| meatsauce wrote:
| Yea, he only engineered and launched spacecraft into space.
| Not serious about SpaceX at all...
| ncmncm wrote:
| Spacecraft are one thing, Mars another. By the evidence, he
| is satisfied with where SpaceX and Tesla have got to. And,
| renewable energy generation and storage development and
| deployment.
|
| Or maybe he wants to turn Twitter into a bully pulpit, and
| drive government spending where he thinks it should go...
| That's the 4D chess argument.
| FeepingCreature wrote:
| I think there's a credible argument that SpaceX is not
| currently cash blocked. Same may apply for Tesla.
|
| He may have just run out of good places to put it.
| ncmncm wrote:
| He could have put it into developing and deploying
| renewable energy development and deployment. So, no, that
| argument doesn't work.
|
| It is possible he thinks he can use Twitter to drive
| politics, and maybe government spending, in directions he
| favors.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| > _To me, the main message is that he wasn 't really serious
| about Mars at all, or even about SpaceX, or Tesla -- never
| mind global climate catastrophe._
|
| What are you talking about? He literally offered up the Tesla
| patents to anyone who wants to use them:
| https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/blog/all-our-patent-are-
| belong-y...
|
| And:
|
| >On June 12, 2014, Tesla announced that it will not initiate
| patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to
| use its technology. _Tesla was created to accelerate the
| advent of sustainable transport, and this policy is intended
| to encourage the advancement of a common, rapidly-evolving
| platform for electric vehicles, thereby benefiting Tesla,
| other companies making electric vehicles, and the world._
| These guidelines provide further detail as to how we are
| implementing this policy.
|
| https://www.tesla.com/legal/additional-resources#patent-
| pled...
| golemotron wrote:
| If your bar for "serious" doesn't allow for multi-tasking.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Money is fungible. Every single dollar that goes for
| Twitter is exactly a dollar that does _not_ go for what he
| used to say was important.
|
| He might be heard to say those again, but dollars speak
| louder than words. Musk can say anything, anytime. What he
| does with his money demonstrates what he believes.
| texasbigdata wrote:
| If he owned 0% of both companies as CEO he could still
| achieve both goals.
| passivate wrote:
| By that same logic the US should immediately stop giving
| foreign aid to developing countries or investing in other
| programs since we still have homeless people here. The
| reasons why entities spend money on specific things is
| not a univariate. Also, there is a whole meta discussion
| to be had about what sparks creativity and innovation, I
| have a pet theory about over abundance of resources
| creating stagnation and dulling people's motivation and
| creativity. Beyond a certain point, throwing money at a
| problem can be counter productive.
|
| At the end of the day, results matter and SpaceX has
| shown results.
| golemotron wrote:
| Recipe for not thinking anything is important: split your
| holdings into two investments.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Recipe for thinking two things are equally important. If
| one of those is as intrinsically unimportant as Twitter,
| the other is too.
| boppo1 wrote:
| Maybe he sees twitter as a threat to his other goals?
| 'Whitey on Mars' could be very compelling to the twitter
| crowd.
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| Like it or not, Twitter is extremely important. It sets
| discourse and gets politicians into office. Remember how
| much Trump's tweeting dominated the news cycle? Elon
| buying Twitter isn't him saying he thinks it _should_ be
| important, just that it is.
| ncmncm wrote:
| So, this is his entree into politics? A way to drive
| money at federal-government scale the way he wants?
|
| Possible.
| hayd wrote:
| It's a _hostile_ take over.
| joshlemer wrote:
| I think calling it a gun to their head is a bit over dramatic.
| tomlin wrote:
| Except, this happens all the time. I don't see this African
| American man as a threat.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| Canadian you mean.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Selling shares is putting a gun to their head?
| anonu wrote:
| On the other hand - the stock was flat over the time that he
| bought... So not in total agreement with you on the stock
| impact of his selling. It seems like the only impact is the
| headline risk - and not so much actual selling pressure.
| leereeves wrote:
| If the stock was flat while Elon was buying almost 10% of the
| company, it probably would have declined quite a bit if he
| hadn't been buying, because the people who sold the shares
| Elon bought would have been looking for other buyers.
| anonu wrote:
| Someone can do a basic quantitative analysis. He started
| buying March 1 (?) I believe. This date is public in last
| filing. You can estimate the historical beta, and get TWTR
| return and market return in March.
|
| My quick analysis was that in the absence of any other
| news, his buying really had no serious impact.
| dkokelley wrote:
| I think he started March 14th based on trading volume.
| Goes from ~15M/day to 35M/day for the next few days
| before settling down. (Made another comment elsewhere on
| this)
|
| https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000110465
| 922...
| anonu wrote:
| Ok so assuming march 14 to April 1. The market was up 8%
| over that time and TWTR was up 19%. Beta is 1.3 so with a
| beta adjustment the excess return from musk's buying is
| about 19-(8*1.3)=8.6%.
|
| Is this a lot or a little impact for buying close to 10
| percent of a large cap stock? It's hard to say. I'd say
| it's a bit lower than i would have expected. Nonetheless,
| it provides somewhat of a floor if musk decides to sell
| his stake.
|
| Edit: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/
| 000110465...
|
| Musk bought between Jan 31 and April 1. Market was up
| 2.8% and Twitter was up 11.5%. So the impact was less.
| 7.8% beta adjusted.... Really not much...
| renewiltord wrote:
| Want to write a contract for where it'll be at close of
| market the first trading day after he announces he'll
| pull out? We can have break-even at Twitter being 19%
| down from now. You can appropriately hedge beta risk
| elsewhere and I'll put in $100 to induce participation.
| I'd prefer max $10k exposure for my side.
|
| I can meet you in SF if you want signatures.
| leereeves wrote:
| In the months before Musk started buying, Twitter stocked
| declined by about 40% while the S&P was up slightly. Is
| it reasonable to assume that TWTR would have followed the
| market from Jan 31 to April 1 without Musk?
| anonu wrote:
| Good observation. Market impact is notoriously hard to
| measure - especially over a 2-month period like this one.
| You have to build a more complex model - which includes
| fundamentals.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| It will hit back at 40$ is as if the Elon pump never happened,
| is that so bad? However, it does create pressure from
| "activitists" to sell to Elon. The main thing is: Is Elon a
| good leader for Twitter. There is a lot of positives because
| Elon has already proven himself in multiple companies, plus he
| understands Twitter as much as anyone from his use of it
| whatshisface wrote:
| > _Is Elon a good leader for Twitter._
|
| Since there would no longer be any public investors in
| Twitter after this, that does not actually matter as far as
| the present investors are concerned.
| babypuncher wrote:
| His absolutist "free speech" attitude would absolutely be
| horrible for Twitter. There would be literally nothing to
| stop bots and state-sponsored messmakers from completely
| gaming Twitter far beyond what they already do today. I think
| a lot of people do not realize the can of worms they are
| opening when they advocate for zero moderation on a platform
| as large as Twitter.
| throwawayacc2 wrote:
| eggy wrote:
| nomorecomp wrote:
| coolso wrote:
| It wasn't given scrutiny. It was silenced. And, turns out
| it wasn't misinformation either.
|
| Thank God with Musk's new Twitter we won't have to have
| this sort of discussion anymore anyway, people won't be
| able to just shout Russian disinformation at anything
| that makes the left look bad and have Big Tech scramble
| to do their bidding to help influence elections.
| boppo1 wrote:
| Perhaps you're an example of how its censorship spreads
| misinformation. I'm not really passionate about the Biden
| laptop, but my understanding is that the NYT did recently
| admit* that it was real and they had some sort of policy
| to report on it as if it weren't. If you believe the
| laptop story was a fabrication by right-wingers, is it
| possible you have been deceived?
|
| Disclaimer: I have no confidence either way to the
| veracity of the laptop. I don't know that much about it
| and whether it were true or not wouldn't change my
| political views much.
|
| *I googled 'NYT biden laptop' and the most legitimate
| looking of the results was a WSJ article. I don't have a
| WSJ subscription to evaluate it, however.
| xanaxagoras wrote:
| It's crazy to me that people _still_ don't know that it's
| been confirmed by a "reliable" news source. The veracity
| of the NY Post story wasn't controversial, just the
| effect it would have on getting Biden into the White
| House. The corporate press ran cover for the Biden family
| to get the outcome they wanted in the 2020 elections.
|
| https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-nyt-now-admits-the-
| bide...
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| The NYTimes and Washington Post have admitted that the
| laptop is genuine. conveniently 18 months after that same
| national election.
| partiallypro wrote:
| He's not a free speech absolutist (he even tried to get a
| particular account shutdown for tracking his private jet,
| albiet he was offering them money to stop), he more or less
| just wants a more transparent form of moderation with only
| moderation leaning in one direction. That's actually a
| -good- thing. I've seen accounts banned for mild jokes,
| while some accounts literally post death threats and skirt
| by. The Taliban, Russia, etc all have Twitter accounts at
| the very moment and you think this is some new thing of
| "state sponsored" whatever. I am pretty sure many people
| here with comments like this have rarely if ever used
| Twitter for anything.
| mkaic wrote:
| I don't think he's campaigning for "zero moderation" --
| he's spoken about plans to fight bots. I think he just
| wants zero moderation for accounts run by actual humans,
| which is still a can of worms, but a different can of
| worms.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| You are assuming Elon will run Twitter to the ground based
| on his 2 word view. He seem smart enough to know what a
| middle ground is.
| qsdf38100 wrote:
| He isn't smart. Just like trump isn't smart. How could
| such guys be so successful if they aren't smart?? Well,
| they are just the right amount of stupid, careless and
| bold to succeed in today's world of mindless masses.
| schainks wrote:
| They don't call it thirsty Thursday for nothin'!
| jollybean wrote:
| Elon Musk is not important to Twitter.
|
| It's a toy gun pointed at their head.
|
| He could maybe _maybe_ start a competitor, but I doubt it would
| work.
|
| 1) He doesn't have the energy for another serious project 2) It
| would end up being something else, which frankly might be
| welcome, but it won't replace twitter.
|
| Journalists etc. around the world are not going to flock to a
| 'free speech' platform with little moderation.
|
| They 10x will not do it if Trump is on it, and gaining
| traction, for example.
| partiallypro wrote:
| Journalists thrived when Trump was still on Twitter. It was
| nightly news and they all RTed him constantly.
| williamsmj wrote:
| This is standard operating procedure for takeovers, but I think
| you're massively overestimating the amount of pressure someone
| selling 9% of the company places on the stock price. Someone
| buying 9% (with an expecation that they would buy more) moved
| the stock $10. The same person selling 9% stock (with no
| possibility that can sell more) is unlikely to move the stock
| more than that.
| ketzo wrote:
| Okay, but it's _Elon Musk_ selling 9% of a company 's stock.
|
| The dude makes stocks move when he tweets memes. I think it's
| fair to say he's got some... extra pull.
| williamsmj wrote:
| He demonstrated precisely how much pull he had when he
| _bought_ 9%. It 's about $10.
| dkokelley wrote:
| The price moved from $33 to $40 as he bought the
| shares[1]. THEN it moved from $40 to $50 when he
| announced that he bought the shares on April 4th.
|
| Hard to say what the stock would have done without the
| purchase, but Musk has both the threat of dumping his
| shares on the market AND the threat of him announcing
| that he's dropping his shares. A case could be made that
| he has at least $17 of influence on share price, but my
| guess is that the market frenzy will drag it lower if
| Musk backs out.
|
| 1. Purchase began March 14th 2022 https://www.sec.gov/Arc
| hives/edgar/data/1418091/000110465922...
|
| Note: Please correct me if I misunderstand the meaning of
| the filing. I read it as Musk began buying up shares
| March 14th, and finished near the end of March, then
| reported Friday/Monday April 1/4. I don't think he bought
| and announced the same day. Musk owns ~73M shares, and
| trading volume was ~15M on the 13th, then jumps to
| ~35M/day over the next few days before settling down at
| ~15M/day again. https://finance.yahoo.com/chart/TWTR#eyJp
| bnRlcnZhbCI6ImRheSI...
| zepolen wrote:
| No, that is not how that works.
| tmalsburg2 wrote:
| How does it work?
| zepolen wrote:
| Whoever knew that stands to make a lot of money.
|
| What we do know is that it's not a 1 to 1 mathematical if
| one buys 9% it moves 10$ if one then sells 9% if falls
| $10. This has historically proven over and over.
| flavius29663 wrote:
| osrec wrote:
| I disagree. The fact that someone is willing to buy a stake
| in a company suggests the company has some potential. The
| fact that someone having bought a company is willing to dump
| their entire ownership so quickly suggests the company may be
| rotten from the inside. The latter would exert a much
| stronger downward pressure on the stock, in my opinion.
| williamsmj wrote:
| That makes sense if you assume Musk has learned something
| shocking about Twitter from the inside in the past couple
| of weeks. How likely is that?
|
| It seems _spectacularly_ unlikely to me that a demonstrably
| impatient person with a pre-existing thesis about Twitter
| would take the time to investigate and learn new things
| about its product /financials/culture/governance.
|
| It also seems unlikely that a person with a known strong
| stomach for legal and ethical "flexibility" would be
| especially bothered by anything they did learn, assuming
| they took the trouble. But YMMV.
| MadSudaca wrote:
| As a hypothetical investor on Twitter, would you be
| willing to take that chance?
| supramouse wrote:
| I do think something like twitter longterm could a big
| play at something like authenticity verification in the
| world of deep fakes, similar to what keybase was trying
| to do but they already have traction with public figures
| cambaceres wrote:
| His point is that it will look like Elon didn't like what
| he saw and changed his mind, it doesn't matter what he
| truly saw.
| moffkalast wrote:
| "Musk, what do your Elon eyes see?"
|
| "They're taking Twitter to Isengard!"
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| > suggests the company may be rotten from the inside.
|
| Even if there are 0 actual facts open to the public that
| prove this, the optics suggest that this narrative can be
| made. He moved the stock 30%+ in a few days by publically
| buying in. If he sells it, why wouldn't it give up all of
| the gains he brought (and maybe more)?
|
| I don't know what he thinks he stands to gain by buying
| Twitter. Can a rocket scientist/electric car guru really
| get into tweets + advertising?
| res0nat0r wrote:
| Kara Swisher said this 4 days ago: https://twitter.com/ka
| raswisher/status/1513370798815330307
|
| Twitter likely decided to not allow him onboard just
| because of his constant shitposting about the company,
| his volatility, and really just wanting Twitter to be his
| sounding board for whatever offensive things he has to
| say, so they're trying to ensure he can't try and
| takeover as we speak.
| andrepd wrote:
| Why do rich people buy newspapers and media
| conglomerates? Why did Jeff Bezos "get into journalism"
| via Washington Post? There is your answer.
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| Washington Post can control what is posted through
| journalists, etc. (digital or not)
|
| Twitter is like... an aggregator of a bunch of people
| tweeting. The people tweeting aren't being paid by
| Twitter to tweet (like journalists are for Washington
| Post, even if it's like $75 for an opinion
| piece/basically blogspam)
|
| I feel like that's a pretty big difference?
| jkukul wrote:
| Twitter can control what who can post and who cannot
| (remember Donald J Trump being banned?).
|
| Twitter can control what is being read by deciding what
| is promoted by their algorithms and what gets buried
| down.
|
| These are just few examples. We can't pretend that
| Twitter is a fully decentralised service and that there's
| no one pulling the strings.
| gpm wrote:
| To strongman the case for him running twitter, he clearly
| has significant experience and success with running large
| engineering oriented companies - which is the primary job
| of twitter executives. Both Tesla and SpaceX have
| significant software organizations, and he also has
| experience in running a pure software company back when
| he was involved with paypall. As a heavy user of twitter,
| and the de-facto PR person for Tesla and SpaceX he also
| has a good understanding of the product, both from a
| normal users perspective and a marketers perspective.
|
| That said, I don't think this is primarily about buying
| twitter being profitable, but that he is motivated by a
| mix of politics, fun, and funny. I also don't think he's
| likely to get that into the day to day of running
| twitter, just because he's already busy with Tesla and
| SpaceX.
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| > running large engineering oriented companies
|
| I don't disagree. It's just that... what are his plans
| for Twitter? Add an edit button? Tweak the algorithm that
| delivers timelines? None of that is really complicated.
| Those could be 6 month roadmap projects.
|
| > but that he is motivated by a mix of politics, fun, and
| funny
|
| 1/3rd of his net worth on a company seems odd.
| icedchai wrote:
| It seems like Twitter's barely done anything new since
| going public over 8 years ago. Making a UI that was
| actually usable for following conversations would be a
| good place to start. What are all these product people
| doing? (I'm a small TWTR shareholder. It's one of my
| worst tech investments.)
| psyc wrote:
| First, it's more like 1/6 his net worth. But I don't
| believe the proportion means anything at that level of
| personal wealth. He'd still have the other $210B, plus
| ownership of Twitter. Each of those other billions is
| worth a billion dollars. Almost everybody could make do
| with just one of them, and he'd have over 200 of them.
| Even luxury goods don't scale up to that scale. All he
| can really do with that is buy companies anyway. And
| Twitter is what holds his interest right now.
| sanedigital wrote:
| Twitter is selling at $45, a $10 move is 22%. That's insane
| pressure.
| williamsmj wrote:
| I think you should look at the historical volatility of
| TWTR before calling a 22% move "insane pressure".
|
| It's also worth noting that the stock price is almost
| unchanged today as of this writing, which tells you that
| the market thinks he's not serious, or his lowball offer is
| going to be laughed out by the board, which significantly
| reduces the amount of "insane pressure" he's exerting.
| llbeansandrice wrote:
| What does historical volatility have to do with it? If
| Elon can basically manipulate his investment into a 22%
| return why on earth wouldn't he do that? A single person
| able to pressure a single commodity to the tune of 22% is
| bonkers.
|
| I'm not debating whether that will happen, just
| contending your first statement.
| infofarmer wrote:
| It's not just _any_ single person.
| aiisjustanif wrote:
| Because the existing volatility sets the tone for the
| underlying risk tolerance that shareholders already deal
| with. It sucks, it's not insignificant, but I do agree
| it's not immensely significant as you are making it seem.
| It's just the exposure a public company on the market can
| have have these days.
| darawk wrote:
| He can't manipulate it into a 22% profit, for exactly the
| reason you articulated. His buying pushed the price up -
| his selling will push the price down. He might might make
| a small profit from the increase his buying news
| generated if he were to sell now, but his VWAP would be
| well below 22%.
| williamsmj wrote:
| I agree it's bonkers that this is possible. I agree, in
| an environment where the SEC seems unable to stop him,
| Elon Musk might well consider 22% return worth doing.
| None of that is relevant to the point I'm making.
|
| I'm contending the claim that the implicit (and
| completely pro forma!) threat in his SEC filing places
| "insane pressure" _on the Twitter board_. The the
| possibility of a 20+% stock price change will not play a
| large part in their calculations. It 's just not a big
| deal in the context of such a volatile stock.
| cambaceres wrote:
| Don't you think he would lose a lot of reputation in
| future deals like this? I wouldn't trust him.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| He hasn't needed any trust to go this far, his MO here is
| more of a hostile takeover, and he doesn't need any
| permission from Twitter to do it.
| cambaceres wrote:
| Good point.
| FormerBandmate wrote:
| That would mean that management effectively wins, the stock
| would go down but they wouldn't have to worry about the threat
| of Elon Musk looming over them and the crisis would be solved.
| It doesn't make any sense from a takeover perspective, if I was
| Parag that would make me feel more comfortable rejecting the
| offer.
| qsdf38100 wrote:
| I can't see how his plan isn't about getting trump back on
| twitter. He will do a lot of smoke screen speech, telling
| contradictions and unclear bold statements. But in the end I
| bet all of this will end in removing trump ban. If I'm right,
| it'll confirm that musk is just a fascist greedy sociopath
| disguised as a tech enthusiast.
| behnamoh wrote:
| And what does that make you? A hypocrite?
| ryanSrich wrote:
| Seems like an amazing move by Elon. Buy a sizable portion of
| the business to hold hostage, and then make the company an
| offer that they essentially can't refuse because of fiduciary
| responsibility. If they reject Elon's offer the stock price
| will sink like a rock. They pretty much have to take it.
| outside1234 wrote:
| No, if they reject it, they will just ask for something like
| $80 a share and say that that is what they feel is the true
| value.
| Teandw wrote:
| When it comes to a situation like this, you can't just say
| you 'feel' that is the true value. They'd have to have
| something to back that up.
| meatsauce wrote:
| That's funny because its worth half that right now.
| pid-1 wrote:
| This amazing move is considered a form of maket manipulation
| in my country. Not sure about US stock markets.
| leereeves wrote:
| What law forbids offering to buy a company?
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| 'Knowing' you will put an offer to buy a company is
| insider information. The assumption here is he has been
| acting on this information recently and it was part of
| his plan.
|
| Unless you think he just woke up today and said: You know
| what, I'm going to buy Twitter! Which, I mean.. given
| Elon maybe that's what happened. But if it was
| premeditated then he has clearly been acting on insider
| information.
| ahtihn wrote:
| > 'Knowing' you will put an offer to buy a company is
| insider information
|
| No it's not.
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| Step 1: You plan to put an offer in on a company, which
| you know will drive up the share price
|
| Step 2: You buy shares in the company
|
| Step 3: You publicly disclose you will buy the company,
| driving it's share price up
|
| Step 4: You sell those existing shares now that the price
| has gone up.
|
| That is trading on insider information.
| renewiltord wrote:
| If you have no intention to actually follow through and
| it's a false promise, that's a pump-and-dump. It's
| securities fraud, but it's not insider trading.
|
| If you have an intention to actually buy and make a good
| faith effort and fail, that's just business.
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| Market manipulation is what I meant instead of insider
| trading. My point was: illegal.
| tacitusarc wrote:
| Depends on intentions. The fact that he hired Morgan
| Stanley to facilitate the privatization process indicates
| genuine intent.
| l33t2328 wrote:
| Insider information isn't information that only exists in
| your mind.
| [deleted]
| xiphias2 wrote:
| I can assure you that the CEO and the board has much more
| insider information than Elon.
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| Duh, but they are not _acting_ on the insider
| information.
|
| Elon is. He bought shares, then put in an offer which
| drives his existing shares up. Perhaps you can argue
| until he sells them he isn't acting.. perhaps.. but if he
| sells them today, are you still telling me he isn't
| acting on insider information?
| xiphias2 wrote:
| From the SEC website: Who is an insider? An "insider" is
| an officer, director, 10% stockholder and anyone who
| possesses inside information because of his or her
| relationship with the Company or with an officer,
| director or principal stockholder of the Company.
|
| A principal shareholder is a person that directly or
| indirectly owns or controls more than 10% of any class of
| voting shares or securities of a company. The principal
| shareholder has the authority to vote using those voting
| shares.
|
| Elon has less than 10% share (9.2%), so he's not an
| insider. Probably he stayed under 10% because of this
| law.
| causalmodels wrote:
| I'm sorry, but in what world does having a plan
| constitute insider information?
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| >Seems like an amazing move by Elon
|
| You and I have very different definitions of the word
| "amazing"
| colechristensen wrote:
| > amaze (v.)
|
| > "overwhelm or confound with sudden surprise or wonder,"
| 1580s, back-formation from Middle English amased "stunned,
| dazed, bewildered," (late 14c.), earlier "stupefied,
| irrational, foolish" (c. 1200), from Old English amasod,
| from a- (1), probably used here as an intensive prefix, +
| *maes (see maze). Related: Amazed; amazing.
|
| "amazing" never meant "this is of surprisingly high quality
| and good"
| fluster wrote:
| Here's another dictionary
| (https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/amazing):
|
| 1. Causing great surprise or wonder; astonishing. 1.1
| [informal] Startlingly impressive
|
| Did pointedly ignoring common usage add anything here?
| colechristensen wrote:
| >Did pointedly ignoring common usage add anything here?
|
| Yes, there are plenty of words going though the natural
| process of dilution. Providing some backpressure is, I
| think, useful to the language to preserve the richness of
| meaning. I'm responding directly to a discussion about
| the meaning of a word not interjecting into another
| conversation with a "well, actually..."
|
| When you're writing a dictionary, words mean what people
| use them to mean. I'm not writing a dictionary.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Lol, you know an online debate is spicy when people start
| pulling out dictionary definitions
| TMWNN wrote:
| To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, dictionary definitions are
| the last resort of someone flailing for an argument.
| flycaliguy wrote:
| Just wait until you see what we've done to awesome.
| UrsaMedius wrote:
| It means that today.
| robonerd wrote:
| Justifying a prescriptive attitude with descriptivist
| arguments is farcical.
| colechristensen wrote:
| You say, in response to somebody using it to mean
| something else.
|
| There is a strange circular logic to saying words mean
| something new because they are commonly used in a new way
| and at the same time telling somebody how they're using a
| word is wrong because it doesn't match this new meaning.
| ineedasername wrote:
| It does, now. NLP sentiment classifiers assign it a
| positive rating with a very high confidence.
|
| However it may still be use in some limited contexts, or
| historical contexts, its modern day usage is almost
| always with a positive connotation.
| colechristensen wrote:
| If you read the Lord of the Rings, you'll see quite a few
| usages of the word "amaze" not at all in the sense of
| "dude, that's amazing". It is not like reading that is
| some archaic text exclusive to english scholars.
|
| I think it is good to be reminded of the higher quality
| meaning of words that are falling into bland generic
| meanings. Words do change and there's nothing wrong with
| that, but some changes are better than others and the
| degeneration of specific strong meanings to generic
| common place ones isn't something that should be
| celebrated.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Celebrated or don't celebrate. Language evolves, meanings
| change, recognize it when it happens or you become the
| pedantic boring person at a meeting or party trying to
| explain, _" No, 'begging the question' does mean what you
| think it does. It's a type of fallacy, not some segue
| into asking an obvious question._
| colechristensen wrote:
| I'm responding to somebody questioning another's
| definition of a word, not correcting someone for using a
| term wrong.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| Other than the ability to amaze?
| wavefunction wrote:
| Or the SEC could finally go after Elon for market
| manipulation. There's always options.
| [deleted]
| tonetheman wrote:
| THIS THIS THIS. It is absolutely illegal what he is doing.
| musingsole wrote:
| How? The laws absolutely allow for hostile takeovers. If
| Twitter gets to determine what to censor because it's a
| corporation, well, they get to get bought like one too.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| The mental gymnastics going on in this thread is crazy.
|
| Let's separate two concerns:
|
| 1) Belief system - whether you philosophically support
| Elon's take over or not
|
| 2) Objective facts, corporate finance and legal aspects
| of what's going on
|
| All I can see in this thread is 1) masquerading as 2).
| TMWNN wrote:
| >All I can see in this thread is 1) masquerading as 2).
|
| Indeed. One would have hoped that Hacker News would be
| immune from Reddit/Twitter-style "Anything I don't like
| is illegal/unconstitutional", but apparently not.
|
| "Someone buying up shares of a company before he
| announces a hostile takeover is inside information and
| thus illegal!" Good grief.
| excitom wrote:
| Wait, aren't you aware of the "It's not illegal if a
| billionaire does it" rule?
| Majestic121 wrote:
| Billionaire or not, what is illegal in his move ?
| metamet wrote:
| That is a great question and I wonder the same thing.
|
| "I am going to dump 1/10th of the company that I very
| publicly acquired if they don't do what I want them to
| do" _feels_ like manipulation since he 's controlling the
| value of such a large amount of it.
|
| But is it illegal to be willing to lose money if a threat
| isn't met?
|
| Furthermore, would it be illegal for him to dump his
| shares, allow the trajectory to tank the price further,
| then rebuy when it bottoms, rinse and repeat?
| l33t2328 wrote:
| It's not illegal to say "I want to buy more shares at
| what I believe to be a generous price. If the board won't
| sell me these shares, I don't trust the judgement of the
| board and will subsequently sell my existing shares."
| meatsauce wrote:
| That's called a hostile takeover. Part of being a public
| company.
|
| No, you are allowed to sell your shares if you don't want
| them anymore.
| zwily wrote:
| No it's not.
| kadomony wrote:
| Amazing? This is exactly the type of move I'd expect from
| someone like Elon who lacks empathy.
|
| He is a sociopath. The fact that a sociopath wants to be a
| king of social media is disturbing.
| tomlin wrote:
| Wow. This community isn't what it used to be. Sociopath?
| Don't you think you should validate that claim? This isn't
| a reductive Hasan Piker stream.
| meatsauce wrote:
| Those poor sociopathic one-party state marxists at twitter
| "trust & safety."
|
| Once Elon has full control of Twitter, they can always
| leave and go start their own platform.
| pram wrote:
| I'm amused you think sociopaths aren't already the kings of
| social media.
| hypersoar wrote:
| It doesn't take a genius to arrive at this strategy. Just
| tens of billions of dollars.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| That's not how it works, the board would look at the long
| term value of the company, not the current price or what it
| will be in the next few weeks if Elon sold.
|
| For instance Twitter stock was $60 last october, if they
| didn't ask for at least that it would be shortchanging
| shareholders and also imply a declining company.
| xwdv wrote:
| We will never see those prices again. They occurred during
| overvalued and speculative market conditions and we will
| not return to that for several years, if ever.
| mrleinad wrote:
| Twitter stock price target for financial institutions is 30
| dollars. They're shorting it, and giddy about the board
| rejecting Elon's proposal.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Hopefully your correct and Twitter tanks and maybe we can
| finally be rid of this crap
|
| I don't hate Twitter like I hate Facebook (mainly for
| ideological reasons and their propensity for exploitation)
| but god damn is their interface and entire product model
| annoying.
| tiahura wrote:
| That's what every corporate raider hostile takeover attempt
| does. If the board won't do what the pursuer thinks is best,
| why would they continue to hold the company?
| outside1234 wrote:
| marsven_422 wrote:
| Another what? Outside the leftists echo chamber Jan 6 was a
| nothing burger.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| You mean that time when the sitting president of the US
| encouraged his followers to storm the Capitol and stop
| Congress from formally ratifying the democratically elected
| next president?
|
| When he encouraged them to behave violently and actually told
| them he'd be right there with them?
|
| That time when, what, 4 people got killed, directly related
| to a call by the president to urge his supporters to stop the
| peaceful transition of power?
|
| Out here in the real world outside the Trump cult that's what
| these events were.
| Inu wrote:
| Wikipedia mentions "5 deaths (1 from gunshot, 1 from drug
| overdose, 3 from natural causes)".
| TMWNN wrote:
| First, the fact that deaths from a drug overdose and
| natural causes are included in the casualty list is in
| and of itself ridiculous. Should the casualty list for
| WW2 include everyone who died of natural causes from 1939
| to 1945?
|
| Second, the one death from gunshot is of an unarmed
| _rioter_ , shot by the Capitol Police. I have no problem
| whatsoever with the death; if the Capitol Police had
| actually used their weapons and training immediately, as
| opposed to letting rioters run rampant inside the
| Capitol, a tremendous amount of trouble would have been
| avoided. But the death is not of a lawmaker or someone
| else otherwise uninvolved.
|
| Third, the death from gunshot is also _not_ a police
| officer. In particular, it is not Officer Sicknick, who
| was lauded by one and all for weeks as a martyr to the
| TrumpNaziKKK forces ... only for the autopsy to find that
| he died of a stroke that had nothing to do with the riot
| (the autopsy specifically checked for blunt force trauma
| (i.e., "hit by a fire extinguisher") and exposure to
| tear gas). And yet the claims made after the riot, of
| many cops being killed by the rioters, were never widely
| disavowe and continue to be believed, as can be seen
| elsewhere in this very discussion.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| No actually, from an outsider view the comment you replied
| to is exactly right. For a lot of non-americans it's
| borderline hilarious to see how cheesy and hyperbolic the
| narrative around the riots that happened on that day is (I
| remember it got to the point where "this is worse than
| 9/11" was an unironic take). I guess it's fine and it works
| for internal consumption for political rhetoric, but that's
| it.
|
| By the way your comment is exactly proving their point.
| It's a bit amazing actually, you literally repeated the
| same tired hyperbolic talking points. And the claim that
| the riots killed 4 people has been debunked repeatedly.
| mike00632 wrote:
| "cheesy and hyperbolic"? What would have happened if the
| coup was successful? Or what would have happened just if
| those quick thinking staffers didn't grab the ballot box
| while taking shelter before the legislature was breached?
| There was nothing "cheesy" about it. It was deadly
| serious; literally, people died.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| A strongman who loses and sends a mob to the legislature
| is a staple in the history of democracy. It isn't a sign
| of stability. It made me update some priors.
| vehementi wrote:
| No, actually, from an outsider view the person replying
| is exactly right.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| I have an outsider view actually.
|
| You might think it's cheesy to warn about autocrats and
| attacks on democracy but I happen to think that's very
| important.
|
| I wasn't aware that there weren't actually 4 deaths so my
| bad. I guess the whole episode is a nothingburger since
| only one person got actually killed there?
|
| Or would you care to respond to any of the other points?
| mardifoufs wrote:
| I think you misread my comment. The cheesy part isn't to
| talk about the events, or what trump did. It's the insane
| hyperbole, and the never ending exaggeration in the words
| used to describe what happened.
|
| A good example of that is the death count: we got to the
| point where some people were so desperate to turn the
| whole situation into an iconic, unprecedented historical
| attack that they counted a cop who died the day after
| from a stroke in the death count. The "insurrection"
| narrative does not sound credible without deaths or
| violence, so the fact that the only death was a rioter
| killed by cops was a pretty inconvenient plot hole.
|
| I assume you are pretty informed and even then, you still
| had in mind the spurious death count. That goes to show
| just how much the early hyperbole poisoned the entire
| discussion around the events and spread disinformation.
|
| Another example of disingenuous reality bending is the
| claim that the rioters were "armed so they came here to
| overthrow the government". When I think they found one or
| two person with a firearm. To me it's simple, if the
| riots were actually that bad, the huge disinformation
| push and extremely disingenuous rhetoric wouldn't have
| been needed.
| mike00632 wrote:
| You're clearly trying to minimize what happened. Alone,
| the amount of effort you are making to discount the words
| and actions of the President of the United States is
| damaging to the country. The real damage isn't in the
| people who died but in the damage to our democracy, our
| institutions, and our credibility in the world.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| What am I discounting? If I got any facts wrong, let me
| know. Otherwise it's just that your interpretation is
| different. I know some americans have a very "you are
| either with us or with the terrorist" outlook to...
| everything but I can assure you that I'm not making any
| particular effort. Your hyperbole is duly noted though.
|
| I agree that the damage isn't in the people that died
| (because they didn't) and that the damage is more towards
| the institution. The problem is that the narrative for a
| year has been to make martyrs out of the 4 deaths (not
| the fifth, for obvious reasons). Sure, now that it's
| untenable to do that I hear that the "deaths didn't even
| matter!" but that just makes the entire thing even more
| blatant.
|
| For all I care, trump could've been arrested for what he
| did. Again that's not my point, my argument was mostly
| that the borderline hysterical bend to every single
| detail of that day is a bit embarrassing. You can say
| that the president caused an illegal riot to influence or
| interfere with the electoral process and should be
| arrested, without going into "it's an insurrection and a
| coup attempt by armed militias trying to kill congress
| members and also etc etc."
|
| It reminds me of when the conservatives were trying to do
| everything to make the black lives matter protests sound
| like an insanely violent anarchist civil war.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| I guess I deeply disagree that it's hyperbole to keep
| reminding people of the fact that the sitting president
| of the US did not commit to a peaceful transition of
| power and encouraged his supporters to storm the Capitol
| to "stop the steal" and went so far to tell them he'd be
| right there with them.
| rayiner wrote:
| I'm barely an hour outside of DC and nobody cares about
| 1/6. Partly because Americans are pretty used to nutjobs
| storming public buildings, and partly because they're also
| used to extreme rhetoric from politicians.
| hayd wrote:
| Putting Trump back on Twitter is the only way Democrats could
| win in 2024.
| bko wrote:
| Wouldn't you think it would be weird for all social media
| platforms refuse to air content from a leading contender for
| the presidency? Does the platform just pretend he doesn't
| exist? Can they play clips of him speaking in the debates?
| How about if he wins, do they just block anyone posting his
| inaugural address? Create two worlds, one in which he is
| president and another social media world in which he doesn't
| exist. Very weird.
| outside1234 wrote:
| Not if the candidate incites violence - there should be no
| difference on these social media platforms for how they
| treat us and the elite.
|
| We would get kicked off and they should too.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| avipars wrote:
| He couldn't have just joined the board first?
| rsolva wrote:
| This underscores the importance of federated social media like
| Mastodon, which offers a broad range of instances
| (servers/communities) that never will be owned and controlled by
| a single guy.
| yabatopia wrote:
| Let's ignore personality and societal issues for a moment and
| look at the value proposition. The 'best and final offer' of
| $54.20 per share is just too low to be acceptable for major
| investors.
|
| Just over year ago, Twitter shares traded at about $70 per share.
| Musk's offer is about 25% lower than last years peak. There's no
| reason to assume Twitter shares can't reach the same levels ever
| again, nothing much has changed fundamentally over a year.
|
| Musk's offer is a cash only offer. $43 billion is a lot of cash.
| That's a lot of Tesla shares to sell, or massive loan. If Musk
| thinks Twitter is that valuable to take such risks, current major
| investors will probably want to unlock that value themselves.
|
| I think the takeover offer is just as believable as last week's
| announcement that Musk was joining the Twitter board.
| tgtweak wrote:
| The only way it would be too low is if the stock price went up
| above that.
|
| Reality is it's under that - signaling that it is in fact not
| too low.
| cambaceres wrote:
| > If Musk thinks Twitter is that valuable to take such risks,
| current major investors will probably want to unlock that value
| themselves.
|
| Elon is known for doing the impossible once he puts his head to
| it. Maybe he can promote the conviction that only he can turn
| the company around.
| tempnow987 wrote:
| I do love reading about how unbelievable stuff elon does is. He
| should frame all the quotes. SpaceX had lots of these including
| from the heads of europe and russia space programs.
|
| Does he have perhaps more of a vision for twitter than current
| mgmt?
|
| Did his involvement increase / decrease the stock price?
|
| If they turn him down could he build something for lets say
| $20B in spending?
|
| Going to be some interesting times.
|
| And by the way, twitter DID invite him to be on the board with
| the requirement he not get more stock.
| LegitShady wrote:
| >And by the way, twitter DID invite him to be on the board
| with the requirement he not get more stock.
|
| this was a trap - both barring his ability to gain more
| shares, as well as putting him in a place where he can't talk
| about twitter publicly to the same extent as a hostile
| takeover.
| saurik wrote:
| And yet, despite your belief that the majority of the investors
| should/are valuing the stock at >$70, it is trading at ~$45,
| which should at least provide some evidence that the majority
| of shareholders--today, not last year--value it at <$55; to me
| the next question is "exactly who is voting on this: the
| shareholders or the board members?", but even either way it
| doesn't seem insane to me that getting a guaranteed 10%
| increase in your purchase isn't in the best interest of the
| majority of the shareholders.
| hamandcheese wrote:
| > which should at least provide some evidence that the
| majority of shareholders--today, not last year--value it at
| <$55
|
| The price is only determined by who is buying and selling
| right now. Trading at $45 merely implies a nonzero number of
| shareholders value Twitter at $45.
| saurik wrote:
| The problem is we can use that to determine the belief of
| the zeitgeist: if you--or anyone else--truly believes
| Twitter is worth more than $45--and has any hope of getting
| to that value in the not-distant future (of course: time is
| also money)--you should go buy it, as there are apparently
| a number of suckers _right now_ willing to accept a mere
| $45 for their shares. People trade because they think
| things, and if no one is trading right now it "should be"
| because they largely agree with the zeitgeist.
|
| (This is also why we can use this price to indirectly learn
| something about how the market views the likelihood of Elon
| buying Twitter: if it were a "sure thing", the price of
| Twitter stock would be trading close to $55, as you'd be
| able to make a fast profit.)
| Orangeair wrote:
| > nothing much has changed fundamentally over a year.
|
| If the CEO of a company leaving doesn't count as a fundamental
| change, then I don't know what does.
| farmerstan wrote:
| Why would he sell shares? He would have to pay income tax on
| that. He will borrow against it obviously.
| riffraff wrote:
| > There's no reason to assume Twitter shares can't reach the
| same levels ever again
|
| but it depends on how far that "again" is.
|
| If you bought at $33 a month ago, you'll be now getting a 60%
| return. You can put that in another less risky investment and
| still have a very healthy return over the next 5 years, say 5%
| , less than the historical sp500 rate, you'd get to ~$69.
|
| So if Twitter gets back to $70 in five years Musk's offer is
| still an ok investment, but its growth has been almost zero for
| the last 8 years, it's not trivial that it would become a
| powerhouse in the next 5.
| paxys wrote:
| Think about it this way - if Twitter shares were to rise ~17%
| from where they are today, would >50% of investors
| immediately hit the sell button? If not, then why would the
| same number agree to this deal?
| vanjajaja1 wrote:
| The difference is that one option is selling a declining
| company today for 17% bonus, the other option is selling a
| company that has shown 17% growth. Its not the same
| comparison
| polishTar wrote:
| There's a selection bias you need to consider. Twitter
| investors probably wouldn't be Twitter investors if they
| thought it was on the decline without significant growth
| prospects.
| itstomkent wrote:
| Is $70 in five years drastically different than $50 today?
| We've had what, 8.5% inflation in the past 12 months?
| jasonhansel wrote:
| > There's no reason to assume Twitter shares can't reach the
| same levels ever again
|
| If there was a strong reason to think that Twitter shares would
| soon be worth $70 again, wouldn't they already be trading at
| that price?
| dehrmann wrote:
| > too low to be acceptable for major investors
|
| I think Vanguard and BlackRock would happily take that premium.
| Cathie Wood wouldn't.
| kappi wrote:
| Vanguard and Blackrock always votes with management and sadly
| lot of times with bad management. This is the hidden cost of
| passive investment. They don't do anything.
| Infinitesimus wrote:
| "Best and final offer" is certainly a weak claim but it doesn't
| seem your argument about Twitter's value is much stronger.
|
| Yes Twitter was $70 a share in the past but it was also sub $30
| in the past and it's not clear which is the "right" price.
| aniken wrote:
| Another non trivial aspect is his offer price. No one seems to
| be pointing out the obvious half trolling nature of an offer
| that yet again includes the number 420. In that respect part of
| his motivation for doing this is self amusement.
| zaroth wrote:
| I fully agree that part of his motivation is self amusement.
| It's one of the things I really like about Musk, is that he's
| clearly still connected to his inner child, and I think
| that's part of what keeps him dreaming.
|
| I think the people most offended by it tend to be the people
| who have lost that joie de vivre and miss out on the fact
| that we're all just existing here and now. Sure, do the very
| serious things that need to be done for a person with his
| resources, but in the end, we can't even prove it's not all
| just a damn simulation can we.
| mdoms wrote:
| > I fully agree that part of his motivation is self
| amusement. It's one of the things I really like about Musk,
| is that he's clearly still connected to his inner child,
| and I think that's part of what keeps him dreaming.
|
| Uhh he pulls these stupid jokes because he's an insecure
| manchild constantly seeking the approval of his equally
| stinted fanbase.
| jzb wrote:
| I think his inner child must be Veruca Salt.
| xwdv wrote:
| Sorry to say but $54.20 is the best they will ever get for
| TWTR. Those days of $70 per share are over unless we enter
| another period of easy money.
| texasbigdata wrote:
| It's hilarious why people care so much about the price of a
| financial instrument. Even Bitcoin. Do you care what wheat or
| copper or kerosene trades at? Why not take him at his word.
|
| Plenty of Americans spend 5 to 10% of their worth on stuff.
| Who cares what your neighbor paid for his boat....maybe dude
| just likes to drink Coors light on the lake.
| redisman wrote:
| There's no logical reason to think that the once in a century
| pandemic response bubble price is in some way the "true" price.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| >current major investors will probably want to unlock that
| value themselves.
|
| There's no evidence they're capable of unlocking that value. If
| they can, why haven't they?
| LatteLazy wrote:
| By that logic, no takeover is every high enough for any
| takeover. Or for any sale of anything? Long only!
| jdrc wrote:
| Goldman Sachs, which advises twitter, has a target price at $30
| texasbigdata wrote:
| Chinese firewall
| andrewmunsell wrote:
| > If Musk thinks Twitter is that valuable to take such risks,
| current major investors will probably want to unlock that value
| themselves.
|
| Doesn't this depend on if you actually agree with Musk's
| thinking and valuation of Twitter in the first place? Given the
| share price has been all over the place, clearly the market is
| not on the same page.
| johnywalks wrote:
| Even if the stock was at $70, do you think they could sell? It
| would tank the price.
|
| This is a good offer.
| aantix wrote:
| Why would he overpay for a down trending company?
| LegitShady wrote:
| Exactly as his offer states - he thinks with the correct
| management and a different vision of the future, he can
| change the trend.
| [deleted]
| dageshi wrote:
| > There's no reason to assume Twitter shares can't reach the
| same levels ever again, nothing much has changed fundamentally
| over a year.
|
| The Fed's covid policies in terms of interest rates and money
| printing had a very high impact on the stock market and stocks.
| Why else would the market have increased to the degree it did
| during covid?
|
| That is a fundamental reason why it may not see $70 again any
| time soon.
| objektif wrote:
| Or it may. We have no idea however what we know is that
| twitter is a valuable business and in the rights hands it
| will be worth much more.
| delaaxe wrote:
| Unless a massive recession is coming
| croes wrote:
| Private company and free speech sounds like an oxymoron.
|
| This isn't free speech that's benevolent dictatorship at most.
| motohagiography wrote:
| Imo, he's taking responsibility. If as an individual you can
| deploy the most money in the world, what do you do with it?
| Twitter became a negative-sum game of people competing to debase
| themselves in service of narrative in exchange for nothing but
| the approval of others who had already done the same. Unlocking
| that negative cycle can release a lot of captive value for
| everyone. The best way to do that is to connect great minds and
| scale them based on their revealed desires.
|
| I remember Musk offered to solve world hunger but the NGO people
| who said they could do it flaked when (pen in hand) he offered to
| cut them a cheque. The next best thing is to provide a platform
| for discourse so that smart people indexed on truth and reality
| can thrive and wield influence.
|
| The opportunity is that Twitter just isn't funny, and as a signal
| of alignment to truth, that's a pretty honest sign it has become
| oppressive and that it has become a thing that most people just
| do not want. The controversial censorship on Twitter has been
| against humour, which makes Musk's play such an obvious win. As
| an activist target, Twitter has spent almost a decade contorting
| itself and spending a lot of effort to make itself suck, and it
| just needs to suck slightly less to be a benefit to humanity.
| Value for money, it's probably the most effective $43B anyone has
| spent in the US.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >Value for money, it's probably the most effective $43B anyone
| has spent in the US.
|
| That seems unlikely. USD$43 billion _could_ buy ~1,150,000
| homes[0], which is _double_ the number of homeless people in
| the US[1].
|
| Getting a 1/2 million people into stable living situations
| _could_ boost the economy by adding a couple hundred thousand
| to the work force (it 's _really_ hard to hold a decent job if
| you have no place to store your stuff or take a shower), with
| the median income for _all_ workers over the age of 15 at
| ~USD40,000 [2] would add ~US$8,000,000,000 to the economy, as
| well as reducing dependence on public programs to help support
| them.
|
| Of course, buying whole houses for half a million people isn't
| actually necessary. A reasonably sized apartment (based on
| household size) for each set of homeless folks would cost
| significantly less than that.
|
| What's more, the children who could be helped by something like
| this are more likely to have good school experiences and
| improve their education -- boosting their lifetime earnings
| potential as well. Not to mention the economic boosts to local
| communities hit hard by homelessness.
|
| So, no. Buying Twitter isn't anywhere close to the best use of
| US$43B. In fact, I suspect we could end homelessness in the US
| for significantly less than that. That seems a lot more useful
| than a payout to TWTR shareholders and making it one of Musk's
| vanity hobbies.
|
| [0] https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/median-
| home...
|
| [1] https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-
| america/homeless...
|
| [2]
| https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2021/demo/p60-27...
| newbamboo wrote:
| This is obviously the right take. But people won't hear it.
| Which further underscores why this is good for society, not
| just the platform.
| memish wrote:
| Not long before Elon bought a 9% stake, one of the largest
| satire accounts on twitter was suspended for a joke. They are
| literally censoring humor and that may have been the final
| straw.
|
| Also worth noting that he was one of the ACLU's biggest donors
| when they were still focused on protecting free speech and
| liberty.
| zionic wrote:
| I know someone who was banned for posting pitbull attack
| statistics. The pitmommy battalion mass-reported her account
| for "racism".
| alphabettsy wrote:
| They still do.
| parineum wrote:
| They protect free speech they agree with.
| colordrops wrote:
| My account got banned for an obvious joke. I feel this
| personally.
| darkwater wrote:
| Mind to share the joke here?
| colordrops wrote:
| Would prefer not to reveal my identity - it could be
| searched. I can paraphrase though. It was a thread a
| couple years ago on how nazis can be punched, but it was
| spreading to anyone who was perceived as right wing, such
| as Andy Ngo, with the excuse that they are all nazis.
| Being a pacifist, I replied with something sarcastic
| along the lines of "As long as we are punching nazis, why
| don't we also punch the taliban, ISIS, MS13, Zionists,
| north koreans, evangelicals, trump supporters, and
| puppies?" Obviously not serious, but I was banned for
| promoting violence. Ironic considering the thread I was
| replying to was all about unironic support of real world
| violence. My joke wasn't a good one, but it was a joke.
| sohdas wrote:
| > Twitter became a negative-sum game of people competing to
| debase themselves in service of narrative in exchange for
| nothing but the approval of others who had already done the
| same. Unlocking that negative cycle can release a lot of
| captive value for everyone. The best way to do that is to
| connect great minds and scale them based on their revealed
| desires.
|
| What are you even saying here?
| oldstrangers wrote:
| He's trying to intellectualize his disapproval of "cancel
| culture" I imagine.
| shmageggy wrote:
| > _I remember Musk offered to solve world hunger but the NGO
| people who said they could do it flaked when (pen in hand) he
| offered to cut them a cheque._
|
| I hadn't heard about this, but looking it up now, it seems that
| your account isn't accurate. According to these articles he
| asked the UN to detail how they would spend the money and they
| did.
|
| https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-solve-world-hunger
|
| https://fortune.com/2022/02/15/elon-musk-5-7-billion-donatio...
| motohagiography wrote:
| According to the mashable link, the world food program people
| just said, "it's complicated, let's meet," to shift
| responsibility, and then said went around saying he didn't
| follow through.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| It is complicated and although money can help, many of the
| problems have to do with corruption and graft, rather than
| a lack of resources. The United States alone gives 3.7
| billion dollars a year in aid [1]. And the sum total of
| world aid is much greater.
|
| But if the dictators and juntas on the ground aren't
| willing to help, and if the logistics companies and war
| lords redirect it to their friends, more money doesn't
| really help.
|
| And nor does a clever plan from the UN, which is already
| trying to avoid the grifters, but also has its share of
| internal corruption.
|
| 1. https://www.usaid.gov/food-
| assistance/faq#:~:text=In%20fisca....
| goodluckchuck wrote:
| > U.N. World Food Program executive director David Beasley
| did respond to Musk's original tweet last month, clarifying
| that "$6B will not solve world hunger..."
| oldstrangers wrote:
| "Value for money, it's probably the most effective $43B anyone
| has spent in the US."
|
| Yikes.
|
| A more realistic take: this is a petty reaction on par with
| Peter Thiel suing Gawker into oblivion. Musk doesn't really
| care about Twitter's role as a tool for good, he cares about
| his ego.
| ecf wrote:
| Now you understand why Musk followers are a cult.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| It's cultish when people say it's good just because they
| want to think it's good.
|
| It's cultish when people say it's bad just because they
| want to think it's bad.
|
| When the person you're responding to makes a strong
| assertion about a person's intentions[1] and you respond
| suggesting that anybody who might not think this way is
| part of a cult, it comes off very much that you want the
| assertion to be true.
|
| Unless your belief is truly, "Anybody who might possibly
| agree with {{some specific person}} is part of a cult,"
| then this comment does not do your thoughts justice.
| There's more to be said and you did not bother to say it.
|
| [1] > Musk doesn't really care about Twitter's role as a
| tool for good, he cares about his ego.
| oldstrangers wrote:
| Just to help your reading comprehension, he's suggesting
| that anyone who says stuff like "Value for money, it's
| probably the most effective $43B anyone has spent in the
| US" might have drank too much of the Kool-Aid.
|
| Hope that helps your argument.
| carvking wrote:
| Why does Musk have some go reaction with twitter that would
| call for this ?
| hackernewds wrote:
| You posit that if Twitter pursued financial goals like Facebook
| it would be a better platform. Hard disagree.
| wwweston wrote:
| > Twitter became a negative-sum game of people competing to
| debase themselves in service of narrative in exchange for
| nothing but the approval of others who had already done the
| same.
|
| I'm trying to imagine this statement actually both having
| meaning and corresponding to reality and failing.
| weakfish wrote:
| The thing that is absolutely puzzling to me in these
| conversations is it seems that people who generally believe in
| the free market desire what amounts to regulation on social media
| platforms, inversely, to protect 'free speech' when in fact
| Twitter has the absolute right in the free market to moderate as
| they see fit when free speech only protects from governmental
| actions.
|
| And to those who would make the argument that Twitter is too big
| to not be protected under free speech, I would say that Twitter
| is _excellent_ at making its user base seem more important than
| it is. Go outside, talk to people. Twitter is just a shitty
| microcosm.
| kolbe wrote:
| I've at least studied a lot of what other legal scholars have
| to say on the topic.
|
| I think even the most staunch free market advocates understand
| the danger of monopolies. I think the same strain of thought
| makes them understand the danger of oversized government.
|
| And so many of these companies are very arguably monopolies and
| should be either broken up or turned into a utility. In many
| people's minds, there's been what looks like a quid pro quo to
| do favors for government officials in order to avoid sensible
| efforts to regulate these essential communication platforms to
| even 1% of the level of say financial institutions.
|
| Twitter may be a microcosm, but Twitter, Facebook and Google's
| communication platforms are responsible for enough speech to
| flip elections, to endorse or suppress vital information, and
| topple regimes. It's not something to be taken lightly.
| weakfish wrote:
| I agree with you wrt. Twitter being a decently sized hub of
| possible vital information. I'm actually writing a paper for
| a national security course at the moment on Russia's combined
| cyber warfare strategy that emphasizes misinformation and
| misdirection.
|
| I'm just attempting to make sense of what I view as a
| hypocrisy from free market advocates and point out that as
| far as the Constitution goes, private entities aren't
| responsible for upholding your speech on their platforms.
|
| I see what you're saying about legal scholars, and in my mind
| that raises the question that if monopolies should be
| regulated by even staunch free market advocates, shouldn't
| extremely dangerous speech be regulated in some capacity on
| some platforms by even staunch free speech advocates?
|
| I know and recognize that can be a slippery slope, but people
| far smarter than me haven't untangled it so I won't even try.
|
| Maybe I'm wrong, please change my mind if you think I am :-)
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| Big social media companies, just like all other companies,
| desire regulations that solidify their market share and make it
| more difficult to create a new competitor. What generally
| happens in the US is a new regulation is drafted that
| theoretically achieves some good end, but whose true purpose is
| to make it more difficult for competitors to enter the space.
| That's why companies pay lobbyists.
| sfe22 wrote:
| Yep, and the government enables and facilitates this
| malicious action for all statists that wonder what regulation
| could fix it.
| nimajneb wrote:
| You can't have regulatory capture if there's no regulation.
| They want regulatory capture so others can't join their
| party.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| I don't think that's particularly puzzling. While many of them
| are likely simple hypocrites, there is the position that the
| government's job in the market is to enforce the minimum amount
| of regulation needed to maintain a 'free' (as in competitive)
| market, in which framework a push for government to step in and
| regulate social media is understandable due to network effects
| being particularly relevant for it.
|
| Personally I would agree with the argument that Twitter (and
| Facebook, Reddit and Youtube) are too big to not be regulated
| into behaving more responsibly at minimum. They're microcosms
| compared to the real world, but they're big parts of the
| internet world and thus influence many people's lives heavily,
| especially young people and especially over the past 2 years.
|
| Currently it's standard practice for social media platforms to
| have content policies that intentionally avoid providing
| specifics on unacceptable content, many of them also avoid
| telling users exactly what the offending content is and don't
| offer any way to seriously appeal decisions. I think this is
| responsible for the vast majority of these free speech
| complaints, people are effectively left to assume the worst,
| which is extremely irresponsible for companies so large.
|
| We see these frequently on HN too, where someone had their
| twitter or youtube account banned, are assuming they've been
| censored for saying something about the company and can't get
| in touch with a responsible human to find out. Usually they're
| just forced to start over with a new account.
|
| Thus, I think the fix would be regulations on content policies
| of sufficiently large social networks that require the policies
| to be more well-defined, require the specific offending content
| to be shown along with the exact policy violated and requiring
| the availability of an appeals process which at least
| eventually reaches a human.
|
| It might also be worth requiring some amount of disclosure on
| the automated moderation system's performance (ie how many
| automated takedowns happened and how many had to be reinstated
| upon appeal).
| hackernewds wrote:
| Twitter holds a massive amount of soft power. And the sooner we
| acknowledge it, the better. It seems a matter of national
| security that a foreign power could accumulate the centralized
| reigns of Twitter as well. (not that decentralized solutions
| will solve this. It will actually be even riskier that they
| will be abused similarly)
|
| Jack could have maneuvered so it stays in the hands of the
| board, but as expected he has pooched that.
| ctrlp wrote:
| This line of reasoning is very popular but I don't see how
| people take it seriously. Twitter (and other major social media
| platforms) have become de facto "government instrumentalities"
| under the dual effect of pressures from without and pressures
| from within.
|
| The same revolving door policies we all recognize in other
| industries apply to major media companies, as well, meaning the
| leadership within these organizations is harmonized with the
| leadership of the state. Moreover, media OWNERSHIP is a subset
| of portfolios that have massive influence on government policy
| (and vice versa). Meanwhile, there have been numerous incidents
| of major political figures cajoling the social media giants to
| censor speech. When Congress and the President are threatening
| to regulate your industry while "asking for help," that's a
| significant leverage over your so-called "private" business.
|
| And, Twitter is not "just a shitty microcosm". For good or ill,
| Twitter functions basically as the public slack channel of the
| news media industry. Twitter flame wars wag the dog of the news
| cycle. It's also a target of propagandists world-wide. Like it
| or not, Twitter has an outsized influence on public discourse.
| derefr wrote:
| > Twitter is _excellent_ at making its user base seem more
| important than it is
|
| _Most_ of Twitter is a shitty microcosm, yes; but on the other
| hand, more than a few objectively "important" people seem to
| only engage with the sphere of public discourse through
| Twitter.
|
| Right now, that's just their voluntary engagement, and they
| could switch. But a single policy forcing use like e.g. "the
| Office of the President will make all non-press-conference
| communications only through Twitter" and suddenly there'd be a
| dire need for regulation.
| efitz wrote:
| I disagree with the framing. For some good reasons and some
| insane reasons the US government has decided to treat
| corporations as "people". Corporations are otherwise strictly
| regulated in thousands of ways but somehow regulating their
| ability to shape narratives with selective suppression and
| amplification of the speech of their users is sacrosanct?
| weakfish wrote:
| Don't get me wrong; I'm not a fan of the free market and
| "corporations as people". I'm just pointing out what I view
| as an odd hypocrisy, that being that deregulation is a good
| thing except when it isn't. Maybe I'm wrong though, I'm happy
| to have my mind changed
| starkd wrote:
| The notion of free speech is so central to the American ethos
| that, when a company which espouses to be a function of the
| town square idea takes it on themselves to suppress and censor
| "right speech", it just doesn't sit right with a lot of people.
| Even though a non-government entity may have the right to do
| it, it doesn't make it morally right.
| Anderkent wrote:
| > Twitter has the absolute right in the free market to moderate
| as they see fit when free speech only protects from
| governmental actions
|
| You confuse free-speech-the-legal-concept (which yes mostly
| deals with governmental actions' with free-speech-the-
| principle. You treat the law as if it was equivalent to the
| moral norm, and that's just not the case.
|
| Yes, twitter is legally allowed to moderate as they see fit.
| But just because what they do is legal does not mean it is
| right.
| gotaquestion wrote:
| The only people complaining about free speech are literally
| right-wingers spreading verifiable lies (and this includes non US
| right-wingers). The fact that this is an issue is a tragic flood
| of propaganda by these liars.
| [deleted]
| carnitine wrote:
| The fact it is an all cash offer should finally put an end to the
| ludicrous claim so often made that billionaires can't access
| liquidity.
| nameirrelevant wrote:
| bitwize wrote:
| This is like Warren Buffett's hostile takeover of Berkshire
| Hathaway (then a failing textile company) because their CEO made
| him assmad, that ultimately just prevented him from becoming even
| more disgustingly rich.
|
| Musk is gonna be left with a pile of worthless, shit stock. Of
| course once one of the streaming services releases a docu-drama
| about Twitter's rise and fall (like they did for Theranos, Uber,
| and WeWork), Musk can charge decent money to play himself.
| grumple wrote:
| We've talked about compliance and advertising revenue, which I
| think are good points for discussion.
|
| The motivations of Elon are unclear. What is clear is that he
| hates feeling like his behavior is being controlled or monitored.
| He loves attention. He's petty. For someone who wants to advance
| the world and get to Mars, he obsesses over small slights and
| squabbles far too much. Twitter is far from being some
| technological marvel. They have a decent application with lots of
| reach. Doesn't really match the rest of Elon's assets. Doesn't
| seem to align with his goals.
|
| But let's imagine Elon's Twitter. Let's say he isn't bound by
| laws and contracts preventing it and he says "anything goes" on
| the platform. What happens to advertisers? I assume they leave.
| What happens to staff? I assume they get fired when the revenue
| dries up. We know what "free speech twitter" looks like; an uber-
| conservative site devoid of real life and full of misinformation.
|
| Does allowing medical (and other) misinformation and promotion of
| violence to spread on Twitter serve Elon's ends? Perhaps, if he
| wishes to make an attempt to become an autocrat (which wouldn't
| be surprising; it's every geek and billionaire's dream) or
| support one. It doesn't seem like he'd fight the spread of that
| misinformation with corrective speech, as he has what's (at best)
| a loose relationship with the truth.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| I have to admit: I hope this happens mostly for the entertainment
| value.
|
| Also, I think that this business of shutting down opinions of
| people we dislike or disagree with is really bad for society long
| term. I think Musk might stop that.
| bluehorseray wrote:
| I agree. People on HN love to theorize about reshaping current
| social media platforms, and now we may get to see someone
| actually attempt to do it. I hope people aren't so invested in
| Twitter they would rather this not happen.
| Lutger wrote:
| I'm of the opposite opinion. I think being even more lax than
| Zuckerberg on psy-ops, hate speech, denialism, racism and
| misinformation will be quite dangerous to society. Some of the
| necessary conditions of speech itself might collapse, in a way
| that the very idea of 'speech' will become nearly impossible.
|
| It will be terrible, for the Western democracies anyway - it
| will likely help Putin and Xi tremendously though.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| boppo1 wrote:
| Do you have reliable evidence it wasn't a right-wing
| fabrication?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| ? Fabrication? There was no credible evidence ever
| presented that it was a fabrication _or_ that Russia had
| anything to do with it.
|
| Here is the Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.c
| om/technology/2022/03/30/hunter-...
|
| You are reasoning from your beliefs.
| boppo1 wrote:
| I'm not reasoning, I'm playing devil's advocate as
| someone who is laptop-agnostic. A couple posts back in my
| history you can see I wrote the converse to someone.
|
| Also, it's not that the laptop is a right-wing
| fabrication, but the... uh... existence of material
| relevance to the election I think? Something about it was
| dismissed as right-wing misinfo but, again, idk enough
| about the topic, I'm just trying to see what I can gather
| from different views now that the dust has settled.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Fair enough.
|
| If the charge is that it was sequestered by members of
| the right-wing and then intentionally released right
| before the election to influence the outcome, then yes
| that is definitely true.
|
| But there were claims that this was a hoax, forged
| documents, or sourced from Russia. There has never been
| any evidence backing those claims, AFAIK.
| greenhorn123 wrote:
| I am 100% sure that Musk would be fine with people criticizing
| him, Tesla or SpaceX or anything else that he has a hand in and
| would never shut anything like that down. Like that time when
| he started a personal vendetta against someone who suggested he
| didn't know what he was talking ... oh, wait.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > I think Musk might stop that.
|
| Given how he responds to employees at his companies exercising
| their free speech rights, you may be disappointed.
| qeternity wrote:
| *MUSK: `NOT SURE I'LL ACTUALLY BE ABLE TO BUY' TWITTER
| thebackstall17 wrote:
| What he did today is thousand times better than shelling money
| behind the charity that many billionaires doing. Under Elon
| twitter can enable true "freedom of expression." Parag's one
| sided stand to enable woke culture, and board's support to that
| clearly showing how extreme right mindset they have when running
| this company. Today we can't hear the voice of other side on this
| platform, they are either shutdown or suspended even if you are
| former prez https://twitter.com/jack/status/651003891153108997
| archagon wrote:
| If the former prez is someone who blatantly and consistently
| violates Twitter policy, then good riddance.
| cwkoss wrote:
| I think it's hard to say whether idiocy/hatred is more
| dangerous in the spotlight or in the shadows.
| ulkesh wrote:
| Freedom of expression does not mean tolerating outright lies
| and bigotry and harm on a non-government-owned/controlled
| platform. So Trump, since you decided to not say his name for
| some reason, was rightly kicked off the platform after being
| warned numerous times about his policy violations.
|
| It's funny how people seem to think that such freedoms extend
| beyond the boundary of government and into the private sector
| (publicly-traded company or not). They do not. They never have.
| Twitter can set whatever rules they wish and the chips may fall
| where they will, despite what @jack may say. You are free to
| choose a different platform to support.
|
| But don't sit there and think that the "other side" is somehow
| oppressed because you simply disagree with the policies of
| Twitter.
| resters wrote:
| All he has to do is buy it at a discount and let Donald Trump
| back on for a significant profit. Sad but true.
| nprateem wrote:
| He's blatently planning on running for president
| Ekaros wrote:
| Not a natural citizen...
| [deleted]
| xwdv wrote:
| Just not US President since he was born in South Africa.
| haunter wrote:
| Can't see South Africa electing a white person for president in
| the near future or ever
| cs702 wrote:
| OK. I'm a _huge admirer_ of everything Musk has a accomplished,
| but... W.T.F.?
|
| Taking on Twitter will not only be a huge amount of work, it is
| likely consume a ridiculous amount of talent -- which could be
| focused instead on building next-generation humanoid robots,
| electric vehicles, energy solutions, reusable spaceships, and
| space stations.
|
| Musk has a long history of taking on more than it's humanly
| possible, but so far he has been narrowly avoided failure. Recall
| that Tesla was ready to file for bankruptcy at one point in
| 2019.[a]
|
| He hasn't sold any shares, so he's likely borrowing against his
| Tesla stock to finance this hostile takeover, exposing himself to
| all sorts of potentially ugly debt squeezes.
|
| I really, really, _really_ hope Twitter doesn 't become a black
| hole that sucks talent and energy away from more important
| things. More than that, I hope this latest battle doesn't become
| Musk's Waterloo.
|
| --
|
| [a] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/03/musk-tesla-was-about-a-
| month...
| zzzeek wrote:
| draw_down wrote:
| mountainriver wrote:
| I agree, this seems like a distraction for him, and probably
| more ego driven than anything. Although much of his success has
| been through being a public figure on Twitter, maybe he sees it
| as investing in his image.
| xeromal wrote:
| You definitely have a point. SpaceX and Tesla were also near
| death in 2008.
|
| I feel like there are only so many moonshots you can pull off
| before you get a Waterloo as you said.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| It's not like he's going to take current SpaceX or Tesla
| employees and put them to work fixing Twitter.
| guiseroom wrote:
| I don't really follow Musk, what has he accomplished?
| nabaraz wrote:
| Leader in Space and Leader in EVs to start with.
| ComradePhil wrote:
| > it is likely consume a ridiculous amount of talent
|
| He has indicated that he'll fire most of the employees[1]. In
| practice, I think he'll move the talent pool whose job is to
| optimize ad delivery at Twitter to Tesla/SpaceX/OpenAI etc...
| and make Twitter paid for by the users, not by the advertisers
| [2].
|
| [1]
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1512974273606045702?ref_...
|
| [2]
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1512964005060657156?s=21...
| loceng wrote:
| That's your burden of "proof" that Elon has indicated he'd
| fire most employees?
| ComradePhil wrote:
| I don't know if it's a "burden" (please learn what "burden
| of proof" means and where and how to use it)... but yes,
| that tweet is an indication of his intent.
| Tade0 wrote:
| So, essentially, the mother of all acquihires?
| labrador wrote:
| labrador wrote:
| I guess my opinion is not popular, but I'll just say this: If
| Musk lets Trump back on I'm deleting my account. I've heard
| others say the same thing. That's a fact, not an opinion.
| Trufa wrote:
| I don't know how to ask this question without it sounding
| charged, but please take it as literal as possible and coming
| with absolutely no aggression:
|
| Do you think removing Trump was pro-democracy? I stand very
| firmly against being removed on principle of him being an ex-
| president of the US, this comes from someone who probably
| thinks he should be prosecuted for (likely) falsely claiming
| election fraud, or IMHO stretching the definition in his
| favour.
|
| I think this should be regulated, if not for everyone, at least
| for highly important accounts, and it should NOT be a private
| country that has so much power over the next US election.
| labrador wrote:
| > Do you think removing Trump was pro-democracy?
|
| Yes, absolutely. A former president was undermining trust in
| the democratic system with no evidence of wide spread fraud,
| who encouraged people to attack the capital during the
| peaceful transfer of power, who was also encouraging people
| to subvert the election process at the state level. He and
| his assosciates had an anti-democratic plan to keep him in
| power.
| RVtyper wrote:
| we are a flawed democracy/republic. people on parlor and gab,
| which i'm not one of, are for traditional values because that
| is what built this country. the only pro-authoritarian ive seen
| is from the social media giants and blue sate gov's.
| labrador wrote:
| I put "traditional values" in quotes because I don't think
| anti-LGBTQ+ deserves to be traditional
| riffic wrote:
| Elon Musk can not buy Mastodon (https://www.joinmastodon.org)
|
| This is the best ethical replacement for what Twitter provides,
| and it gives control back into operators of communities because
| it is based on a standardized specification for a federated
| social web.
| vishnugupta wrote:
| It's an all cash offer. Do folks here who manage such things
| educate us how could Musk muster such cash? Genuinely curious.
| chernevik wrote:
| He can borrow against his Tesla and Space X holdings. The
| Twitter stake itself can be used as collateral. Or he can sell
| shares of them.
|
| There is LBO financing, where the purchased company itself
| borrows to fund the purchase. But I doubt a company as risky as
| Twitter can borrow a significant fraction of the purchase
| price. And Musk doesn't have a history of using financial
| engineering like that.
| funshed wrote:
| LBO with Personal Guarantee and Tesla shares as security is
| strong.
| chernevik wrote:
| You're mixing terms. "Leveraged buyout" is really a term of
| art referring to a purchase largely financed by debt issued
| by the purchased company. It only works with well
| established businesses with really reliable revenue
| streams. If the business fails, the debts go unpaid.
|
| I would be surprised if Twitter could raise as much as 10%
| or 20% of its own purchase price.
| boeingUH60 wrote:
| Debt financing. It's easy when you have an enormous net worth
| as collateral and close relationships with leaders of big
| banks/investment firms.
|
| You can get an idea from Michael Dell's takeover of his
| eponymous company.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/connieguglielmo/2013/10/30/you-...
| heartbreak wrote:
| Though in the case of Dell, he had financing commitments
| lined up along with his offer. Musk has demonstrated no such
| commitments.
| throw7 wrote:
| A "free speech" platform would give users more power to control
| their communications with others and transparency of how the
| "system" worked.
|
| Very simple things that we had with usenet like killfiles and
| threaded conversations are foreign things to the younger
| generations. Things like shadowbans and a central authority that
| just decides to disable your account would be non-existent. Heck,
| we even had a form of "blue checkmark" with finger daemons.
|
| I have no idea what musk is thinking.
| seanw444 wrote:
| Fully agree. Open source the platform. Nobody cares to copy
| Twitter's software. It's not revolutionary. It's tailored to
| their infrastructure specifically. They have the network effect
| going for them. If they were going to be displaced by a
| technologically-superior platform, Mastodon would have done it
| already. There really isn't a downside.
|
| Let people censor who they want for themselves.
| Starlevel001 wrote:
| I assume this will mean that if you post the picture of him with
| Ghislane Maxwell you get instantly banned
| xwdv wrote:
| As a free speech absolutist, I might actually start using Twitter
| if it were run by Elon. Unfortunately I'm not terribly optimistic
| about it happening.
| amir734jj wrote:
| The same!
| frays wrote:
| This time last year he was the reason why Dogecoin skyrocketed.
| Look at where it is now.
|
| Don't let him do this to Twitter.
| kyle_martin1 wrote:
| RivieraKid wrote:
| This is terrible. A person like Elon Musk should not hold more
| power.
| laichzeit0 wrote:
| A person "like" him? What does that even mean? You mean a
| successful entrepreneur? Or will we instead only focus on what
| you believe to be any negative characteristics? Do us a favour
| if you reply: list what is great about people like Elon Musk,
| and then list what is bad about people like him please.
| RivieraKid wrote:
| Someone who:
|
| - is deeply dishonest
|
| - manipulative
|
| - narcissistic
|
| - is known to have outbursts of rage during which he shouts
| and insults employees
|
| - is known to publicly humiliate employees
|
| - has been reported to physically assault an employee
|
| - takes revenge against journalists, Twitter users or divers
| - the forms of revenge includes doxxing, personally asking
| the person's employer to get them fired, publicly accusing
| the victim of pedophilia
|
| - is a narcissistic attention whore who has complained in
| leaked emails that the media don't talk about him enough
|
| - has no empathy
| laichzeit0 wrote:
| Ah ok so you deliberately choose to ignore listing all his
| positive attributes. I can't take your criticisms seriously
| because it shows wilful bias. You realize half of what you
| wrote could be levelled against Steve Jobs as well?
| RivieraKid wrote:
| No, I deliberately chose to not follow your order. And I
| was actually writing this for other readers, not for you.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Can't be worse than current leadership or direction of
| Twitter...
| RivieraKid wrote:
| He is more competent but also much more likely to use it as a
| political lever and to gather information and take revenge
| against people he doesn't like.
| caiob wrote:
| no-dr-onboard wrote:
| > As an all-cash offer, this generates for the shareholders a
| substantial return with NO RISK, and so the board has a serious
| legal obligation to carefully review this offer and make a
| decision.
|
| What a gut check. I'm sure this is an obvious comment by now, but
| seeing the board's response to turning down something like this
| is going to be an olympic level display of mental gymnastics.
| Exciting times.
| ajaimk wrote:
| Microsoft + Yahoo comes to mind
| FormerBandmate wrote:
| Yahoo actually returned more than Microsoft for a while, up
| until about 2017, thanks to their huge stake in Alibaba.
| Twitter doesn't have that tho, they're entirely tied to their
| mediocre product.
|
| Killing Vine was the dumbest thing they ever did.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| If nobody has noticed, Twitter aren't very good at building
| software, it's incredibly buggy what they've made, I
| regularly click on tweets that have a comments count but
| zero comments. It's seriously glitchy from the
| notifications to even writing tweets (the MAX chars counter
| went crazy for me the other day). Don't get me started on
| editing tweets their logic is terrible here that you can
| never design a UX that doesn't stop people changing the
| meaning of their message after the event. Finally the spam
| is just totally next level and they still have people
| selling Bitcoin scams under every Elon tweet. Asleep at the
| wheel.
| scotty79 wrote:
| > Don't get me started on editing tweets their logic is
| terrible here that you can never design a UX that doesn't
| stop people changing the meaning of their message after
| the event.
|
| What if everyone could see full edit history of each
| twitt?
| eropple wrote:
| _> I regularly click on tweets that have a comments count
| but zero comments_
|
| As far as I can tell, that's because you're blocked by
| the commenter or the commenter is a private account.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| True, but... that's still a bug.
| charcircuit wrote:
| No, this happens to me (less replies shown than exist)
| and it's definitely a caching issue and I am using the
| app logged in. I have to literally open twitter in my web
| browser to try and get those tweets to load unless I want
| to wait until later for whatever caches to be
| invalidated. I don't block anyone.
| [deleted]
| LegitShady wrote:
| I think its related to their efforts to make twitter near
| impossible to browse if you aren't signed in.
| charcircuit wrote:
| I'm signed in on the app though so I would think it would
| be fine.
| wpietri wrote:
| Correct. In internal Twitter jargon, some data is
| "perspectival" and some for performance reasons isn't.
| Actually viewing a tweet is calculated on the fly based
| on your personal perspective, as honoring privacy
| settings, blocks, etc, is crucial. But that's not true
| for counts, so those will be off.
|
| People who find this a shocking and objectionable sign of
| bugs are generally people who have not build software at
| such large scales.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| It seems like this could easily be solved with "Some
| replies are hidden. [Settings](https://...)"
| kapp_in_life wrote:
| >People who find this a shocking and objectionable sign
| of bugs are generally people who have not build software
| at such large scales.
|
| This leaves such a poor taste in my mouth. Perhaps the
| proper UX is to then _not display comment counts_ if your
| performance/cost tradeoff has determined that you can't
| display comment counts accurately. For higher comment
| counts it might be fine where a user isn't expected to
| read all 5000 replies(ignoring the edge case where its
| 5000 private/blocked accounts replying), but if a tweet
| has 2 replies then the user who clicks it expects to see
| those.
|
| Other large platforms have been able to solve this issue
| either in UX or implementation, so "web scale" isn't a
| good excuse.
| wpietri wrote:
| Personally, I don't think "solving" minor inconsistency
| by eliminating a feature people like is the best
| approach. And from the way you talk about it, I gather
| you're not much of a Twitter user, so maybe you should
| give some deference to the people more familiar with the
| problem to decide whether this is a good choice or not?
|
| If you have proof that other platforms have solved this
| problem at scale, I would be very interested to see it.
| Fundamentally, those totals are never going to be
| perfectly correct because a) people will be adding and
| removing tweets continuously, and b) even if continuously
| updating the numbers were worth the resources, people
| would hate having the numbers changing frequently.
| cormacrelf wrote:
| Yeah, sure, and kill the platform's greatest feature by
| MILES, which is the comment to like to RT ratio.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| Is this the "ratio" I hear people talk about?
|
| I understand the idea but it feels a little too online
| for my taste. I'm probably not the target audience. Just
| feels like someone decided the tea leaves falling a
| certain way MUST indicate something.
| hk__2 wrote:
| > Is this the "ratio" I hear people talk about?
|
| Yes.
| kyle-rb wrote:
| It's not always the case that a high reply/like ratio is
| someone being "owned", but it's obviously more concrete
| than tea leaves. Twitter's lack of a real
| downvote/dislike incentivizes people to reply to a bad
| post without leaving a like, and in my experience it's a
| pretty good metric. (The main exception is when a tweet
| is a prompt that intentionally asks for people to reply.)
|
| Also I feel like I should add that "ratio" is a confusing
| term, because it _can_ refer to the above example `reply-
| count / likes`, but can also be when a reply gets more
| likes than the tweet it's replying to: `reply-likes / OP-
| likes`.
| delecti wrote:
| A tweet you can't see still exists. I think it's
| perfectly reasonable to display accurate counts even if
| it's based on information you don't have access to.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| The click-thru page could then display a clarifying "+ x
| more tweets that are private or not available at this
| time."
| ikiris wrote:
| Today op found out they're the problem lol
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Lol that's because people have you blocked.
| warning26 wrote:
| _> Killing Vine was the dumbest thing they ever did. _
|
| 100% this. People are always confused why Facebook was
| allowed to buy Instagram, and this was, I think, a bit part
| of why.
|
| Vine was completely destroyed by Twitter's incompetent
| management, and prevailing wisdom was that Facebook would
| do the same to Instagram. "Okay Facebook has filters now!
| Time to shut down Instagram!"
| boppo1 wrote:
| Wait, you're saying FB was allowed to buy Insta because
| regulators assumed they'd fumble the ball? That they
| wanted Insta to die off?
| mikepurvis wrote:
| I think more just that there was precedent for that
| type/scale of acquisition.
| majormajor wrote:
| But Facebook bought Instagram before Vine was a thing,
| the causality is backward if you're interested in why
| FB/Insta was approved!
| treesknees wrote:
| Perhaps it was too early to be a competitor, but I always
| see TikTok as the real Vine replacement. Short silly videos
| you can scroll through. They could have done so well with
| Vine.
| nr2x wrote:
| Ugh, don't remind me...I loved Vine, and find TikTok awful
| dsl wrote:
| > thanks to their huge stake in Alibaba
|
| 8.2 million shares of Google didn't hurt either.
| tempnow987 wrote:
| Exactly what I was thinking of!
|
| To catch folks up MS offered Yahoo $44B in their CHOICE of
| cash or stock (58B inflation adjusted). Yahoo said no, then
| imploded.
| sharken wrote:
| That fate seems unlikely for Twitter, it's right now the
| go-to place for last-minute info on Putins invasion of
| Ukraine.
|
| After that who knows. Well, apparently Elon Musk knows.
| flavius29663 wrote:
| yahoo was the goto place for new email accounts. It was
| the goto place for instant messaging too. It was also in
| top # for search and other features. And it still is...
| mempko wrote:
| Telegram is turning out to be really good at this. Tons
| of Telegram channels churning out realtime info.
| shawn-butler wrote:
| Discovery is difficult on telegram
| lumost wrote:
| reddit is pretty good at up to the minute information as
| well, it also benefits from topic filters/groupings and
| moderation.
| tremarley wrote:
| Reddit is infected with the same problem as Twitter and
| YouTube though. It use to be a place with free
| communities and free speech.
|
| But now, if you dare to post anything that doesn't align
| with what the MSM agenda for the day is. Your comment,
| post or even your whole sub-reddit gets banned.
| swasheck wrote:
| > if you dare to post anything that doesn't align with
| what the MSM agenda ...
|
| i think that this notion has lost its teeth as the MSM
| has been converted into some boogeyman and/or strawman.
| MSM certainly caters to an audience, and people are drawn
| to likeminded people, sometimes deluding themselves into
| believing that participating in a near-homogenous echo
| chamber would be an ideal expression of peaceful living.
| once there, though, they realize that it's still not
| quite perfect. foxnews not "right" enough for me so let's
| create newsmax or oan. biden's not "left" enough and so
| we should have nominated warren or sanders. people are
| going to disagree and that's fundamentally a good thing.
| how we disagree is where things seem to have degenerated.
|
| the whole "MSM agenda" seems like an incorrect and lazy
| narrative. they have agendas and they cater to the people
| who demand those agendas. i doubt, though, that newsmax
| employs people to troll my tweets disagreeing with
| desantis' signing of the florida abortion bill today,
| reporting them in an attempt to get me banned. the people
| trying to get me banned are the audience and they believe
| they're doing the correct thing to advance their cause by
| attempting to squelch me.
|
| MSM pours fuel on the fire, but they don't start it. same
| for reddit - it's going to be the collective of people
| and their ability to tolerate differentiated thinking.
| they're not brainwashed zombies, they're collectives of
| similarly-minded people who give in to their predisposed
| biases as exploited by MSM/social media for profit.
| inter_netuser wrote:
| >they don't start it.
|
| Yeah, a powerful apparatus that is MSM, would never be
| used to influence opinions and install beliefs.
|
| > they're not brainwashed zombies, they're collectives of
| similarly-minded people who give in to their predisposed
| biases as exploited by MSM/social media for profit.
|
| you ever heard of the 50 cent army? do you think only
| China has that, doesn't exist in the US?
| swasheck wrote:
| i'm not saying it doesnt exist, just that it's not as
| prevalent as people want it to be. i'd argue that even
| then, most of the time it's an exploitation of biases and
| not a new installation of foreign beliefs.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| This has literally never been true. Reddit was designed
| from the ground up to rotate heliocentrically around the
| whims of moderators.
| [deleted]
| mywittyname wrote:
| WTF? I see a constant never ending stream of shit on
| reddit that goes against the "MSM agenda". And those are
| the types of places are very quick to ban posters.
| maxsilver wrote:
| > But now, if you dare to post anything that doesn't
| align with what the MSM agenda for the day is. Your
| comment, post or even your whole sub-reddit gets banned.
|
| Where on earth does this opinion come from? All sorts of
| vile stuff gets posted to both Reddit and Twitter, and
| they rarely-if-ever take any action against it. Certain
| subreddits will still moderate, but _community
| moderators_ (users of some sort) generally control the
| moderation of those places, not Reddit or their staff
| directly.
|
| And in cases where Twitter/Reddit directly take action,
| it certainly isn't based on an "MSM agenda", it mostly
| seems to only happen to limit their legal or financial
| liability.
| inter_netuser wrote:
| a lot of subreddits are basically marketing departments
| of some corporates.
|
| those have paid employee mods where only posts and
| comments favourable to corporate goals are allowed. not
| quite the MSM, but I'd guess corporates would want to
| remain within the prevailing politically correct Overton
| window.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| No, that's not at all what happened.
|
| MS offered $44B for Yahoo inclusive of their almost 50%
| stake in then pre-ipo Alibaba. At the time, Yahoo's
| investment in Alibaba was valued at more than their entire
| market cap (negative valuation for Yahoo's domestic
| operations, or negative value taking into account tax
| implications of divestiture of these assets, etc).
|
| Yahoo turned down MSFT's offer. Yahoo then spun off its
| entire company, keeping the name Yahoo with this spin-off
| subsidiary. The parent company, now named Altiba, retained
| ownership of the stake in Alibaba. This is where the ~50B
| valuation remained.
|
| The spin-off company (valued in the negative by the market)
| was then sold for $4.5B to Verizon. Altiba retained its
| $56B market cap during this time.
|
| Yahoo, inclusive of Altiba, out-performed MS's offer. It
| was a far better deal for shareholders to turn down MSFT.
| The net value to shareholders exceeded $60B.
|
| There were a lot of poorly written articles at the time,
| which confused the sale of the subsidiary (YHOO) with the
| previous offer (for both YHOO and what became AABA) so your
| confusion is understandable. But this perspective is simply
| wrong.
| kolbe wrote:
| You are thinking of the wrong era. We're talking about
| the 2008 offer to buy Yahoo. Alibaba was worth around
| $10b when Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo for $45b.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/2007/10/23/alibaba-ipo-pricing-
| market...
|
| https://news.microsoft.com/2008/02/01/microsoft-proposes-
| acq...
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| Alibaba was pre-ipo at the time and did not have a market
| valuation. The most effective way to estimate a market
| value for Alibaba at this time is the 2008 MSFT offer
| itself.
|
| MSFT didn't offer $44B for Yahoo's internet business. The
| offer was in large part for the Alibaba stake.
|
| Regardless, MSFT priced it all at around $44B, which is
| less than it eventually was valued at.
| kolbe wrote:
| There were still private transactions that valued Alibaba
| far lower that you claim. What justification do you have
| for your claim?
| iheartblocks wrote:
| What was the valuation of the private transactions and
| when were they?
| kolbe wrote:
| I amend my statement a little: They actually IPOed on the
| Hong Kong stock exchange in late 2007 before delisting in
| 2012. They IPOed at $10bn. They traded as high as $25bn
| the first day. But I have no other data.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/tech-alibabacom-ipo-
| dc/aliba...
| miked85 wrote:
| I think you mean Altaba.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| Probably. I can never remember the spelling.
| xchaotic wrote:
| As a shareholder of... (checking) 10 shares of Twitter I
| approve this on financial grounds
| metacritic12 wrote:
| Shareholders of Twitter might even band together for a class-
| action lawsuit against the board if they reject the offer and
| then TWTR falls in price.
| lancewiggs wrote:
| It's pretty much a given that there will be legal action in
| situations like this.
|
| The board has fiduciary duty to test is seriously - usually
| by forming a committee, getting external advice, trying to
| get a better price and a solid case if they decline the
| offer. They will likely be advised that this will end up in
| court one way or the other, and making sure the process is
| solid is their way of avoiding liability.
| victor106 wrote:
| Jim Cramer thinks the board has no choice but to reject.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/14/cramer-twitters-board-has-no...
| no-dr-onboard wrote:
| The Cramer effect is real -> Board bound to approve
| ikiris wrote:
| So... Cramer has twitter stock.
| warning26 wrote:
| I was a bit confused about his logic -- is he just saying
| they should make a counteroffer that's higher?
| RaymondDeWitt wrote:
| Cramer's take, "If they say, 'we accept,' they're phony.
| And they're not phonies.", was meritless and had no logic.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| He's just describing what a normal board would do.
|
| No competent board would accept an offer lower than
| recent prices. Remember you only get one chance to sell
| the whole company.
|
| Shareholders have had numerous opportunities to sell at
| this price and higher, so it makes no sense to recommend
| the sale at this price for all shareholders.
| 1adam1200 wrote:
| >Shareholders have had numerous opportunities to sell at
| this price and higher, so it makes no sense to recommend
| the sale at this price for all shareholders.
|
| Plenty of shareholders have sold at the offer price or
| lower, which is why TWTR was ~$38 pre-Elon.
| bduerst wrote:
| Right. Too many people are reading the offer literally.
|
| Musk wants to exit his Twitter position, and is using
| this offer to pump the price before he dumps stock, under
| the justification of "they rejected my painfully,
| obviously low offer so now I need to exit".
|
| Except the market has already jumped back down.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| TWTR closed at 45 today because the market called
| bullshit on Elon's offer. If the market was convinced by
| his offer, it'd be within a few percent of $54/share.
|
| There will be no exit liquidity, it'll go sub-30 if
| anyone catches a whiff of Elon dumping his shares.
| chrisstanchak wrote:
| Hear that wooshing noise?
| xarope wrote:
| My thoughts exactly. If the board accepted, minutes
| before twittering "having perused the contract, Twitter
| violated one of the clauses and there I am ethically
| unable to buy the company", he'd dump and make himself
| another few gazillion dollars richer.
| wwweston wrote:
| After watching him do the same thing with crypto, it's
| astonishing to me people aren't taking this explanation
| for his behavior more seriously.
| beerandt wrote:
| Goldman supposedly had the stock rated sell @ $30, before
| recommending the board reject $54.20.
|
| There's a premium expected for a total buyout, but I
| don't see how they justify ~80% higher than their
| current/previous rating.
| texasbigdata wrote:
| If you read the SEC disclosure the "all cash offer" has a
| financing provision. Not risk less
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| The share price is at $45, which means the market is not
| seeing this as a serious offer.
|
| Given a provision like that, you can see why (financing
| clauses are a convenient escape hatch when making big
| purchases).
| bb88 wrote:
| That's just the first couple paragraphs.
|
| > Cramer also warned of potential "personal liability" if
| the board accepts Musk's offer, which would value the
| company at around $43 billion.
|
| That seems to be a much stronger argument.
| LegitShady wrote:
| Potential personal liability either way, so not a thing.
|
| I wouldn't take financial advice from CNN's Jim Cramer.
| nickysielicki wrote:
| Not really? There's also personal liability if they don't
| accept Musk's offer given that the market (prior to these
| movements) valued the company substantially below $43
| billion.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31028521 (not a moderation
| issue, just trying to prune the thread a la
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31027882)
| FormerBandmate wrote:
| They are probably going to desperately try to find a white
| knight, and fail because Twitter lost the mass market years ago
| and at this point is a platform for rich people to post
| incredibly vapid, narcissistic takes about politics and society
| that say nothing.
|
| They could actually make a phenomenal amount off of
| subscription revenue tho off of that model, doesn't really make
| sense for any of the FAANG's strategies but I could see it
| making a lot of money with competent management. Twitter Blue
| is one of their best ideas in a long time, but should be more
| expensive and have more features.
| memish wrote:
| Think they are calling on Bezos? He bought WaPo and that
| worked out in their mind.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| There is _so much_ untapped potential in Twitter. An ad-based
| business model was the only proven option in the late 2000s,
| but in the era of Patreon, Twitch, Substack, and Onlyfans,
| the landscape has resoundingly demonstrated that the old
| wisdom of "no one wants to pay for content on the internet"
| is no longer true.
|
| Making something people want to pay for, of course, is the
| challenge, and Twitter Blue is a very limited start to that.
| But for the position Twitter has come to occupy in culture, a
| bold product vision could leverage that to incredible effect.
| delecti wrote:
| Twitter has _two_ subscription models. In addition to
| Twitter Blue (which you mention), they also have "Super
| Follow", which is more analogous to Twitch/OF
| subscriptions, in that you pay a bit to a specific creator,
| so you get a bit of perks from them.
|
| The fact that you don't know about it should say something
| about how enthusiastically the feature was received. Most
| creators are probably happier with their existing
| Patreon/OF platforms.
| tayo42 wrote:
| Do people really like having everything on one platform
| like that? Personally I kind of like having things
| separate and companies just do what they do well.
| jsemrau wrote:
| Look at the payout model I used at finclout.io There are
| ways to now ways to reward people for good content that are
| not ad-based not gifting/tipping.
| truffdog wrote:
| A lot of Patreons and Substacks are very reliant on Twitter
| to drive traffic too- Twitter should have a natural
| advantage in the space.
| andrepd wrote:
| >at this point is a platform for rich people to post
| incredibly vapid, narcissistic takes about politics and
| society that say nothing.
|
| It's clearly not, since it's still one of the largest social
| networks in the world.
|
| I'm not a fan of twitter or social networks in general, but
| it's clear that they are used by a teeny hundreds of millions
| of people more than some celebrities.
| pavlov wrote:
| There are very few companies that would want to buy Twitter
| and can afford it. And because of heightened antitrust
| scrutiny, none of them have any interest in trying when
| there's a very low chance of clearing such a merger with all
| the regulators in USA + EU + UK. (The last one even blocked
| Facebook's acquisition of Giphy. They'd have a field day with
| Twitter.)
|
| So there probably won't be a competing offer.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Can you imagine if they pivoted to an onlyfans model and
| allowed certain people to charge followers a few?
| jolux wrote:
| They already did this with Super Follows.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Any data on how that does? My guess is not that we'll
| unless the content is richer than just text... and
| effectively largely becomes Patreon / onlyfans. It's kind
| of hard to pull that off fully when the rest of the
| platform is fully free.
| samhw wrote:
| It's a ridiculous idea because it doesn't have any
| cultural or product fit. It reads like they looked at
| Substack, thought "ooh, money, gimme some of that!", and
| rolled out the same thing for their own product - but a
| tweet is a couple of hundred characters and _nobody is
| paying for that_. (Short of the small percentage of
| pathetic creeps who probably also send money to female
| streamers just to feel noticed.)
|
| Reddit gold is an example of how to nail something like
| this, because it was done with tremendous sensitivity to
| the culture of the site. It's quirky, slightly ironic,
| riffs on the obvious silliness of a 'gift' that goes 99%
| to Reddit's coffers, and it's perfectly pitched to the
| user at the point where they _are already feeling the
| value_ of Reddit 's product & the other user's content.
| Twitter's, by contrast, is an example of how _not_ to do
| it, for the converse of all those reasons and more
| besides.
| leereeves wrote:
| There are a lot of politicians, activists, fundraisers,
| etc who communicate primarily through Twitter but send
| people to Patreon or GoFundMe or somewhere else to
| donate. That's an existing culture of soliciting
| donations on Twitter, and Twitter might be able to become
| the payment processor for some of those donations, if
| they do it right.
| yellow_postit wrote:
| Twitter is for building an audience. Patreon and other
| platforms are where you best monetize that audience.
|
| Putting both together could be incredibly lucrative but
| also would be treated very cautiously because of
| potential deplatforming.
|
| Musk actual commitment to minimal moderation (what my
| mental model is for his free speech bent) could thread
| that needle and at the very least be a fascinating
| experiment to watch from the sidelines.
| archagon wrote:
| > _They are probably going to desperately try to find a white
| knight, and fail because Twitter lost the mass market years
| ago and at this point is a platform for rich people to post
| incredibly vapid, narcissistic takes about politics and
| society that say nothing._
|
| Ironically, this suggests that people like Elon Musk are
| exactly the problem with Twitter.
| fleddr wrote:
| Twitter is a mob launch pad. It's ran by outrage addicted,
| sadistic, cruel bullies. It's as if all of the world's village
| idiots joined forces and became the ruling class in culture and
| speech.
|
| It is Twitter that has normalized and promoted inhumane tactics
| like context switching, bad faith discussion, talking behind you
| to others instead of towards you (quote tweeting),
| screenshotting, obsessively digging through one's history, mob
| launches, and in some cases cancellations, death threats, etc.
|
| No normal person engages with another person like this. They are
| tactics to use when at war, but this is business as usual on
| Twitter. Worse, it's richly rewarded. It's a place where brains
| and conversations go to die.
|
| I hope the offer gets accepted, it's not like he can make it
| worse. Or perhaps he should intentionally make it worse and sink
| it.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| You're talking about a specific subset of Twitter. The Twitter
| I use is 99% positive, good news, friendly interactions. I've
| gained at least one job directly through Twitter.
| boredumb wrote:
| It's a nice thought, but 43 billion dollars is a helluva price
| to pay for an intentional sepoku.
| fleischhauf wrote:
| while this might be true for most of Twitter, my experience is
| very different. I've been following researchers mostly and
| aside from very recently published work there are very
| interesting conversations or thought threads.so i guess it
| heavily depends on your Twitter bubble
| runjake wrote:
| As a counterpoint, you are also describing any large group of
| people at scale.
|
| On Twitter, you can follow, mute, use lists, or block anyone
| you want so you don't have to see any of the stuff you don't
| want.
| zarzavat wrote:
| If this sale goes ahead it will be interesting to find out
| Elon Musk's definition of free speech. Is a mob "speech"?
|
| Under one perspective mobs are not speech, they are
| repressions on speech and thus any free speech advocate ought
| to want to clamp down on them.
|
| Under another perspective mobs are speech, and should be
| protected like any other speech.
|
| Neither perspective is wrong per se, it just depends how you
| interpret the "free" in free speech to refer to freedom from
| _what_.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| I'm not usually one for this kind of schadenfreude but I find
| myself agreeing. It really can't get any worse.
| hi5eyes wrote:
| Sir you are engaging with negative communities, out of your own
| free time
|
| Twitter, is just how you construct your feed; if you gravitate
| towards toxic communities/follows, that's just a reflection of
| yourself
|
| Twitter in my experience has some incredibly informative people
| from multiple industries and plenty of positive ribbing, but
| mainly used to collaborate and support each other
| Teandw wrote:
| People have always engaged with other people like they do on
| Twitter.
|
| You don't think even before social media there was a world
| where people spread lies about you, spread hatred and people
| who would do anything in their power to ruin your marriage,
| career or life in general?
|
| You just see it more these days because it's more easily
| visible. It doesn't mean it happens more than it used to.
| javajosh wrote:
| _> Twitter is a mob launch pad._
|
| True, but you don't have to participate and you can try to stop
| it, if you want.
|
| _> It's ran by outrage addicted, sadistic, cruel bullies._
|
| Not sure, but I think this is false. It seems to be run
| professionally, for profit, and with a great deal of thought.
|
| _> It 's as if all of the world's village idiots joined forces
| and became the ruling class in culture and speech._
|
| False, but with a seed of truth: Twitter has undue influence
| over decision makers because it satisfies their constant need
| for feedback. Powerful people take Twitter feedback _far_ more
| seriously then they should. The worst example being businesses
| that fire people because of a cancel mob to "protect their
| reputation". (IMO such cancellations do far more harm to the
| business reputation demonstrating terrible judgement)
|
| _> No normal person engages with another person like this._
|
| False. Or rather, you characterize Twitter engagement in one
| way, and ignore all the other ways. I, for example, enjoy
| engaging with smart, good people from around the world. The key
| is to a) be careful about who you follow, and b) give 0 care
| about likes, retweets, etc. Twitter is not really one place,
| it's a huge network of places, a bit like Reddit, and so
| behavior and content varies significantly.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > False. Or rather, you characterize Twitter engagement in
| one way, and ignore all the other ways. I, for example, enjoy
| engaging with smart, good people from around the world.
|
| You don't _need_ Twitter to do that. Arguably, it was easier
| to engage with the smart, good people from around the world
| on IRC since it wasn 't through the guise of microblogging
| 240 characters at one another in public. I think it's
| perfectly fine to characterize Twitter by it's lowest common
| denominator.
|
| > The key is to a) be careful about who you follow, and b)
| give 0 care about likes, retweets, etc.
|
| Sounds like it's a fundamentally broken system then, no? If
| it's incentivizing toxic engagement and behavior patterns,
| that's an issue.
|
| > Twitter is not really one place, it's a huge network of
| places, a bit like Reddit, and so behavior and content varies
| significantly.
|
| No, it is "one place". There are federated networks similar
| to Twitter like Mastodon and Pleroma where that _is_ the
| case, but Twitter is one homogenous userbase, for better or
| worse. You 're lumped in with the left-wing pundits, the
| right-wing trolls and everyone in between.
|
| Generally speaking, this comment kinda makes me sad. Nobody
| needs to take the bullet for Twitter, of all places. It's
| notoriously shitty by-and-large, and while some people have
| gotten it to work for them (more power to you), trying to
| claim it's a universally altruistic platform if you ignore
| the bad stuff is simply disingenuous.
| javajosh wrote:
| You are not communicating in good faith, changing my words
| and their meanings, in an effort to promote your dogmatic
| view. Ironically it is this, not the platform, that is the
| root of the problems that seem to bother you. Good day!
| smoldesu wrote:
| Would you like to highlight the parts that you felt I
| changed?
| qq66 wrote:
| I don't intend to refute anything you've written because I
| agree with pretty much all of it. But there is more to Twitter
| than that. Twitter is also a collective mind in a way that has
| only previously existed in science fiction. There are
| conversations about virtual reality where I regularly engage
| with people from Europe, Asia, the US, some people who don't
| really go out of their house but are very active on VR Twitter,
| displaced Ukrainian developers finding VR development work...
| and really thought-provoking interactions every week, like a
| "My Dinner with Andre" in the global hive-mind. I think of
| Twitter as something like "The Internet" or "nuclear fission"
| -- a tool so powerful that it can either destroy or save the
| world, and to just destroy it would be a catastrophic loss.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| The human hive mind existed long before Twitter. Very little
| of a human's knowledge is discovered by them, it's passed
| from generation to generation. First it was spoken, then
| written, then typed.
|
| But social media, when looked at through the lens of
| collective thought, is unwell IMH(umble)O.
|
| I remember participating in old phpBB forums in the mid/late
| 90s. You'd show up for an hour, read everything that happened
| over the last few days, go off an think about it, come back
| later and respond. The conversations were deep and
| thoughtful, even if the topics weren't. If I sat in a room
| with someone who thought/behaved like these forums, I'd be
| comfortable. It would be a good conversation, I'd feel safe,
| and I'd probably walk away learning something new.
|
| If a physical human thought the way the Twitter hive mind
| thinks - I'd avoid them. They would be terrifying. Jumping
| from thought to thought, rapidly transitioning emotional
| states, unable to focus on a topic for more than a social
| media cycle, constantly checking to see if people like what
| they said... The hive mind on many of the popular social
| media platforms is not healthy.
|
| I don't think this outcome is inevitable when large groups of
| people come together to communicate. It feels like a
| byproduct of engagement driven social media - where the
| flywheel of growth/profits is coupled to humans constantly
| indicating to the system that they are "engaged" by
| interacting in some way.
| dsl wrote:
| > Twitter is also a collective mind in a way that has only
| previously existed in science fiction.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet
|
| You might not have been around for it, but we did this
| before. The same lesson was learned then too... this is why
| we can't have nice things.
| Tabular-Iceberg wrote:
| I often wonder if you could make something like a Reddit
| clone or image board use the Usenet network model.
|
| I imagine that it's hard now that full service ISPs are so
| rare. Paying extra for access is probably not something
| many people would want to do, even though it would probably
| make for more healthy and diverse discourse than anything
| that always needs to be advertiser friendly.
|
| But the greatest obstacle is probably that many users and
| service providers would consider the inability to ban
| someone across the whole network to be a bug rather than a
| feature.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Usenet wasn't near realtime.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| If your Twitter feed is angry then maybe you have angry
| friends. That's not a reflection on Twitter. Mine has a lot of
| inspiration and positivity.
| gardenhedge wrote:
| This is not a good take. Despite who you follow, Twitter
| shows you random stuff and also shows you the trending
| section. That section is just full of controversial things.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| I've personally hidden the trending section - fair point,
| though. But that was the only time I really saw 'random
| stuff'.
| dpweb wrote:
| It needs to be better policed but I sense it's way undervalued
| being one of the few huge media platforms. It's a smart move.
| Meta market cap was 1T down to 600B. Other techs market caps?
| 43B sounds like a bargain.
|
| Just the hype off this, and the excitement that will inevitably
| follow every tweak to the platform - tens of billions up in
| value.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Twitter is who you follow. It may take some configuration but
| all of the other stuff can - for now - be removed.
| [deleted]
| arrakis2021 wrote:
| [ "Insert pseudo-intellectual comment about private
| organizations, town squares, current things, billionaires,
| democracy, and Nazis" ]
|
| In short, yes. It is a hate-factory that assumes the laptop-
| class of society is representative of and speaks for all of
| mankind.
|
| Err, people kind.
| coliveira wrote:
| I agree that the current crop of social networks is pretty much
| worse than useless. I wish they all ended so that we can build
| something better.
| cvwright wrote:
| Why wait? Let's just build.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I doubt he will make it actually work, but at least it will be
| fun show to watch from outside. There will be some changes if he
| succeeds. And the effects of those should generate plenty of
| content to follow.
| vernie wrote:
| This is playing out like the Russian invasion.
| paparush wrote:
| I think Scott Galloway is right, Elon doesn't add value, just
| volatility.
| sword_smith wrote:
| I just realized that we can use the current stock price to derive
| a probability that Elon Musks offer will be accepted.
|
| Let `cp` be the current stock price; let `op` be the original
| price, before the offer was made; let `bp` be the bid price, what
| Musk offered; and let P be the probability that the offer is
| accepted. Then it must apply that
|
| `cp = op + P*(bp - op)`
|
| Meaning: The current price is the original price plus the
| probability that the offer is accepted times the stock price
| premium if the offer is accepted.
|
| => P = (cp - op) / (bp - op)
|
| Plugging in the current numbers gives us a probability of about
| 50 %.
| ericjang wrote:
| Good idea, but actually you'll probably want to look at the
| option markets as well, to take account the exact strike price
| at which Musk wishes to take Twitter private. If you only look
| at spot price (i.e. TWTR stock), then you need some way to
| factor out all the other beliefs market participants have about
| Twitter (e.g. stat-arb correlations with NASDAQ index).
|
| As of time of writing, the delta on a $55 TWTR call option
| expiring 2 months from now is 0.297, representing a ~30%
| probability it will be in-the-money. But you still need to
| subtract the probability that the share price gets there
| without Mr. Musk's help.
|
| You can also google "merger arbitrage" on google scholar to
| find some more maths on the subject.
| sword_smith wrote:
| Good point. The spot price is definitely not the most
| accurate measure of this probability. For liquid stocks with
| advanced derivates it's probably possible to find a better
| probability using one of those advanced derivatives.
| seanw444 wrote:
| "It could go both ways, nobody knows how it will play out."
|
| "Let's use math to calculate the probability!"
|
| ...
|
| "It could go both ways, nobody knows how it will play out."
|
| No hate, just thought it was kinda funny.
| bannedbybros wrote:
| zegl wrote:
| > The takeover is unlikely to be a drawn out process. "If the
| deal doesn't work, given that I don't have confidence in
| management nor do I believe I can drive the necessary change in
| the public market, I would need to reconsider my position as a
| shareholder," said Musk.
|
| Is he holding his own existing shares as hostage?
| kmlx wrote:
| 1. selling that much stock will dent investor confidence in
| twitter.
|
| 2. Musk exiting twitter will again dent investor confidence.
|
| tldr there will be a huge sell-off if Musk's offer is rejected
| and he follows-up with dumping the stock.
| phailhaus wrote:
| > 1. selling that much stock will dent investor confidence in
| twitter.
|
| I don't understand this bit. It's just Elon selling his own
| shares that he _just bought_ , why would that affect investor
| confidence? Nothing's changed about the company itself, so
| the price would just go back to where it was.
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| > It's just Elon selling his own shares that he just
| bought, why would that affect investor confidence?
|
| It could be read by a layman as "He spent a bunch of money,
| got a look at the internals and realized it was a bad
| move". In fairness it could also be interpreted as "He just
| fickle".
| arbitrary_name wrote:
| Because he bought it with the assumption that his offer
| would be accepted and he could improve the company.
| Rejecting his offer opens the door to a world in which
| Twitter is worth less than what he paid for it: from both
| Musk's perspective, as well as that of others.
| phailhaus wrote:
| But if someone rejects your offer, that usually implies
| it's worth more, not less.
| LegitShady wrote:
| It depends on why the offer is rejected. You can say "we
| think its worth more than that" but if your stock is
| trading $30 down afterward your investors might have an
| interesting case about your fiduciary responsibility to
| them.
| Jabbles wrote:
| Why would the stock go lower than it was before Musk started
| buying?
| cbg0 wrote:
| The market is not rational, so anything could happen, which
| is why you should always assume the worst if you are a
| cautious individual.
| dehrmann wrote:
| More information. It takes the usually remote possibility
| of a generous takeover offer off the table. Musk turned
| down a position on the board, signaling he thinks the
| company would be better off private. It arguably shows
| questionable judgement of the board.
| weezin wrote:
| Because there is going to be panic selling since everyone
| knows it will go down if they say no.
| chernevik wrote:
| 1. The chance that Musk would buy Twitter, non-zero before
| his purchase announcement and somewhat circulating as a
| market rumor and thus perhaps part of speculation upholding
| the stock, would go to zero.
|
| 2. Musk's departure could be read by some as a vote of no-
| confidence in management by a capable businessman, and that
| after some conversations with management about strategy.
| [deleted]
| Freestyler_3 wrote:
| People will bail who bought on the good news PLUS people
| will bail who hear the bad news but didn't buy with good
| news.
| ROARosen wrote:
| Aside from the other reasons mentioned, don't forget
| hundreds of algos programmed to automatically sell once the
| price reaches certain low levels - which is bound to happen
| once large blocks of stock get offloaded.
| akomtu wrote:
| Because we're in a deep recession. Twitter and other sp500s
| are going to slide down regardless of what Musk does. He is
| offering a choice: "I jump the ship and it sinks a bit
| faster, or I give you a generous evacuation plan and deal
| with the leaks myself."
| cloutchaser wrote:
| Yeah, he's given a decent carrot to the current shareholders
| to sell, and an even bigger stick to beat them to do it as
| they will lose a lot if they don't sell.
| gitfan86 wrote:
| The only way they can reject this offer is if they have
| proof that a bigger offer is incoming.
|
| If they reject and the stock goes down to $20, there will
| be lawsuits.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Lawsuits from who? The shareholders are the ones who are
| voting here.
| zwily wrote:
| Lawsuits by the shareholders suing the board for not
| accepting the offer. Happens all the time.
| Tepix wrote:
| It's not for the board to decide if they accept the
| offer. It's the shareholder's decision.
| trashburger wrote:
| Not if it's a cash offer.
| zwily wrote:
| Ultimately that's the case. But the board may decide to
| reject the offer without doing a shareholder vote.
| (That's probably what they will do). That's when the
| shareholders sue.
| duxup wrote:
| I don't know what anyone means by "free speech" sometimes.
|
| Often I think it is just "I get to say what I want." but beyond
| that they've no idea.
| the_doctah wrote:
| Yes, the people who run these platforms don't have any idea
| what it means either.
| duxup wrote:
| I don't think they offer "free speech" it's just not what
| most any site offers.
| seanw444 wrote:
| In the literal sense, it would be banning _zero_ content. Not
| even gory, adult-themed /non-family-friendly content.
| Personally, I'm all for that. You can't have good without bad.
| Giving more freedom means giving it to bad actors just as much
| as good actors. That's just something people can't seem to come
| to terms with.
| duxup wrote:
| I think the scale of automation and spam is far larger than
| any given individuals at a keyboard.
|
| The "anything goes" forums are hardly the land of free speech
| and different views / ideas.
| seanw444 wrote:
| I left out the "spam" from my comment, because I agree,
| automated spam detracts from conversation. That's something
| I think 99% of people can agree on. But banning someone for
| mentioning firearms, or their skepticism of <insert-latest-
| corporate-media-push-here> is crazy to me. Same with people
| talking about their sexuality or whatever liberals do these
| days. Nobody gets banned for saying what's on their mind.
| And it's not the platform's job to prevent people from
| getting their feelings hurt.
| zionic wrote:
| This. I'm tired of this woke paternalism that's infected
| modern social media.
|
| Uncensored is the future, for everything.
| duxup wrote:
| Have you tried any of the forums or etc that are entirely
| un-moderated?
| zionic wrote:
| Of course not officer. I would never venture out into
| such dangerous places.
| blinded wrote:
| Nothing would compel me to use that junk site.
| dgudkov wrote:
| I bet some of those who advocated "it's a private company, it can
| deplatform whoever it wants" are probably re-thinking their
| stance on deplatforming from a major social media.
| [deleted]
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| Not really. When moderation goes away, platforms become rife
| with racism, spam, scams and less than desirable actors. We've
| seen this with Gab and Parler.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| I think that's more of a product of displacement. Those
| people get pushed out of big sites into smaller free-speech
| absolutist platforms. Thus, the proportion of these actors in
| the latter is much higher. Loosening moderation on a big
| platform would not have this same displacement dynamic. Sure,
| previously excluded people might rejoin but the bulk of the
| user base will remain. So there's no drastic shift on
| proportions here.
|
| Furthermore, there's a difference between totally doing away
| with moderation and pruning some of the more ideologically
| slanted moderation policies at twitter.
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| >... Sure, previously excluded people might rejoin but the
| bulk of the user base will remain. So there's no drastic
| shift on proportions here.
|
| Advertisers will not want to see their ads featured next to
| a post calling for the genocidal extermination of a race.
| When you allow Gab/Voat/4-chan style moderation, you run-
| off advertisers which are the lifeblood of social media.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Most advertisements in Twitter are in the form of
| sponsored posts right? This isn't like YouTube where an
| ad is displayed embedded in a video.
| jstream67 wrote:
| but twitter is already all of those things.
| indiv0 wrote:
| Eh that's a bit of a different mechanism. If you bootstrap a
| platform from 0 users with the _core_ concept being a lack of
| moderation, then you 're likely to attract those who have
| been banned, excluded, or otherwise ostracized from existing
| platforms. This happens because those who support lack of
| moderation but still have a choice to remain are likely to
| remain on the existing platforms due to network effects.
|
| Whereas if you start with the popular platform and
| progressively remove moderation, you end up with different
| effects, because you still have the core, non-bad-actor
| population. That is, if your signal-to-noise ratio goes down,
| but the absolute amount of interaction with your platform
| increases, it may still be worth it.
| starlust2 wrote:
| The point of reducing moderation is to allow the bad actors
| back in. Musk has been very vocal about supporting all
| speech regardless of impact.
| jesusofnazarath wrote:
| indiv0 wrote:
| That may be _one_ of the effects of reducing moderation,
| but not necessarily the only one.
|
| It may also reduce chilling effects on good actors. Some
| speech may be worth sharing but may not currently be
| shared because of those effects.
| nialv7 wrote:
| > Whereas if you start with the popular platform and
| progressively remove moderation, you end up with different
| effects, because you still have the core, non-bad-actor
| population.
|
| Pretty sure that will just let bad actors back in and drive
| the good faith users away. You could be underestimating the
| number of normal users a single bad actor can drive away.
|
| Even when you remove the more centralized moderation, there
| still have to be some mechanism there to remove the bad
| actors.
| coolso wrote:
| Why does everyone think Elon Musk wants zero moderation? He
| always talks about free speech, not zero moderation. There's
| an important difference.
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| Do we ever hear people talk about "free speech" without
| regards to someone being moderated off of a platform? The
| only reason we have talking points such as Facebook/Twitter
| = Utility/Town-Square is because right-wingers were being
| moderated off of digital platforms. Before recently, no one
| really cared unless it was something such as a child
| wearing an offensive t-shirt at school.
| MrStonedOne wrote:
| RedBeetDeadpool wrote:
| So create free market plugins to filter based on preferences.
|
| Imagine: scam protection plugin. spam protection plugin. anti
| racism plugin.
|
| Let users vote who gets ears. If users say they want to
| silence racists, by saying racists things a user ends up
| being blocked by all the people who want to silence all
| racists. Users then vote and racists know that
| algorithmically they cannot heard because they know the
| majority have silenced them. But they also aren't enraged
| that they are being silenced because they aren't. They're
| just blocked by the user base who doesn't think their words
| have value.
|
| If twitter does not allow as much free speech as possible,
| that speech simply ends up moving to other platforms anyways.
| So much to all the pro censorship crowd's chagrin, their
| censorship isn't actually doing anything except protecting
| their ears from hearing what they don't want to hear, and in
| reality making the other side band together even more
| fiercely. Might as well keep all the speech and just allow
| people to choose their own protection.
|
| You never have to listen to them if that's what you choose.
| Let people choose what gets silenced instead of letting some
| authority choose for you. Giving up that power has
| historically lead in only one direction, and I don't see why
| its any different in this case. Adults are not children. Let
| them discern what is right and what is wrong.
|
| The only way forward is to keep free speech available, and we
| can keep it and have protections for those who want it, so
| why not?
| codyb wrote:
| Cause that's what I want to do with my free time... install
| plugins operated by... who knows... to filter out the
| blatant racism I don't even have to see if I just don't use
| the website.
|
| But... I don't use social media, so maybe I'm not the one
| this would appeal to.
| RedBeetDeadpool wrote:
| You wouldn't have to install them. They would be toggled
| on in the app by default with a modal or some
| notification ensuring you know what you're being
| protected from.
|
| If you are okay with the default protections, closing
| that modal is one [x] away.
|
| If for some reason you _want_ spam, then toggle it back
| on.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| I think "moderation going away" is a gross exaggeration of
| what Musk has said he wants.
|
| Twitter has had spam and crypto scams in replies for years
| now. Every tweet by Elon Musk has had scammy fake giveaways
| that steal people's financial info, from accounts that copy
| his profile picture and name. Anyone would agree Twitter's
| response has not been adequately effective, and he has
| complained about this for a while, and even said during
| today's TED event that he wants to stop this sort of spam.
|
| If anything, I think it's more likely we'll see hardcore
| engineering efforts - I'm not sure why Twitter hasn't looked
| into some sort of perceptual hashing database for profile
| pictures of popular accounts, and hide replies from anyone
| who uses a similar profile picture.
|
| This is obviously different from the political censorship,
| such as Hunter Biden's laptop, where I think Musk strongly
| disagrees with current leadership.
|
| Parler/Gab failed in having approximately zero engineering
| efforts to prevent spam.
| CivBase wrote:
| While I'm not necessarily disagreeing with that assessment, I
| think those examples of Gab and Parlor are weak. Those
| platforms were essentially created and marketed specifically
| to individuals and groups who were kicked off of other
| platforms. That demographic will naturally include a much
| higher proportion of "less than desirable actors".
|
| Many of the largest platforms featured much less moderation
| in their past - even when they were much larger than Gab or
| Parlor - while also enjoying a smaller proportion of "less
| than desirable actors". Of course, whether that level was
| acceptable is debatable. Free speech is a double-edge sword
| and moderation is an astoundingly complex problem.
| bduerst wrote:
| Gab, Parler, Voat, et al are marketed as forums with lax
| moderation.
|
| The flavors of prejudice that they attract are the direct
| result of their function. Platforms that start to grow
| large without controls against hate and other bad actors
| simply do not continue to grow.
| tonguez wrote:
| "When moderation goes away, platforms become rife with
| racism, spam, scams and less than desirable actors."
|
| so... Twitter
| colordrops wrote:
| Twitter is heavily moderated.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| Twitter is heavily moderated but has a large amount of
| "racism, spam, scams and less than desirable actors".
| fknorangesite wrote:
| This is extraordinarily vague, and so the replies to you so far
| have had to guess at exactly what you mean. Care to explain
| more clearly?
| kizer wrote:
| Someone noted this in a thread on Reddit. Will be very funny to
| see the political spectrum reflect on this; suddenly many
| crying first amendment will be taking the position you quoted
| while some of those there now will may perhaps argue for
| Twitter to become a subsidiary of PBS (joking).
| bena wrote:
| It seems to me that you are implying that the people who
| previously defended twitter's decisions to ban certain public
| features may not fare so well under a regime managed by Elon
| Musk.
|
| Everything that follows is based on that inference.
|
| There are two major possibilities here. Either Musk lets
| twitter continue much in the same manner as it operates today.
| In which case, nothing really changes.
|
| Musk operates twitter as his personal bullhorn, promoting
| beneficial tweets and removing tweets that are critical of him,
| his companies, his ideals, whatever. All of which would be his
| right to do. However, all actions have consequences.
|
| Twitter isn't twitter because it was ordained from on high as
| _the_ service to spit hot takes in 140 characters or less.
| Twitter is twitter because of everything twitter did. From the
| initial concept, to the pivoting to whatever the hell "micro-
| blogging" is, to letting people say mostly whatever, to the
| various standards they've implemented over the years. All of
| that makes twitter what it is.
|
| If twitter just becomes "Elon Musk's dream platform where he
| can shit post all day and no one can say shit to him", that's
| entirely something else. Most of the people left on twitter
| would be Musk and people who want to follow him.
|
| Like how the crowd shifted from Slashdot to Digg to reddit.
| From Friendster to MySpace to Facebook. Something will come
| along and supplant twitter.
|
| So, I believe the people who "advocated "it's a private
| company, it can deplatform whoever it wants"" are going to be
| fine with their stance. Because if Musk changes twitter into a
| shithole, no one is going to want to stay regardless.
| weeblewobble wrote:
| Why would you assume that? If Elon buys twitter and starts
| banning everyone with pronouns in their bio I think that would
| be bad and stupid but it wouldn't be a free speech issue.
| People would just go elsewhere. Everything would be fine.
| gwright wrote:
| > it wouldn't be a free speech issue
|
| It really hinges on what you mean by the phrase "free speech"
| when there is no clear context.
|
| It is true that in the context of US lawmaking, the free
| speech rights specified in the 1st Amendment are in play.
|
| But there is the concept of free speech outside that context
| also. For example the editors of a newspaper being inclusive
| of viewpoints in the "Letters to the Editor" section or a
| radio show being inclusive of viewpoints from callers or a
| website operator being inclusive of viewpoints in public
| comment sections.
|
| I think there is value in advocating for inclusiveness in
| those (and other) contexts and labeling that idea "free
| speech" but I don't think it has to be "absolutely no
| moderation or restrictions". There is room for an editorial
| policy in those places and there is room to criticize any
| particular policy that some entity might put in place as not
| being supportive of "free speech" even when there is no 1st
| Amendment context in play.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Re-think? No. Move goalposts to "Twitter has no progressive
| bias" ? Yes.
| bduerst wrote:
| Nah, the people who advocate that private platforms reserve the
| right to censor themselves tend to know what the 1st amendment
| means regarding government censorship.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| I think they were referring to the fact that "it's a private
| company" is usually used in response to any moderation
| complaints or accusation of censorship. Yes, everyone know
| the first amendment only applies government to the government
| but it does not mean a private corporation cannot censor or
| is immune from complaints on it's moderation policy. But now
| that it's been used as a way to deflect criticism or excuse
| any excess on what's deemed acceptable by one side, it will
| be funny to figuratively see the leopoards eating their
| faces. At least I think that's what the parent comment meant.
| bduerst wrote:
| >Yes, everyone know the first amendment only applies
| government to the government but it does not mean a private
| corporation cannot censor or is immune from complaints on
| it's moderation policy.
|
| Not really. There's a certain political party who seems to
| want to redefine private companies as public commons, all
| because they don't like their hate speech being censored.
|
| There's nothing different here wrgt to a private company
| deplatforming whomever they want, because the laws apply to
| government organizations, not private. Eluding that they'll
| change their tune here isn't really that enlightening.
| max599 wrote:
| >Not really. There's a certain political party who seems
| to want to redefine private companies as public commons,
| all because they don't like their hate speech being
| censored.
|
| no, it's because it actually became the new public
| commons. That's where most gets their news, meet people,
| organise events, find jobs, etc. Politicians and
| organisations are now using it as their main mean of
| communication.
|
| How do you think the 2020 election would have gone if
| twitter + facebook + reddit decided after 2016 that most
| anti-trump posts should be removed from the platforms for
| misinformation and instead they promoted anti-Biden
| content? I think they could easily have made him won by a
| landslide
| xanaxagoras wrote:
| The main gripe isn't that hate speech is being censored,
| although personally I don't think it should be. We
| complain about Twitter because anything to the right of
| Stalin is a potential censorship target, depending on
| Twitter's editorial marching orders for the day.
|
| edit: I'm a little disappointed in myself for
| thoughtlessly going along with your framing. There's no
| such thing as "hate speech".
| max599 wrote:
| > 1st amendment means regarding government censorship
|
| that's just a loophole from people who have no argument so
| they go with the [legal in the US = Moral]. Just because the
| modern "public space" is now private, it doesn't make it any
| less bad when the group in charge arbitrairely ban groups of
| people based on politics, opinion, etc.
|
| whether you like it or not (I hate it personally), the vast
| majority of the news and opinions that people consume today
| comes directly or indirectly (eg. linking an NYT article on
| facebook) from a handful of social media companies. It's
| getting even worse now that organisations and politicians are
| using social media platforms as their official channel of
| communications
|
| I think we have a similar problem with email accounts.
| Getting your gmail account banned can really fuck your life
| and sooner or later something will have to be donne to
| protect people (eg. force them to a have a proper appel
| system or to hand over all your data +forward your emails for
| a while after they kick you out).
| aeturnum wrote:
| I think it's interesting to note how differently people see
| this conversation!
|
| > _advocated "it's a private company, it can deplatform whoever
| it wants"_
|
| To me, this compresses several conversations into one:
|
| - In the US, the first amendment applies to the government, not
| to private actors, so companies do not need to allow any
| particular person on their site (with the provision that it's
| illegal to ban people because they are part of a protected
| class).
|
| - The idea of a "public square" is in flux and we are in the
| midst of trying to figure out what areas of our interactions we
| would like to consider public and what the advantages and
| disadvantages each approach are.
|
| - The tactic of urging private companies to ban certain people
| for certain reasons as practiced by many groups (often with
| different justifications).
|
| Different groups have different interests at each level and
| have different preferences as to how policy should change. In
| some sense, your statement of: "I bet some of those who..."
| will always be correct because of course *some of them* will! I
| have a guess about how you feel about the above issues (and
| other involved issues that I didn't break out), but I'd be
| interested to have you expand what you actually mean.
| throwawaymanbot wrote:
| Vladimof wrote:
| How common are bids solicited?
| Vladimof wrote:
| I hope that it succeeds and that the effects trickle down the
| whole industry.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| Twitter has immense influence on the zeitgeist than any other
| single media property. For a person like Musk, $43B is an
| investment that would pay for itself in short order by the
| various kinds of market manipulation he could engage in. He has
| cheated so many times without consequence. Why not take it to the
| next level? Pump and dump, favorable sentiment for his companies,
| signal boosting his pocket politicians, and so on. Truly
| frightening.
| honeybadger1 wrote:
| I appreciate this man.
| nojs wrote:
| Why is the market cap of Twitter so low (not even 10% of fb)?
| Ekaros wrote:
| It is not actually generating much of net income. Or even
| losses money.
| actuator wrote:
| Facebook has two social media applications, one chat product,
| Oculus etc. They are more diversified than Twitter.
|
| Also, the simple reason is profit. Unlike Twitter, FB makes
| very high profits on 25x revenue of Twitter
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Twitters ads never generated as much as facebooks, and FB
| offered as services on 3rd party websites.
| qualudeheart wrote:
| Good old activist investing. Carl Icahn would be proud.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Activist investors almost never buy the entire company
| outright. The objective is to buy enough stock to have
| influence on the board, pressure them to make changes that they
| think would be beneficial and then sell. I think the last time
| twitter was targeted by actual activist investors, they never
| bought more than 5-6% of the stock but that was enough to force
| Dorsey to make changes.
| MrMan wrote:
| one has to wonder why those dumb old economy guys have never
| taken twitter apart and tried to turn it around like Musk
| proposes? they are probably too dumb
| Iolaum wrote:
| what works for Musk does not necessarily work for other
| people too
| MrMan wrote:
| I see his number one publicly visible skill as being a
| great shill and a master marketer. I agree that not
| everyone can do this. but is it possible there are skills
| that people at activist hedge funds have that Musk and
| his team may not have in equal measure?
| Ekaros wrote:
| Yeah, any other person or company unlike Tesla wouldn't
| be able to fuel the levels he does... I really don't
| understand that, but thankfully I don't have enough money
| to bet against him...
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| > they are probably too dumb
|
| On the contrary. They were making investments. This is
| Musk's version of buying a yacht, but one that amplifies
| his persona and increases his wealth. Matt Levine talks
| about this in detail in his most recent Money Stuff piece.
| qualudeheart wrote:
| I think Musk has political goals.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| Has he actually proposed anything that we know of? Other
| than his polls I guess? I saw one for an edit button and
| one to remove the w from the name.
| bfgoodrich wrote:
| rvz wrote:
| Good. Twitter is actually dying [0] (and Musk knows it [1]). For
| its survival it needs to be saved from itself, by taking it
| private.
|
| Well done to Musk for doubling down.
|
| [0]
| https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/11/15/2-comparing-...
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30973239
| fpo wrote:
| I don't understand how [0] suggests Twitter is dying. Is a
| power law distribution of content production on a social
| network that strange? What % of HN comments come from the top N
| accounts? Is Twitter lying about growing user numbers?
| crocwrestler wrote:
| Fantastic. Hopefully it will get rid of the deranged wokies that
| rule our current media landscape.
| gigantecmedia wrote:
| truth! very excited about Twitter's future after hearing about
| this.
| toiletfuneral wrote:
| CyanDeparture wrote:
| I think Elon Musk is a free speech absolutist, so woke people -
| or who are against social injustice and racism - will remain on
| Twitter. (Which I personally think is a good thing.)
| emerged wrote:
| You left out the qualifier "except when the social injustice
| and racism are against whites, males or heterosexuals" which
| is why people don't like woke.
|
| Of course you know that but still typed your post
| disingenuously.
| [deleted]
| weakfish wrote:
| Could you provide a beneficial contribution besides writing
| 'deranged wokies' ?
|
| Comments like this add _nothing_ and just make people angry at
| each other.
| mkl95 wrote:
| > Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk offered to take Twitter Inc.
| private in a deal valued at $43 billion, lambasting company
| management and saying he's the person who can unlock the
| "extraordinary potential" of a communication platform used daily
| by more than 200 million people.
|
| That's intriguing. Twitter's user facing APIs have been pretty
| stale in the last decade or so, in fact it could be said that
| they have regressed. If you regularly use something like Slack
| then it's easy to see how Twitter have wasted 1000s of
| integration opportunities. With the right direction it could
| become an exciting platform again. I don't think Musk intends to
| do anything like that, though.
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