[HN Gopher] Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far
___________________________________________________________________
Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far
Author : jiwidi
Score : 483 points
Date : 2022-10-28 17:50 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| dang wrote:
| All: please don't post low-information, high-indignation
| comments, such as flamebait or ideological battle. We want
| thoughtful, curious conversation on HN.
|
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| the site guidelines and are following them:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
| dustedcodes wrote:
| I am not a huge fan of Elon, but I look forward to him changing
| Twitter. Twitter has an extreme bias and it's moderation is not
| balanced and it's very polarising and having a controversial
| person who can bring the platform back to the centre and more to
| balanced without being afraid from a backlash from some fringe
| extremists is a good thing IMHO.
| [deleted]
| fitzroy wrote:
| I'm still surprised that Google didn't just clone or buy Twitter
| in the 2009 "Fail Whale" era. Seems like they had 95% of the work
| done already: a highly-scalabile real-time infrastructure that
| took Twitter years to catch up to. (Yes, Google+ came later, but
| the UX of the boundaries, of where the network started and
| stopped on the web, felt too amorphous for most people as a
| social media destination)
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Remember when Google tried to make their own video website? It
| flopped hard and some company called "youtube" started doing it
| better, so Google bought them.
|
| When is the last time Google started their own truly successful
| project, rather than buying it?
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| Google+ wasn't their first attempt. That was Google Buzz.
|
| But the issue is: you have to get a critical mass of users.
| Some dedicated groups and then it has to get to a scale which
| is relevant for Google ...
| mFixman wrote:
| Remember Google Buzz? Google tried to copy Twitter and
| automatically added it to the front page of every Gmail
| account, fucked up the launch by having everything be public by
| default, and finally declared it a failed product and abandoned
| it a year later.
|
| In retrospect, the whole thing was a mini-Google+.
| blippage wrote:
| I said that Musk would never own Twitter, and that it seemed like
| a drunken bar bet to me. His later actions seemed to signal that
| he was trying to weasel out of the deal.
|
| I concede that I was wrong. However, it still seems like and act
| of hubris gone wrong to me. The terms of the financing of the
| acquisition look nasty.
| yawnxyz wrote:
| This is probably his Brexit moment...
| scotty79 wrote:
| From what I heard he bought twitter months ago. The drama since
| then was about whether he'll need to be taken to court to pay
| for it and recieve the package.
| bena wrote:
| Oh, it totally is. All the weird performative porcelain stunts
| won't change the fact that he tried like hell to back out.
|
| He just escalated things too far before he realized what he was
| doing.
|
| So now he's acting like everything's all cool now so people
| stop talking about what a colossal clusterfuck this entire
| thing was.
| animitronix wrote:
| All I know is that permanently suspended accounts have not been
| reactivated yet, despite all his blundering about it
| debacle wrote:
| Trump stated he is returning to Twitter on Monday. He must've
| already spoken with Musk.
| danpalmer wrote:
| Kanye has been reinstated. I think he had been banned
| indefinitely. Not sure if that's the same as a "lifetime ban".
| echobear wrote:
| _grabs popcorn_
| cbeach wrote:
| As a developer with a few years of commercial Scala experience
| I've been approached by Twitter in the past.
|
| Working there appealed on many levels. They have a lot of Scala
| talent and a huge influence on world affairs. I turned down the
| interview request though, because I suspected l'd feel
| marginalised working at Twitter. My views do not align with
| leftism/authoritarianism/groupthink/TheCurrentThing, and it's
| clear to me that Twitter leans in those directions. Their
| handling of discussion the Hunter Biden laptop story was sinister
| beyond belief, and for them to leave Taliban accounts up while
| banning the democratically-elected leader of the free world just
| beggars belief.
|
| Knowing Elon Musk is in charge makes Twitter appealing to me now.
| Musk is a visionary. His achievements and capability speak for
| themselves. He is a rocket scientist, electrical engineer,
| mechanical engineer, mathematician and computer scientist. Self
| taught. And he has a sense of humour and doesn't take himself
| seriously. Not many CEOs have these qualities. Not many companies
| have the reputation of SpaceX and Tesla. I'd be proud to work for
| Twitter under Musk.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| the-printer wrote:
| No reason to take my word on this, but I think that this will
| blow up in his face agonizingly in a way similar to
| Zuckerberg/Meta. I think that US-owned social media platforms as
| we them are beginning to flounder into a sort of soft
| irrelevancy. In other words, they are stagnating and their user
| bases will likely plateau in terms of growth and overall culture
| of the platforms.
|
| Culturally Twitter has been dead for almost a decade as far as
| the quality of the posts go and the general "vibe" of the place,
| sort of like Reddit. I really think social media has become low-
| brow entertainment with a little more reading involved than a
| Television. Social media is almost an online iteration of the
| airport bookstore.
| mk89 wrote:
| I have to admit that a few months ago I wrote on HN that Elon
| could do anything he wanted in order to let the price go down.
| And for a while I really believed that he would make it.
|
| Apparently there is still some justice in the world, and he paid
| the initial sum that he proposed, if I understand right.
| thehumblehacker wrote:
| Prediction: Twitter becomes the defacto free speech public
| messaging platform for all world leaders regardless of ideology.
| entropicgravity wrote:
| williamsmj wrote:
| I'm interested to see what happens to the drive to repeal Section
| 230 now. IIUC, a lot of the impetus for that came from the right
| (e.g. the Texas AG), but it provides a liability shield to the
| owner of the platform, which presumably Musk would like to
| retain.
| jwilk wrote:
| Archived copy without GDPR nag screen:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20221028175053/https://techcrunc...
| gjs278 wrote:
| noncoml wrote:
| (Deleted)
| the_optimist wrote:
| There's no foundation for this premise, but sure, "they" found
| their own app. People can make infinity apps. Or maybe show
| that there's more value in the previous censorship and buy it
| back.
| [deleted]
| thehumblehacker wrote:
| Prediction: Twitter becomes the de facto standard free speech
| public messaging for world leaders regardless of ideology
| cbeach wrote:
| I find it really distracting that the mainstream media writes
| about Musk in such derisive style. Do journalists find him
| threatening in some way? Do the leftwing-dominated media resent
| him for supporting Republicans? Do they think we're not smart
| enough to critically appraise Musk ourselves?
| swayvil wrote:
| Derision is the minimum-investment method for participating in
| a conversation. You expend a speck of opinion, you get a speck
| of attention. I guess the numbers work out better than "just
| ignore".
| jcadam wrote:
| > Do journalists find him threatening in some way? Do the
| leftwing-dominated media resent him for supporting Republicans?
| Do they think we're not smart enough to critically appraise
| Musk ourselves?
|
| maybe, yes, most definitely yes.
| cwkoss wrote:
| It is fashionable to dislike Elon, and many people who call
| themselves journalists have been coasting for the past 6 years
| by simply saying whatever is in fashion with little or no
| investigation. Twitter was the primary seat of that power, so
| change of twitter is perceived as a threat to their cultural
| relevance.
|
| There are also a lot of good reasons to dislike Elon. But the
| media groupthink you're identifying lies mostly in this, IMO.
| hartator wrote:
| It can be great for freedom of speech. Hopefully, it won't
| distract Elon too much from SpaceX, Tesla, and other important
| work.
|
| I still don't get how he managed to be CEO of multiple high-
| complexity companies. It's already not easy to be CEO of just
| one.
| [deleted]
| wnevets wrote:
| Will this " freedom of speech" include criticisms of the
| Chinese Government?
| hartator wrote:
| Hopefully yes.
| wnevets wrote:
| Then why is Musk doing work with Chinese censorship
| agencies? Why is his definition of free speech determined
| by authoritarian governments [1]?
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519036983137509376
| ideamotor wrote:
| Depends on what they offer him.
| whateveracct wrote:
| You can already put whatever text you want on the internet
| pretty easily. Twitter is not necessary here.
| als0 wrote:
| > I still don't get how he managed to be CEO of multiple high-
| complexity companies
|
| One can assume he knows how to delegate.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Gwynne Shotwell @ SpaceX is incredible, at minimum.
| kevbin wrote:
| That's a great name for the president/coo of a rocket
| company.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| That, and he still knows how to keep his hand near the
| steering wheel when the Management Autopilot begins to stray.
| Geez now that I think about it, his fascination with FSD
| makes perfect sense.
| Meekro wrote:
| Some people just seem to have more hours in their day. It's
| quite impressive what Musk can do.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| How they do it:
|
| 1) They don't actually spend much time on any one thing per
| week, on average.
|
| 2) Many of the things that count as "work" for them, at their
| level, are more fun--and even recuperatory--than, say,
| wrangling spreadsheets at your desk and attending dull-ass
| compulsory meetings for no reason all day. (put another way:
| when you have enough money, _everything_ you do is kinda an
| optional hobby and not something you have to do even if you
| hate it)
|
| 3) They can pay to not have to worry about 90+% of the non-
| work shit the peons have to. Laundry? Making appointments?
| Arguing with insurance? Making high-quality, tasty meals?
| _Shopping_ for the ingredients for those meals? Driving
| yourself and others places? All strictly optional. That 's
| 10-30 hours of soul-draining bullshit per week just _gone_
| (and you can keep any of the parts that you _don 't_ find
| soul-draining--cook, but never have to shop for ingredients,
| for instance)
| afterburner wrote:
| Telling other people to do things doesn't take that much
| time.
| darzu wrote:
| I beg to differ. Especially if you care about outcomes.
| cheeze wrote:
| I totally disagree. Context switching a million times a day
| is _hard_. I'm sure Elon isn't running every little thing
| day to day in his companies, but it's absolutely impressive
| what he's able to get done.
|
| I don't like the guy, I don't like tsla, etc. But you have
| to appreciate what he's been able to do. He's clearly not a
| dumb guy.
| kevbin wrote:
| I find that is not the case. At least if one cares about
| the outcome. Ever fight feeling that it would be faster to
| just do it one's self?
|
| There's lots of skill involved in finding effective people,
| developing trust, communicating goals clearly, evaluating
| outcomes, adjusting.
| uoaei wrote:
| That skill can also be delegated away, you just need to
| trust the person or team doing the hiring. Delegation is
| one of the most scalable processes precisely because it
| is recursive.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| If it was so easy, most companies would succeed.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| On the contrary - _not_ telling other people to do things
| doesn 't take that much time. Especially with SpaceX, if
| you have a team in place you trust, you don't have to even
| think about telling them what to do. They present a plan
| you can accept or push back on.
|
| It doesn't take much time to be the front-man to several
| organizations. And Musk excels at it. Being the public face
| of an excelling team that you assembled is a rare skillset
| (at the level Musk operates).
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Creating the institution and framework to even put the
| people together in a room is the hard part.
| TrevorJ wrote:
| It's not actually clear to me that free speech (in the
| constitutional sense) is Elon's driving factor here.
|
| His calculus seems to be: 1. People will find a way to say what
| they think online. 2. If everyone splinters into their own
| little self reinforcing bubbles and we can't hear each other,
| that is quite dangerous in the long term.
|
| That is to say, he arrives at a similar position, but it seems
| to be driven more by pragmatism than idealism.
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| I kind of wonder if the performance at Tesla will improve as
| his attention is drawn away.
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| Prediction: Brain drain at Twitter begins as Elon starts enacting
| unpopular policies. Valuation tanks. Morale becomes non-existent
| and Twitter slowly starts to fade from existence while
| competitors begin to fill the void. I give it 3-5 years before
| it's gone full husk.
| weixiyen wrote:
| musk has consistently attracted top tier engineering talent.
|
| the one thing I'm almost certain of is twitter will have better
| margins under musk.
|
| It may not be worth the $44b though, he's starting at a $20b
| defecit.
| freespeechrox wrote:
| I plan on applying to work for Twitter now that it supports
| free speech.
|
| I'd like to think I can provide a net positive to the org with
| 15 years experience as a developer, founder and CTO.
|
| Maybe it'll end up being a net zero brain swap.
| [deleted]
| codegeek wrote:
| This is a honest question. Why do people talk about "free
| speech" because there is no such thing outside of 1st
| Amendment which is to ensure that Govt. cannot do anything to
| an individual. For private businesses, where is this free
| speech coming from ? Twitter banning someone (whether you
| agree or disagree) is not a violation of free speech unless
| the definition has changed.
| freespeechrox wrote:
| Yes, that's fair. I'm using colloquial shorthand on mobile.
|
| What I mean to say is that I support a company freely
| choosing to adopt a content moderation policy that aligns
| as closely as possible to the US 1st Amendment.
|
| I think the US 1st Amendment is among (if not the)
| strongest free speech laws in the world, and it would be
| beneficial to society to have a major social media platform
| adopt that ideal as their North Star.
|
| Right now presents an interesting and rather unique
| opportunity to convert a major social media platform from
| an ad-driven model with shareholders seeking endless growth
| to a sustainable, long-term business model with a revenue
| model that aligns closer to users. And sprinkle on top the
| idea of making the platform more inclusive to diverse
| groups and opinions with less echo-chamber. That interests
| me.
| qu4z-2 wrote:
| Freedom of speech is a principle. The US 1st Amendment is
| one specific implementation of that principle, but
| generally people asking for free speech are making a moral
| argument, not a legal one.
| butner wrote:
| Your account was created to make this comment?
| freespeechrox wrote:
| It sure was. I've been on HN for more than 10 years with my
| real name.
|
| I know it sounds silly that I'd use a throwaway to say I
| want to work for Twitter now.
|
| But if I do end up working there I have a feeling some in
| my network may not be so happy about this. I'd have to come
| to terms with that and plan some things out.
|
| Maybe I'm overreacting, maybe not. But it's on my mind
| these days when I say I support free speech within the
| confines of existing US law.
| norwalkbear wrote:
| Doubtful, a day in the life of Twitter employee went viral.
|
| It was clear she didn't do much of anything. Twitter could
| probably trim all the adult daycare shit.
| spinlock wrote:
| What valuation? Per the article, it's being delisted and taken
| private. Which, may attract talent who wants to build something
| for the long term rather than being pinned to quarterly
| reports.
|
| My money would be on software developers with certain
| personality quirks being drawn to Musk's leadership while those
| who have been building Twitter's compliance and moderation
| infrastructure would be repulsed. But, I don't think we'll
| really ever know because - as a private company - I expect
| Twitter to not disclose that information in the future.
| strangattractor wrote:
| Maybe - they better make sure to negotiate a killer employee
| contract given they won't be getting stock which is fungible.
| BTW - all software developers have certain personality
| quirks:)
| spinlock wrote:
| I have zero information on how X (i.e. Musk's holding
| company for Twitter) is structured but it's possible to
| issue stock in a private company. The difference is that
| you cannot sell that stock on the public markets and need
| to find a buyer through a secondary market. Your
| requirements for selling are also typically more
| restricted.
| strangattractor wrote:
| Restricted in like you cannot do it unless the company
| oks it.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| In this age of remote work if they open positions remotely to
| anyone in the world on SF salaries they will have access to an
| infinite pool of competent engineers, taking into account that
| Twitter isn't rocket science, and also that Elon has his fans.
| Brain drain is not a risk.
| hardtke wrote:
| If this is a normal Silicon Valley deal, until Twitter relists
| or sells the valuation at vest of the already granted RSUs will
| be $54.20. So from an employee perspective the valuation will
| stay high.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| I would be really surprised if this remains privately-held
| for very long. It's a LOT of capital (and a lot of it
| borrowed) so my guess would be that he has an eye on
| Zuckerberging it (issuing himself a class shares with all the
| votes, but marketing another class of shares without them).
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Or Elon fixes San Francisco's "use your platform" "inclusion by
| exclusion" culture as thousands of those kind of people
| disassociate and are replaced with a reversion to the mean of
| people that just want a paycheck
| allie1 wrote:
| Predictions: Few stunts and free advertising for Teslas
|
| Starlink gives free twitter access for everyone in the world,
| without internet access required, basically what FB tried to
| do.
|
| Elon starts loving ads xD
| wombatpm wrote:
| There is no valuation. It's now private. And I doubt an IPO is
| on the horizon. He's going to have to make money the old
| fashioned way
| unsui wrote:
| One can only dream.
|
| For all of Musk's proponents' claims that this is a boon for
| "free speech", such free speech is anathema to corporate
| interests, particularly advertisers and corporate partners (we
| only need to look at the recent Ye + Adidas bustup).
|
| Thus, it will likely devolve into "Free Speech (TM)", the my-
| way-or-the-highway speech policing that we see in places like
| /r/conservative where any criticism of Musk's preferred views
| is silenced. Again, we only need to take his own history
| towards criticism to see what Musk with a bullhorn is likely to
| do.
|
| And, thus, we can only hope that it becomes such a cesspool of
| hatred such as Parler and other so-called liberterian free-
| speech platforms that it becomes toxic for investors and users,
| save for those who relish the echo-chamber.
|
| One can dream.
| christkv wrote:
| I think the best one can hope for is.
|
| An actual stated policy that is followed by the company
| instead of some arbitrary internal morality police like the
| last lot.
| notacoward wrote:
| The brain drain was well under way already. A bunch of people I
| know who used to work at Twitter started looking the moment the
| deal was announced, and have already landed elsewhere.
| hartator wrote:
| With a strong vision for freedom of speech and actual value
| enforcement (edit: of the transparency value, not just start
| censoring the other side), it would attract the right people.
| We can argue the recent dilution of Twitter's values to meddle
| with U.S. politics was the actual brain drain.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I propose a new term for the "Free speech" to say whatever
| hateful, bad-faith, trolling and ignorant thing anyone wants
| to say on someone else's website: "Platform entitlement".
|
| >With a strong vision for platform entitlement and actual
| value enforcement, it would attract the right people. We can
| argue the recent dilution of Twitter's values to meddle with
| U.S. politics was the actual brain drain.
|
| After all, the ideological concept of "free speech" as is
| commonly used in the United States and regarding political
| freedom is the freedom from government persecution to say
| whatever you want. It is being transformed by propagandists
| and those who would see our democracy crumble to mean "being
| allowed to freeload off of dominant viral message boards to
| spread whatever misinformation is deemed beneficial to my
| worldview".
|
| I respect the idea that the Internet is a prerequisite to
| effective political speech in the Western world for audiences
| larger than a small town. I believe that certain layers of
| the World Wide Web, namely DNS/TLS/Network/Hosting do have a
| "common carrier" obligation to some extent which should
| possibly be codified.
|
| I do, however, take issue with the idea that individual
| websites currently have any obligation to be "neutral",
| though I do believe in being transparent in any potential
| bias. I also believe it's misleading to call taking down
| trolls and bad faith bots as "biased".
|
| To be straight to the point, I honestly doubt the motive of
| anyone who actively criticizes about free speech issues on
| twitter, given the kinds of democracy-destroying people who
| have been largely affected by their moderation policies.
| triceratops wrote:
| Never have I ever agreed so much with a comment.
| vehemenz wrote:
| Very well put. It should go both ways, and the perception
| that the platform is fair to each respective stakeholder
| need not be symmetrical. It should be possible that one
| political demographic is "deplatformed" more, based purely
| on their promotion of values that are antisocial and
| immoral in a community setting. Fairness cannot be
| determined on a demographic basis alone.
| hexator wrote:
| Twitter's problems began way before the 2016 election.
| vibrio wrote:
| what is actual value enforcement?
| candiddevmike wrote:
| I don't understand how those two things (freedom and
| enforcement) are compatible with each other.
| [deleted]
| lovich wrote:
| They're not, they come in opposition to each other so the
| more you value one aspect the weaker the other becomes.
|
| I don't know how people who describe themselves as free
| speech absolutists and claim no one will be censored are
| even given the time of day when they simultaneously discuss
| enforcement policies.
|
| We already have and had multiple sites for absolute free
| speech short of actual government intervention on the
| internet. They are either small(the various chans) or go
| out of business(voat and the like) because no advertiser
| wants to associate with the content that is created, and
| free speech absolutists only appear to value free speech as
| long as someone else is covering the costs for propagating
| said speech.
| 5560675260 wrote:
| > people who describe themselves as free speech
| absolutists
|
| Are there actually people like that? Whenever I see this
| phrase it's used to vaguely describe some group that's
| obviously in the wrong.
| lovich wrote:
| Musk specifically has described himself as one several
| times. On a less public note, I run into people online
| describing themselves as such fairly frequently as well
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| I think the Venn Diagram of free speech absolutists and
| competent developers is a lot smaller than Elon and most
| people realize.
|
| Twitter has never been nor propertied itself to be a bastion
| of free speech, so I always find this pearl-clutching at
| "meddling in X" funny. It's a private company, it can do as
| it please.
| tunesmith wrote:
| I think there are hardly any free speech absolutists these
| days. Who's standing up for free speech when it's free
| speech they detest? Instead it's a bunch of people loudly
| defending _their_ free speech.
| dontknowwhyihn wrote:
| "Free speech absolutists" is just a propaganda term for
| "People who say things I don't like."
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| > Twitter has never been nor propertied itself to be a
| bastion of free speech
|
| "We are the free speech wing of the free speech party"[1]
|
| [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/mar/22/twitter-
| tony-w...
| phailhaus wrote:
| Given that it turned out that Twitter was already biased
| _towards_ right-wing sources, I don 't understand how any of
| this will help. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/22/twitte
| r-a...
| NDizzle wrote:
| What? They ban most actual right-wing sources. What's left
| is crap like Fox news.
|
| They can't be biased towards stuff they ban. They are
| biased towards controlled opposition, which makes people
| feel warm and fuzzy. Big difference.
| phailhaus wrote:
| Read the article, can't argue with numbers. Twitter
| biases towards recommending right-wing sources. Your
| personal experience will differ because everyone is
| placed in their own echo chamber.
| NDizzle wrote:
| Sure I can.
|
| All the right-wing sources I followed on twitter were
| banned. Therefore I didn't get ANY content sent to me.
|
| How is that a bias FOR right-wing sources?
| phailhaus wrote:
| This is how, straight from the article:
|
| > According to a 27-page research document, Twitter found
| a "statistically significant difference favouring the
| political right wing" in all the countries except
| Germany. Under the research, a value of 0% meant tweets
| reached the same number of users on the algorithm-
| tailored timeline as on its chronological counterpart,
| whereas a value of 100% meant tweets achieved double the
| reach.
|
| There are crazy left-wing sources that are also banned,
| are you going to use that as "proof" that Twitter is
| biased against the left? You're cherrypicking.
| NDizzle wrote:
| Can you list left wing sources that are banned from
| twitter? I'm struggling here. The KKK, maybe?
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" They ban most actual right-wing sources. What's left
| is crap like Fox news."_
|
| What do you consider an "actual right-wing source" if not
| Fox News?
| NDizzle wrote:
| Alex Jones. Gavin McInnis. James O'Keefe. Breitbart,
| which is banned 2/3rds of the time.
|
| Fox News is for your 65+ year old uncle. It's harmless,
| controlled opposition. Look at the Jan 6th coverage. It
| exists for the left to point at and say, "see, there it
| is! Right wing bias!" - for one example.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| I'm surprised you didn't mention the KKK or Stormfront.
|
| It'll be interesting to see if Twitter gives them a
| megaphone too.
| norwalkbear wrote:
| Get outside your filter bubble
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Right?
|
| If their "reporting" was so egregious that they got
| banned, I'd question how accurate their "news" was.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| If you think the most popular singular news source, with
| all it's own personalities, funding, controlling
| executives, and consistent for decades opinions is
| "controlled opposition", I just don't know what to tell
| you anymore.
|
| Maybe you're just wrong?
| christkv wrote:
| Said Twitter about itself when it was under fire for being
| left leaning lol
| three_seagrass wrote:
| >With a strong vision for freedom of speech and actual value
| enforcement, it would attract the right people.
|
| The social media company called _Gab_ is the antithesis to
| that statement:
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/03/rookie-coding-
| mistak...
| scarface74 wrote:
| There are a few reasons technical people go to work.
|
| 1. Interesting challenges
|
| 2. Exchange labor for money
|
| 3. Good working environment
|
| 4. As a nice to bullet point on their resume
|
| It would be a very naive thing to work for a for profit
| company owned by a billionaire to think that you have any
| other "mission" than to line the pockets of a reluctant
| owner.
| vanviegen wrote:
| No, I don't subscribe to your cynicism. This is actually a
| reason some people choose a certain job:
|
| 5. For the greater good
|
| Whether you think the 'reluctant billionaire owner' is in
| it for the greater good as well is not relevant.
|
| Now, with regard to Twitter, I have little notion of what
| 'for the greater good' means. But I'm sure some people do.
| scarface74 wrote:
| It's not cynical. Do you actually believe any for profit
| company cares about "ideals"?
| wewtyflakes wrote:
| This might fit the bill,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation.
| scarface74 wrote:
| And most people who "believe in their company's mission"
| aren't working for one. Mostly it's naive employees with
| statistically worthless "equity" in a startup who
| believed the founders Ted Talk hype.
|
| Even if the founder sincerely believes that, once he
| takes VC money it doesn't matter what he believes.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| Social media are free because they act as a lubricant for
| commerce, especially e-commerce, via advertising. The whole
| freedom of speech thing, the public square, section 230 they
| are a bunch of distractions.
|
| At the end of the day you gotta do what media entrepreneurs
| have always done: shove stuff down people's throats in
| exchange for money. That's it. There is nothing tough, poetic
| or ideological about it.
|
| Twitter has been trying to monetize its users but they had
| scarce success. That was without an ideologue at the helm. Or
| an ideologue-lite when Dorsey was in charge.
|
| With an ideologue at the helm the bird will fly right into
| the ground. Twitter needed somebody who knows how attract the
| crowd which buys stuff online. Paradoxically Bezos was the
| right fit for the bird app.
| samfisher83 wrote:
| He plans to fire most of them. I don't think he thinks they are
| are that smart.
|
| He could be right or wrong.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Twitter clearly has a problem of technical competence
| somewhere. It may be withing the people he is planning to
| change, or it may be somewhere else and those people are the
| only reason it barely works.
|
| But the one thing that is obvious is that everything there is
| not fine.
| CPLX wrote:
| The valuation tanking will be invisible at least, in this
| scenario.
| memish wrote:
| Prediction: Twitter becomes more efficient, focused and
| profitable than they ever have been. And it will return to the
| platform neutrality and free speech ideals it had prior to
| 2015ish.
| brm wrote:
| Prior to 2015, Twitter was the pre-child view source
| generation tweeting interesting articles and what they ate
| for lunch.
| lupire wrote:
| Kanye bought Parler for under $1B. Why pay $44B to make
| Twitter into a Parler knockoff?
| superfrank wrote:
| > And it will return to the platform neutrality and free
| speech ideals it had prior to 2015ish.
|
| I'm not sure that's possible. Even if you could magically
| roll back Twitter to pre-2015 (staff, code, rules, etc.), the
| world has changed and the average Twitter user has changed.
| duped wrote:
| 4chan has always been around if you want platform neutrality
| and free speech.
|
| The results are unsurprising.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| justapassenger wrote:
| Very simple question - how?
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| What is this pre-2015 neutrality you speak of? Wikipedia
| mentions a 2015 campaign of trying to ban ISIS propaganda
| accounts. Are you talking about that?
| KerrAvon wrote:
| o_1 wrote:
| posting mainstream media commentary on bias isn't going
| to win anyone over.
| [deleted]
| dendrite9 wrote:
| I remember that banning campaign as part of why Telegram
| got popular for ISIS.
| andrew_ wrote:
| I'd say it returns more to Twitter of 2010. It's the 2010 -
| 2013 era that people dig up "now-offensive" tweets from
| most often.
| codetrotter wrote:
| The 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump was formally
| launched on June 16, 2015, at Trump Tower in New York City.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_2016_presidentia
| l...
|
| My guess would be that parent commenter is talking about
| the time before Twitter was fighting back against the "alt
| right".
| [deleted]
| davidw wrote:
| The tricky part about neutrality is that
|
| "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have
| chosen the side of the oppressor"
|
| Of course, it's not always clear what injustice is and
| reasonable people might disagree, but I think there are
| certain minimum standards, like "anti-semitism and blatant
| racism are bad".
| fooker wrote:
| And the tricky part of choosing a side is that you are the
| oppressor according to the other side.
|
| Are you going to be correct all the time? Or even majority
| of the time?
|
| If you believe in your capability to be correct all the
| time, might as well make billions in the market and help
| fight injustice everywhere.
| qu4z-2 wrote:
| No you haven't, that's just what people tell you to try to
| get you to take sides. The oppressor will also happily make
| that argument to you, btw.
| vagabund wrote:
| > there are certain minimum standards
|
| The American constitution has done a uniquely good job of
| enumerating those limits. It seems like a stretch to paint
| a de facto adherence to free speech (as outlined by the law
| of the land in a given jurisdiction) as oppressive, when
| the status quo has been unilateral normative judgements of
| relevant political speech by an unrepresentative cabal of
| employee-activists.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| If twitter held itself to the same standard as the
| government regarding free speech everyone would leave
| within a year. Unmoderated platforms have never been
| successful.
| davidw wrote:
| Twitter != The government.
|
| It's tricky because these platforms are huge, and are a
| public square in many ways. But they are also companies.
| The local newspaper is not required to print some anti-
| semitic screed. A local bar can kick out nazis. People do
| have alternative ways of freely expressing themselves.
|
| Due to the massive size of these platforms, it feels a
| bit different, though in that being removed from one
| could really alter your online presence.
|
| I don't have all the answers. And I suspect that Elon
| Musk does not, either, but we will have to wait and
| see...
| vagabund wrote:
| Sure, I agree Musk underestimates the scope of the
| challenge.
|
| I'm personally of the belief that network effects have
| granted Twitter a relatively unassailable cultural
| position, or at least enough of a moat to greatly reduce
| competitive pressures, and so should be subjected to
| different standards than a local bar or paper -- and if
| the analogy is to a newspaper, then Twitter should be
| treated as a publisher with all the attendant regulatory
| baggage that carries. It's hard for them to argue they
| have a right, as a private company, to shape the
| conversation, and in the same breath claim they're
| shielded from legal responsibility for what takes place
| on their site.
|
| It's definitely a tricky debate, but in my personal value
| stack I place individuals' freedom of speech much higher
| than a private company's right to refuse service, so
| that's where I fall.
| davidw wrote:
| > network effects have granted Twitter a relatively
| unassailable cultural position
|
| Hard to say... there are massive network effects, but
| switching costs are also pretty low. Facebook seemed
| pretty solid not so long ago.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| The American constitution contains like ten words about
| free speech, zero of which provide any explanation for
| what free speech means. Maybe you could say that the
| particular legal interpretation of those words in the US
| has done a good job enumerating the limits of free speech
| - but the text of the constitution sure as hell hasn't.
|
| Legal interpretation of the constitution has also very
| clearly found that a huge collection of actual literal
| Nazis marching around shouting "death to jews" at the top
| of their lungs is a-okay. Excuse me if I'm not _super_
| excited for that to be present on various social media
| platforms.
| vagabund wrote:
| Sorry, I should have been clearer, I thought it'd be
| evident that I meant the legal understanding that emerged
| from the constitution, rather than the text itself.
|
| Of course I despise the vitriol spewed on twitter as much
| as anyone else, but I'd sooner that idiocy be exposed and
| ridiculed than cede control over acceptable speech to
| ideologically motivated moderators in the inevitable
| instances where the ethical lines are blurrier. I realize
| that's a bit of an antiquated view, and the prevalent
| opinion is that these people can't be reasoned with and
| thus shouldn't be platformed, but I truly believe that
| that cynicism is a greater threat to our liberal
| institutions than the odd troll or bigot making racist
| remarks with 25 followers.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| I think it is rather important. Because once you
| recognize that this is the legal understanding rather
| than the text itself a really critical thing emerges.
| Interpretation has _not_ been the same throughout
| history. When was the time when our interpretation of the
| constitution produced optimal social media moderation
| policy? If it is now, what happens when in the future
| interpretation of speech rights changes? Or even right
| now? "Bong hits for Jesus"-kid was punished and that was
| upheld as consistent with the 1st amendment.
|
| > but I'd sooner that idiocy be exposed and ridiculed
| than cede control over acceptable speech to ideologically
| motivated moderators in the inevitable instances where
| the ethical lines are blurrier.
|
| Great. Will you _also_ be willing to be the person who
| experiences a torrent of hate speech directed at them?
| This is not an abstract thing where somebody else can
| "expose and ridicule" proponents of hate. You need to be
| willing to have the Nazis literally protest at your home
| and your job every single day and _not leave_.
|
| > the odd troll or bigot making racist remarks with 25
| followers.
|
| If you think this is an honest portrayal of the state of
| hate on social media when moderation is reduced to
| "everything that isn't illegal" then you are grossly
| mistaken.
| vagabund wrote:
| The fact that legal interpretation has changed over time
| is a feature; the essential point is that it is within
| the democratic institution of the judicial system that
| the debate over acceptable speech should occur.
|
| Yes, I am committed to backing up my philosophical
| attachment to free speech at the expense of personal
| inconvenience. I realize that's an empty statement
| without actually being subjected to that reality, but
| that's the best I can do.
|
| If I'm wrong about the extent to which hate speech
| proliferates in unmoderated spaces (absent the adverse
| selection effect for sites like 4chan), then that's all
| the more reason to address that undercurrent of our
| societies. If anything, I'd argue pushing people off
| platforms where they might encounter dissenting views
| exacerbates radicalization.
| brigandish wrote:
| > Legal interpretation of the constitution has also very
| clearly found that a huge collection of actual literal
| Nazis marching around shouting "death to jews" at the top
| of their lungs is a-okay.
|
| Not okay, but not illegal, and better than the
| alternative i.e. a society without freedom of speech (as
| the Reich was, or Weimar Germany).
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Better than the alternative for limits on the government
| perhaps. Better for moderation on social media? I don't
| really agree.
|
| I do find the continued attempts to paint social media
| kicking transphobes off their platforms as equivalent to
| the actual Nazis hilarious, though.
| jcadam wrote:
| Congress tried passing limits on Free Speech almost
| immediately with the Sedition Act of 1798. It was _very_
| unpopular and eventually allowed to expire.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > The American constitution has done a uniquely good job
| of enumerating those limits.
|
| Assuming you're referring to constitutional law
| jurisprudence here and not the First Amendment's meager
| words here, I don't think I can agree with this
| statement. The short summary of the jurisprudence is that
| the government has no powers of censorship whatsoever,
| and the margins of where speech can become illegal are so
| far away that it's basically impossible to reach them
| (e.g., to reach the bar in Brandenburg, you more or less
| need to be at the head of a literal mob getting ready to
| lynch somebody). Unless you're a student.
|
| As a guideline for moderation, it's absolute shit.
| There's ample evidence that absence of moderation will
| cause forums to degrade into cesspools, and the guideline
| of First Amendment jurisprudence is that the government
| is not permitted to be a moderator.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| You're all arguing about a red herring anyways.
|
| As with many of the things Elon has tweeted or said,
| appearing to value free speech for Twitter was just him
| appealing to conservatives, upset with their perception of
| cancel culture.
|
| Wait to see if Elon actually makes any TOS and policy
| changes in the next month, and debate then.
| memish wrote:
| My entire life free speech was a liberal value and I
| believe it still is. Why are people saying it's
| conservative all of a sudden?
| Jordrok wrote:
| It's not, conservatives just like to believe that they
| are the only ones who value it.
| norwalkbear wrote:
| Because liberals started censoring people.
|
| Conservative and liberals have flip flipped on worker
| rights, corporate power and speech
| three_seagrass wrote:
| Conservatives have shown they have a blind spot for
| perceived persecution, at least from the perspective of
| moderates on the sidelines.
|
| It leaves conservatives open to being conned by
| everything from Chinese electronics manufacturers [1] to
| bankrupt reality TV stars [2]. Misconstruing TOS
| agreement violations as censorship persecution makes it
| easy for billionaires to win conservative admiration
| without actually doing anything.
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/foxconn-sharply-
| scales-back...
|
| [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/08/us/politics/trump-
| save-am...
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Because Trump got banned from twitter
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| The classic definition was basically the freedom to
| criticize your government without repercussions.
|
| Conservatives now define it as the permission to spread
| deliberate misinformation and overt racism and bigotry
| without consequences from either the government OR
| private entities.
| lotqrpa wrote:
| > spread deliberate misinformation and overt racism and
| bigotry
|
| Which, in a world where anything you don't like or agree
| with must be one of those things, is kind of unavodiable.
| t-3 wrote:
| Liberalism is now conservative. Note that conservative
| and progressive as labels apply relative to the status
| quo - what was in your youth is not necessarily any
| longer.
| felixgallo wrote:
| free speech is a liberal value. The conservatives,
| however, have tried to hide behind 'free speech' in order
| to compel speech from private entities, and have tried to
| pretend that they don't have a hammerlock on the
| mainstream media, and have tried to pretend that 'big
| tech' is nebulously conspiring against them whenever it
| enacts basic decency community standards.
| likeclockwork wrote:
| My entire life private property was a right-wing value.
| Why are they against it all of a sudden?
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| The right to own private property is and has always been
| a liberal value.
|
| The (absurd, imho) belief that such a right should
| preclude any sort of government regulation is a liber
| _tarian_ value.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Because liberal used to mean "supporting liberty" (the
| classical definition). But it has come to mean "agreeing
| with a certain set of beliefs and policies", and
| (recently) trying to de-platform anyone who publicly
| disagrees. And, in our bipolar political spectrum, those
| who disagree with the "liberals" are the "conservatives",
| who are therefore the ones the "liberals" are trying to
| de-platform.
|
| So the "conservatives" believe very strongly in free
| speech (at the moment) because it's _their_ speech that
| is currently getting crimped. And, seeing the trends,
| they think it 's likely to get worse in the future. (As,
| say, anything disagreeing with the current "liberal"
| position gets labeled "racist" or "transphobic" or
| something, designed to make it virtuous to censor.)
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Yes, my guess is they piss off the least amount of people
| right now, Musk is likely to make it much worse. Still, I
| might get an edit button so I'll be happy about that!
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| In my experience with Twitter, and most situations, the who
| is the oppressor and who is the oppressed is largely
| subjective. There is very little objectivity. The old
| twitter way was; "any speech that makes me offended or
| uncomfortable is oppressive" ...which would ultimately lead
| to a shadow ban or permanent "suspension" of the account
| labelled as "oppressive."
|
| A great example of this is the thousands, perhaps tens of
| thousands of accounts, which were permanently banned in
| October of 2021. Their own thought crime was posting
| revelations from Ashely Biden's diary and Hunter Biden's
| laptop. The excuse was " Russian disinformation" but news
| of late have proven Twitter's statement as clear
| disinformation in itself.
|
| Musk had already said content that is illegal won't be
| permitted, and troublemakers will be dealt with, and that
| perma-ban will be final course, not the first & only.
| bshereabove78 wrote:
| Neutrality is neutrality. <---- that's a big period. Last
| time I went to Switzerland, didn't look like an oppressive
| place to me. Actually the rest of the world did.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| > minimum standards, like "anti-semitism and blatant racism
| are bad".
|
| Minimum _western_ standards.
|
| Anti-semitism is a "good" if you're a Palestinian.
|
| Racism similarly can be "good" for members of a minority
| fighting for literal survival.
| malfist wrote:
| Removing my comment, it was misunderstood as me supporting
| hate speech, which was not my intention.
| becquerel wrote:
| There's a lot of people on twitter who just want to say
| the n-word, want to say Kanye is right about Jewish
| people, want to say LGBT people are groomers, etc. I
| personally don't see the justice in letting people who
| want to cause material harm to others - people who'd put
| me in a camp if they had their way - like that have a
| platform, no-questions-asked
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Hasn't ISIS been allowed to be on Twitter? Who could
| possibly be worse than ISIS?
|
| My neighbor Sam down the street likes to say the n-word
| sometimes and thinks offering hormones to kids is
| grooming. Still, I don't think all the Sams in the US
| would ever be able to do as much material harm by having
| access to Twitter as ISIS does in one afternoon. Could be
| wrong.
| becquerel wrote:
| I don't think ISIS should be allowed on Twitter either.
| skissane wrote:
| I don't think ISIS is currently on Twitter. They were
| some years back, but was that because Twitter had decided
| to allow them, or was that just tardiness in enforcement?
|
| ISIS is a sanctioned entity. Knowingly allowing them, or
| anyone identified as a member, to post on Twitter, would
| likely be illegal under sanctions laws.
|
| To the extent that Twitter's approach to ISIS is not
| mandated by sanctions laws-I don't see Musk changing
| Twitter's corporate policies on ISIS-he has zero sympathy
| for them and no doubt views them as a threat to
| humanity's future.
|
| Musk is likely good news for Donald Trump, Babylon Bee,
| Jordan Peterson, Libs of TikTok, etc - but no change for
| ISIS.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| You're right. ISIS is off now. I was thinking of the
| Taliban.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| What is your point? I am not sure why I even have to
| mention this, because to me it is apparent, but
| statements and opinions that are already a part of the
| currently shared belief system do not need protections at
| all. It is the all the other stuff that is often ugly,
| which is why it DOES require protection ( precisely
| because people are scared of things that make them
| uncomfortable and will seek to restrict them as much as
| possible ).
|
| <<people who'd put me in a camp if they had their way
|
| Eh. This train is never late. Just wait until you find
| out that eventually all the out groups are thinned out
| and you are identified as the next one in line. That is
| the normal course of things. People are assholes. Freedom
| of speech is a basic safety valve.
|
| I dislike that I even have to explain those. All this
| stuff should be covered in basic social studies.
| becquerel wrote:
| I don't think views deserve protection just by dint of
| existing and being expressed. Someone calling me Jew,
| Jew, Jew isn't a brave or novel thought that lamestrain
| society is too square to stomach, it's just a pretense to
| murder.
|
| If you want to talk about basic social studies, I'd
| suggest the paradox of tolerance.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| It is not about being new or being novel ( edit1: or
| breaking new ground, or waking up squares, being hip or
| any of those labels ). It is about something a lot
| simpler than that and this goes to the crux of the
| matter.
|
| Would you feel comfortable if your opinion that you just
| expressed above was being targeted for no other reason
| that it exists and someone somewhere finds it abhorrent.
| Do you not agree it is a rather bad standard just
| because, well, it is very general and can be applied to
| anything down the line?
|
| Edit2:
|
| Yes, I am invoking the "what if that was done to you".
|
| edit3:
|
| <<I'd suggest the paradox of tolerance.
|
| There is no paradox. What you have is a conflict of
| values. From my perspective, things are either in balance
| or they are not. I personally would postulate that
| "escape from freedom" is a much more applicable here,
| where the pendulum swings from one extreme to the other.
|
| Personally, I do find it mildly amusing that the groups
| that were persecuted not that long ago are embarking on
| their own witch hunts shortly thereafter. It is a
| fascinating insight into the human condition.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| How far are you willing to take the notion of Freedom of
| Speech?
|
| Should I be allowed to hold a rally and say "Someone
| needs to start lynching some $RACIAL_SLURs"?
|
| If you say yes, then...well there's no further discussion
| to have, and you scare me.
|
| If no, then it's clear you and I both agree that there
| SHOULD be SOME limits on speech, we just disagree where
| the line is.
| o_1 wrote:
| "Material harm"? As in physical harm via threats of
| violence or calls to violent behavior? Or emotional and
| damaging harm? I honestly think people should generally
| just be nicer, it's more productive.
| becquerel wrote:
| The things I mentioned are all direct contributors to
| physical violence.
| o_1 wrote:
| Kayne saying "death", but he has since claimed he
| reversed "def" and "death", that tweet is understandably
| considered violence. I don't believe hate is violence. I
| believe this is a common misconception of people who
| haven't experienced actual violence or true personal
| danger. I in no way claim this should be some right of
| passage. Speach isn't deformative or physically damaging.
| The idea speach is a "frontier" or is the "catalyst" is
| misleading. Many organizations have direct calls to
| action for violence and are still posting today.
| wombatpm wrote:
| I think they should be free to say it. I don't think it
| should promoted by twitter. I'd like that tweets by
| people with followers over 1 million be subject to some
| sort of accuracy standards
| arghnoname wrote:
| There's a philosophical thing here and people have
| different views. The ACLU used to defend the right for
| the KKK and neo-nazis to parade around in jewish
| neighborhoods doing holocaust denial, etc, and if I
| remember correctly many of their lawyers doing such work
| were Jewish. The view if those people are idiots, and
| they can say this if they want, and more decent people
| (who outnumber the bigots) will counter the bigoted
| speech with their own.
|
| No one can credibly deny that some speech is harmful.
| We'd all like to suppress some speech that we don't like,
| but the reason free speech advocates take the position
| they take (generally) is that once speech is prohibited
| the status quo regime will ban legitimate criticisms. So
| the good has to be accepted with the bad.
|
| It's a tough issue. If I'm honest I favor censorship of
| views that I believe are harmful, but would object
| strenuously if my point of view is censored. I also think
| being called slurs, etc, is an unpleasant user
| experience, to say the least, so from a business
| perspective if nothing else I get why that is censored.
| Still, the censorship has gone too far in my view. We
| need to figure out a way to circle this square.
| _jal wrote:
| > The ACLU used to defend the right
|
| They still take these cases. (It is a bit complicated,
| individual ACLU chapters have a lot of autonomy, and they
| do not all agree with each other in all ways.)
|
| So I see a substantial difference.
|
| On one hand, you have lawyers from a nonprofit arguing in
| court that, while someone's views may be abhorrent, they
| are legal, and the principle matters more than the harm.
|
| On the other, you have a for-profit entity tilting the
| landscape upon that speech rests, and as the raging
| debates about this stuff have shown, is difficult to
| distinguish profit from other motives.
|
| Running a company with specific ideological priors looks
| a lot different to me than defending assholes for past
| speech on principle.
| becquerel wrote:
| I suppose I have a biased view on this, as a holder of
| some beliefs that already get censored by normal society,
| but I really just see it as the cost of doing business.
| It isn't the end of me as an active agent in society who
| tries to spread my views, in the same way that blocking
| Nick Fuentes would end Nazism; just something you work
| with or around.
|
| Following that logic, I support censoring/deplatforming
| fascists et al. because I want to hurt their ability to
| do fascism, not for some higher principle of striving
| towards a perfect, values-neutral marketplace of ideas.
| Speech is just another front on the plains of power.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| There's quite a difference between Twitter and public
| street demonstration permits. Allowing Nazis to get the
| same opportunity to gather on a public street as any
| other interest group is inherently limited. If they were
| gathering in front of every house of every Jewish person
| in the country 24/7/365, that would no longer be
| protected speech. It would be harassment.
|
| Granting, of course, Twitter goes beyond this. They ban
| all hate speech at all, no matter how limited it is, but
| they're a private platform, which gets to the real heart
| of the issue. Everyone that cares deeply about this who
| is in agreement with Elon's side and isn't just being
| petulant about having personally been banned seems to
| equate Twitter with some kind of true public square or
| some necessary platform that handicaps a political
| movement if it can't access it. I just don't see this.
| The public streets, the government itself, I have no
| choice but to use and participate in. Everyone has to.
| But I have never had a Twitter account, never visit the
| site, and seem to have gotten along fine like that for
| over 40 years. Trump got banned and is still likely to
| win his party's presidential nomination in two years. It
| hasn't materially impacted his ability to get his message
| out and reach followers _at all_. Everything Kanye says
| is still going to be on every headline in every news
| service in the country the same day, and if he releases
| an album, his fans will still know. He doesn 't need
| Twitter. I just don't see how that isn't definitive proof
| that Twitter is not this true common carrier people seem
| to think it is. You don't need access to one specific
| private platform to be heard. They're not like an
| electric utility with a local monopoly that is truly your
| only option to access a critical service. Trump and Kanye
| were both well known with hoards of followers before
| Twitter ever existed, and people would still hang on
| their words if Twitter completely disappeared tomorrow.
| davidw wrote:
| Beyond all that, which is a tough issue, Twitter is also
| a company, and if people are freely throwing around the N
| word and crazy conspiracy garbage, normal people are
| going to leave. Advertisers are going to leave with them.
|
| See this bit of discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33375286
| skissane wrote:
| I guess Musk is going to put less emphasis on outright
| bans, and more on "quarantining". He might not ban an
| account posting racial slurs all day long, but it won't
| be recommended, it won't come up in search unless you set
| some special flag, and non-followers who visit it will
| get some kind of warning interstitial "Many users have
| reported this content as highly offensive, are you sure
| you want to view it?" Ads will only be displayed if the
| advertiser explicitly opts in.
| mjr00 wrote:
| > I personally don't see the justice in letting people
| who want to cause material harm to others - people who'd
| put me in a camp if they had their way - like that have a
| platform
|
| Should Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, and
| Smith & Wesson be allowed to have Twitter accounts with
| hundreds of thousands of followers each?
|
| Honestly, if you want to be really consistent, almost
| every world government should have its officials off
| Twitter. Any US politician who was in power between 2001
| and 2020 did _far_ more "material harm to others"[0]
| than any given teenager who wants to say racial slurs.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(200
| 1%E2%80...
| becquerel wrote:
| Yes, I think all of those entities and people should be
| deplatformed as well. And probably a lot more than
| deplatformed, but that's by the by.
| danans wrote:
| > Should Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, and
| Smith & Wesson be allowed to have Twitter accounts with
| hundreds of thousands of followers each?
|
| > Any US politician who was in power between 2001 and
| 2020 did far more "material harm to others"[0] than any
| given teenager who wants to say racial slurs.
|
| That comparison is invalid because those companies don't
| commit their purported harm on Twitter. Same with
| government officials. Even Kim Jong Un has a Twitter
| account https://twitter.com/official_kju
|
| The "teenager" (or billionaire influencer) dropping
| racial slurs and either targeted or broad threats uses
| social media as the method of the harm they inflict.
| Mainstream social media companies are concerned with
| their platforms being used for harm.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| You're on the right track keep pushing!
| bee_rider wrote:
| In that case, it is impossible for Twitter to achieve
| neutrality (in that they can't control how viewers
| respond to a particular individual's odious tweets). If
| anything removing these sorts of tweets was a nice gift
| to bigots, covering their tracks for them.
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| Lmao, no. Neutrality means that twitter won't delete your
| vile tweet.
|
| I'll absolutely screenshot it and report it to your
| employer, should it be truly heinous behavior that would
| make your coworkers uncomfortable.
| davidw wrote:
| > Neutrality means I get to say what I want and you can't
| get mad at me or get my job to fire me.
|
| Twitter as a company/platform never went after anyone's
| job.
|
| Free speech does not mean that speech is without
| consequences.
| throw10920 wrote:
| "Consequences" are enacted by an authority. The thing
| that happens on Twitter is "mob justice". EDIT: I did not
| read carefully before commenting, this comment is
| irrelevant.
| davidw wrote:
| The 'authority' mentioned was an employer, who is free to
| hire and fire people at will in he US, in many cases.
| Turns out that employing, say, a nazi, is not popular at
| many companies.
|
| This can certainly go to far, but it's kind of up to the
| employer, isn't it.
| throw10920 wrote:
| I misread. You're right, it's fully reasonable for
| companies to remove individuals from employment due to
| their _own_ speech (but nobody else 's).
| phailhaus wrote:
| Twitter is already biased towards right-wing sources, despite
| the right being the loudest at claiming persecution. [1] If
| Twitter actually became more platform neutral, then
| ironically we should see a shift towards the left.
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/22/twitte
| r-a...
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| By one metric, and according to Twitter themselves.
| adrr wrote:
| That's counter to profitability. Advertisers don't want free
| speech. They don't want controversy.
| pastor_bob wrote:
| platform neutrality is antithetical to profitability in the
| social media world.
| Tangurena2 wrote:
| People are already calling the departing employees "crisis
| actors".
|
| https://twitter.com/danahull/status/1586060026866638850
| oaththrowaway wrote:
| Guy said his last name was "Ligma". Pretty sure he's an actor
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Back in college there was a dude in one of my classes with
| the last name "Ligma".
|
| It's a good thing he got through middle school before it
| became a meme.
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| Brain drain? Twitter stock basically hasnt appreciated since
| IPO. They have been treading water for a decade, what brains
| are there providing value?
| transcriptase wrote:
| Whoever decided to kill Vine certainly created a lot of value
| for TikTok, Instagram via Reels, and YouTube via Shorts.
| skohan wrote:
| Vine was just early right? I would assume hosting and
| delivering video was just too expensive at the time.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| That and it's probably very difficult to monetize 6
| second videos.
| theprincess wrote:
| It wasn't that early. YouTube was, and still is, full of
| vine compilations. It really blew up for a while just
| serving 6 second videos at a low/moderate resolution. It
| could have been TikTok easily.
| skohan wrote:
| People make that comparison, but the secret sauce of
| TikTok is letting users score their content with high
| quality copyrighted music.
| theprincess wrote:
| That's a great point tbqh. Had vine lived I'm guessing
| they would have had to play catch up with that feature
| and who knows maybe they would have been too late.
| pastor_bob wrote:
| Perhaps the problem is greater than Twitter since many other
| companies (Snap, Pinterest, Reddit, etc) are in similar
| positions
| FormerBandmate wrote:
| The entire platform essentially died in 2015 and then was
| resurrected by Donald Trump being obsessed with it, which got
| a ton of political and finance people to join. None of their
| recent initiatives have moved the needle. Musk is going to
| lose a lot of money on this deal, but they'd probably be
| better off under him if not for the crushing debt load
| [deleted]
| outside1234 wrote:
| There are still a lot of smart people there that are working
| on hard at scale problems. Just because the stock is stagnant
| doesn't mean there aren't smart people there keeping it
| running.
| linuxftw wrote:
| Hard at scale doesn't necessarily mean useful. Putting lots
| of people on hard projects that don't increase revenue is a
| pointless endeavor.
| [deleted]
| goalieca wrote:
| Metaverse is full of hard questions and big problems, is
| running a 9B deficit, and provides 0 value.
| linuxftw wrote:
| For some reason, people seem to assume that people will
| like virtual reality. It all seems very forced to me,
| much like 3D TVs, and won't live up to the hype.
| Kiro wrote:
| VR is amazing. Metaverse is not.
| luckylion wrote:
| Have you tried it Oculus or similar tech? I found it to
| be a different level than 3D TV and 3D cinema, both of
| which were cool when you first saw them but quickly lost
| their novelty factor. To me, VR hasn't, and the immersive
| experience is still great.
|
| I haven't tried the Metaverse and have no clue whether
| that'll take off, I'm more talking about the general
| technology. I have to admit, I'm still surprised it
| hasn't taken off stronger.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| Have you tried it?
|
| VR mini golf with my friends is the closest thing to
| hanging out in person without actually doing so. It's a
| pretty dramatic difference over a phone call or other
| type of video game together.
| Kiro wrote:
| Unbelievable that you're getting downvoted for saying
| Twitter has smart employees.
| the_only_law wrote:
| Ehh, pretty believable.
| danjoredd wrote:
| Not going to lie, whoever owns it, I have an inner hatred for
| that hell site. The way I see it, it can go two ways...either
| Musk somehow manages to actually make the site tolerable, or it
| dies. Its going to be one or the other...nobody really knows
| which way yet. Either direction is a win in my eyes though. If
| it changes for the better: great! If it dies: even better! More
| social media sites will take its place.
| exclusiv wrote:
| Agreed. Although I do think following just a few hand curated
| accounts has a lot of value as a topical news feed. Or to get
| local news in near real-time. The rest of it is worthless to
| me.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" I have an inner hatred for that hell site"_
|
| What do you hate about it?
|
| I've never used it because it always seemed pretty shallow
| and vapid to me, but I don't have a visceral reaction against
| it. What am I missing?
| danjoredd wrote:
| For one, the lack of any nuance. 240 characters is not
| enough to accurately articulate a persons thoughts, so
| people infer meaning from otherwise harmless statements.
| Places that allow for longer comments, like HackerNews,
| have better discussion because you can post what you
| actually think.
|
| Second, I just don't like the site. You go to the site,
| click on the news ticker for any topic, and you see a
| million of the worst takes ever dreamed up by mankind. The
| format also encourages mob mentality which I find very
| disturbing.
| ihumanable wrote:
| Not the person you asked, I wouldn't say I have a visceral
| hatred for twitter but I do have a strong dislike.
|
| One issue I find just generally with social media is that
| it incentivizes some inherent qualities in people that are
| detrimental to a functioning society. The nature of twitter
| encourages two behaviors that seem antithetical to
| constructive dialog.
|
| Tweets are short. This makes it extremely difficult to have
| nuance in any conversation and makes it really easy for
| people to take a tweet that might be part of a larger
| thread or a series of replies out of context. There are
| lots of examples of a tweet blowing up someone's life and
| then you come to find out that the reality was,
| unsurprisingly, unable to be captured in 140 (or 280)
| characters.
|
| Tweets are algorithmically promoted based on engagement.
| This really isn't just a Twitter thing, most social media
| works this way. The problem comes when you combine this
| with the first issue. "Hot takes" and things that outrage
| are pretty engaging and end up going far on the site.
|
| So you take these two things together and what you end up
| with is a lot of content that takes complex topics and
| turns them into snappy hot takes. People then engage with
| those and our natural tribal tendencies take over and
| people fall into camps of either agreeing or disagreeing
| with the tweet. Now their agreement or disagreement might
| not be total, but in comes the format of twitter, it's hard
| in so few characters to express a nuanced opinion like
| "Well I agree with these parts of the tweet because of XYZ
| but I disagree with ABC and I think it totally misses the
| complexities of JKL."
|
| In my experience a lot of twitter ends up devolving into a
| rabid sort of tribalism. But that's not universal, many
| people carefully curate who they follow and derive a great
| deal of value from the site. I think though when people
| have a strong negative reaction to it, they are probably
| considering what they (and I) perceive to be the majority
| case of people following popular twitter accounts (by
| definition they are popular because they have lots of
| followers) and taking part in the lower quality dialog trap
| I described above.
| kbelder wrote:
| This is my thought. One way or the other, Twitter is going to
| be less of a blight on society a year from now. I consider
| them _far_ worse than Facebook, even though Facebook gets
| more criticism.
| ipqk wrote:
| Gruber has said that 25% of Twitter employees have already left
| in the past year (though the number is unsourced)
|
| https://daringfireball.net/linked/2022/10/21/twitter-musk-wa...
| msoad wrote:
| Tesla and SpaceX have hired a ton of hard-to-hire talent. I
| don't understand why people might want to work for those
| companies because as far as I know the working condition is
| horrible. But again, his companies hire really good people to
| work on their problems.
| Imnimo wrote:
| I think "revolutionize transportation" and "revolutionize
| space flight" are a bigger draw for prospective employees
| than "put Kanye back on Twitter".
| mjr00 wrote:
| From the software engineering side, it's still an
| opportunity to work on one of the highest traffic web sites
| on the internet. There's not a massive number of
| opportunities to do that.
| bee_rider wrote:
| They also made a whole lot of progress on those big
| problems _before_ Musk 's public face-heel turn.
|
| IMO Tesla -- we owe them a bit, for revitalizing electric
| cars. Now that the big brands have come around, I'm not
| sure Tesla has such a huge draw (?). Like if you are an
| engineer, you could work on the same problems at Ford, but
| with fewer CEO antics, your designs will probably be
| implemented with better build quality, and I bet your
| employment would be more stable.
|
| SpaceX is still pretty impressive though.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Everyone is starting from square one with EV, Tesla has
| mineral rights locked up and are ahead by a few years at
| least.
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| They're given the opportunity to work on big, macro problems
| (efficient space travel, energy generation/storage/security,
| climate change, etc). What's not to get?
| TSiege wrote:
| I don't think twitter has the same pull as those companies
| because Tesla and SpaceX are doing something totally
| different and largely unique
| samwillis wrote:
| I doubt that will happen, I'm no Elon fanboy but he is a very
| capable business leader. He has clear plans to increase growth,
| and increase revenue. Both of those require policies that don't
| push either users or advertisers away.
|
| I suspect he will surprise us with some product decisions, but
| I wouldn't bet against him.
|
| I'm sure he will upset some users and some advertisers, but on
| the whole he understands that in order for his investment to
| make a return Twitter needs to be popular.
|
| Elon may be notorious for his big statements, and he has
| certainly made a few around twitter, but I don't believe he is
| doing anything other than investing in a business that he is
| personally interested in. That's his MO, it's about growth not
| ideology.
|
| If you haven't seen them take a look at the released email/text
| exchanges between Elon and the Twitter CEO and board from the
| lawsuit. They offer a good insight into what his thought
| process is.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Maybe he'll double the character limit.
| xwdv wrote:
| You're wrong, as a staunch advocate of free speech on the web
| and as a near victim of cancel culture I would gladly work at
| twitter as long as I were paid more than what I earn now, and
| I'm sure many people would feel the same. Twitter was already a
| crappy place to work before Elon with all its woke politics,
| now though it may become more tolerable.
| rideontime wrote:
| "as long as I were paid more than what I earn now" is such a
| funny term to include. There's a lot of places I'd consider
| working if they offered me a raise!
| scarface74 wrote:
| Since I go to work exclusively to exchange labor for money,
| if, most other things being equal, I can find a job that
| allows me to exchange more money for the same amount of
| labor, who wouldn't I be looking for another job anyway?
|
| Working for Twitter in 2022 sounds about as exciting as
| working for Yahoo as it was going through the same type of
| turmoil.
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| Wow cancel culture almost got you huh? How did the doctors
| save you?
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| Well this is his profile
|
| >Ethically challenged software engineer working for a major
| tech company you know. Used to have close to 1000 karma,
| got destroyed over time by hackernews cancel culture and a
| change in downvote algorithms. But now that the algorithm
| has been changed back to classic style, I'm rising up
| again.
|
| The doctors are indeed worried about his karma count. It's
| dropped a lot because he is ethically challenged. But it's
| sounds like the doctors are working hard to bring that
| karma count back up.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| I like how the bar for "cancel culture" is so low that
| getting downvotes on hackernews counts. The horror.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Wew lad.
|
| Referring to yourself as "ethically challenged"?
| Complaining about cancel culture?
|
| That profile just reeks of "WHY CAN'T I SAY THE N-WORD!?"
| TSiege wrote:
| The people I know working there don't say anything like that
| scarface74 wrote:
| That's very anecdotal. You're not going to get the best
| engineers who could get a job anywhere giving up much better
| compensation because of "idealism"
| twelve40 wrote:
| Wikipedia (a feature-rich site) is operated by 500 people.
|
| Twitter, with roughly the same measly feature set it had 15
| years ago, is operated by 7500 people.
|
| Maybe some "brain drain" would not be a bad thing?
| metadat wrote:
| They aren't comparable in any meaningful way. They have quite
| different classes of problems, not to mention the scale of
| Twitter completely dwarfs that of Wikipedia.
| twelve40 wrote:
| >the scale of Twitter completely dwarfs that of Wikipedia
|
| In what terms? Can you share some numbers maybe?
| [deleted]
| jayflux wrote:
| Brain drains usually happen due to low or uncompetitive pay,
| not because of corporate ideology. Otherwise Facebook/Meta
| would have had a brain drain years ago.
| mypalmike wrote:
| It's a bit of both I imagine. And without stock-based
| compensation, Twitter is likely to become much less
| competitive in terms of pay than its peers.
| metadat wrote:
| The bulk of the best brains left FB 4-6+ years ago after the
| 2016 political shenanigans. It's a mercenary shop now, except
| for junior NCG hires.
| spinlock wrote:
| I know one insider at Meta that I could ask about this. I
| suspect they can't really retain talent like they used to.
|
| The only other anecdote I have is an acquaintance who was
| early (i.e. the first web-dev) at YouTube. He _hated_ working
| for Google and left as soon as his shares vested. That was my
| first experience with someone simply rejecting a fat paycheck
| because _Google_ was to buttoned down for them.
|
| People are strange (and software engineers are a whole
| different level of people).
| saghm wrote:
| > He _hated_ working for Google and left as soon as his
| shares vested. That was my first experience with someone
| simply rejecting a fat paycheck because _Google_ was to
| buttoned down for them.
|
| It's easier to reject a fat paycheck after your shares
| vest, I imagine.
| spinlock wrote:
| Yup. He's now a "gentleman" blueberry farmer.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I think I will disagree here. Admittedly, I base this on
| anecdata only, but among my work colleagues, political
| affinity got weirdly important. To me it is odd, because I
| genuinely doubt that outside outliers like Ben and Jerry,
| companies care about anything other than their specific
| bottom line ( and policies supporting it ).
|
| Still, no real data to back that claim up though.
| luckylion wrote:
| The companies might not care, but the perception of working
| for them might matter. I wonder if your colleagues would
| care if nobody knew who they worked for, when it's "do I
| want to work for this company", not "do I want my neighbors
| to know that I work for this company".
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| Working under Zuck I would imagine is much different than
| working under Elon.
| twblalock wrote:
| The brain drain started months ago.
| dezeiner wrote:
| There are many people who support Elon and the policies he
| intends to enact. And if you don't believe that's the case,
| then I'd encourage you to have more conversations with people
| who don't align with your views. I'm fairly confident he'll
| have no shortage of talent willing to help implement his
| vision.
| rini17 wrote:
| But nobody knows what policies he intends to enact. In fact,
| he immediately decided to offload all moderation decisions to
| some "council".
|
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586059953311137792
|
| Or if I'm wrong and there is clear vision which these people
| support, can you please elaborate?
| linuxftw wrote:
| They don't need to worry about valuation, they're just going to
| cut costs and extract revenue.
|
| Politicians and sports media aren't going to abandon twitter
| any time soon, so I expect revenue will hold for quite some
| time.
|
| It seems that many people abandoned FB already. If those same
| people abandon twitter, where will they go? I personally don't
| use twitter because I don't want to see updates from random
| people on the internet, but is there a replacement for that?
| I'm not sure.
| davidw wrote:
| I think the thing to watch will be ads and other revenue streams.
| Most companies aren't going to want their ads next to 'free for
| all' content, so we'll see what happens.
| paganel wrote:
| They'll go where the eyeballs are, this is capitalism, in the
| end. If Twitter manages to attract more eyeballs, the
| advertisers will come.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| At least to advertisers, eyeballs are not all divided
| equally.
| paganel wrote:
| I guess we'll have to wait and see. The signals coming from
| the "liberal" side are certainly tipping the balance on the
| "non-liberals" being the more level-headed ones, at least
| that's what the recent nonsense written by The Verge editor
| [1] makes me believe.
|
| [1] https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/28/23428132/elon-musk-
| twitt...
| topynate wrote:
| The 'brand safety' _super omnia_ argument isn 't nearly as
| straightforward as it's made out to be. Twitter already has an
| enormous amount of content that is perfectly within the terms
| of service, yet that you wouldn't think most companies would
| want their ads next to. Hardcore pornography, for example. It
| more or less works out, because Twitter ads aren't associated
| with particular tweets in the same way that YouTube ads are
| associated with particular videos.
|
| The argument only goes through when you look at the platform
| reputation as a whole. That's why platforms like Parler have
| trouble attracting ads. There are a lot - a lot - of people
| trying to hit Twitter's platform reputation right now, but
| their problem is that the best place to degrade companies' (and
| people's) reputations is Twitter.
| bobiny wrote:
| I hope ads will die some day. To me they are just annoying and
| very rarely informative.
| SamBam wrote:
| Clearly they generate revenue, though.
|
| What's your proposal for how Twitter makes money? Just
| double-down on the harvesting of personal information
| instead?
| davidw wrote:
| Where's the funding come from, then? That was not a cheap
| purchase.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| In unrelated news:
|
| https://twitter.com/ProfessorShaw/status/158606494297257574
| 6
|
| Also, I assume the point is a presidential run within the
| next cycle or three.
| ldh0011 wrote:
| That tweet doesn't seem to exist when I click the link.
| Unless I'm missing some context if you're saying Elon
| will run for president I don't think that can happen
| because he was born in South Africa.
| SamBam wrote:
| Most people have concluded that the "natural born" clause
| doesn't mean "born in," otherwise Ted Cruz would never
| have bothered to run. Of course, it hasn't been tested by
| the Supreme Court yet.
|
| His issue is that he wasn't born a US citizen, not that
| he was born in South Africa.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| The tweet has been deleted - do you have the content?
| lupire wrote:
| Deleted tweet.
|
| Elon Musk is not eligible to be President.
| bena wrote:
| Which is probably why they deleted the tweet. They were
| probably getting ratio'ed to hell. So they decided to
| delete their shame rather than take their lumps.
| marssaxman wrote:
| What does "getting ratio'ed to hell" mean?
| remarkEon wrote:
| Replies >>> likes + retweets
|
| Implying that people are dunking on you for being wrong
| instead of amplifying what you said.
| [deleted]
| wombatpm wrote:
| How about charging anyone with more than X followers? Or
| pay to be verified? or pay for support? Supported bot
| accounts or corporate accounts? There are many options they
| could pursue. Twitter was not helped having Jack as a part-
| time CEO for all of those years.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > How about charging anyone with more than X followers?
|
| Excellent idea, let's deplatform people by creating lots
| of bot accounts to follow them so that they have to pay
| for it!
| bobiny wrote:
| I wasn't talking about Twitter specifically. Ads are a
| dominating revenue model: Youtube, Instagram, Facebook etc.
| I had an idea of people using crypto payments instead of
| likes. A platform would take a cut.
| WJW wrote:
| I'd expect like counts to fall precipitously if you had
| to pay for every single one.
| usefulcat wrote:
| OTOH a like would mean a lot more because it would mean
| someone literally put their money where their mouth is.
| bobiny wrote:
| Yes. I feel that "liking" is a consumerist approach to
| conversation. Buy/no buy, swipe left/right. It's more
| nuanced in real world. We don't always agree or disagree
| with people, sometimes we just listen and exchange words.
| So yeah, there would be less "likes", but they would be
| more substantial.
| freejazz wrote:
| Or maybe they wouldn't because it's just twitter and why
| would anyone pay to "like" something? seems more like the
| crypto fantasy for a world where everything is a
| financial transaction. I don't think its a realistic
| assessment of how people actually value money and speech.
| LegitShady wrote:
| you can see with youtube premium that the value of
| individual ad views is basically nothing, and getting
| users to pay a reasonable monthly fee ends up being much
| more profitable. nobody will do the 'pay per video' thing
| because its not as profitable as just getting a monthly
| sub.
| bobiny wrote:
| I wouldn't pay for each video I watch now, but I could
| probably watch less. It's like eating junk food now: you
| can eat nonstop but it doesn't nourish.
| treeman79 wrote:
| So PBS?
|
| Or government funded/controlled socials.
| bobiny wrote:
| Maybe something funded by public, yes.
|
| I think there is a need for smaller existing community-
| based social networks. They can be paid for by certain
| people or crowdfunded once in a while like Wikipedia.
| amazing_rae_123 wrote:
| > Most companies aren't going to want their ads next to 'free
| for all' content, so we'll see what happens.
|
| This is a misconception.
|
| Outsiders don't know anything about ads.
|
| Twitter needs to be more useful, especially to iOS users. It
| users outside of major US metros. It needs older users.
|
| It will need better targeting and science.
|
| Then it will increase ad revenue.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| Older users have Facebook, and Facebook is withering.
| strangattractor wrote:
| That kind of info will be difficult to get - he is taking the
| company private - no need to make all those bothersome public
| disclosures.
| chasd00 wrote:
| he should make the platform $5/month to post and free to read.
| That would likely increase the quality of content and provide
| another source of revenue.
| lake_vincent wrote:
| Well, speaking in those terms, I think _the_ thing to watch
| will in fact be censorship. Elon is extremely idealistic, so it
| will be fascinating to watch him melt down when confronted with
| the reality of how complex free speech and censorship issues
| really are. I predict that he will succeed in turning Twitter
| into the rightwing safehaven that "Truth" Social, Parlor, etc
| have all been trying to become.
|
| He's making a deal with the devil to fund Twitter, and if that
| means selling out to guys like Peter Thiel and other
| conservative power brokers, then he will do it. Just in time
| for the 2024 presidential election media cycle too...What could
| possibly go wrong?
| KerrAvon wrote:
| lake_vincent wrote:
| Not saying it's _necessarily_ a bad thing. It is that
| idealistic thinking that got us SpaceX and all that, so
| clearly the visionary aspect of his thinking is great, but
| it _is_ a double edged sword. He thinks free speech is a
| problem he can solve solve, but I am saying that the road
| to hell is paved with good intentions. He is smart, but
| clumsy, and I seriously question his motives.
| lupire wrote:
| No one said his ideals are good, and his father's mine and
| government subsidies are completely unrelated to whether he
| had ideals. Maybe his ideals are for government investment.
| mikkergp wrote:
| > I predict that he will succeed in turning Twitter into the
| rightwing safehaven that "Truth" Social, Parlor, etc have all
| been trying to become.
|
| I actually don't think so, I think this was bluster, or if
| they are safe haven it will be safe in the way that a
| subreddit is safe. You can freely talk amongst eachother but
| that content won't be promoted to people who don't want to
| see it.
|
| I mean this was his latest tweet: https://twitter.com/elonmus
| k/status/1586059953311137792?cxt=...
|
| My prediction is he ends up growing twitter into a fairly
| bland chat/communications app/social network, and the focus
| on global political and social debates slowly weans over
| time.
| LegitShady wrote:
| personally I think he's going to try to grow it, but if
| he's smart a competitor to youtube along with the social
| media portion would be a huge move that twitter is actually
| positioned well to pivot to.
| w0m wrote:
| > This Tweet is unavailable. Learn more
|
| Can't help but smile.
| concinds wrote:
| Twitter's had a few technical issues today (huh.) and
| I've had the same with other tweets. If you reload you
| should see it.
| function_seven wrote:
| Shows up for me.
|
| Here's the text of it in case others can't see it:
|
| > _Twitter will be forming a content moderation council
| with widely diverse viewpoints._
|
| > _No major content decisions or account reinstatements
| will happen before that council convenes._
| mikkergp wrote:
| Did you block him? I still see the tweet. Maybe he got
| selectively shadowbanned :-)
| BashiBazouk wrote:
| And what if China requests a tweet removed or user banned and
| puts a Tesla factory or those sweet tax cuts on the line?
| concinds wrote:
| The simple (and inevitable) solution is for some accounts
| or tweets to be withheld in certain countries. No company
| can avoid complying with the law; but they can't be forced
| to take down a tweet worldwide either.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > No company can avoid complying with the law; but they
| can't be forced to take down a tweet worldwide either.
|
| Sure they can. "You take down tweets we don't like, or
| Tesla loses China as a market, we arrest all the
| employees currently in China, and take your factories and
| other assets there".
|
| Can he say "fine"? Sure, technically.
| lake_vincent wrote:
| Oh that's what I mean - he will enforce his _own_
| definition of free speech and censorship. It will be usual
| "Rules for thee but not for me" kinda thing. It will be a
| constantly shitfing goalpost, and he will always have some
| bullshit justification for why whatever he decides is
| correct. It won't be free speech, it will be Elon speech.
| He is a petulant child with too much money, and not enough
| humility. His sink stunt tells you everything you need to
| know - this is all about Elon. God help us all.
| umeshunni wrote:
| "Rules for thee but not for me"
|
| I mean, that's no different from Twitter and other
| platforms currently operate in terms of how they define
| hate speech or who they cancel.
| dpkirchner wrote:
| > that's no different from Twitter and other platforms
|
| Exactly -- and I think that's the source of most folks'
| pre-schadenfreude. A lot of us have been around long
| enough to have seen "free speech" platforms come and go
| and this feels no different, so far.
| davidw wrote:
| It's not easy is it?
|
| I think the point is that while right now, 'unfair'
| things might happen, perhaps they will become even more
| uneven in the future, as he exerts more personal sway
| into what's ok and what's not, rather than attempting to
| stick to some guidelines.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Idealistic?
|
| Elon Musk has been talking about how awesome Gigafactory
| Shanghai is for the past year, thanks to Chinese workers who
| don't talk back to their boss and work harder than their
| American counterparts.
|
| Dude loves his Chinese anti-speech factory. Or at least, he
| already is pretending to do that so that he gets his Chinese
| sales numbers up.
|
| Musk makes the public statements he needs to do business. He
| has no morals outside of money as far as I can tell. Dude is
| 100% willing to spout off anti-American propaganda /
| stereotypes to serve his Chinese masters (at least, this year
| when his Chinese factory is opening up. We will see if he
| really believes those words or if he's just playing dumb or
| something...)
|
| EDIT:
|
| > I think there will be some very strong companies coming out
| of China. There's just a lot of super talented and
| hardworking people in China that strongly believe in
| manufacturing. And they won't just be burning the midnight
| oil. They'll be burning the 3am oil. So they won't even leave
| the factory type of thing. Whereas in America, people are
| trying to avoid going to work at all.
| yeahunlessnow wrote:
| Companies will want their content next to specific content
| which they will pick when placing bids based on a reputation
| value which will be computed by a secret algorithm. Whoever has
| a better reputation will attract more ads and get more cuts
| from the money twitter collects.
|
| Like, I want to show my gun ads next to Trump's posts and want
| to show abortion clinics next to Biden's. Nothing wrong with
| this. Want to show public works ads next to Bernie's ads.
|
| Then when you want to post wild things, anonymous mode will
| kick in and those posts will not be posted in an identifying
| fashion. They will be posted in an area that cannot lead to the
| post owner being "accurately" identified. That way nobody knows
| who posted it. That should reduce some legal issues. If the
| poster decides to post it as the owner and successfully gets
| past the Nazi filter, their reputation will be affected
| depending on the public reception of their post.
|
| Just like in real life. You stay away from people who you don't
| like.
| mooreds wrote:
| I agree. I think he understands that, as indicated by
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1585619322239561728 That
| doesn't sound like someone burning Twitter to the ground.
|
| Also, many are acting like Musk has free rein in running the
| company. Yes and no.
|
| Beyond needing employees to actually run the thing, he also has
| loans to pay back ($13B!) and investors to maintain good
| relationships with. More on that here:
| https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/who-is-financing-elon-mus...
| Kye wrote:
| Firing the person who fought against government censorship
| and worked to establish a balanced content policy for almost
| a quarter billion people across the planet is not a great
| move if he wants anyone to believe that. The only people who
| even know who she is either know the good work she does or
| had it out for her over the reluctant and long-delayed ban of
| Trump. She just kind of quietly kept Twitter from turning
| into a complete snake pit while making sure the maximum
| number of people could speak. Evidence that keeping your head
| down and doing good work isn't enough if the people who
| decide these things don't know about it.
| brigandish wrote:
| I would've thought a lot of people know her from Joe
| Rogan's podcast and especially the sections where Tim Pool
| challenged her.
| Kye wrote:
| The weird thing is, I didn't think Tim Pool was
| _completely_ wrong. I, too, prefer having removed speech
| available but contextualized. There have been times where
| I wanted to answer a "prove it!" but couldn't find the
| video/tweet/whatever because it was completely removed
| with no explanation.
|
| I also understood Vijaya Gadde and pre-Musk Twitter's
| position better even if I still think their systems end
| up hitting marginalized people more than the people who
| want to marginalize them. The task is harder than Musk
| realizes, and he fired the person who's been working
| hardest on it for most of the last decade and understands
| the problem space best.
| biorach wrote:
| nope... not a clue
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Can you include this one person's name in your comment or
| reply so that people like me who are unfamiliar can
| evaluate such a glowing endorsement of "her" "good work."
|
| I know this sounds like a cynical question, but without a
| name your comment seems a little bit fanatical.
| Kye wrote:
| Line one in the linked article.
|
| I am not going to hold your hand on entry-level facts of
| the discussion, like who Twitter's general counsel has
| been for most of a decade, or what a general counsel
| does.
| mikestew wrote:
| No, it's not. It took more characters to type your
| inaccurate comment than it would have to just type the
| damned name.
| merely-unlikely wrote:
| Vijaya Gadde I assume.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/technology/golden-
| parachutes-3-fired...
| sosodev wrote:
| I'm very skeptical of the idea that Twitter can become a
| place where people discuss things with civility. It seems
| like the mechanics of the conversation encourage outrage.
| rajin444 wrote:
| Civil discussion requires high trust societies. Our elites
| have been doing everything possible to destroy that
| recently.
| freejazz wrote:
| Amusing that you don't see this as tautological
| naasking wrote:
| It depends on incentives. Right now histrionics and outrage
| get boosted and sober, nuanced analysis goes nowhere.
| Invert that boosting algorithm and maybe Twitter can become
| useful. I'm not sure what would mean for revenue though.
| mooreds wrote:
| > I'm not sure what would mean for revenue though.
|
| I think if you have a place with useful conversation and
| also the attention of people, you can make money.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| On top of that, historically internet forums have required
| fairly strict moderation to remain civil for any
| significant amount of time. Without that, one quickly ends
| up with an incredibly unpleasant space that repels more
| people than it attracts.
| davidw wrote:
| Elon should make @dang CEO of twitter!
| usefulcat wrote:
| Please no, he'd be very missed here :)
| biorach wrote:
| dang has suffered enough
| [deleted]
| skohan wrote:
| If that were really their goal, theoretically they _could_
| be. For instance, this forum has features, like invisible
| vote counts, and exponential cool-down periods which
| encourage healthy conversations.
|
| Whether that is compatible with their business goals is
| another question.
| jupp0r wrote:
| This forum also has an educated crowd of nerds at the
| heart of its community. Twitter used to have that too and
| was a much more civil but also less interesting space
| when I joined in 2008.
| davidw wrote:
| HN is civil because of moderation, not because of the
| community.
| gopher_space wrote:
| The moderation on HN helps retain civil community members
| as well. I've been thinking about moderation as a
| chicken-or-egg situation but maybe it's more of an
| equilibrium issue. I should go over my old slashdot
| comments and see if I remember what pushed me out.
| cmh89 wrote:
| Are you the davidw from reddit? Do you ever go on
| /r/portland? It's moderated to the max yet its still
| neither civil or engaging. Moderation matters but I think
| HN does a lot better due to the features that promote
| well thought out posts and don't really allow trolls to
| get much traction.
| cauthon wrote:
| The mechanics of most social media platforms encourage
| outrage.
|
| 1. Most are optimizing to maximize user engagement, and it
| seems like most platforms have concluded that emotionally
| charged hot takes are the best way to keep the feed
| scrolling and the likes and shares flowing.
|
| 2. Most don't have the small communities or active
| moderation necessary to build a culture of civility. (HN is
| an outlier, though even here I think there are still some
| topics where the site becomes echo chamber-y.)
| sakras wrote:
| I think the fundamental limitation is that a small
| character limit removes the opportunity for nuance. It is a
| trade off though - not many people will spend time reading
| nuanced essays. I'd say this is a big part of the
| polarization - there's only enough room to basically say
| left or right and maybe indicate some magnitude to your
| belief, so you naturally end up with two parties.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| I agree, but these mechanics are not a law of nature, and
| can be changed.
|
| Whether Musk will actually do that: dunno. But I don't
| think it's inconceivable that Twitter could become
| something much better than it is today.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I think the tweet format is directly opposed to having
| thoughtful, or even civil, discourse. It's hard to
| express anything complicated in 280 character, and if you
| want to have a discussion you need that time to express
| yourself. Without the short tweet format, what is
| twitter?
| cmh89 wrote:
| Civil discussion requires decorum and rules, and Musk and
| other conservatives view those as "censorship".
|
| It's the same reason none of the reddit clones have ever
| taken off, turns out most people don't want to participate
| in a virtual space free of censorship because it just turns
| into a cesspool
| concinds wrote:
| I'm stereotyping Musk here, but it wouldn't surprise me if
| he decided to solve it with AI (sentiment analysis
| specifically) so the algorithm promotes positive tweets and
| downranks negative ones. Might even work, since the field
| has made huge progress in recent years.
| sangnoir wrote:
| AI moderation has spectacular faulure modes (as banned
| Twitter users know). Imagine a tweet like "The thought of
| $NAME being unalived brings a smile to my face" would be
| enough to get through the positivity filter[1].
|
| The word "unalive" itself was coined and became popular
| to escape such basic filters that have no sense of
| meaning.
|
| 1. I just tried the following on the first online
| sentiment analysis tool I found, and scored 85% positive:
| _You sound very 'smart'. I have warm and fuzzy feelings
| at the thought of you being unalived, with your genius _
| giantrobot wrote:
| That breaks down with coded language. If groups use code
| words or emojis they can change their coding faster than
| sentiment analysis models can be updated. Even if those
| models can be updated quickly the coding by users can be
| changed arbitrarily. They can also trivially add trivial
| positive text alongside the codes to get amplified.
|
| Just as an example take the insipid "let's go Brandon"
| slogan. Sentiment analysis would rate that as a positive
| statement unless it was specifically flagged. That's a
| trivial example. There's untold numbers of covert
| meanings for emojis, even for banal things.
| jcadam wrote:
| > so the algorithm promotes positive tweets and downranks
| negative ones
|
| Will have to prefix tweets with _I positively hate..._
| merely-unlikely wrote:
| There doesn't need to be one algorithm. Bring your own
| algorithm would be pretty cool.
| moonchrome wrote:
| > promotes positive tweets and downranks negative ones.
|
| Isn't this Instagram thing - my impression at least -
| have not used longer than a day or two because it's
| basically fluff only.
|
| Cutting out negative sentiment - whatever the definition
| - would make it boring IMO
| skohan wrote:
| It's a good sentiment, but he kind of _has_ to say that
| right? He just spent $44B taking this company private, if
| advertisers flee and it starts running at a substantial loss,
| it could mean financial ruin for him
| linkjuice4all wrote:
| I would think that advertisers would eventually notice
| anyway. If lead quality decreases due to poor ad targeting
| or high-value users leaving the platform then they'll start
| pulling their advertising dollars back.
|
| I have to wonder if there was already some pushback from
| larger advertisers that prompted Elon's tweet in the first
| place. Time will tell but we've already got 4chan and some
| users and advertisers would rather go to a "mall-like"
| experience to not have to deal with the "crap".
| kenhwang wrote:
| Advertising is an old boy's club. They spend money based
| on personal relationships, brand image, reputation,
| reliability, and trust.
|
| The actual quality of the advertising product almost
| doesn't matter, it's not like any of the advertisers can
| reasonably independently validate the claims or
| performance, they're trusting them as given.
|
| Elon has never been a member of the advertising club, he
| famously chooses to have his company refuse to even be a
| client, and he doesn't have a reputation for any of those
| values. Wouldn't at all be surprised if major clients put
| a hold on their Q4 spend with Twitter the moment they got
| news of the completed acquisition.
|
| Google, Facebook, and Snap all had major advertising
| earning misses, the agencies would be pressuring for
| better deals regardless.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| He only has $24 billion at risk. I mean, he has a lot of
| his reputation invested, but only $24 billion in actual
| dollars. The rest is from other investors and debt that the
| Twitter company itself (and not Musk) actually has.
| mooreds wrote:
| Sure, I agree, he has to say that right now. But I think he
| has to follow through and keep the advertisers happy.
|
| This isn't Bezos buying the Post outright and running it as
| a vanity project, Musk has stakeholders.
|
| What you predict (financial ruin) will probably happen if
| he doesn't do that.
| cutenewt wrote:
| The investors can't really do anything -- the board has been
| dissolved.
| mooreds wrote:
| My limited experience is that people with money can still
| influence companies, even if there aren't formal paths.
| Share owners still have influence.
|
| And people who lend money typically have contracts and the
| ability to seize assets if they don't get paid. (I have no
| idea what the $13B of loans looked like, but can't imagine
| they were personal, non-recourse loans.)
| HWR_14 wrote:
| The old shareholders cannot do anything. His new investors
| are like a dozen on billionaires who own pretty big pieces.
| djbebs wrote:
| They don't have an equity stake in the company
| amalcon wrote:
| They are creditors, though. The terms of the loans are
| not public, but _usually_ being a creditor provides more
| leverage than a minority equity stake.
| davidw wrote:
| I think you're broadly correct. I'm curious to see where it
| all ends up. Content moderation is not fun or easy, and I
| could see him getting thoroughly sick of all of it.
| neves wrote:
| But we can see Twitter being supported by extreme right
| foundations.
|
| I'm from Brazil and the extreme right is abusing all the
| communication platforms. it's a complete madness in what people
| believe right now. Our society is on the verge of crumbling.
| OrangeMonkey wrote:
| Twitter hasn't been burdened by "extreme right" "abusing all
| communication platforms."
|
| If it was, then we would have seen a left exodus years ago
| and not suddenly coming up now. This comment has me so
| confused.
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| There is simply not many places to go. You can't really
| keep running t from madness all the time since with social
| media platforms the destination must be at least somewhat
| inhabited, and also the exodus must be coordinated. It's
| more like moderate left left left, the extreme right were
| expelled, and extreme left stayed out of grit and also
| because Twitter was sort of left to them .
| freejazz wrote:
| Probably because you seemed to have partisan worms in your
| brain. Twitter HAS been burdened by the "extreme right"
| abusing its platform. Its the entirety of the debate around
| what should be moderated on twitter. Insisting that this
| can't be true because "the left" hasn't had an exodus
| doesn't seem to make sense to me.
| konfusinomicon wrote:
| the same could said about the far left in America. well i
| guess it could be said about the far right too. its up to the
| folks in the middle, the progreservatives (or consegressives
| depending on how you look at it), to end the madness but most
| of us are too busy living our own lives to care about how
| crazy the fringes of society are beyond the entertainment
| value of it all.
| shaoonb wrote:
| I'd be interested to see some examples of the far left
| trying to influence communication platforms.
| konfusinomicon wrote:
| isn't it the far left that's all up in arms about musk
| buying Twitter in the first place? to me the average left
| leaning person could give two shits about who owns
| Twitter, yet a ton of Twitter employees vowed to quit if
| the deal went through. subjective as it is, those of
| which I'd consider far left.
| freejazz wrote:
| So the far left wants to control twitter because there
| are people that want to leave twitter if musk runs it,
| and these people must be from the far left because...
| vanshg wrote:
| Could this be the largest purchase ever made by a singular
| individual?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I think that depends on some definitions. There have been much
| larger purchases in the past that largely boiled down to one
| individual. And what about Berkshire Hathaway? That's sort of
| just another name for Warren Buffett. Certainly some large
| acquisitions there.
| vanshg wrote:
| I'm coming from the POV that a financial decision boiling
| down to one individual on behalf of some company is different
| than a purchase made by an individual
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Potentially of intellectual interest: I said this on another
| Elon-Twitter post, but a common quote by supporters of moderation
| about censorship of potentially harmful content is that SCOTUS
| quote, "you can't yell fire in a crowded theater."
|
| It's actually a legal myth. The decision it was mentioned in was
| overturned in 1969. Equally "as false as saying robbing a bank is
| legal." And it was never the law of the land, just an allegory.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33377347
| srj wrote:
| Based on an interview I saw I suspect Musk will strive to make
| Twitter a platform for user-to-user messaging and payment
| services. Community moderation without banning might be possible
| by establishing "spheres" akin to reddit boards so things people
| see is to some degree curated.
| dragontamer wrote:
| You mean a crappier version of Discord?
| mlindner wrote:
| I feel like this techcrunch article itself violates hacker news
| policies because it has numerous personal attacks and deriding
| commentary throughout the article. Including calling the purchase
| of twitter a "toy".
|
| More so calling it "crowning himself CEO" as if that wouldn't be
| automatically required if you layoff the existing CEO. A
| temporary CEO would be required until a new CEO is found.
|
| I think it's also important to consider the idiom "A lie can
| travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its
| boots on"
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| > _I feel like this techcrunch article itself violates hacker
| news policies because it has numerous personal attacks and
| deriding commentary throughout the article. Including calling
| the purchase of twitter a "toy"._
|
| HN is little different from big tech ideologically, and your
| comment is already fading out of existence. I expect it will be
| completely censored soon.
| regularjack wrote:
| This site has a downvote button and an upvote button. The
| fact that people use that feature of the site (downvote),
| means the site is working as intended. It is not censorship.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| "It's not censorship if we use a bunch of ideologically
| identical people to do it rather than one."
| freejazz wrote:
| "If we use" doing a lot of work here
| redog wrote:
| I deactiveated my hardly used account at twitter and am
| considering joining the autonomy as automaton!
| MarkMc wrote:
| Whenever I go on vacation overseas Twitter shows me ads in a
| language I cannot understand. This is one of many clearly-
| identifiable problems that are not rocket science to fix. And
| Elon Musk has a reputation for fixing problems.
|
| When Twitter shares are publicly traded again in a few years,
| Musk's purchase price of $44 billion will look like a bargain.
|
| My prediction: In 5 years Twitter's market cap will exceed $150
| billion.
| smt88 wrote:
| > _Elon has a reputation for fixing problems._
|
| Based on Tesla, he not only isn't good at fixing problems, he
| actively pushes forward broken products and processes to save
| his stock price.
| trap_goes_hot wrote:
| Can you be more specific? There are plenty of satisfied
| customers.
| GaylordTuring wrote:
| Yeah, I experience the same thing on YouTube. It's
| entertaining, so I'm not really complaining, but it's of course
| wasted money for an advertiser to try to sell me a subscription
| to a local streaming service or buy shampoo that I've never
| heard of.
|
| It shouldn't be that hard to realize I'm only visiting a place
| and that they should keep serving me whatever ads I would see
| at home (or maybe tourist related stuff).
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| I have what is probably an unpopular opinion. I would like to see
| two things happen:
|
| 1. more people use and support by generating content platforms
| like Mastodon where there is some expectation of privacy and
| openness. I like Mastodon.
|
| 2. I also like Twitter, and I would like to see it a more self
| regulated platform, with some form of effective real ID, probably
| charging $1 to $2 dollars a month for its use. This might reduce
| the number of bots, or not. I am also in favor of allowing people
| I very much disagree with to be on the platform, with some form
| of no hate speech moderation. EDIT: and no doxing, etc.
| cowtools wrote:
| There needs to be some form of sybil resistance, perhaps
| allowing unlimited post size, but charging 1 cent per
| character. Spam needs to be expensive.
|
| The users should be allowed to decide for themselves what they
| see. My perspective is that hate speech is basically an
| identical problem to spam. If you can solve spam, you solve
| hate speech and self-advertisements and whole other classes of
| problem.
|
| Also, it's a social media platform. You basically dox yourself.
| The current service requires you to give them your phone number
| and encourages you to use your real name and location on your
| profile. It doesn't get much worse than that.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| I like your idea of charging 1 or 2 cents per character.
|
| I forgot that Twitter already requires a phone number for
| registration. My phone number is not public, but I definitely
| use my real name, put my location, and try to send people to
| my web site by posting that link.
| [deleted]
| jwmoz wrote:
| Does nobody remember akismet?
| Covzire wrote:
| Musk just tweeted this 5 mins ago:
|
| "Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely
| diverse viewpoints.
|
| No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen
| before that council convenes."
| [deleted]
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Ironic considering Babylon Bee was just unbanned even though
| they violated TOS.
|
| Also ironic that his goal was to promote free speech and
| painted moderation as evil.
|
| ---
|
| It is beyond me that I am downvoted for pointing the irony of
| the situation.
|
| So many proponents of free speech have so few regards to give
| for TOS and have the audacity to demand service without abiding
| to it. It seems that HN is no longer a bastion of honest
| discussion and has been overrun by certain individuals.
| the_optimist wrote:
| "Major"
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| 1.5M followers. Doesn't sound like a small fry to me.
| dpkirchner wrote:
| Major, in this context, is a weasel word. It lets them off
| the hook for nearly any unbanning.
| the_optimist wrote:
| Is it really valuable to prevent certain people from
| posting letters on certain internet sites? What does the
| industry around this look like?
| uoaei wrote:
| I'm sure you can find plenty of answers if you do some
| research.
| the_optimist wrote:
| I'm not so sure. It's something like Christians vs
| Transvestites, then you ban one of the groups and that's
| valuable because otherwise the other one will attack
| Pepsi?
| dpkirchner wrote:
| It's certainly valuable to Twitter's largest customers.
| Think GM, Coca-Cola, et al. I suspect the industry won't
| look much different after Twitter has gone private and
| "new" policies have taken hold.
| vxNsr wrote:
| It likely just means trump and that gay conservative guy
| who would say things for the shock value. The Bee is
| satirical site and banning them for anything makes as
| much sense as banning the onion.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| If the onion starts spouting off un-funny, non-satire,
| completely standard talking points and trying to hide
| behind "satire" when it isn't, I would absolutely want
| them banned too.
| vxNsr wrote:
| I'm not gonna get into the weeds with you about what is
| and isn't funny. But I think you prove why Musk is facing
| an uphill battle, the issue with twitter isn't
| technological or better moderation.
|
| It's cultural, we have many people (like you) who believe
| they're the arbitrators of truth. They alone understand
| and know what is fact and what is fiction, even if that
| fact is a moving target that changes by the hour, the
| hypocrisy of that is totally lost on these folks (ie
| you).
|
| Additionally, the fact-setters refuse to even entertain
| the idea that maybe their "facts" are not based on
| reality, and they label anyone who disagrees with them as
| evil. And everyone agrees that evil must be culled. They
| will often use extreme epithets (nazi, bigot, hitler,
| white supremacist) to get their point across, no matter
| how inappropriate, contradictory, or ahistorical that
| insult might be in context.
|
| Until people can step out of their bubble and be willing
| to admit that the world is a million shades of grey we're
| not gonna solve this problem.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| We can call people who exhibit many of Umberto Eco's
| characteristics of fascism as fascists when they act in
| such a manner.
|
| Why should people tolerate the intolerant? Why should
| people tolerate those who can't even follow basic TOS and
| behave as adults?
|
| Why should the world tolerate people like that ex
| president who mocked a reporter with disabilities, who
| said he grabs women by their genitals, who has received
| multiple accusations of sexual assault, has been on
| Eipstein's island and likely touched little girls?
|
| Why should reasonable people be tolerant to dysfunctional
| adults who support such a president and share his dog-
| whistle soundbites? Why should the world tolerate people
| who are actively calling for their murder? Why should
| reasonable people give space to people like Pence who
| want to shove their Christianity down the throat of
| everyone else?
|
| I will exercise my free speech and call fascists the
| fascists they are until they stop behaving like fascists.
| The intolerant deserve no tolerance.
| vxNsr wrote:
| this is such an odd way to confirm everything I'm saying
| but I'll take it.
| conradfr wrote:
| Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think they were banned, they have
| refused to delete a specific tweet to gain the ability to
| post again.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| Or The Bee went through the little Maoist Struggle Session
| that Twitter built to get themselves unbanned.
|
| For those that aren't aware they were suspended but could get
| unsuspended by _deleting their own tweet_ which includes an
| explicit admission that they 're evil no good sinners as part
| of the process.
|
| Which The Bee rightfully chose not to do at the time and let
| it lie for months.
| petilon wrote:
| That's a very different position than the one he stated before,
| i.e., everything that is not illegal will be allowed.
| aero-glide2 wrote:
| He never said that. He said 80% of the political spectrum in
| the middle would be allowed.
| absrd wrote:
| I think he's actually said both of these things.
| petilon wrote:
| > _He never said that_
|
| Get it from the horse's mouth:
|
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519036983137509376?lan
| g...
| remram wrote:
| This is the official story now:
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1585619322239561728
|
| > Dear Twitter Advertisers (...)
|
| > Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape,
| where anything can be said with no consequences! In addition
| to adhering to the laws of the land, our platform must be
| warm and welcoming to all, where you can choose your desired
| experience according to your preferences
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| Tik Tok Conversations coming soon ...
| nmilo wrote:
| > Musk hasn't said all that much since the takeover on Twitter,
| but he has replied to a couple of users who have complained about
| platform censorship in the past. One is a user called "catturd2"
| who claims he's shadowbanned and who tweets COVID misinformation
| among other things. The other is Canada Proud, a right-wing
| propagandist group that also spreads COVID misinfo and focuses on
| attacking Canadian PM Justin Trudeau.
|
| What a nasty comment from an otherwise fine article. A reply is
| not an endorsement, and not even linking the tweets in question
| really lets the author hide the evidence and twist the paragraph
| into whatever he wants it to mean. Besides, it's not like Justin
| Trudeau is lacking on things to attack him for.
| freejazz wrote:
| What about it is nasty? It doesn't say he endorsed those
| posters, it literally just says he interacted with him. I think
| the point is that he is interacting with these kinds of posters
| instead of, like doing something useful or relevant, or like
| anything else at all? I can see why you'd think it'd be nasty
| if you have an incredibly partisan view that has to sort
| everything into either being for or against something.
| goatcode wrote:
| >I bet he wasn't feeling too great about that bit of litigation
| the deal closing helped him escape.
|
| >Maybe one of the cronies who were cozying up to him
|
| >freedom isn't free.
|
| There are a few nasties in the article. This nerd writer got so
| angry his writing even got pretty sloppy in his section (3).
|
| Seething is in fashion!
| markdown wrote:
| I don't think it's a secret that Musk has been cosying up to
| the Trump right for a while now.
|
| It's only a nasty comment if you find those individuals
| deplorable, and Musk clearly doesn't.
| reocha wrote:
| https://joinmastodon.org/
| JasserInicide wrote:
| Ah yes, the solution to the social media echo chamber is to
| join an even worse echo chamber!
| [deleted]
| thethethethe wrote:
| If I was working at Twitter right now I would be looking for a
| different job, regardless of what I think of Elon's
| politics/motives. The talk of layoffs and major policy changes
| creates massive uncertainty and I don't think I'd risk sticking
| out the transition. I bet many inside the company feel the same.
|
| This begs the question:
|
| If there is a major exodus, will it even matter? And, if it does,
| how will the problems manifest? Reduced reliability? Slower
| feature velocity? Less innovation?
| AlbertCory wrote:
| As I indicated in my post
| https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/should-elon-lay-off-
| all-...:
|
| Twitter spends more on R&D as a percentage of sales than 5
| other large tech companies, even Facebook, and moreover, the
| percentage is _increasing_. Where is this "innovation"?
|
| It's not a new platform. Its market is, arguably, saturated; I
| don't see a "next billion users" (as they say at Google) coming
| from anywhere.
|
| So the answer to "If there is a major exodus, will it even
| matter?" is pretty clear: No, as long as it's not the
| operations people.
| avrionov wrote:
| Thank you for the post. Twitter is also the youngest company
| on your list. The percent spent on R&D goes done when the
| company get older.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| .. and yet, the percent is going up, not down.
|
| secondly, you are incorrect about it being "young."
|
| It was founded March 21, 2006, making it 16 years old. For
| a web company, that's an eternity.
| avrionov wrote:
| Younger than the other companies on your list. Microsoft
| is 47 years old.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| .. and Facebook is only a couple years older. And their
| numbers are not monotonically increasing.
|
| Can you find some companies _you_ think are comparable?
| avrionov wrote:
| Palantir 19 years old - 2021 R&D expenses were 25%, 2020
| - 50% https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/PLTR/income-
| statement
|
| RingCentral - 23 years old - R&D Expenses increasing for
| the last 3 or 4 years
| https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/RNG/income-statement
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I can't look at seekingalpha without being logged in,
| which I refuse to do for publicly available information.
|
| Anyway: Palantir is developing lots of new products,
| being in the security area, I imagine, while I don't know
| what RingCentral is doing.
|
| In any case, getting aggregate info or industry info,
| seems inordinately difficult without having a paywall in
| the way. That's why I went straight to SEC filings, which
| are public. And that brings me to:
|
| * So you found a couple other big spenders and you want
| to single out those as your comparables. I'll be more
| impressed when you define a _class_ of tech companies
| that you think are comparable. We can argue about whether
| they are, but in any case: where does TWTR rank in that
| class?
|
| And then the subjective question: what have they
| delivered to shareholders for all that spending?
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| Some of that might be differences in business areas. Have you
| had to do paperwork for R&D tax deductions? It's pretty
| flexible. Like "did you do a design doc for a new thing?"
| "Did you have to solve a problem for which the answer wasn't
| obvious ahead of time?" So a lot of "normal engineer"
| activities are R&D. So maybe they have too many engineers, or
| maybe they have less non-engineers and just not a lot of
| revenue due to their niche market coverage. Aka I'm not sure
| R&D equals innovation equals revenue.
| adrr wrote:
| Most software development is in that r&d figure.
| version_five wrote:
| No doubt some people have / will leave. I think there is a very
| interesting opportunity too - even if it's just to see what
| happens from the inside, but more actively to try and be part
| of a different vision for the company. It seems in one sense
| like being acquired, which can suck but can also be
| interesting. And in another sense (possibly) the opposite of
| being acquired, optimistically going from corporate bureaucracy
| and overhead and lots of rules and politics to something leaner
| and more interesting. In any case, it would be cool to see it
| from the inside
| sangnoir wrote:
| For nostalgia's sake, I hope the code responsible for rendering
| the fail-whale[0] wasn't deleted in the past few years[1].
| Seeing it again will be like seeing an old friend.
|
| 0. http://www.yiyinglu.com/?portfolio=lifting-a-dreamer-aka-
| twi...
|
| 1. If it was, may an outgoing Twitter engineer please add it
| back as a last commit. I'll buy you a beer.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| _Slower feature velocity? Less innovation?_
|
| Based on a few articles I've read, it appears he may be
| bringing developers from Tesla into Twitter but I have not seen
| anything from him directly stating that. I doubt they will hit
| the ground running but with time can probably dig into the code
| and processes.
|
| Sadly I've been in an industry that was focused on taking over
| after entire IT/engineering/development teams were let go. As
| rough as it is for the people let go, it is equally
| demoralizing to pick up the pieces from people either being let
| go or that were let go. It can be done accepting it will be
| rough around the edges at first. During the dot-com bust I was
| one of the people that had to sit with the soon to be let go
| team members and document their job and automate as much of it
| as I could. That's all I did for a couple of years.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > it appears he may be bringing developers from Tesla into
| Twitter
|
| Two different calibre of engineers, doubt this will work out
| very well.
| kridsdale2 wrote:
| In UI, there's a lot of overlap. A lot of Apple people went
| to Tesla to build their touchscreen. Those people are
| qualified to work on the Twitter app itself.
| kybernetyk wrote:
| yeah, one group are real engineers. the other ones turn sql
| queries into html to make people click on ads.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Taking your comment in good faith: A lot more engineering
| goes into "make people click on ads" than you seem to be
| realizing. And like or not but monetization is at the
| core of Twitter's business.
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| aside from the snarkiness:
|
| OP seems to assume anyone who works for Tesla _must_ be
| inferior to anyone from Twitter.
|
| Dubious.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| If you meant my comment, I have nothing but respect for
| all engineers and developers. What I meant by not hitting
| the ground running is that Tesla engineers and developers
| would not have any of the tribal knowledge from within
| Twitter and if they were already let go it may be
| incredibly difficult for any person to reverse engineer
| things.
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| As whimsicalism makes clear: that's not what he meant. He
| really did mean that the median quality of Twitter
| engineer would be higher than Tesla's.
|
| And he said "caliber" not "amount of experience."
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I'm talking in aggregates, of course I don't assume that
| because it would be totally illogical.
|
| I'll be explicit in my assumption. If it were actually
| possible to rank engineers in some measure of
| productivity/effectiveness, the median at Twitter would
| be more product/effective than the median at Tesla. This
| gap would widen if we are talking about
| productivity/effectiveness at tasks necessary for
| Twitter's business.
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| Utter nonsense and snobbery.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Yeah, can't ever compare two groups of people, it's
| snobbery.
|
| The median MIT student is of the same caliber as the
| median University of Miami student, and suggesting
| otherwise is snobbery.
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| I've met lots of MIT and Stanford students (can't say the
| same for Miami).
|
| I've also met lots of Big Ten students, and UT Austin /
| Duke / Utah / U. Washington /SUNY students. We can
| compare one to the other in terms of analyzing & fixing
| software and I'll take that bet anytime.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| If Musk is actually using Tesla devs at Twitter he better
| have a rock solid contract for service between the two
| companies. Otherwise he opens himself up to a shareholder
| lawsuit for misuse of Tesla corporate resources.
| kjksf wrote:
| A civil lawsuit is always about money.
|
| To win money in a lawsuit you need to show damages.
|
| As a shareholder, the damages would be drop in stock price.
|
| Good luck convincing all 12 jurors that Tesla's stock price
| dropped because a few Tesla engineers did a code review of
| Twitter code.
|
| Especially given that Tesla stock tends to go up, not down
| (recent beatings due to macro nonwithstanding).
| tpxl wrote:
| U wot. If Tesla engineers do work for free for a company
| owned by one of the shareholders, there's clear damage
| there in the form of misallocation of resources.
| Keyframe wrote:
| Who said for free? Twitter pays Tesla which renders that
| service. That's as clean as it can be.
| thebradbain wrote:
| I mean, if you're a huge fan of him you'd probably stay.
|
| If you're not, you'd probably stay for the severance package,
| and do absolutely no work in the meantime. No company or
| recruiter will be holding the fact you were fired against you
| if/when you're swept away in the layoffs.
|
| If you genuinely like your job there and don't feel strongly
| about Musk either way, that's probably the toughest situation,
| and you should come to terms with the fact that even if you
| keep your job at Twitter it will likely feel like an entirely
| different workplace in a couple months.
| papito wrote:
| I think one can acknowledge Musk's entrepreneurship, ability
| to hire top talent, and risk-taking while at the same time
| pointing out his immaturity and petulance.
| ajross wrote:
| Generally severance is structured such that it's voluntary,
| and comes earlier than layoffs. You don't get a big package
| if you wait for a layoff to be fired. That produces a moral
| hazard that encourages exactly the kind of fraud you're
| suggesting.
|
| (And yes, what you're suggesting is straight up fraud.)
| iancmceachern wrote:
| I dont agree that it's fraud.
| beezle wrote:
| So everyone who is canned will get a severance package? Not
| sure where this expectation comes from. Does everyone get an
| employment contract with a golden parachute these days?
|
| If the layoffs are large all he need do is give 60 days
| notice to those being terminated.
| thebradbain wrote:
| Well, California mandates at least 3 months *pay for
| salaried employees in many layoff scenarios. There's some
| further complexities, but I imagine most employees at
| Twitter in SF qualify.
|
| *technically, notice. But companies can opt to pay 3 months
| pay in lieu of the notice, if they want to cut ties
| immediately.
| LocalPCGuy wrote:
| In many cases a severance package is attached to an NDA and
| non-disparagement agreement, or whatever else an employer
| may want to protect against ex-employees doing. In exchange
| for signing, the employee gets X weeks/months pay, or a
| bonus of $X, etc.
| austhrow743 wrote:
| For many jobs, notice periods end up being given as
| severance packages. They keep paying you but don't want you
| to show up.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| I don't know about being a fan of the guy, he's pretty
| erratic, he's also done some cool stuff. But even if I was a
| huge fan of the guy, no way would I ever work for him.
| LastTrain wrote:
| I'm sort of a fan but I still think I'd be leaving - he has
| shown open disdain for the status quo there, including the
| rank and file.
| cowtools wrote:
| If their status quo is reflective of their product, then it
| is a heaping pile of shit
| treeman79 wrote:
| More profit. It's a message board.
| robbyking wrote:
| That was my first thought, too. On the other hand, if you're a
| local engineer who feels stuck in their current position it
| could be a good opportunity to fill the void.
| capableweb wrote:
| > Reduced reliability? Slower feature velocity? Less
| innovation?
|
| Slower feature velocity usually means _higher_ reliability as
| changes to systems are usually what causes big systems to fail
| or enter degraded performance modes.
|
| If Musk ramps up development and forces out more features
| faster, that'd lead to lower reliability most commonly.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Haven't you ever worked at a company where the only thing
| that keeps the product going is ongoing heroic intervention
| by people with deep subject matter expertise; even in the
| absence of any actual feature-driven change?
| ishjoh wrote:
| This comment makes me sad because I left a place like this
| but I know good people who stayed behind even though it
| ruins their health and relationships.
| meowtimemania wrote:
| I'm currently at a company like this and have been in the
| past. What should companies do to avoid this type of
| situation?
| jcadam wrote:
| > Haven't you ever worked at a company where the only thing
| that keeps the product going is ongoing heroic intervention
| by people with deep subject matter expertise; even in the
| absence of any actual feature-driven change?
|
| Often coupled with a mindless executive team that has no
| idea that's the case, and eventually lays off the SMEs
| because they're "too expensive."
| narrator wrote:
| If your politics don't conflict with Elon's irreconcilably, and
| you don't get fired, I'd think it'd probably be a better
| situation than before. Elon is not a bad chief executive and
| has run several highly successful tech companies that have
| performed far better than Twitter.
| kybernetyk wrote:
| tbh you don't require 7k employees to run something like
| twitter. there's a lot of dead ballast there and as a private
| company you can't allow for that.
| cmdli wrote:
| Something like Twitter perhaps, but Twitter itself? I
| wouldn't be surprised if those engineers created enough
| servers that need to be maintained and require the manpower.
| Cutting engineers without cutting servers/code would be a
| nightmare.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| >And, if it does, how will the problems manifest? Reduced
| reliability? Slower feature velocity? Less innovation?
|
| I got a good laugh out of that. Twitter is easily the worst
| operating social platform I've used. Still, it will be
| interesting to observe if there is a slow and steady
| degradation of their software stack. Everything in the world
| degrades naturally and needs to be maintained to fight against
| entropy.
|
| Elon himself once said: "The organizational problems of a
| company manifest themselves in the product". Knowing that it
| will be interesting to witness what "organizational problems"
| we can derive from the product as Elon takes over.
| [deleted]
| phpisthebest wrote:
| >>If there is a major exodus
|
| I think that is the goal of the announcements, it is always
| better for everyone if there are voluntary separations instead
| of layoff's and/or terminations.
| [deleted]
| bogomipz wrote:
| >"If I was working at Twitter right now I would be looking for
| a different job, regardless of what I think of Elon's
| politics/motives."
|
| Imagine already being a bit nervous about your future and then
| seeing that one of the first priorities of the new CEO was to
| show up to the office and parade around the lobby with a
| porcelain sink in his arms?
| booleandilemma wrote:
| If I worked at Twitter and I knew that I was actively
| contributing to the bottom line then I wouldn't be worried.
|
| If my job was approving the work of the guy who approves the
| work of the guy who writes emails for a living, then I'd be
| looking elsewhere.
|
| I think that's who Musk is going to be targeting with the
| layoffs.
|
| These people know who they are.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| Based on everything I read so far the plan seems to be to make
| Twitter a much smaller company by headcount so they could
| sustain themselves primarily through their users rather than
| advertisers.
|
| My guess is Elon is restructuring the company so it's not
| beholden to advertisers. He knows that Twitter is going to
| always be inherently controversial and he wants to structure
| their revenue so they aren't always having to react to every
| new controversy. All the social media giants seem to be very
| reactionary to any controversy, and I think that's because any
| time a new controversy comes up they are scrambling to make
| sure they don't loose their advertisers. If your revenue is
| coming from the users who know what they are signing up for,
| you can weather those controversies much better without having
| to take any reactionary measures.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| If they don't have advertisers how are they going to make
| money?
| govg wrote:
| Paid features, possibly. There is Twitter Blue, although
| I'm very unclear on how widespread it is, how much money it
| makes (if any), and what the extra features are (other than
| edit?).
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| I thought one of the leaks someone mentioned charging a
| subscription for blue badges? Might be misremembering.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Elon has already started groveling to advertisers:
|
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1585619322239561728
| wrycoder wrote:
| That is not groveling. It's an excellent message to his
| advertisers.
| aksss wrote:
| These are times of tremendously unnatural opportunity for
| people who stick with it. If you doubt your objective value or
| just don't like high-stress environments, then yes, start
| looking elsewhere now.
| jupp0r wrote:
| Can you elaborate what you mean by "unnatural opportunity"?
| The way Musk has treated employees so far seems to indicate
| that he doesn't really care about them.
| scythe wrote:
| If your boss loses his/her job, that's a promotion
| opportunity.
| jupp0r wrote:
| Only if the position is still there.
| kenhwang wrote:
| Musk immediately created a huge power vacuum within Twitter.
| There's absolutely going to be senior staff trying to climb
| into executive roles with golden parachutes.
| cutenewt wrote:
| +1. So much opportunity for battlefield promotions right now.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| This comment sounds like it was written by Elon himself.
| deeblering4 wrote:
| What worries me is this -- Outrage creates "engagement".
|
| A site like Twitter could easily capitalize on this and
| allow/promote outrage content in the near term, boosting their
| profits and causing long term side effects to societies as a
| whole.
| mikkergp wrote:
| Apparently He laid off the data engineering team. That term is
| pretty vague, anyone know what they do?
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/28/departing-twitter-employees-...
|
| Edit: this may have been a prank.
| xfour wrote:
| Not specific to Twitter but as I understand it. Generally a
| data engineering team will setup the pipelines and ETL
| processes to turn transactional data into aggregate data
| necessary to run analytics.
| mikkergp wrote:
| Yeah which seems like a bland day-one target.
| wwweston wrote:
| That sounds like the move of someone who wants specifically-
| selected very loyal people designing systems which would tell
| you what's actually happening on the platform.
| [deleted]
| bpodgursky wrote:
| This might have been a prank.
| slg wrote:
| Who knows if that rumor is true, but it would be another red
| flag with Elon's approach. I can understand clearing out the
| old leadership team on day 1, but how quickly could Musk
| possibly know that there is no one on this team that could
| provide value to Twitter with different management or in some
| other role? Shooting first and asking questions later is not a
| good approach to managing a billion-dollar company.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| Typically a lot of investigations into products and teams
| already take place before close. This was a weird acquisition
| though, so who knows if that actually was possible
| beforehand.
| slg wrote:
| Yes, but there is a difference between "I don't think what
| this team is currently working on provides value to the
| company" and "I don't think this team or anyone on it can
| provide value to the company". That second viewpoint is
| much more definitive and should require more time and
| evidence to reach.
| szastamasta wrote:
| Funny how we give advice on how to manage a billion dollar
| company to guy who owns 2 of these . I'm not sure how many do
| you own, but I unfortunately don't have any.
| slg wrote:
| The idea that only people who have done a job can criticize
| a person doing that job is silly. We all can criticize the
| President for example without having led a country. Isn't
| that principle supposedly the underlying reason Musk bought
| Twitter?
| mikkergp wrote:
| Since it looks like it was a prank and he didn't actually
| do this, it seems like good advice.
| [deleted]
| vishnugupta wrote:
| High chance it's a prank.
|
| https://twitter.com/wealthycfo/status/1586053744269340672
| tibudiyanto wrote:
| I think this might be a prank. One of the guy is saying his
| name is Rahul Ligma lmao
| jdoliner wrote:
| This story looks like it was a hoax, it has an editors note
| now.
| dang wrote:
| That is discussed in this thread, but it's not clear what's
| going on with that story (comments are saying it was a prank,
| and the originally submitted tweet has been deleted):
|
| _Departing Twitter employees say layoffs have started as Elon
| Musk takes over_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33374597 - Oct 2022 (108
| comments)
| noncoml wrote:
| The year is 2024. Trump wins a second term presidency after
| having been unbanned from Twitter in late 2022. As he promised
| soon after he pulls US out of NATO, allowing Russia to annex the
| rest of Ukraine. The threat of a full scale nuclear war is
| finally out to rest and the world rejoices! Everyone chanting for
| a 3rd term presidency!
| etchalon wrote:
| I continue to not understand why anyone would buy Twitter, or
| care about "free speech!" as a business directive.
|
| There are plenty of "free speech!" Twitter like products. They
| attract a niche, and likely unprofitable demographic. That
| audience actively turns away more valuable, and broader
| demographics.
|
| This whole thing baffles me.
| fleddr wrote:
| As for free speech vs censorship, a lot of people think in
| absolutes. It should be absolutely possible or impossible to say
| this thing. And this particular individual should be banned or
| not.
|
| What I think is far more important is the level of amplification.
| Currently, the most unhinged extremists from every political
| angle are massively amplified. They know exactly how to play the
| engagement game.
|
| Twitter rewards the wrong thing. Those stoking controversy get
| the engagement, after which that account is injected as
| "recommended" into all kinds of places, snowballing those
| accounts into power.
|
| That situation should be flipped. Reasonable people should be
| amplified, not crazy ones.
| [deleted]
| Natsu wrote:
| > Currently, the most unhinged extremists from every political
| angle are massively amplified. They know exactly how to play
| the engagement game.
|
| I was just thinking the same thing, that the attention economy
| is incentivizing people to overdraft their 'weirdness points'
| [1]
|
| [1] https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/weirdness-points
| beebmam wrote:
| It's the same with dating services. Whatever grabs attention
| wins. Deeply toxic stuff.
| gw99 wrote:
| Actually on dating, whatever grabs attention grabs attention.
| What wins is the genuine connections made.
|
| Twitter lacks the latter. It's just attention.
| jahewson wrote:
| > Twitter rewards the wrong thing. Those stoking controversy
| get the engagement
|
| This is human nature, not Twitter. And I think that's the
| problem - a neutral platform simply reproduces human nature,
| amplified.
| fleddr wrote:
| It's both. It's human nature amplified. The amplified part is
| technical, very much possible to tweak.
| boplicity wrote:
| This is exactly what good moderation can help with -- promote
| thoughtful and reasonable content, while making sure that
| inflammatory commentary gets less attention. I've run an online
| forum for over a decade; it's not that hard, really, to
| encourage thoughtful participation, with the right type of
| leadership.
|
| See what dang wrote:
|
| > please don't post low-information, high-indignation comments,
| such as flamebait or ideological battle. We want thoughtful,
| curious conversation on HN.
|
| The problem is that big social media is so large and "open"
| that they don't want to have any community leadership.
|
| Who is setting the tone on Twitter, or any major social
| network? Who is acting as a leader, both enforcing quality
| commentary, and also setting a good example? Nobody. I doubt
| this will change.
|
| Smaller communities, such as HN, are where we can have
| reasonable discussion.
|
| A good correllary: many local city council meetings, where
| almost anyone can have a chance to talk. They're not pretty.
| But at least the decision makers are there (and held
| accountable), and limits are set.
|
| Creating an environment where good discourse can thrive is
| hard. It's like fighting entropy. You can do it. But it's an
| uphill battle.
| fleddr wrote:
| Indeed, the forum-style moderation will not work on Twitter.
|
| What I'm saying is that all of these things: low-information,
| high-indignation comments, such as flamebait or ideological
| battle...
|
| ...can and perhaps should be allowed on Twitter. It shouldn't
| be removed, it should stop being amplified. When you do any
| of those things, your post should rank low, not high. It
| should get organic attention only, and no algorithmic
| boosting. It should have a low visibility and it should not
| lead to a massive amount of new followers.
|
| So don't remove it, make it ineffective.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| I set the tone for my feed by choosing who to follow. I then
| want to see whatever they have to say in chronological order.
| If I don't like somebody's comments, I stop following them.
| Why do I need anyone else to interfere with this process?
| [deleted]
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Does Elon Musk own Twitter, or does a group of bankers
| orchestrated by him jointly own it with him?
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Musk owns 80-90% of Twitter. A few high-profile investors own
| the other 10-20%. The group of bankers have a huge lien on the
| company ($13 billion) but assuming that they are paid on time
| have no equity.
| uoaei wrote:
| The distinction between "having a lien" and "owning the
| company" is a false dichotomy. "Owning the company" and
| "controlling the company" are different, though.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > The distinction between "having a lien" and "owning the
| company" is a false dichotomy.
|
| It's 100% not. It's secured debt, that's it. If Twitter
| becomes worth $17 billion, they get - $15 billion. If
| Twitter becomes worth $170 billion, they get - $15 billion.
|
| To say nothing of if Musk misses a payment, are they really
| going to foreclose? Or would they renegotiate?
| SamBam wrote:
| Disagree. They have nothing until Musk needs to pay them
| back, and if Musk pays then back they have nothing.
| boyka wrote:
| What if the shareholders do not agree to sell their shares?
| How does he justify his current power over Twitter? Did he
| buy his 80-90% outside of the free float market?
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > What if the shareholders do not agree to sell their
| shares?
|
| That's not an option. They all have to sell their shares.
| It was a corporate decision.
|
| In fact their was another vote that meant Musk _couldn
| 't_ accumulate more than 15% on the open market.
| skissane wrote:
| I think Twitter is owned by a holding company controlled by
| Musk. I think he had at least two holding companies, "X
| Holdings I" and "X Holdings II", with the later a subsidiary of
| the former, and the acquisition was legally a merger between
| Twitter and the subsidiary. That's a quite typical way to
| legally structure acquisitions.
|
| I'm not sure exactly how the coinvestors fit in the picture,
| but I expect they (or more likely their own holding companies)
| own minority stakes in the parent holding company. The debt is
| probably the parent company's also, although Musk may have
| personally guaranteed much of it.
|
| Also, probably even the parent holding company is not directly
| owned by Musk. Probably owned by one or more trusts he
| controls.
| danjoredd wrote:
| Musk himself owns it. He is now the CEO of the place
| crhulls wrote:
| He might be the majority shareholder, but there is a known
| syndicate of coinvestors so he does not own it all himself -
| much of this is public information.
| mazurnification wrote:
| Source? Surprisingly hard to find in quick search - drowned
| by fluff articles.
| danjoredd wrote:
| Seems I was wrong about him being CEO. Still, he owns the
| place helped in part to the bank lenders he will need to
| repay. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter,_Inc.
|
| He got rid of the last CEO and will presumably either take
| the position himself or put his own guy in the chair
| cutenewt wrote:
| I hope he buys Google next. Search really sucks.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Musk might own it, but musk's lenders now own a sizable piece
| of him.
| paxys wrote:
| Musk has majority ownership of Twitter.
| dathinab wrote:
| I always find it strange when he positions himself as pro-
| democratic and pro-freedom when his actions say pretty much the
| opposite:
|
| He is pushing for a political system/values which:
|
| - doubles down on money == power, to a point where only money is
| power
|
| - uses pretext of "freedom" to remove protections which limit in
| how much companies can abuse people, mainly in forms which move
| money from them to the companies.
|
| But if you systematically make it easier to wide spread
| systematically move money from the demos (populace) to a selected
| few and make sure only money is power that is pretty clear cut
| anti-democratic. (I mean it basically remove the demo from
| democraty).
|
| And sure this is somewhat true for all democratic states, but the
| question is how much and if you push for it getting worse. Which
| AFIK Musk does. (It's also why a lot of people which had looked
| into such power dynamics will look at you strangely when you tell
| them the US is a beacon of democracy, it isn't and never was. It
| is a beacon for capitalism combined with wealth, western culture,
| military might (in some order) and only then democracy. At least
| in my opinion.)
|
| So what does that have to do with Twitter?
|
| One of the main complains Musk has with it is how it did restrict
| "freedom of speech", except it mainly did so when that freedom
| was abused for spread hatred and misinformation, often with the
| intend to manipulate democracy to elect people pushing for less
| democracy. And he wants to remove that.
|
| Now without question Twitter did a bad job at moderation, still I
| would be really surprised if Musk would improve that. I would
| love being surprised.
|
| Another problem is that Musk has shown to be a petty person and
| has shown to abuse the power he has over his companies, e.g. to
| cancel a Tesla pre-order because of someone saying something he
| took offense with. Putting such a person in charge of a platform
| like Twitter looks like a recopy for disaster. Especially given
| that it's also used a lot by some minorities Musk seems to
| personally have a rather strong dislike for...
|
| Now I would love to be wrong about this assessment. I personally
| might not be the biggest fan of Musk but what does that matter if
| he does manage to create a better twitter.
|
| And even if he fails it might have positive effects, by e.g.
| enabling a better alternative platform to take it's place.
| xwowsersx wrote:
| > doubles down on money power, to a point where only money is
| power
|
| What has he said or done that indicates he is pushing for such
| a system? Are you suggesting the mere fact of his purchasing a
| company and being a billionaire means he is pushing for such a
| system or was there something else he said or did?
|
| I'm asking genuinely because I may very well have missed some
| important news item or other piece of information. What's your
| basis for this assertion?
| mwint wrote:
| The immediate change Elon should make is to remove the high-
| pressure "login/open in app" stuff... it's ironic that I can't
| even read his tweets (without being logged in, at least)
| chamakits wrote:
| I understand that he has been publicly combative with all the
| executives; but is it a practical to fire all those key
| executives right away?
|
| Specially, do they not contain any specifically useful knowledge
| or experience that you should make an attempt at creating a
| collaborative transition?
|
| Is this how these kinds of acquisitions of public companies
| happen? Isn't this effectively freezing all significant
| activities for a significant ramp up time?
| concinds wrote:
| It's pretty common for the CEO, CFO and general counsel to be
| dismissed after acquisitions in circumstances (like here) where
| the acquisition is a disavowal of their vision and leadership.
| Keep in mind there are far more executives than these three.
|
| It's less likely to happen for well-run, profitable companies
| that are just being acquired for talent or synergy reasons.
|
| The size of the acquired and acquiring firms, and the type of
| acquisition, also plays a part; if Apple buys a startup, they
| might want to subsume them immediately into existing projects,
| so they'd likely fire the CEO CFO and GC; but if Google buys
| Nest or Fitbit (which serve different markets than Google, and
| are minor hobbies that shouldn't detract from Google's
| organizational priorities) they're more likely to keep the
| entire team intact (unless they willingly exit; that's another
| scenario).
|
| He still communicates regularly with Jack Dorsey, so I doubt
| there's much knowledge and experience being lost.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > It's less likely to happen for well-run, profitable
| companies that are just being acquired for talent or synergy
| reasons.
|
| Even then, it happens. My current company (mid sized, ~6000
| employees) was recently acquired. Taken from public to
| private in the process. There's no broad plan to change what
| we do or how we do it, we are in an established market with
| pretty solid revenue numbers. They still axed the top three
| executives immediately.
| skissane wrote:
| > He still communicates regularly with Jack Dorsey, so I
| doubt there's much knowledge and experience being lost.
|
| I would not be surprised if Musk convinces Dorsey to come
| back to Twitter in some kind of formal (but part-time) role.
| Board member, adviser, consultant, etc
| lupire wrote:
| Musk is CEO now. He doesn't need another one.
| koonsolo wrote:
| He's also CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and is involved in some
| other projects. Are you sure he doesn't need someone to run
| the business... somewhere? He needs to have a limit at some
| point, right?
| BryantD wrote:
| I wouldn't have done it that quickly.
|
| Parag Agrawal just made $42 million as a severance package. His
| 2021 pay package was around $30 million. You'd save around $10
| million by shifting him over into an advisor role, telling him
| to go home and lounge by the pool, and calling him any time you
| needed whatever insight he might be able to offer. I don't
| expect you'd call him very often, since I don't think he did an
| insanely great job as CEO, but maybe he's got the password to
| the office safe or something.
|
| I'm too lazy to look up the details for the other execs who
| were fired, but the same kind of math likely applies.
|
| I assume that they're no less limited in what they can say
| publicly than they would be if they were still employed as
| officers of the company. Severance agreements often come with
| NDAs. So that's probably a wash.
|
| It is possible that there's some value in sending the message
| that nobody is safe. My personal opinion is that managing from
| fear like that isn't long-term valuable, and I think moving
| them into clear advisory roles sends the same message, but I
| could be wrong there.
| pie_flavor wrote:
| Elon started out thinking he could work with these people, and
| then as he prepared to join the board, rapidly became
| disillusioned, and became convinced that they had no idea what
| was good for Twitter and the only exec who ever did was Jack. I
| would recommend looking at some of the text exchanges between
| Elon and Parag/Jack, they've been published and talked about
| pretty much everywhere, if you want to understand the vibe
| shift that basically guaranteed this would be his first act.
| eecc wrote:
| I wonder if he'll really get the dev teams to defuse flame wars.
|
| The TL algorithm will push any account that trends _and those
| strongly networked_ , it will also promote and make you curate
| your own _strong network_.
|
| Whenever these two adversarial groups collide is bloody warfare,
| yet it's so obvious to detect such incidents: likely
| confrontational accounts collide, strongly connected accounts
| start to systematically love and retweet friendlies, text
| sentiment turns to aggressive and taunting.
|
| It's probably a take-at-home assignment for a data science
| position to detect these dynamics. Yet Twitter introduced
| precious little to suppress this rage machine, just "block" to
| further entrench bubbles and long, lawyerly drawn out
| questionnaires for manual report. I'd say the most half-hearted
| attempt since Facebook's.
|
| So if he's really serious about driving away the trolling flame
| throwing, I guess it'll be that.
| ur-whale wrote:
| The reason Musk bought Twitter is the same reason other
| billionaires own newspapers even though they're money-losing
| flame dumpsters: they're a tool to control the narrative.
|
| When you're the richest man in the world, money does not matter
| any more. Power and influence do. And Twitter is a big league
| weapon in that game.
|
| I don't think he cares _at all_ about making Twitter profitable
| or catering to advertizers. He just bought himself the largest
| megaphone in the world, one with which he 'll be able to sculpt
| the perception of the public at large any way he sees fit.
| activitypea wrote:
| This list of news makes it abundantly clear that the US is little
| more than a playground for the rich. That's true of most
| countries nowadays, but the US' overwhelming influence on the
| rest of the world makes this one sting even more.
| SevenNation wrote:
| > Elon's first official acknowledgement on Twitter of his new toy
| post-deal close was a tweet reading simply "the bird is freed."
| This was quickly rejoined by European Commission Internet Market
| Commissioner Thierry Breton, who responded with a reminder that
| freedom isn't free.
|
| > Notably, Breton has previously met with Musk in person and even
| recorded a video in which he says that he explained to Musk the
| EU's Digital Services Act, and in which Musk basically says he's
| aligned to everything it contains.
|
| Wikipedia summarizes the DSA as so:
|
| > The Digital Services Act (DSA) is an EU regulation to modernise
| the e-Commerce Directive regarding illegal content, transparent
| advertising, and disinformation.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Services_Act
|
| And later,
|
| > The DSA proposal maintains the current rule according to which
| companies that host other's data are not liable for the content
| unless they actually know it is illegal, and upon obtaining such
| knowledge do not act to remove it.[15] This so-called
| "conditional liability exemption" is fundamentally
| different[16][17] from the broad immunities given to
| intermediaries under the equivalent rule ("Section 230 CDA") in
| the United States.
|
| > In addition to the liability exemptions, the DSA would
| introduce a wide-ranging set of new obligations on platforms,
| including some that aim to disclose to regulators how their
| algorithms work, while other obligations would create
| transparency on how decisions to remove content are taken and on
| the way advertisers target users.
|
| That Musk agrees (or at least did agree) to essentially
| everything in here suggests that a good chunk of the work going
| forward will be around policing "illegal" content.
|
| In this light, the last point in the TechCrunch article sounds a
| little ominous:
|
| > One of Musk's first big leadership decisions appears to be to
| install a content moderation council that will help decide
| matters like who gets banned on the platform and for what --
| similar to Facebook's Oversight Board.
|
| > Twitter does already have a trust and safety council that acts
| in an advisory capacity, but that's a large group that seems to
| act more behind the scenes to inform product decisions, whereas
| this would be a 'Supreme Court' of sorts for decisions on who
| gets to tweet and what in cases of controversy.
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| (I searched the whole thread and it appears no one's mentioned
| this yet)
|
| * He will move the HQ to Austin. The current SF Tenderloin
| location is a major turnoff for everyone, including most of the
| employees, I'd bet. And it certainly can't be cheap.
|
| Most likely the people who refuse to move, he mostly wants to get
| rid of anyway.
| soumyadeb wrote:
| Would be interesting if he makes Twitter more dev friendly (open
| APIs etc)
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" Would be interesting if he makes Twitter more dev friendly
| (open APIs etc)"_
|
| How open and dev friendly is Tesla?
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| Does Amana Appliances Corp. make a microwave with all-wheel
| drive and independent suspension? Respectfully, you are
| comparing apples to oranges.
| memish wrote:
| More open and friendly than most.
|
| https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you
| pmoriarty wrote:
| ...and then there are stories like this[1] where Tesla is
| refusing to release autopilot data to an owner who claims
| Tesla's autopilot caused his car to crash.
|
| That's not very open.
|
| [1] - https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2020
| /02/26/...
| fulafel wrote:
| Also Starlink.
| sevenf0ur wrote:
| Maybe if they go private they can work on user focused stuff.
| I'd like to be able to use the site again without being forced
| to sign in.
| phailhaus wrote:
| Due to the loans Elon had to take out, Twitter now has to
| make interest payments of _over one billion dollars a year_.
| Expect more features that try to wring every cent out of the
| userbase.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Twitter may become the official platform for communicating
| to/from Musk's planned Mars missions.
|
| There's a lot of monetezation potential right there, as
| Earthlings tune in to follow every tweet from future
| Martians.
| root_axis wrote:
| Mars missions aren't happening for the foreseeable
| future.
| skohan wrote:
| Really could not have picked worse timing: a year ago
| capital was so much cheaper
| dogman144 wrote:
| I would take any instability that is coming in exchange for
| forcing the issue of opening up algo-curated feeds to the public.
| Same with the what the FB whistleblower was arguing for. sounds
| like Musk might do it.
|
| Second, if Lightning is integrated, that would be a fascinating
| experiment and step forward in tech payments.
|
| Back to the open box:
|
| There is so much very needed tech policy that is impossible to
| start because the curation is a black box and policymakers have
| no idea where to start and the public has no idea how to parse
| the information they get.
|
| Now, it's very likely the box is opened, nobody looks or still
| doesn't understand, and that's that.
|
| But I don't see anyway to get past "the internet is a series of
| tubes" or "Senator, we sell ads" or spam filters getting accused
| of causing bias or.... without at least getting the information
| out in the open vs. trusting tech companies' explanations which
| lost all credibility as good-faith operators years ago.
| [deleted]
| lopkeny12ko wrote:
| Doesn't work with Javascript disabled.
|
| An error occurred with this part of the page, sorry for the
| inconvenience.
| TSiege wrote:
| I would really like to hear how he's financing this deal. His net
| worth has dropped since he's made this play. Most of his money is
| tied up in equity. So who's funding this deal? The fact that this
| isn't well talked about and that the company is going private is
| raising a lot of red flags to my eyes
| HWR_14 wrote:
| As I understand it, the financing is
|
| $13 billion in money from banks as a loan ~$4 billion in pre-
| owned Twitter stock (he doesn't have to pay himself) ~$7-8
| billion in commitments from other investors (Ellison, a16z, the
| Bitnance CEO etc.) ~$8-10 billion in TSLA stock he sold in like
| May when he announced the purchase at $900-$1000/share when he
| said it was specifically to buy TWTR ~$1 billion in a major
| investor (I don't recall whether it was a specific Saudi
| businessman or the Saudi investment fund or the royal family
| directly) asking to keep his ownership of the company and trade
| out the shares for teh new compnay shares
|
| That still leaves ~$9-11 billion unaccounted for in a very
| public fashion. At one point, Merrill had promised him a $12.5
| billion margin loan backed by his Tesla shares. He claimed not
| to need it (and removed it from being a contingency on the deal
| a while ago). Or maybe he secretly used it. It's less than 5%
| of his net worth, so it seems reasonable to assume he can get
| or borrow it easily.
| dwater wrote:
| Matt Levine at Bloomberg has been talking about it frequently
| as the deal evolved. You can read back through the articles
| that reference Musk or Twitter in the headline and get a good
| idea.
|
| "The Wall Street banks involved, led by Morgan Stanley, are
| also ironing out the steps needed to finalize funding about $13
| billion of debt commitments."
|
| "Banks that committed to help finance Elon Musk's takeover of
| Twitter Inc. plan to hold all $13 billion of debt backing the
| deal rather than syndicate it out, according to people familiar
| with the matter, in another blow to a market that serves as a
| crucial source of corporate funding."
| TSiege wrote:
| Interesting, and thanks for the heads up on where to look. I
| head read that some of the original financial backers backed
| out of the deal
| colinmhayes wrote:
| The entire point of buying twitter was to give Musk an excuse
| to sell some of his tesla stock. He did just that, and now
| combined with twitter leveraged buyout loan and the other
| investors he's brought in he only needs a few billion in loans
| against tesla shares to close the deal.
| skizm wrote:
| Assuming the same financing as prior to trying to cancel, it
| will be $13B from banks loaned to Twitter the company. ~$7B
| from friends of Elon. Then I think something like half of the
| remaining was supposed to be margin loans against TSLA stock,
| but since the stock has tanked recently the margin requirements
| were too high and Musk has indicated he plans to simply sell a
| bunch of TSLA stock (or otherwise directly from his personal
| assets).
| victor106 wrote:
| I didn't do it for the money, I did it for "humanity" so I want
| to appease advertisers to make money and save humanity even
| though I hate advertising.
|
| Oh, also there are more than 30% bots on the platform but I still
| bought this thing because I want the trial to end because I don't
| want to answer any more questions and reveal things that would
| put me in legal jeopardy.
|
| Does he really think people are that stupid? I agree he is super
| smart but the rest of us are not that stupid.
| boppo1 wrote:
| > reveal things that would put me in legal jeopardy.
|
| Like what?
| victor106 wrote:
| We don't know what. But it's obvious he didn't want the trial
| to go on and wanted it to end immediately when the judge
| wanted him to testify
| freejazz wrote:
| We didn't have to buy twitter in order to avoid any more
| legal discovery of our text messages in relation to the
| lawsuit, so we don't know
| chatterhead wrote:
| I'm the only one who can run that business for him and he knows
| it.
| edmcnulty101 wrote:
| Will Elon bring Jack back? They seem to be friends.
| remram wrote:
| Does Jack want to be back? I think he could have stayed if he
| had really wanted to.
| norwalkbear wrote:
| Jack will 100% consult
| AtNightWeCode wrote:
| I think a company like Twitter probably have some sacred cows
| stopping them from profit. Any new owner might fix that. I
| deleted my Twitter account years ago because most of the content
| is spam. Instagram is about the same and I will remove that too
| soon if it does not improve.
| elololololmusk wrote:
| GMoromisato wrote:
| My predictions:
|
| 1. Musk is going to discover (and maybe admit?) that fixing
| Twitter is harder than he thought. It will be just like self-
| driving, which seems straightforward, but which actually has
| thousands of edge cases which are hard to solve with a single
| general system. Nevertheless, he will persist, because that's
| what he does.
|
| 2. Current Twitter makes a profit on advertising, which means
| Twitter needs to encourage high levels of engagement, which means
| they need controversial (emotional) content, but not so emotional
| (toxic) as to drive people away. They need to be as close to the
| line as possible, which is why they spend so much effort on
| moderation. Musk's solution is, I predict, to try different
| revenue sources so that engagement with the feed is not the
| primary metric.
|
| 3. Musk has already stated that his goal is the Everything App
| (which he calls X). The Everything App has news, social media,
| games, videos, and a payment infrastructure (both to pay for
| content and to get paid). He wants Twitter to replace Facebook,
| Instagram, Google News, YouTube, Twitch and PayPal, etc. Will he
| be able to pull it off? I expect he will deliver the 20% of those
| services that are high-value, but pitch it as a complete
| solution. That might actually be good enough for most people.
|
| 4. If he accomplishes #3, then the revenue source is obviously:
| they will take a cut out of every transaction going on in the
| network. Maybe ads are a component, but they don't have to be a
| major component. If engagement is no longer the most important
| metric, then it's possible to allow every person to have a
| radically personalized feed. Even something as simple as only
| showing you tweets from people you follow (what a concept!) would
| revolutionize the experience and drastically reduce the need for
| moderation.
|
| 5. Since Twitter is private, Musk can front-load #4 even before
| the Everything App is ready. If he hasn't already burned the
| current team, he can make the experience better relatively
| quickly and worry about profit later.
|
| 6. Now for my safest prediction: No matter what he does, some
| people will hate him for it.
| themagician wrote:
| He doesn't have to completely fix Twitter. All he has to do is
| make Twitter Ads actually produce a decent ROI for the average
| customer.
| JasserInicide wrote:
| _Musk is going to discover (and maybe admit?) that fixing
| Twitter is harder than he thought._
|
| Yeah I think he's going to intensely focus on Twitter for ~6
| months, not change much, get bored, and then move onto
| something else.
| kjksf wrote:
| The way he got bored running Tesla and SpaceX for ~20 years?
|
| I really don't get where this meme of "impulsive, erratic,
| hotheaded Musk" comes from given he demonstrated ability to
| stick with a business in the toughest of times.
|
| Tesla was literally days away from bankruptcy at one time and
| Musk made it work.
|
| After first 3 failed launches he was about to run out of
| money and yet he financed another launch, which worked.
|
| He hasn't had a business failure yet.
|
| Is that a guy who gets bored and moves on to something else?
| aquova wrote:
| This is my guess as well, but on a bit longer timescale. I
| think we'll see some noteworthy features over the next year
| as he tackles low hanging fruit(the reply button for example,
| although it sounds like that was already in development).
| This will be followed by a year or two of slow down as they
| run into social/technological issues, followed by Musk
| selling off the company.
| GMoromisato wrote:
| Maybe.
|
| He hasn't given up on self-driving after it turned out to be
| much harder than he thought. He's still pouring money and
| time into it.
|
| And he hasn't given up on Starlink, even though it is not
| nearly as profitable as he hoped originally. He's just
| launching more satellites.
|
| And he hasn't given up on Starship even though it is years
| late. He's doubling down on its development.
|
| But I conceded that he might not see Twitter as critical for
| his ultimate goals. Maybe he'll just sell it to a bigger fool
| in a few years?
| philsnow wrote:
| > his goal is the Everything App (which he calls X). The
| Everything App has news, social media, games, videos, and a
| payment infrastructure
|
| so, WeChat?
| jpadkins wrote:
| 4) don't overestimate cut of transaction and underestimate ad
| revenue (promoting the transaction seekers). Let's use Amazon
| as an example: They run a 3P marketplace with a transaction cut
| business model, and it's not very profitable. Vs. their ads
| based sponsored product which is extremely profitable (soon to
| larger than AWS for profit at Amazon). This is a very different
| ad business than twitter's current performance marketing ad
| product.
|
| I think first party ads promoting commerce on your platform can
| be very lucrative. And % of transactions tend not to be, with
| the exception of Android / iOS app store markets.
| GMoromisato wrote:
| Fair point.
|
| I haven't done the math because nobody is paying me to. But
| your example of Amazon might reinforce my point in that all
| three components (retail, ads, AWS) reinforce each other.
| Amazon is trying to be the "Everything App" also because they
| see synergies (even if only in shared infra).
|
| And Amazon can afford to be less agressive with ads because
| it's a smaller part of their business, compared to (e.g.)
| Meta or Twitter. Apple is in a similar place: they can afford
| to care more about privacy because they don't make money from
| ads.
|
| The more revenue Twitter can get from non-ad sources, the
| better the user experience (in my opinion).
|
| But you're right that there's no guarantee that they will be
| able to get much non-ad revenue.
| hesk wrote:
| > Even something as simple as only showing you tweets from
| people you follow (what a concept!) would revolutionize the
| experience and drastically reduce the need for moderation.
|
| You can do that right now by turning off retweets for the
| people you follow. You have to do that individually for every
| user you follow but it allows for a highly curated timeline. I
| turn of retweets for about 80% of the people I follow because I
| am interested in their original content but not in their random
| retweets. The other 20% introduce me to new content through
| their retweets.
| r721 wrote:
| Related recent discussions:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33371297
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33365948
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33366137
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33370270
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33371581
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33367063
| kirenida wrote:
| As an European who doesn't use Twitter that much because it seems
| that every other post is about US politics, how much should I
| care about this?
| swayvil wrote:
| My indignation is high, beyond that I have zip to say.
|
| JK. Good on Elon.
|
| In my opinion a good centralized twitter government is
| impossible. The only path to goodness that I can see is to
| empower the individual twitterers with a box of tools for
| filtering their own personal twitterscape. Beyond that leave
| twitter 100% freespeechy. But then that's my default opinion for
| all social media.
| skilled wrote:
| Sadly even after dang has stated that conversations should be
| thoughtful, people are still posting provoking and low-quality
| disingenuous comments.
|
| I don't even understand how a human being can get so invested in
| something they will never have control over, even more so now
| that Twitter is owned by a private person.
| ausbah wrote:
| As rational and high minded as folks on hacker news like to
| position themselves, everyone here is just as susceptible to
| being drawn in towards drama involving their own set of
| celebrities and companies.
| strangattractor wrote:
| [deleted]
| noncoml wrote:
| [deleted]
| julianeon wrote:
| In the spirit of trying to be high-information and add value:
|
| Where Musk is going, there are no maps. So it's very very hard to
| project. But we can predict likely developments.
|
| At a very high level, it's going to involve: bringing back
| controversial personalities like Donald Trump; increasing
| Twitter's commitment to 'free speech'; assuaging skittish
| advertisers; retaining users who might be concerned, while
| bringing in new ones; managing the exodus of users (size:?) that
| will happen regardless; cutting a large amount of staff, while
| keeping Twitter's lights on; open sourcing the code, discussing
| the impending rearchitecture; and - long term - folding this into
| Elon's vision of America's WeChat, and ultimately expanding
| Twitter, under X.com.
|
| That's a lot. But at a high level, I think that's correct.
|
| I would expect Elon to take the fight to the media. Whether he's
| going to focus on neutrally spreading a message, going more on
| the attack on media outlets that would support him, or doing
| something in between, is unknown.
|
| Musk has an unusually large amount of media power: that's his
| unique value add, in a way. I would expect this to be a 'bigger
| deal' as a story, as multiple stories, than I would for any other
| company undergoing a takeover. We'll be hearing a lot more about
| Twitter in the weeks to come, since the developments will keep
| piling up, and the press/public loves to read & discuss stories
| about Twitter & Musk.
|
| We'll see how it goes.
| concinds wrote:
| Most people are focused on censorship/content issues, but I
| really think the X.com "mega app" vision is the most
| significant part of this. It'll be hard to gain a foothold in
| those markets, and there'll be antitrust challenges, but it
| really fits perfectly with the rest of Musk's vision:
|
| X.com Maps could tie in with Teslas, X.com Carhailing could
| tie-in with (future) full self-driving; Twitter could be
| expanded to be more like Telegram + Instagram, with channels,
| better DMs, "Moments", and more.
|
| There's no attempt to create a single, wide-ranging social
| media platform, with payments, video, shorts, DMs, and more.
| China's proven that it can be done. It would create a far
| bigger moat and network effects, and likely be as successful as
| Microsoft Teams & 365, a highly integrated solution, are for
| work.
| spaced-out wrote:
| I wonder how this jives with his stated plan to lay off a lot
| of people? If he wants to implement that he'll need a lot
| more engineers and related support staff.
| mikkergp wrote:
| I think this was mostly bluster, sure hell have to lay off
| a lot of people to change the company direction but his
| pitch to investors said the company would grow to like
| 12000 people.
| freejazz wrote:
| Are you serious? Why would I ever use that app? I already
| don't use twitter and there are market leaders that would
| have much better service (given they aren't trying to do
| every single thing in the world) compared to X and also, most
| of those services pretty much stink, so I would never think
| that X, while trying to do everything in the world, would
| also be better.
| notatoad wrote:
| the everything-app thing would be significant if realized,
| the thing about that is it has to compete not just against
| all the tech giants, but also against all the smaller
| companies who are already mostly succeeding in those
| verticals. having to install another app isn't really an
| impediment to acquiring users.
|
| it's an interesting vision to be sure, but i'm not sure how
| buying twitter actually helps it - twitter has already been
| struggling to expand outside their core product - none of the
| experiments like moments, spaces, fleets, etc have really
| taken off. it kind of seems like twitter users just want
| tweets and nothing else. so now he's taken on a whole bunch
| of debt to acquire a userbase who is hostile to the app
| expanding into any other markets? I don't really see a whole
| lot of evidence that twitter is a good launch platform for an
| everything-app.
| mNovak wrote:
| >> There's no attempt to create a single, wide-ranging social
| media platform, with payments, video, shorts, DMs, and more
|
| Umm.. Facebook? Just offering all those features doesn't mean
| much though, you really have to be dominant in each one,
| since there's much less moat to debundling consumer apps vs
| enterprise
| concinds wrote:
| Their platforms are siloed off. The point of a mega app is
| that it's not siloed off; the reels, videos, DMs and tweets
| would be part of the same experience, and rely on the same
| usernames, hence the moat.
| JohnAaronNelson wrote:
| How dystopian. Why not just build the matrix and be done
| with humanity.
| throwaway821909 wrote:
| There's a cluster of things around transport and then... also
| Twitter? I get that in the end you want to do everything but
| what makes microblogging a more important day 1 feature than
| food delivery or gaming or online dating. It's like if Amazon
| did just book delivery and online photo storage.
| no_butterscotch wrote:
| > cutting a large amount of staff
|
| I wonder if he needs to do this.
|
| Maybe I've just been working for tech companies in the Bay Area
| too long. But I don't want to work for a company where I don't
| have equity that I can cash out.
|
| And now all those engineers are working for a company where
| equity doesn't exist? An exception could be a Netflix model
| where you make a buttload of money. But Twitter isn't that.
| poszlem wrote:
| It isn't that yet, presumably.
| the_jesus_villa wrote:
| >managing the exodus of users (size:?) that will happen
| regardless
|
| In the same vein, the influx of new users who had avoided
| Twitter due to its censorious, hostile community norms.
| aredox wrote:
| That's a reality-free comment. Search right now for any
| insulting, racist, negationist trope and you'll find tons of
| tweets.
| unity1001 wrote:
| You forgot the bot cleanup.
| smcl wrote:
| I guess he has to pretend he cares about bots since he kicked
| up such a fuss about it, but I don't think he'll end up
| spending much energy on it
| SXX wrote:
| > open sourcing the code
|
| Why? Elon is not the guy who gonna do it.
|
| He wants freedom of speench under his control.
|
| Tesla for instance is very much anti open source.
| mullingitover wrote:
| > managing the exodus of users (size:?) that will happen
| regardless;
|
| This is probably the biggest risk in this acquisition. Twitter
| wasn't doing anything special, and it's easy to launch a clone
| of their business model. Elon's talking about taking an axe to
| the things that keep the lights on at Twitter: effective
| content moderation and talent.
| Manu40 wrote:
| > taking an axe to the things that keep the lights on at
| Twitter: effective content moderation and talent.
|
| I have experienced the 'effectiveness' of Twitters moderation
| team on multiple occasions where they were very ineffective
| at upholding the very clear cut rules surrounding things like
| doxxing on their website. I had my personal information made
| public, and they ignored me. Multiple times. I even created a
| new account with no way for there to be any publicly
| available personal info; and yet I was still doxxed somehow,
| and they still ignored me.
|
| So, in the spirit of HN's rules, I just want to say this,
| since end user experience should be allowable to share (I
| hope.).
|
| Effective moderation at twitter is a myth as far as I see it,
| and their only talent is making it look like they have
| effective moderation when they care.
|
| P.S. I also was doing nothing wrong in any case where this
| happened. It was all conversations which should have been
| considered civil (mostly) and one situation where it had
| nothing to do with politics or philosophy at all. Yet they
| did nothing.
|
| Nothing.
| freejazz wrote:
| I think you are making the other poster's point for them,
| as Musk seems to have no interest in increasing the
| moderation.
| mullingitover wrote:
| I agree that Twitter's content moderation is mostly a vibe,
| and not really effective. Musk purchasing Twitter is
| already killing that _feeling_ that content moderation
| works at Twitter, and I wouldn 't be surprised if
| advertisers put a freeze on their plans the day the
| purchase went through (hence Musk's panicked-sounding tweet
| to advertisers).
| randomsearch wrote:
| If you think Twitter can be easily cloned then you know
| everything about tech and nothing about business.
| yonaguska wrote:
| > effective content moderation
|
| That's very subjective. "Misinformation" is more moderated
| than child porn and literal terrorist organizations.
| mjr00 wrote:
| > Elon's talking about taking an axe to the things that keep
| the lights on at Twitter: effective content moderation and
| talent.
|
| I don't think it's clear this is the case. It's just the
| network effect that keeps it in such a dominant position.
| Plenty of Twitter clones have been created, yet neither
| conservatives have migrated to Truth/Parler/Gab/whatever, nor
| have or will liberals/the anti-Musk contingent to Mastodon,
| or whatever the left-leaning equivalent Twitter clone coming
| in the next few weeks is.
|
| Honestly, Twitter's biggest draw to most users is probably
| the _lack_ of content moderation on something that gets
| buried beneath the politics and culture discussions: porno,
| porno, porno. Twitter is one of the few social media sites
| where porn is still allowed, for the most part. It 's always
| funny to see a "viral" politics/culture war tweet that has
| "blown up" with 50k, 100k likes; any given lewd picture of
| Ganyu from Genshin Impact by a popular artist is going to run
| double those numbers.
| ribosometronome wrote:
| "There are no maps" doesn't seem to jive with "WeChat but for
| America".
| golemotron wrote:
| China and America are very different. We can't use one map
| for the other.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| One of his challenges will be to pay $1.2B in interest payments
| every year while also making good on the principal. That's
| quite a bit of debt for a struggling financial situation.
| Cutting HC will help in the short term; it is unclear if those
| cuts will be well executed. HN opinion that twitter could run
| with 200 engineers is woefully naive for a massive company that
| is under FTC consent order - they probably have >200 privacy
| engineers (and associated legal staff) just to comply with
| regulations.
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| How would Twitter be WeChat of America if WeChat is
| fundamentally for private messages and private transactions
| (unless it's groups) but Twitter is for broadcasting yourself
| rednerrus wrote:
| It sounds like Musk is going to tell advertisers to kick rocks
| and try to monetize the platform.
|
| Where are people gonna go if not on Twitter? The left isn't
| gonna have better luck with their own truth social or parler.
| The network effect is too big with Twitter. It's not fun if
| you're not dunking on your enemies. That's the fun of Twitter.
| smt88 wrote:
| > _Where are people gonna go if not on Twitter?_
|
| I think you may be over-estimating how much most people
| "need" something like Twitter. For the vast majority of
| users, a news feed and private messaging (WhatsApp, iMessage,
| etc.) are good enough.
| JohnAaronNelson wrote:
| I appreciate your perspective. I used Twitter to follow
| industry news. But the people I cared about left and so did
| I. It's so boring and pointless now. Absolutely no value to
| me anymore.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Facebook could allow for special profiles that are only
| comprised of statuses. That would be a Twitter clone in a
| nutshell that would already have high adoption.
|
| That would require Facebook to make a shrewd business
| decision though so never mind.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| I thought one of his big free speech flag poles is that he
| was going to run it as it should be run, monetization be
| damned?
| not2b wrote:
| The difficulty is that some of these objectives conflict with
| each other. Backing off on moderation is likely to drive
| advertisers away; bringing back banned people could in some
| cases cause legal problems in countries where publishing, say,
| pro-Nazi speech is against the law. Making major changes will
| require more people, but stopping the financial bleeding will
| require fewer people.
| kyle-rb wrote:
| Twitter already has implementations for the Nazi stuff; e.g.
| images with Nazi flags are allowed in general but if you try
| to view them from an account with location set to Germany, it
| will give you a "this content is blocked in your country"
| error message.
|
| I'd definitely be worried about driving advertisers away
| though. They forced YouTube's hand at least to some degree
| with the whole adpocalypse thing.
| throwaway821909 wrote:
| The whole "advertisers don't want their ads appearing next
| to xyz" has always felt contrived to me, like, I can use
| Gmail to receive all sorts of wrongthink and I'll still see
| ads on it, similarly Twitter should be a neutral tool not a
| magazine. It's up to the users what they see.
|
| You'd need a lot of market share and confidence as Musk to
| actually say "this is silly" but it is silly nonetheless.
| The big players started down the road of "ok we'll ban the
| worst stuff" and once they blinked it's been "but what
| about" all the way down.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Eh, no it's about the publics interpretation of
| appearance. Your Gmail filters out a metric shitton of
| spam. If they stopped doing that and all you got was
| thousands of penis enlargement emails per day the number
| of advertisers would drop significantly because the tools
| utility would drop significantly.
|
| The reason 'xyz' gets banned where xyz is negatively
| viewed is because it tends to end up everywhere and
| reduce the utility of the platform.
| soderfoo wrote:
| It is silly, except to the disingenuous opportunists of
| all political stripes and persuasions who hold companies
| (they likely rarely patronized) hostage.
|
| It's reasonable to moderate content beyond the pale. But
| that's on the platforms.
|
| Running to advertisers feels like defiantly going to the
| other parent when you don't receive the answer you want.
|
| I've never drawn the conclusion Bark Box or Toyota stand
| firmly beyond some crackpot on YT because their ad played
| before some content.
| RickHull wrote:
| > The whole "advertisers don't want their ads appearing
| next to xyz" has always felt contrived to me, like, I can
| use Gmail to receive all sorts of wrongthink and I'll
| still see ads on it
|
| Good point, but...
|
| The advertiser mostly cares when "everyone" knows they
| advertise for Nazis. If it's just you who knows, no
| biggie. They don't want it to be common knowledge.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| > Twitter already has implementations for the Nazi stuff
|
| Those implementations will be defeated by motivated
| adversaries and they will not have the expertise remaining
| to rebuild it. There will be many lessons learned again at
| great cost.
| qwertox wrote:
| Let's assume he makes Neuralink happen in the sense of really
| giving a locked-in person the ability to communicate in real
| words and sentences.
|
| He now has the network to connect those people directly to the
| rest of the world, under his umbrella. Sure, he could have just
| used (old) Twitter's API, and that's what he'll be using, but
| it won't be "we (as in 'Neuralink') and Twitter made this
| happen", but "we (my companies)" made this happen.
|
| I also wonder how useful Twitter's infrastructure could be for
| machine-to-machine communication, where he certainly could have
| some uses for it with Tesla and Starlink.
| aredox wrote:
| "under his umbrella"...
|
| Is that supposed to be an attempt at imagining the most
| horrible future possible?
|
| Umbrella corporation anyone?
| freejazz wrote:
| qwertox wrote:
| I'm saying this from the perspective that he made a shitty
| acquisition and trying to see ways he could consider it as
| a positive thing.
|
| If I'd had made this acquisition, specially in the
| circumstances he did it, I'd probably get so depressed that
| I'd put and end to it all.
|
| I'm not a fanboy, but I'm also not a hater.
| freejazz wrote:
| It just reads like inane, nonsensical science fiction.
| robbiep wrote:
| 'Ah yes. We can give your child with locked in syndrome a
| communications path with the rest of the world, but it
| can only be through the twitter API. Also his ventilator?
| Also needs twitter API. Yes, that's right. His life
| support and all communication in and out relies on a
| flimsy message board. Connection outages? Well, it can't
| happen. We've got starlink on the back of his wheelchair.
| Tunnels? Oh no, don't go in tunnels'
| sbf501 wrote:
| We know one thing: half of the $44B was loans that will cost
| Twitter around $1B per year, so it has to make some kind of
| profit. Otherwise who will pay?
| cudgy wrote:
| Fyi Profit is after expenses. Twitter can make 0 profit and
| still pay the loans.
| yurikoif wrote:
| Saying it is some country's WeChat is like a curse... as WeChat
| is notorious for its closed mindedness and probably hated by
| most of its users... and they won't even have any other option
| because Tencent is actively striking down all potential
| competitors...
| maxerickson wrote:
| What if he just loses a big pile of money while Twitter twists
| in the wind because there isn't much of a plan? That seems
| likely enough really.
| merely-unlikely wrote:
| If that's the case, it won't be so different from when
| Twitter was run as a public co.
| _hypx wrote:
| The social media bubble has burst (see stock prices of
| other social media companies). This is a quick path to
| having Twitter shut down or go bankrupt.
| eigart wrote:
| Musk Twitter and Musk have way bigger loans than public
| twitter.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| I feel we have a generic tendency of looking at downward
| trends and assuming that shocking radical change can't make
| it worse. As history tells, it sure can.
|
| The old Twitter was a lost cow looking for pasture and
| moving very little in fear of getting more lost. For better
| and worse it had stability. We can assume that stability is
| now gone through the window.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| Isn't that kind of the story of Twitter thus far already?
| Certainly on the financial front they never seemed to have
| much of a plan, and on the product side things always seemed
| like a bit of a mess to me as well.
|
| Some fresh leadership might not be a bad thing for Twitter.
| Whether Musk is the right person for that...
| tptacek wrote:
| What these comparative analyses keep missing is that Musk
| Twitter is an LBO company with billions in loans on its
| books. It's private, which takes public shareholder
| pressure off, but it's also directly losing billions of
| dollars in debt service. The pressure to generate some kind
| of stable income, soon, is probably immense.
|
| It's worth keeping in mind that despite the brave face,
| Musk didn't want to buy Twitter. In fact: he desperately
| didn't want to buy Twitter. He's been forced to do so by
| the Delaware courts.
| pen2l wrote:
| > It's worth keeping in mind that despite the brave face,
| Musk didn't want to buy Twitter. In fact: he desperately
| didn't want to buy Twitter. He's been forced to do so by
| the Delaware courts.
|
| I haven't had a lot of good things to say about Musk as
| of late but I think this might be an exception, this kind
| of fortitude is something we should all strive to have.
| When cornered, he at least didn't complain or cry too
| much, he actually bit the bullet and has a very
| convincingly brave face on indeed.
| tptacek wrote:
| I honestly can't think of a worse example of fortitude
| than Elon Musk's handling of the Twitter deal, which he
| entered capriciously, repeatedly violated terms he agreed
| to, ultimately reneged on the deal, and had to be forced
| by a court to uphold.
| robbiep wrote:
| I think that's potentially charitable - arguably he
| pumped out some pro Russia tweets to try and get the deal
| flagged as against national interest to blow up his
| financing. He wanted pretty badly for this not to happen
| including trying a couple of 3D chess moves
| wonnage wrote:
| Uhh, if you've followed any of the Musk/Twitter drama
| over the last few months there was much whinging and
| crying
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| No, he just tried to use the courts to leverage a better
| deal. Imo, he always intended to buy Twitter, it was just
| part of the dance.
| phatfish wrote:
| You do that BEFORE legally committing to a purchase
| price, not after.
|
| He thought he could get away with an "epic troll" for his
| acolytes to croon over, like the stock price manipulation
| Tweets. Turns out the Delaware courts have teeth.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| I agree. We know they were meeting to discuss a lower
| price throughout the process, but no agreement was
| reached. Not surprising if Twitter felt they were very
| likely to win, why accept less? But they did discuss it.
|
| It's more accurate to say Musk didn't want to buy Twitter
| for $44 billion. His timing on his bid really sucked. He
| might have saved half or more if he'd waited a few
| months.
| Vespasian wrote:
| What baffles me is that he would have just followed the
| tried and tested procedures of acquiring a company he
| would have paid less and would have had a chance to
| reconsider if he reaely wanted to during due diligence.
|
| Instead he made a take-it-or-leave-it offer with a
| ludicrously tight schedule and locked himself into an
| unfavorable deal without any obvious reason.
|
| I am certain there is a bad decision in there sometimes
| and I'm wondering what it it might be.
|
| A small part of me thinks that maybe he was uncertain and
| scared that he would back out so he took that option off
| the table preemptively.
| tptacek wrote:
| That would be more plausible if he hadn't savaged the
| company for months, degrading its value, prior to being
| forced to consummate. It's below the threshold for
| plausibility now.
|
| It's probably more or less the case that for the next
| several years, it will be difficult for Musk to do any
| big-ticket M&A, despite having some of the biggest
| pockets in the business, without agreeing to
| exceptionally seller-friendly terms. All because of how
| he handled an acquisition of a flailing media company
| that it is very unclear that he wanted in the first
| place.
| grecy wrote:
| Looking at all musk has achieved so far - despite (or because
| of?) boards of experts adamant it couldn't be done - I think
| it's immensely clear a plan is something he clearly has and
| works very hard towards.
|
| Obviously many people will disagree with his plan, though I'm
| 100% certain he has one, and will make it happen.
| wzyoi wrote:
| I always wonder: how much honesty is in him?
|
| For example, he stopped talking about the bot population on the
| platform altogether after he could not get out of the deal.
|
| Was he honest about this being a big issue in the first place?
|
| For me, it's not easy to believe this because this bot issue
| appeared right after Twitter staff did not like his speech, and
| talks with the CEO fell apart.
|
| Am I mistaken about how it all played out?
|
| If not, do you think being deceitful to a certain degree is okay?
|
| From your point of view, do you consider him deceitful?
| Rapzid wrote:
| I believe it's pretty much the widely held belief right now
| that he was just trying to get out of a terrible deal due to
| the market downturn.
|
| If the case everything should be viewed through that lens.
|
| > From your point of view, do you consider him deceitful?
|
| With no judgement of morality here; this is Elon Musk. Yes
| absolutely he is.
| freejazz wrote:
| I always wonder, how many people would actually buy the
| brooklyn bridge if someone tried to sell it to them...
| munificent wrote:
| Every one of us has run into situations where choosing to be
| honest has materially cost us. You accidentally scratch a
| parked car on your way out. Do you stop and leave a note with
| contact info or not?
|
| The richer you are, the more leverage you have and larger the
| material cost for these situations. A fellow rich friend gives
| you a little insider info that a stock you hold is about to
| crater. Do you sell some?
|
| In other words, being honest is a _tax_ , and the wealthier you
| are, the higher that tax rate. Given that, I think the only way
| to reach certain levels of wealth is by not paying that tax.
|
| Therefore, I treat anyone at Musk's level of wealth as
| intrinsically untrustworthy. You don't get to be a billionaire
| by being a normal honest human. And if by miracle you should
| happen to, _being_ a billionaire I think fundamentally changes
| your psychology such that you cease to be normal and honest.
| There may be exceptions, but I think they are exceedingly rare.
|
| Billionaires are functionally a different species.
| chroma wrote:
| If anything I'd say it's the opposite. A random person can
| get away with cons and scams for a long time. Whenever they
| get caught, they can just set up shop somewhere else. They
| can change their name (or simply lie to others about their
| name). Famous people can't do that. If you're famous, you can
| commit one scam before your reputation is ruined. Even if the
| story manages to avoid the news, people talk and word
| spreads. The incentives are such that a purely selfish
| billionaire sociopath is better off being honest.
|
| Also, being extremely rich makes you a target for ambitious
| or activist prosecutors. Everything everywhere is securities
| fraud.[1][2] Whether you're hung out to dry or not is
| determined by how much your behavior has annoyed people in
| certain departments of the US government, or how much you've
| annoyed their friends.
|
| 1. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-26/ever
| yt...
|
| 2. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-06-22/ever
| yt...
| enragedcacti wrote:
| The names of the CEOs of every major MLM are out there but
| many of them probably live very easy lives unhampered by
| the obvious lies.
|
| Alex Jones got away with it for 20 years before his own
| hubris of not complying with the courts took him down a
| peg.
|
| Tons of celebrities ran their own pump-and-dump cryptos and
| their reputations are doing just fine.
|
| Rich people just grift differently imo.
| id wrote:
| Trump University was a scam - it didn't stop Trump from
| being elected.
| ChainOfFools wrote:
| > being honest is a tax
|
| Being honest is an investment in an honest society and a just
| future. Of course, the problem with being honest is that, as
| with any ideological conflict, those who volunteer for the
| front lines make the most sacrifices, and have to trust that
| the tide will someday turn in favor of their side, even
| though they may never see it happen. So there's a lot of "you
| go first" noise instead of active effort to walk the talk.
|
| Nonetheless this trending fad of referring to any cost that
| has no obvious immediate benefit to the payer a _tax_ is
| starting to outgrow the original, and usefully narrow, scope
| it once had.
|
| It would be equally valid, semantically, (and I would argue
| more valid prescriptively) to observe that having to
| constantly verify at great expense what in an honest society
| you could you could otherwise trusted at nearly zero expense,
| is the more costly and pernicious "tax" on total human
| productivity.
| munificent wrote:
| I probably should have been clearer that I believe strongly
| that it's a tax worth paying. My point was just that I
| think it's statistically extremely unlikely for a
| consistently honest person to become obscenely wealthy
| because the cost/benefit proposition gets worse and worse
| the richer you are. It's relatively easy to walk away from
| a dishonest deal that nets you a hundred bucks. But it
| takes a lot more character to walk away from a dishonest
| deal that nets you a hundred million.
|
| I tend to assume (possibly without sufficiently compelling
| evidence, but I'm allowed to believe what I want) that
| anyone who's reached stratospheric wealth has done so by
| _not_ walking away from some of those shady deals.
|
| You may be right that "tax" is not a good metaphor.
|
| _> to observe that having to constantly verify at great
| expense what in an honest society you could you could
| otherwise trusted at nearly zero expense, is the more
| costly and pernicious "tax" on total human productivity._
|
| I agree 1000%. The value of a society made of honest people
| is radically improved efficiency.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| The wealthier you are, the bigger the cost of certain
| actions, sure.
|
| I'm not at all convinced that the _rate_ gets higher. I 'll
| go ahead and bet the opposite, that the cost of being honest
| represents a smaller fraction of your wealth as you have
| more.
|
| Somewhat analogous to "fuck you money". If you badly need a
| job, you have to be silent about many issues.
| coffeemug wrote:
| This is a really insightful comments right up to "Given
| that".
| edwnj wrote:
| Animats wrote:
| OK, so far, not much.
|
| Musk is getting stretched rather thin. Space-X seems to be doing
| OK with Gwynne Shotwell running things. Tesla, which Musk
| apparently does really run personally, is doing OK, but their
| side ventures are not. Self-driving is a mess. Solar panels (yes,
| Tesla has a solar panel business) are not doing well. The
| Cybertruck is years late. (Maybe next year.[1]) So is the Tesla
| Model 2, the low-end vehicle.
|
| There's still no low-cost Tesla. The market for high-end cars is
| somewhat saturated. Tesla's order backlog is now 78 days, much
| less than usual for Tesla and about typical for the auto
| industry. Remember, Tesla has to become bigger than Toyota to
| justify the stock price. It is not possible to do that at Tesla's
| current price points. There are not enough buyers with that much
| money.
|
| So Tesla has to compete on price with the Chevy Bolt, the Nissan
| Leaf, etc. Electric compact sedans are a crowded sector. Solving
| that problem is Musk's job.
|
| Twitter is a distraction.
|
| [1] https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/tesla-cybertruck-might-
| fina...
| _chap wrote:
| The Boring Company's latest test tunnel was about 1034 times
| slower than a snail (their current stated goal).
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/BoringCompany/comments/xugxdl/comme...
| grecy wrote:
| Well , yes, that's how development and improvement work. You
| have to start _somewhere_ and Improve from there.
|
| Remember, the first SpaceX launch attempts didn't make orbit.
| Did that make them quit because they 'failed'?
|
| Improvement is the name of musks game
| Hamuko wrote:
| Has the Boring Company really achieved anything that is not a
| flamethrower (not not a flamethrower?) and a slow EV taxi
| lane under Las Vegas?
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| It's achieved distracting voters and politicians from
| proven mass transit technologies.
| DreadY2K wrote:
| How does this compare to other companies that dig tunnels?
| morelisp wrote:
| Per Musk's original introduction of the snail, it's 14x
| faster than existing boring machines. So TBC did extremely
| poorly.
| quest88 wrote:
| Don't forget the Roadster! Or whatever the really fast one is
| called.
| Hermitian909 wrote:
| Disclaimer: Previously worked in Toyota's EV R&D division,
| opinions my own.
|
| > Remember, Tesla has to become bigger than Toyota to justify
| the stock price. It is not possible to do that at Tesla's
| current price points. It is not possible to do that at Tesla's
| current price points.
|
| Long term Tesla has to create a balance sheet and a narrative
| that convince people that it's current valuation is justified.
| Based on my time in R&D I think Tesla might achieve that
| through lower cost vehicles - they were taking some very bold
| steps in manufacturing that might be hard for others to catch
| up to - but could also achieve it through other means.
|
| One thing I was very aware of at my time at Toyota was how many
| of the nascent supplies of Lithium and Cobalt Tesla was
| snatching up directly or indirectly. Even if other companies
| can deliver a lower cost of production it may not matter if
| they can't supply the batteries. 3-5 years from now those
| investments might pay off substantially in lower costs for
| Tesla's rather than other vehicles even if the bets in
| manufacturing don't work out.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| What I want to see is Tesla come up with a sequel which is
| another hit. I feel like their car styling was comfortably
| out there when electric cars first came on to the scene but
| now it's become incredibly safe. Other companies, now they
| are building specific EVs rather than throwing some batteries
| in the back of an existing car and calling it an EV, are
| really starting to play with the concept and are making some
| great looking cars. Cars like the Ionic 5 and the Honda-E for
| example are making the Tesla's look old hat.
| mft_ wrote:
| Well , there's the Cybertruck...
| hef19898 wrote:
| As long as Tesla doesn't own the Li suppliers or mining
| rights, it doesn't matter how much Tesla got in the past,
| because going forward all other EV makers, or battery makers,
| will get their volumes as well. Prices will spike, in which
| case past contracts can help to buffer that.
|
| And assuming Tesla has a squezze on Li supplies, laws prevent
| the use of that control to hurt competitors. Braking these
| laws carries enough fines in all major markets that they will
| be adhered to.
| Hermitian909 wrote:
| > As long as Tesla doesn't own the Li suppliers or mining
| rights, it doesn't matter how much Tesla got in the past
|
| My understanding is that Tesla is leveraging long-term
| contractual lock-ins in various shapes. One particular one
| I heard was that in exchange for fronting some of the up-
| front cost for the mine Tesla would retain the right to buy
| X% of the mine's output at a maximum markup of Y% over cost
| to produce.
|
| This kind of contractual lock-in can achieve the desired
| goal without using either of the mechanisms you listed.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| These types of contracts are not new or innovative.
|
| They're usually used by mining companies to hedge future
| market variance, and are not exclusive to Tesla either.
| On top of other companies having these contracts in place
| as well, mining companies will pay to break these
| contracts if a high enough bidder comes along or flat out
| pays them to break it.
|
| With demand pricing spiking for batteries, these lock ins
| are not very strong.
| Hermitian909 wrote:
| > These types of contracts are not new or innovative.
|
| Agreed.
|
| > On top of other companies having these contracts in
| place as well
|
| Yes, but scale is important. My analysis at the time was
| that Tesla was locking in significantly more material
| behind contracts than Toyota or other companies.
|
| > mining companies will pay to break these contracts if a
| high enough bidder comes along or flat out pays them to
| break it.
|
| This assumes the contract is written in such a way that
| Tesla does not have to consent to the contract being
| broken. My understanding was that Tesla was trying to get
| into as many contracts as they could without such
| clauses.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I don't think that they were have to be new or innovative
| for Tesla to have a strategic Advantage relative to
| others with them.
| danjoredd wrote:
| The problem with Musk's solar panel business is that it is more
| expensive and less effective than normal solar panels. They
| look nicer than normal panels, but to thrive off of solar you
| need as much efficiency as possible. Tesla panels don't provide
| that especially for the cost.
| libraryatnight wrote:
| I live in Phoenix and a lot of people have been turned off on
| solar in general for their home because a lot of the
| companies are aggressive and shady. Seems like a missed
| opportunity for Tesla to have stepped in to be a "reliable"
| solar company simply by pricing competitively and not going
| out of business a year after installation.
| jsight wrote:
| Tesla's solar business was started by purchasing one of the
| most aggressive and shady outfits in the business.
| SolarCity was a mess.
| caeril wrote:
| That's one reason I did my own build myself. It's a pretty
| trivial matter for the average high-IQ HNer to spec,
| design, and build. The "hardest" part is understanding and
| adhering to the construction codes, and dealing with
| inspection bullshit.
|
| Check out W&S in Flagstaff (https://www.solar-
| electric.com/) (no affiliation) for components.
| nathancahill wrote:
| They're aggressive and shady (pun intended?) because of
| government tax breaks that mess with the natural economics
| of the market. It's become a cash grab by installers to
| sign up as many people as they can to move money from state
| coffers to their bank accounts.
| dexterdog wrote:
| If Tesla could have been reliable in comparison the other
| solar companies must be pretty bad.
| stefan_ wrote:
| The problems with the solar panel business probably start
| with it not being Musks to begin with, rather it was his
| cousins failing business that he bailed out against Teslas
| better interests.
| wccrawford wrote:
| The problem I hear with their solar panel business is
| customer service. A friend of ours had their panels installed
| for _months_ but couldn 't get Tesla to actually turn them
| on.
|
| We went with a local company and it it took a couple weeks
| longer to install than estimated and they were turned on
| _immediately_ after install. The power company has even
| changed out the meter now, so we 're fully installed and
| done.
| c7b wrote:
| How do you turn solar panels on (or off)? I thought they
| just generate energy whenever light shines on them - if you
| don't take it out as electricity, they'll just heat up
| instead. Is that what you meant?
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| > heat up instead
|
| Given ~20% efficiency I'd guess they heat up by ~20%
| barbacoa wrote:
| >How do you turn solar panels on (or off)?
|
| They probably mean there is an issue with getting
| approval from city/utility company to connect them to the
| grid.
| wrycoder wrote:
| Open circuit, they merely generate a small voltage that
| blocks carrier drift, and thereby, useful current.
| dawnerd wrote:
| I sold my house and I still have the panels showing in my
| Tesla account as pending install ... except they installed
| them two years ago. Repeated emails to them and I still
| have access. Kinda tempted to try hitting the cancel
| install button to see what happens.
| foobarian wrote:
| Is it though? I found that when combined with their battery
| offering, which triggers additional state incentives, their
| pricing is quite a bit below the competition. I just have
| cold feet because of rumors of bad/nonexistent customer
| service.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Ive found the service fine. It took a couple weeks to get
| someone out when I had an inverter issue, but they auto-
| scheduled the service
| WaxProlix wrote:
| The cars and panels aren't looking great, but Tesla battery
| business is good for now though, I think.
| megaman821 wrote:
| The profit margin on cars looks good. If the 3 and Y cost
| around $35k and $40k to Tesla, they have a lot of room to
| respond to competitive pressures.
|
| I think Tesla's battery moves are spot on. Investing in
| extraction, processing, refining, and manufacturing is going
| to pay off big time in the future.
| dahfizz wrote:
| I think this is the future for Tesla as a business,
| frankly. They should be a manufacturer of batteries and
| other EV components.
|
| Tesla is the king of battery manufacturing. Their EV
| drivetrains are the most efficient on the market today. But
| their cars kinda suck overall and they are not going to be
| competitive with the traditional auto makers in the long
| run. Better to sell batteries & motors to Toyota, and sell
| power walls & solar to consumers / resellers. That is their
| core competency.
| kjksf wrote:
| > But their cars kinda suck overall
|
| Do explain how a kinda sucky car, Model Y, became best
| selling car in Europe in September and is tracking to be
| best selling car world wide in 2023.
|
| And yes, I do mean "car", not "electric car". Model Y is
| outselling Peugeot 208, a car half its price.
|
| https://electrek.co/2022/10/28/tesla-model-y-best-
| selling-ca...
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-
| transportation/teslas...
| dahfizz wrote:
| > Do explain how a kinda sucky car, Model Y, became best
| selling car in Europe in September and is tracking to be
| best selling car world wide in 2023.
|
| Because gas is obscenely expensive in Europe, so EVs are
| in high demand and there are very few "real" EVs
| available. Especially in the form factor of the Y, which
| is especially popular these days.
|
| The model 3/Y are over priced, have poor build quality,
| and are a nightmare to have serviced. But there are no
| real competitors (yet).
| outworlder wrote:
| > Tesla is the king of battery manufacturing
|
| Did you mean Panasonic?
| ar_lan wrote:
| Wasn't the Model 3 the "low cost" one? Is there supposed to be
| a cheaper one?
|
| Cars are so confusing these days - $40k USD just seems like the
| average price now.
|
| My neighborhood has so many Tesla roofs I was actually
| surprised by your comment - but that's fascinating! I thought
| they would be doing much better.
| dexterdog wrote:
| The base model 3 starts at 48,490. They were supposed to have
| a $35K version. I think they sold one to a guy once at that
| price with bike tires and folding chairs as seats.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| Proud owner of the most inexpensive Tesla ever sold. Black
| 2019 Model 3, $36,500, less $3750 tax credit. Only took 3
| years order to delivery.
| null4bl3 wrote:
| That is almost the same delivery time as a free east
| German Lada
| flutas wrote:
| > They were supposed to have a $35K version.
|
| They had a $35k version, it was just off menu as recently
| as early 2020[0]. But it was discontinued around November
| of 2020[1].
|
| [0]: https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1127490_the-35k-t
| esla-m...
|
| [1]: https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/16/21569524/tesla-
| model-3-3...
| hnburnsy wrote:
| Just an industry example...
|
| Ford's average transaction price (ATP) edged 4% higher to
| $54,008, according to Cox Automotive calculations. By
| comparison, Ford's ATP was about $40,000 in Q3 2017.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Yeah actually I think this is a very important point. A lot of
| people are either super worried or super excited about what
| Musk will do with Twitter, but both of those positions share
| the assumption that he'll be successful in whatever he's trying
| to do but I'm not so sure that's warranted. As you point out,
| he fails sometimes, and honestly the way he talks about Twitter
| doesn't really impress upon me the intuition that he'll be
| successful (this whole X thing sounds ill-conceived to me at
| this point.)
| lupire wrote:
| > Space-X seems to be doing OK with Gwynne Shotwell running
| things.
|
| Find Gwynne Chatwell for Twitter, and Bob's our uncle!
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Sheryl Sandberg?
| scythe wrote:
| Christopher Poole.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| He should not bring in anyone from existing social media if
| he wants to change the direction of twitter like he claimed
| when he bought it.
|
| Bringing in a "Traditional" Social media Exec will just
| result in repeating the same policies all social media
| companies have, including the clear political bias all of
| these companies have
| raiyu wrote:
| Actually a pretty good idea.
|
| I think Sheryl Sandberg running Twitter would be a great
| idea. She definitely has a ton of experience, is used to
| dealing with complicated founders and executing on their
| vision, the only place that she could move up in her career
| is to be the CEO of not just a large corporation but
| something meaningful.
|
| In a way Twitter and Facebook are no longer as directly
| competitive as they were in the old days when it was just
| FB and Twitter.
| concinds wrote:
| I expect Tesla will still be his "crown jewel". He's already
| announced he's searching for a Twitter CEO. I doubt it would
| take him much time out of his day to set a general vision for
| Twitter.
|
| Jeff Bezos for example owns the Washington Post, but doesn't
| run it (which will likely be the case with Musk and Twitter in
| a few months), and it doesn't seem to have detracted from
| anything while he was still CEO of Amazon.
|
| Finding the right CEO will be the challenge, and I surprisingly
| haven't heard any speculation on who could get the job.
| Florin_Andrei wrote:
| I would very much prefer that he focuses on SpaceX and Tesla,
| in this order, seeing as he's more or less custom-built for
| those jobs, and there aren't that many people like that
| around.
|
| Running Twitter OTOH? There's an endless supply of "captains
| of industry" in the Silicon Valley, who would be willing and
| able to do it.
| Gud wrote:
| Is Tesla really his crown jewel though? I always thought that
| was SpaceX.
| paul7986 wrote:
| Twitter I think will be his crown jewel!
|
| A kitchen sink app in which..
|
| - Use Twitter to pay for parking (tired of downloading tons
| of apps in different cities to do this)
|
| - Musk should find other verticals where ppl have to
| download multiple apps to do the same thing.. just do it in
| Twitter
|
| - Make Twitter a public Internet identity system. You want
| to troll online use your fake account... you want to be
| serious, comment online using your verified Internet ID
| that Twitter has verified you in many ways
|
| - Free speech .. cesspool continues and worse via
| anonymous/fake Twitter accounts. Slightly less when one
| uses their verified account
|
| I think he could triple his investment with a kitchen sink
| app!
| jcranmer wrote:
| > - Free speech .. cesspool continues and worse via
| anonymous/fake Twitter accounts. Slightly less when one
| uses their verified account
|
| From what I've seen, non-anonymity doesn't do much to
| reduce the vitriol of online discussion. What it probably
| has a larger impact on is on potentially persecuted
| minorities (say, trans people), where non-anonymity makes
| it easier to threaten them in real life.
| thomaslangston wrote:
| My experience has been tradeoffs.
|
| Real identity has those most vulnerable get more threats,
| the majority get less.
| paul7986 wrote:
| Well i dont see a way ever to force everyone to use their
| verified public Internet identity, but such a system is
| needed. Especially with deepfakes technology getting more
| evolved and easier to use.
|
| Hmmm...on a different note...Getting downvoted and would
| enjoy hearing why if anyone cares to explain. Are you not
| tired too of downloading tons of apps just to pay for
| parking?
| FpUser wrote:
| >"re you not tired too of downloading tons of apps just
| to pay for parking?"
|
| I am tired of my every sneeze being tracked by the rest
| of the world. It is dystopia.
|
| P.S. I do not downvote any posts no matter what.
| paul7986 wrote:
| cool and thanks, but that's what Musk has said he wants
| to do and just sharing some thoughts/ideas around that.
|
| You don't have to use it, but many others who desire a
| simplest user experience for X will and that's a money
| maker I believe. A way to reap his investment and then
| some.
| concinds wrote:
| Depends on what we mean by that; SpaceX might be what he
| takes the most pride in (due to the much longer-term
| vision, and more "grandiose" nature of space exploration).
| What I meant was that Tesla is his first priority, which he
| micromanages the most and spends the most time at.
| HillRat wrote:
| Twitter is also a risk, not just a distraction; now foreign
| governments can demand access and control in Twitter by holding
| Tesla revenue hostage (e.g., China's approval or disapproval of
| Tesla purchase tax exemptions), so he's basically paid a lot of
| cash to give bad actors additional levers to affect his other
| businesses.
| concinds wrote:
| I don't buy that at all. Twitter has been able to withhold
| tweets from certain countries (e.g. EU) based on local laws,
| for many years. They can just keep doing that with China. You
| can't be held hostage if you just comply with the law and
| take a bunch of tweets down in China, which every company
| must do.
| Jalad wrote:
| > if you just comply with the law and take a bunch of
| tweets down in China
|
| Note the last qualifier in your statement. "in China". I
| think the concern is that a potential adversary could
| influence Musk outside of their jurisdiction too. So "in
| China" becomes "everywhere". Which means that one day your
| might find that you're not able to criticize Putin or Xi
| Jingping or whoever else on Twitter because Musk has a
| large Tesla presence in that country
| concinds wrote:
| Fair, but I doubt that would be in China's interest. For
| example, we haven't seen China try to do that with Apple
| Podcasts, Apple News or (less significantly) Apple Music
| content that might be anti-China. I'm not seeing a track
| record here.
|
| China will do what it always did before with other
| companies: try to hack Twitter to get sensitive data, and
| try to place spies in high places to obtain trade
| secrets, IP, and technology.
| Jalad wrote:
| I'm not sure if China even needs to actively do anything
| in order to create a chilling effect on Musk. Maybe he
| will just censor things on the platform proactively to
| appease the relevant authorities/interests. That's of
| course speculation, but there's precedent for it
| happening already (see Disney[0])
|
| Honestly though I'm just entertaining the idea. I'm not
| too worried about Musk's acquisition of Twitter
|
| [0]: https://hir.harvard.edu/rated-c-for-censored-walt-
| disney-in-...
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| Also physical assets like a production plant. Which I'm sure
| would never be threatened with a shut down over miscellaneous
| health and safety or permit violations.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| BEVs sold by GM through 2022 Q3...
|
| 36 Lyriqs 782 Hummers 22,012 Bolts
|
| For comparison Tesla sold around 32,000 Model S in 2014
| FpUser wrote:
| >"Twitter is a distraction."
|
| Or it could be used as a huge influence platform. Guys like
| Elon might feel that they got to own it. Fishing out my old
| tinfoil hat ...
| cinntaile wrote:
| I think Starlink is a gamechanger, but I guess that's part of
| SpaceX?
| yumraj wrote:
| But what's the size of the market? TAM may be huge, but
| what's a realistic SOM?
|
| In other words, how many people with hard wired fiber/coax
| will change to Starlink or will be be useful only for the
| rural/remote segment.
|
| Yes, there's some international, marine, flight etc. market,
| but, again, how big is that.
|
| Serious question - is there any real data?
| kjksf wrote:
| "42 million Americans don't have high-speed internet"
|
| That's just in U.S. Starlink is world-wide.
|
| Back of envelope calcs:
|
| $100/month == $1k a year.
|
| 1 million * $1k = $1 billion
|
| 10 million = $10 billion.
|
| Estimated cost to replace all Starlink satellites every 5
| years: $10 billion.
|
| That's $2 billion a year.
|
| Cost: $2 billion/year. Revenue: $10 billion/year. Profit:
| $8 billion/year.
|
| Assuming only 25% of Americans currently without high-speed
| internet will opt for Starlink, not counting world-wide
| users, not counting commercial applications (boats, planes,
| gas stations), not counting using Starlink as internet
| backbone (i.e. alternative to under sea fiber).
|
| Most likely Starlink will be a cash cow (and finance Mars
| colonization).
|
| https://www.npr.org/2022/05/11/1098368187/42-million-
| america...
| dboreham wrote:
| Starlink will never be competitive with wired connectivity.
| Source: Claude Shannon.
| yumraj wrote:
| Exactly my point. So, it will always be limited in market
| size and hence it may be a gamechanger for a subset of
| the use-cases, such as the ones I mentioned, but not from
| an financial standpoint.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Don't go too far with that.
|
| Fiber beats starlink by orders of magnitude.
|
| With coax it depends on how it's set up. Plenty of
| existing lines have worse upload speed than starlink
| because of frequency allocations that are expensive to
| change.
|
| Phone wires are very bad at carrying data and are usually
| much slower than starlink.
| giobox wrote:
| By Musk's own admission, it can never be competitive against
| the cellular providers - they have the advantage in simple
| radio/physics terms over satellites.
|
| I have some doubts - 4G/5G access is more and more prevalent
| throughout the US, and it provides better speeds and lower
| latency for less cost. T-Mobile's latest "home broadband"
| router that has an integrated 5G modem is surprisingly fast
| and affordable now, as one example. Starlink simply can't
| compete there, ever, seemingly. Cellular coverage grows and
| grows. Maybe there truly are enough customers cellular will
| never reach to justify _low cost_ satellite internet? I have
| no doubts a market exists for _expensive_ satellite internet
| for those that really need it. I pulled 600mbps over the air
| the other day on a Verizon 5G connection, just sitting in a
| store in a small town.
|
| There is absolutely a risk Starlink will be an amazing
| technical invention, but not one enough people actually need
| to buy to justify continuing an affordable service. I think
| even owning a 2nd internet connection outside of your devices
| could become weird in the future - who wants wifi if the
| device can just have connectivity embedded from the factory,
| skipping wifi, routers and broadband connections altogether
| unless you want them? Smartphones and watches have already
| ditched the physical sim cards...
| jcims wrote:
| The metro/urban bias on HN is rarely more prevalent than
| when the subject is cars or Internet access.
|
| I live on a wooded lot in a reasonably developed area in
| Ohio. DSL was brought out to my address in ~2004. Today it
| is limited to 15Mbps down, 768kbps up. 4G has been
| available since Verizon rolled it out in the area. I have
| no idea how long ago that was, maybe ten years ago. Today
| it's good for 25Mbps/2Mbps on a good day, no carrier on
| bad. I've had Starlink since Feb of 2021. Around November
| of last year it had become reliable enough that I could use
| it as my primary Internet access method. The numbers vary,
| but I would say my average is 140Mbps down and 25Mbps up.
|
| So in my specific case, Starlink is the best Internet
| access, hands down. It has the lowest latency, it has the
| highest raw and average performance, and it is the most
| reliable. It has been this way for approximately a year. So
| in circumstances where the customer is anywhere outside of
| a urban/suburban area, Starlink is incredibly competitive
| and may in fact be the best option available.
| giobox wrote:
| I totally agree with you! But thanks for accusing me of
| bias anyway.
|
| The only question I ask is, "is there a sustainable
| market for _affordable_ satellite internet access? ".
| There is no debate it is the best connection for some
| people right now, but if it is unsustainable that's good
| for no one in long term. Before Starlink, satellite
| internet was far more expensive.
|
| Yet to turn a profit, and some big headwinds in way of
| competitive pressures from other cheaper technologies.
|
| I am also a Starlink customer and live in the middle of
| nowhere, so... For the little my example is worth as
| well, I haven't seen anything like as good as those
| speeds where I am in Washington State, for some time.
| Over the same period, cellular has appeared in places it
| wasn't before.
|
| Cellular doesn't need to reach everyone to be big enough
| to end the dream of affordable satellite access, and the
| cellular providers fight for the same government money
| many countries provide to improve connections for the
| most poorly connected regions. Assuming you are free of
| trees (a big problem!), Starlink so far only works well
| at _really_ low density deployments - a huge detractor in
| many assessments comparing it to cellular deployments,
| even in remote regions.
|
| Leaked slide deck from company declared optimum
| deployments is 100 customers per 300km squared, their
| "100 per 300 rule". Maybe this is better today and gets
| better with time, but cellular has _a lot_ of radio
| advantages and _a lot_ of existing infra to expand from.
| Also doesn 't need spaceships.
|
| > https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UOI7b5flgAjJrPs2HDa64p
| _ZABc...
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > I totally agree with you! But thanks for accusing me of
| bias anyway.
|
| Well your first line was "By Musk's own admission, it can
| never be competitive against the cellular providers" and
| then the rebuttal was based around a strong example of it
| beating cellular providers inside their coverage range.
|
| You can understand the confusion.
| datavirtue wrote:
| I was excited about it also, until I looked into it deeper.
| It is internet service of last resort. I would default to
| Hughesnet or skyblue first if I didn't have access to DSL,
| fiber or cable.
| taeric wrote:
| This has me intrigued, why? Hughesnet has ludicrously low
| data caps.
|
| (Asking as someone that fits your description. DSL is
| offered where I live, at 3mbps. :( Cable/fiber are offered
| if I want to shell a quarter million to help them build
| their infrastructure... so no.)
| grecy wrote:
| Tell me you've never been stuck with hughesnet without
| telling me.
|
| It is atrocious, and millions of people will jump ship the
| second they can
| practice9 wrote:
| > Solar panels (yes, Tesla has a solar panel business) are not
| doing well.
|
| Source? Their last earnings show that energy business part has
| improved this quarter
| practice9 wrote:
| And while Cybertruck is definitely not releasing this year,
| Tesla Semi is going into production
| twblalock wrote:
| I don't think many people are cross-shopping Teslas with Bolts
| or Leafs. The difference in performance and technology is big
| enough to put them in a different vehicle class. Most of the
| people I know who are buying Teslas are coming from Audi and
| BMW, and never would have considered buying a Chevy.
| [deleted]
| kadoban wrote:
| That's basically the point. Tesla can't sell to those people,
| because they have no product for them currently.
| twblalock wrote:
| Tesla sells every car they produce before they build them,
| and there are multi-month waiting lists. They don't need to
| go downmarket. If they build many more of the cars they
| already sell, they will make a lot more money.
| speedgoose wrote:
| But they sell everything they produce with good margins.
| Cheaper vehicles can be introduced when needed, it's not
| necessary to announce them too early and it could even
| reduce the sales of existing more expensive cars.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| But that's the point. Tesla's market cap is over $700bn.
|
| That's more than twice that of all of Porsche, VW (which owns
| Audi), Mercedes, BMW, Ferrari and Volvo put together.
|
| Without selling down into the mass-market and out-competing
| Chevy in that segment, that price premium cannot be
| justified.
| jliptzin wrote:
| Tesla's margins are much higher and they also have no debt
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| > _Tesla's margins are much higher_
|
| But they're not.
|
| On a trailing four quarter basis; BMW has more revenue
| than Tesla ($135bn vs $67bn), better operating margin
| than Tesla (18.6% vs 16.2%) and therefore also higher
| earnings ($25bn vs $11bn).
|
| ... and Tesla does have debt; in fact, it just for the
| first time got upgraded from junk to investment grade
| this month.
| everdrive wrote:
| Serious question, don't they all cost about the same amount
| of money? 35-45k? I understand not comparing an individual
| 18k Chevy sedan to a 35k BMW sports car. But with regard to
| price, most EVs seem to be in the same ballpark.
| twblalock wrote:
| The cheapest Tesla has a $47k MSRP now, but most people add
| on several thousand dollars in options even on that one.
|
| The Leaf and Bolt both have starting MSRPs around $28k, and
| most probably sell in the mid-$30k range, so there is a
| significant price difference.
| CrazyStat wrote:
| I did. I was coming from a Toyota Corolla and wanted an
| electric car. Never considered a BMW or Audi, which didn't
| have electric options available at the time. Tesla won on
| range and comfort--I'm a big guy and the Leaf and Bolt were
| both a bit cramped.
|
| Tesla has actually released stats on what cars their buyers
| trade in [1]. Most of them are not premium brands. Toyota is
| the largest single brand.
|
| The anecdote about the people you know who are buying Teslas
| may be more reflective of who you know than who is buying
| Teslas.
|
| [1] https://insideevs.com/news/504078/what-cars-tesla-buyers-
| tra...
| dexterdog wrote:
| That article is misleading because it doesn't break down
| the Tesla purchases by model or even price range. Obviously
| most of them are model 3s. The model 3 is not a luxury car
| by any stretch and many model S and X owners will say the
| same about those models. Still, the people coming from the
| common luxury brands are not typically buying the "cheap"
| model 3.
| CrazyStat wrote:
| I was responding to a claim about people buying Teslas in
| general. I responded with statistics about people buying
| Teslas in general. It is absurd for you to come in saying
| the data is misleading because it's not broken out in a
| way that nobody else was talking about until you just
| brought it up.
| smm11 wrote:
| IMO he won't do anything to improve the Twitter experience until
| he allows a number of high-profile banned persons back on, which
| will cause mass account deletions, and Twitter will become a
| functional Truth Social within weeks.
| nightski wrote:
| We can argue about free speech & all that jazz to no end. But at
| the end of the day it's as simple as not banning elected
| officials. I don't care how divisive they are, we need to know
| what they say and do. These are people chosen by the people
| whether you love or hate them.
|
| Secondly, I just visited Twitter today and at the top it has
| statements about false accusations and fact checking prominently
| displayed. I follow a bunch of stats and machine learning people
| on Twitter, very little to no politics. Why are you forcing your
| political agenda on me?
| pmoriarty wrote:
| It's not like the news media stopped quoting every little
| controversial thing Trump said after he was banned from
| Twitter... they thrive on sensationalism.
|
| The only thing that's stopped him from being quoted even more
| is that he's no longer President, so for anything unrelated to
| his lawsuits or his potential run for Presidency it matters a
| lot less what he says.
|
| If the Republicans do poorly in the midterms and/or they don't
| manage to win the Presidency back under Trump's leadership,
| he'll be ignored even more.
|
| His presence or absence from Twitter has nothing to do with it.
|
| He has his own social network now anyway, so it's not like
| journalists and his fans don't know where to find him.
| nightski wrote:
| Trump wasn't the only elected official removed. I just don't
| think the president of the U.S. or any democratically elected
| official should be removed from a public platform such as
| this.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" I just don't think the president of the U.S. or any
| democratically elected official should be removed from a
| public platform such as this."_
|
| Even if it leads to people getting killed?
| d23 wrote:
| It's insane. They should be held to the same standards as
| everyone else. Most of their complaints center around
| being outraged when the rules they've grown accustomed to
| being above are finally applied to them.
| [deleted]
| Analemma_ wrote:
| Hard disagree. The whole point of the rule of law is that
| elected officials are not supposed to be special, they have to
| follow the same rules as everybody else. If I'd get banned for
| a tweet, an elected official should also get banned for the
| same tweet. Your proposal means creating a caste system where
| special people get more free speech than the rest of us.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| What's rule of law have to do with banning of elected
| officials on Twitter?
| etchalon wrote:
| If we consider the 1st Amendment a Law ... everything.
| hackarama wrote:
| Can't a privately owned company just ban whoever for
| whatever (or no) reason at all?
| etchalon wrote:
| Yep.
| nightski wrote:
| I feel like it means exposing elected officials and making
| them responsible for what they say online. If anything I view
| it as holding them to a higher standard.
|
| In addition, it reduces the extreme polarization in our
| country. When you silence an elected official, you are
| silencing all the people who voted for such official without
| forcing them to realize what that elected official said/did.
| freejazz wrote:
| Making them responsible for what they say online by
| removing the repercussions that would happen to anyone else
| saying the same thing online? really?
| bee_rider wrote:
| Elected officials in America at least are just normal people,
| the rules apply to them just the same as anybody else. The idea
| of giving elected officials special exemptions ought to be
| odious to anyone who considers themself to have American
| values. I mean it is a private company, so they can implement
| this sort of thing, but we should be clear that having a
| special rules for the political class is utterly unamerican in
| spirit.
| 5560675260 wrote:
| > the rules apply to them just the same as anybody else
|
| Wasn't Trump forbidden from blocking people on Twitter by
| court order?
|
| > "The First Amendment does not permit a public official who
| utilises a social media account for all manner of official
| purposes to exclude persons from an otherwise open online
| dialogue because they expressed views with which the official
| disagrees," Circuit Judge Barrington Parker wrote, citing
| several Supreme Court decisions.
| bee_rider wrote:
| That's a good point, as public servants, elected officials
| should have fewer privileges, not more.
| e40 wrote:
| Are you also for allowing elected officials to shout "fire!" in
| a theatre when there is no fire? What if someone dies in the
| rush to the exit, when there was no fire?
|
| People have already died because of lies being spread. People's
| lives have been ruined. It's only going to get worse,
| especially if the election deniers get voted in en masse in
| Nov.
| [deleted]
| cwkoss wrote:
| I think that's more a failure of our justice system than the
| privately-owned public-square app.
|
| Why can't the DoJ go after those have killed with their lies?
| e40 wrote:
| Justice doesn't restore a life. That's why yelling "fire!"
| in a crowded theater is actually illegal.
| [deleted]
| UncleMeat wrote:
| > But at the end of the day it's as simple as not banning
| elected officials.
|
| Various ISIS leaders were elected officials.
| ginger2016 wrote:
| Elon Musk wants to set the bird free. But is the bird going to be
| free? Even free speech people don't like speech that is critical
| of their beliefs, the pressure on Elon Musk to widen the
| definition of hate speech will be significant. The pressure from
| advertisers will force him to cave.
|
| There will be pressure from platform owners like Apple and Google
| as well. If the moderation is weak Apple could decide to remove
| the Twitter app like they did to Parler.
|
| Elon buying Twitter isn't going to set the bird free, for sure it
| made the cage a little bigger.
| president wrote:
| > Even free speech people don't like speech that is critical of
| their beliefs
|
| This is like saying people that like apple pie don't like apple
| pie. Yes, there are liars and hypocrites out there but those
| aren't the true believers.
|
| That said, despite the challenges out there, that doesn't mean
| you just give up the fight for free speech. There will always
| be bias but the goal here is to even the playing field so we
| can return to a time where the rules are applied evenly to all
| players.
| linuxftw wrote:
| "Pressure from advertisers" implies the advertisers are paying
| more than the marginal utility of the ads themselves in some
| kind of corporate-back-scratching model.
|
| If the ads provide a ROI, then other advertisers will gladly
| jump on board.
| celestialcheese wrote:
| 100% this. Big advertisers don't stop spending because they
| have a moral objection to the content, they stop spending
| when the customers who disagree with the content boycott and
| make a lot of noise.
| ginger2016 wrote:
| Also big advertisers can stop spending because the people
| who make decisions on ad money spend ideologically disagree
| with Musk moderation policy. The decision makers are not
| robots, they have biases too.
| ginger2016 wrote:
| WSJ is reporting some advertisers are planning to leave
| if Trump is re-instated.
| linuxftw wrote:
| And where do the people make noise about these types of
| things? Twitter. If they just stop promoting that content
| and turning a few keyboard warriors into news items, then
| companies will be none the wiser, and will happily spend
| money.
|
| But even in the case they decide to jump ship, other
| companies will fill the gap. Do you think all the NFL
| players are going to leave the platform? All the sports
| journalists? No amount of internet outrage is going to
| change them, they're too stuck on the platform.
| phailhaus wrote:
| That's not quite how pressure from advertisers work. Ads
| can't provide ROI if people aren't looking at them, and
| turning Twitter into a hellscape a la Truth
| Social/Parler/Gab/etc. is a surefire way to drive away users,
| which drives away advertisers. They also don't want their ads
| to be shown next to that kind of content, which will further
| pressure Musk to bolster content moderation.
| ginger2016 wrote:
| Groups can force advertisers to leave the platform. YouTube
| doesn't monetize content that is not palatable to
| advertisers. Similarly whole of Twitter can become
| unpalatable if problematic speech is not moderated.
|
| E.g. Musk said in the past he will draw the line at legal
| speech. Assume that Ye (Kanye) posts his early morning rant
| next week, and it is critical of several groups of people
| based on religion or race. That speech is legal, but highly
| problematic, is Musk owning Twitter going to make a
| difference in the way Ye's problematic speech is handled in
| the future, I think not.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Even free speech people don't like speech that is critical of
| their beliefs
|
| Indeed. The fastest I've ever been banned anywhere on the
| Internet was forums that were ostensibly focused on "free
| speech." The term seems to be used ironically.
| bambax wrote:
| The reason why Musk eventually bought Twitter, when he did, and
| at the price he paid, was to avoid having to testify under oath
| in the lawsuit against him. He was going to be deposed, exposed,
| and in the end he was also going to lose and suffer the indignity
| of having to pay a high price for something he fiercely said he
| didn't want anymore. Better bite the bullet earlier than later.
|
| Now that doesn't explain why he wanted to buy Twitter in the
| first place, but there doesn't necessarily need to be a strong
| reason. He got frustrated _as a user_ , he got bored, he thought
| "hey why not buy that thing" and that set a series of cogs in
| motion that couldn't be stopped before it was too late.
|
| (He's the richest guy in the world; one would assume there are
| armies of people around him making sure his desires are met fast.
| If he says "let's buy Twitter", then those people make it
| happen.)
|
| I don't think he has the beginning of a plan. He said "free
| speech!", and then also "but not hellscape!" But, some amount of
| free speech without being a pure hellscape is close to what
| Twitter is right now. That's not a plan for the future, that's an
| observation of how things are at present.
|
| If he can simply wait for Twitter to be worth as much as he paid
| for it, so that he can sell it again and cover his losses, that
| will be a fairly good outcome.
|
| Easier said than done, though.
| Grim-444 wrote:
| > But, some amount of free speech without being a pure
| hellscape is close to what Twitter is right now. That's not a
| plan for the future, that's an observation of how things are at
| present
|
| I think the issue is that a lot of people disagree with your
| assessment and think the censorship has gone too far for far
| too long. You might not think so, but a significant portion of
| the population does.
| romeros wrote:
| Or it could be that he was tired of Ideologues controlling the
| narrative and deciding what is right/wrong/misinformation/fake
| news etc for the rest of us.
| Zigurd wrote:
| It had to be a hell of a problem he faced should the suit move
| forward: Twitter is worth perhaps half the
| price Elon paid Tesla is worth half what is was when Elon
| started accumulating shares
|
| IOW Elon used money that cost him 2X what is did last year to
| buy something worth 0.5X what he just now paid (assuming the
| check clears).
|
| Even for the Richest Man Ever that will sting.
|
| Innovation may take a back seat to cost cutting, like a basic
| LBO. Elon has creditors who lent him about $13B that got used
| to buy a thing worth half what was paid. What are the covenants
| on that? Twitter has about $4B in existing long term debt.
| Twitter free cash flow is negative, and 3X more negative than a
| year earlier. Where will debt service come from?
|
| These are the mundane, apolitical reasons Twitter faces more
| headwinds now than before. Elon is much about doing more with
| less. He will need a lot of that to happen.
|
| Twitter was badly run by several metrics.
| password1 wrote:
| What I don't understand is the lawsuit from Twitter. There's an
| high risk that this is going to damage the company in the long
| run, so why did the company decided to force him to finish the
| deal? Sounds a bit kinda suicidal
| [deleted]
| rossjudson wrote:
| The _political_ effects Musk is after are mostly accomplished
| by removing bans on a small number of people and accounts. The
| rest can stay (roughly) the same.
| narrator wrote:
| The job of a good lawyer is to predict what the judge is going
| to say after the client has wasted his money on litigating. The
| main purpose of going all the way to trial is if someone is
| lying. Then that's the job of the jury to determine who's lying
| and who's telling the truth.
| theginger wrote:
| I think he has handed people enough rope to hang themselves. It
| is now very clear if those figures were dodgy the deal was off
| so everyone involved knew the stakes were incredibly high. He
| now has access to all the data, all the communications and all
| the time he wants to prove his case. If it turns out twitter
| has been misleading everyone then it just takes 1 or 2 people
| threatened with criminal charges to make deals and everyone
| turns on everyone and it all collapses with enough evidence for
| many lawsuits to claw back money. If the evidence isn't there
| because they didn't mislead anyone then that's also fine, he
| agreed a fair deal at the time based on accurate information.
| rburhum wrote:
| He implied in a few interviews that he wants to turn it into a
| WeChat version of the west. Doesn't 200M+ daily active users
| opens up that door.
| jameshart wrote:
| I can't square that ambition with the idea that Twitter is 4x
| overstaffed and needs to shed 75% of its workforce, though.
|
| If he has ambitions to turn Twitter into an Everything App,
| he'll need to diverrt a significant portion of the workforce
| onto that project, leaving him with a fraction of a fraction
| of the current workforce to keep Twitter's microblogging and
| ad shilling platform up and running.
| bambax wrote:
| He mentioned "the everything app" I think once? But -- IMHO
| -- people who tweet don't fit the profile of people who would
| need such an app. They're trying to sell stuff, not buy
| stuff.
| Slartie wrote:
| They are also demonstrating that they're likely to use
| specialized services for specific tasks - Twitter is a very
| specialized tool. This is the exact opposite from someone
| who draws any profit from an "everything app".
|
| If not even Facebook with its userbase of people already
| using a single mediocre tool for different purposes manages
| to crack the "everything app for the west" nut, Twitter is
| bound to fail.
|
| Maybe everyone is bound to fail simply because the concept
| does not fly in the west.
| bushbaba wrote:
| You assume 200M+ human daily active users. A large portion of
| Twitter's DAU & MAU are bots.
| dathinab wrote:
| It doesn't for the same reason there isn't already a "WeChat"
| of the west.
|
| Additionally Twitter has as far as I can tell (speculative) a
| much much less stable foundation in the EU then it seems if
| you just look at daily users count.
| nghou wrote:
| > It doesn't for the same reason there isn't already a
| "WeChat" of the west.
|
| iMessage? (US)
|
| WhatsApp? (EU)
| adrr wrote:
| Twitter is a microblogging site. Not a messaging platform. He
| could have bought snapchat which is based on messaging.
| tomrod wrote:
| Twitter is a pool of highly capable people, a large user
| base, and, currently, opportunity. A messaging platform
| added to their microblogging service is not outside the
| realm. It already has DM and Vine-like video.
| adrr wrote:
| Digg tried to pivot too.
| djvdq wrote:
| You have to remember that those 200M+ users are located in
| many, many countries, with different laws and customs
| dragontamer wrote:
| > If he can simply wait for Twitter to be worth as much as he
| paid for it, so that he can sell it again and cover his losses,
| that will be a fairly good outcome.
|
| This is a leveraged buyout.
|
| That means that $13 Billion was borrowed from Morgan Stanley to
| make this deal happen, and Twitter is the owner of that debt.
| Estimates are ~$1.3 Billion / year in interest payments (the
| most risky $3 Billion is unsecured loans, expected to be CCC-
| rated, and CCC-rated debt is around 16% right now). So I think
| 10% is a reasonable estimate for what this financing will cost.
|
| In 2021, Twitter made... _NEGATIVE_ 200-million bucks.
|
| So... yeah. Add $1.3 Billion of interest payments on top of
| that, and I think we got a problem here folks. Another note:
| TWTR's revenue (mostly advertisements) is $5 Billion/year. I
| really dunno where they're gonna find $1.3 Billion/year from.
|
| -----
|
| What Musk bought here is a white elephant. It will cost tons of
| money just to stay afloat, let alone "make money" or even
| "retain value". If Elon Musk holds onto this and "only" loses a
| few dozen billion over the next few years, I think he'd have
| done a good job. I have no expectation that TWTR will remain a
| $44 Billion company over the next decade. Selling the company
| off for $20 Billion 5 years from now (IE: a $24 Billion loss)
| would be a herculean effort as it is IMO.
| majani wrote:
| This isn't just a white elephant, that title belongs to
| projects like the unfinished Dubai islands, which "only" cost
| about $8b. A forced purchase worth $44b for a company that's
| lost up to $1.5b in a year is a sword of Damocles hanging one
| inch over Elon's head. It has a very good chance of sinking
| him financially.
| boringg wrote:
| Sounds like you are defining a hood job solely on financial
| parameters which i don't think should be the goal markers.
| That said I realize you are responding to the financial
| aspect of the question.
|
| Also he likely has a plan to get more revenue otherwise he
| likely (caveat he is quite impulsive) wouldn't have jumped
| in. Theres clearly an idea to a path for a better company -
| well see if that can execute.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > Also he likely has a plan to get more revenue otherwise
| he likely (caveat he is quite impulsive) wouldn't have
| jumped in
|
| I mean, just 3 weeks ago he went to court trying to get out
| of this deal.
|
| I don't think he actually wanted to buy Twitter anymore. As
| these numbers came in, it became obvious that this was a
| bad deal for him.
| boringg wrote:
| I'd actually say that the macro market changed so
| dramatically during the debacle that he got cold feet
| given that his other assets devalued and still had to pay
| the asking price for an overpriced company is why he
| tried to back out.
|
| Though he might not have a plan - that's also plausible.
| caeril wrote:
| Firing 1000 engineers who contribute very little value at a
| total comp of $300-400k will make a meaningful dent in opex.
|
| Eliminating the draconian content moderation policies and
| reinstating high-engagement accounts ought to boost revenue.
|
| I think you're largely correct that this is a bad deal for
| Musk, but I doubt it will be quite as bad as it seems, when
| restructuring is completed.
| pavlov wrote:
| Firing 1,000 non-contributing engineers is easier said than
| done. There will be enough false positives in that number
| that a lot of essential knowledge about the systems may
| walk out of the door too.
|
| On your second point, how does eliminating content
| moderation boost revenue? Twitter's revenue comes from
| advertisers, and they generally don't want their ads to be
| shown next to offensive user-generated content. Nobody in
| corporate America is clamoring to buy banner space on 4chan
| -- sites with the least moderation are also the least
| attractive to advertisers.
| [deleted]
| freedude wrote:
| One "cost savings" will come in the form of employee layoffs
| and then the following payroll reductions. IF twitter retains
| it's advertisers and continues to add additional advertisers
| this will make it profitable in short order. In fact, if I
| was in the marketing division at twitter I would be drumming
| up business.
| bee_rider wrote:
| If it is possible for Twitter to layoff employees, retain
| previous customers, and add more... I dunno, what was the
| previous management doing? I mean it is of course possible
| that Musk is just much more competent than them.
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| Musk runs his existing employees very hard. Most tech
| companies don't. There maybe room to squeeze out more
| juice per employee. Surely this will push some out, but
| new people will come in and replace them.
| Keyframe wrote:
| _I dunno, what was the previous management doing?_
|
| I think you can read through the exact same thing Musk
| was questioning in those leaked convos between him and
| Twitter's CEO. That'll be his game for sure, cut down on
| cruft. The hell does twitter need 7500 people for even at
| current state of affairs if not moderation or sheer
| incompetence?
| polski-g wrote:
| The 7500 employees were working on new ways to censor
| people.
| Zigurd wrote:
| Add $4B in existing long term debt to that $13B.
| dpflan wrote:
| The debt payments and IR -- was this the trick to have the
| money upfront, then sell the debt, so banks, do they own any
| amount of Twitter or did they get a payout immediately after
| "the ink dried", and now this $1.3bb scenario is going to be
| offloaded onto someone else? Financial engineering that leads
| to Musk's ownership and banks payout. And now is the when the
| price of that debt is highest, so the highest possible payout
| (?). Because you've pointed out the paradoxical financials,
| IR payments seem whimsical, or a way to eventually sell more
| TSLA stock...
|
| Any good resources on the deal structure?
| merely-unlikely wrote:
| The banks own the debt and will try to syndicate it out to
| new investors later. This is standard in an LBO. The banks
| provide "bridge financing" for the deal while they line up
| end debt investors. But the banks are ultimately on the
| hook if the debt market freezes up, as happened here.
|
| ETA: Financing the Merger section of the proxy lays all
| this out:
|
| https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/00011931252
| 2...
|
| Pursuant to a debt commitment letter (which we refer to as
| the "debt commitment letter"), Morgan Stanley Senior
| Funding, Inc. and the other financial institutions party
| thereto committed to provide to Acquisition Sub (which we
| collectively refer to as the "bank debt financing"):
| * a senior secured term loan facility in an aggregate
| principal amount of $6.5 billion; * a senior
| secured revolving facility in an aggregate committed amount
| of $500.0 million; * up to $3.0 billion in
| aggregate principal amount of senior secured bridge
| commitments (which commitments may be replaced by the
| proceeds of the issuance of one or more series of senior
| secured notes (in escrow or otherwise) pursuant to a Rule
| 144A offering or other private placement, as contemplated
| by the debt commitment letter); and * up to $3.0
| billion in aggregate principal amount of senior unsecured
| bridge commitments (which commitments may be replaced by
| the proceeds of the issuance of one or more series of
| senior unsecured notes (in escrow or otherwise) pursuant to
| a Rule 144A offering or other private placement, as
| contemplated by the debt commitment letter).
| lazide wrote:
| This is why banks always take it in the shorts really
| badly during downturns. They're always chasing yields and
| behind the curve while being in the stereotypical
| 'conservative' financial position of low information
| about how anything actually works.
|
| I'm amazed we haven't had several high profile 'jumped
| out of window' events related to this already. Seriously,
| who thought it was a good idea to sign off in this from
| the financier side?
|
| I'm amazed
| collegeburner wrote:
| tbh i've heard quite a few CLOs are sitting with
| warehouses now open for upwards of 200 days, so MS may
| just be waiting for them to get desperate to fill up so
| they don't take so much of a haircut. my guess is the
| overall prime to sub-IG spread isn't going to be moving
| down, but this is kinda an advantage for illiquid 144a
| offerings.
| bogomipz wrote:
| What is IR here?
|
| My understanding is that normally the banks would have sold
| this debt long before the deal closed. However due to
| Elon's putting the deal "on hold" and what followed, the
| bank wasn't able to do the usual road show to sell the debt
| to investors. The banks are on the hooks for this now. And
| while they will likely be able to package and sell it
| still, they will be doing so in a much different
| environment than back in April when Elon made the offer to
| buy the company.
| dragontamer wrote:
| I don't recall the full details. But I think it was roughly
| 50% effectively fixed (in April 2022) and 50% effectively
| adjustable.
|
| Thus: the estimate for ~10% for the overall debt deal. The
| fixed-portion of the debt is already hilarious to look at,
| IIRC Morgan Stanley expected 11% yields for the CCC
| tranche, but are now looking at 16%+. Morgan Stanley's
| losses are already in the hundreds-of-millions.
| dpflan wrote:
| Thank you, interesting details on MS. Some of the classic
| "yield farming"...Twitter deal as the black box this
| time.
| dragontamer wrote:
| https://archive.ph/PMvWz
|
| Here's an archived Bloomberg quick-take back when the
| debt was financed last April.
|
| Here's some commentary on the subject:
|
| * https://fortune.com/2022/10/05/elon-musk-flipflop-
| twitter-ba...
|
| * https://www.axios.com/pro/media-deals/2022/10/05/musk-
| twitte...
| newsclues wrote:
| I view Elon's purchase of Twitter the same as other ultra
| wealthy people that purchase a news or media business (The
| Atlantic - Laurene Powell, Washington Post - Bezos), a way to
| shape narratives and control information.
|
| The question is, was a new media platform worth the price
| compared to a "newspaper" or magazine?
| saltminer wrote:
| I've read some speculation that Musk did it because he wanted
| to dump a bunch of Tesla stock without tanking its price (with
| the justification being to help fund the Twitter buyout) and
| thought he could somehow back out of the agreement unscathed.
|
| I have no idea how accurate that is, though, and I'm certainly
| not a lawyer.
| Zigurd wrote:
| An odd was to do that.
|
| TSLA is down by half from last year. If you believe the TSLA
| bulls he sold at the bottom to buy something that instantly
| loses him half what he paid.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| When normal people get drunk and have bad ideas they phone an
| ex-girlfriend or sign up to a marathon. When you are the
| richest man in the you blow half your fortune on a social media
| platform.
| leobg wrote:
| He said exactly why he bought Twitter. Yet you dismiss his
| reasons out of hand. Don't even mention them in your analysis.
| And presents this theory of a very reactive, fearful
| personality who is motivated by money and has little vision for
| the future.
|
| (People will agree with you. Because the question they ask is:
| "How is Elon Musk a smaller person than I am?". They ask that
| not because they want to understand. But because they think
| this was somehow some form of personal competition. "If Elon is
| good I am bad". Nietzsche said, another persons vanity triggers
| us only if we feel their vanity to stand in the way of our own.
| And sometimes, that leads us to see vanity where there might be
| none. Because what we're looking at, really, is the mirror.)
| tasuki wrote:
| > He said exactly why he bought Twitter.
|
| He said he was buying it because there were too many bots.
| Then he said he was _not gonna buy it_ because there were too
| many bots.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > He said exactly why he bought Twitter.
|
| He's said any number of things that are either not true or at
| least misleading over the years. Taking tweets at complete
| face value with Musk is... unwise.
| leobg wrote:
| Not my experience, at all. He's been very consistent about
| what he values throughout the years. And he has also been
| very honest about when he had been wrong (say about "having
| egg on his face" about FSD timelines, or "seeing the world
| in radar").
| ceejayoz wrote:
| "Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding
| secured."
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-
| transportation/court-...
|
| > A U.S. judge has determined that Elon Musk's 2018
| tweets that funding had been secured to take electric car
| maker Tesla private was inaccurate and reckless, saying
| "there was nothing concrete" about financing from Saudi
| Arabia's sovereign wealth fund at that time.
| bambax wrote:
| > _Don't even mention them in your analysis._
|
| Neither do you. Are you referring to the bots saga? He
| initially said he wanted to buy Twitter because he wanted to
| rid it of bots. Then he said he didn't want to buy Twitter
| because there were too many bots. That doesn't make a lot of
| sense.
|
| If not, what exactly are you referring to?
| leobg wrote:
| Fair enough. Sorry for not being specific. I was referring
| to this:
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1585619322239561728
| dragontamer wrote:
| > He said exactly why he bought Twitter.
|
| Yeah. There are too many bots and therefore he doesn't want
| to buy Twitter. In fact, Twitter is lying about their bot
| numbers, so please Mrs. Judge, don't force me to buy Twitter.
| Its such a bad value no one should buy it at $44 Billion.
|
| Also, I don't wanna do the deposition Mrs. Judge, I'll go
| through with the $44 Billion transaction. Also, I wanna buy
| Twitter now and its going to be amazing and called "X", the
| everything company. Please get Twitter's lawyers off of me
| and don't drag me through this trial anymore.
| leobg wrote:
| Are you aware that you're casting Musk in a baby voice?
| dragontamer wrote:
| You're welcome to do your own summary of the past month
| if you wish.
|
| EDIT: Alternatively, you can point out where my summary
| is wrong. I did put some effort into it after all.
| causality0 wrote:
| It's very strange to me he intends to un-ban Trump when he gave
| up trying to work with him on that advisory council thing early
| in Trump's presidency.
| rafaelturk wrote:
| Freedom of speech, even Trump deserves it
| causality0 wrote:
| I don't think everybody else is going to receive the same
| degree of patience.
| mjcl wrote:
| I think the answer is probably commercial, Trump generated a
| lot of 'buzz' about twitter before he was banned.
| memish wrote:
| Why is that strange? It's a principled position unrelated to
| not liking him or not wanting to work with him.
| kubota wrote:
| I think he would've gotten much better value for his money if he
| acquired Reddit instead
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| Reddit is privately owned by Advance Publications which is
| privately owned by the Newhouse family. Nobody can just buy it
| if they're not willing to sell it.
| ausbah wrote:
| I think the only big take away is Musk said too much stuff and is
| now left holding a culturally relevant, but monetarily flailing
| company. My expectation is he will do whatever it takes to be
| successful; cut staff, add more ads and paid features, etc. I
| believe he will also do certain things under the verneer of "free
| speech", but will eventually do a 180 because it will hurt the
| bottom line of the company.
| [deleted]
| seydor wrote:
| - That is not a kitchen sink
|
| - Twitter is a telegraph office. Journalists love twitter because
| it makes their job easier by stealing stories/news from each
| other. For the world outside media twitter is pretty much meh.
|
| - Musk unbanning someone doesnt mean much. trump might have sent
| out tweets with carrier pigeons and the mass media would still
| pick it up because it sells. twitter bans have very little
| effect, from the covid misinformation to ukraine stuff
|
| - Twitter is not even cool , why is musk so obsessed about it? he
| will be spending a ton of time in media battles that are
| pointless , truly
| anamexis wrote:
| Who claimed it was a kitchen sink?
| seydor wrote:
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2022-10-27/why-did-
| elo...
|
| https://news.yahoo.com/elon-musk-shows-twitter-
| hq-192220624....
|
| https://www.marketwatch.com/story/elon-musk-shows-up-at-
| twit...
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/business-63408384
|
| in twitter fashion i should tag this as #fakenews
| bauble wrote:
| Sloppy reporting? In MY mainstream media?!
|
| Currently the linked story, from TechCrunch, doesn't call
| it a "kitchen" sink. Kudos to them.
| freejazz wrote:
| It's just a really bad pun on Elon's part. I don't think
| you can blame the mainstream media for that. I certainly
| didn't realize what he meant by it until I saw something
| explaining "let that sink in" because it was never my
| perspective about this whole thing
| ausbah wrote:
| 100% agree that Twitter is only really important because it's
| where all the people with voices on other platforms (Youtube,
| journalists, traditional celebrities, politicians, etc.) spend
| their time. This gives the platform cultural relevance because
| these talking heads endlessly feedback on each other, but there
| aren't enough talking heads or enough of their followers to
| scale to the size of Facebook.
| phailhaus wrote:
| > twitter bans have very little effect, from the covid
| misinformation to ukraine stuff
|
| This is false, the ban on Trump had a massive effect on online
| misinformation. [1] Platforms really do matter.
|
| [1]
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/16/misinfo...
| seydor wrote:
| they are counting twitter retweets after they banned
| twitterers. how is that even a valid claim
| phailhaus wrote:
| Er, no? That's not at all what the article says.
|
| > The new research by the San Francisco-based analytics
| firm reported that conversations about election fraud
| dropped from 2.5 million mentions to 688,000 mentions
| across several social media sites in the week after Trump
| was banned from Twitter.
|
| > Zignal found that the use of hashtags affiliated with the
| Capitol riot also dipped considerably
| fleddr wrote:
| Random thoughts.
|
| 1. I think any effort to figure out rational motives for this buy
| are in vain. It seems things just pop into his head and if
| considered a fun challenge, then why not? A child-like YOLO
| attitude.
|
| 2. Town square. The one thing that keeps Twitter standing is its
| cultural relevance. It is the town square for the elite
| (politicians, celebrities, experts). There isn't really anywhere
| else to go. An exodus to what? The fact that Twitter has almost
| never made money in its entire history yet is still so culturally
| relevant is quite telling.
|
| 3. Brain drain. I expect the exact opposite. This is the part
| where Musk thrives and also where he's at his cruelest. He will
| remove slackers and non-performers without mercy and surround
| himself with class A players only. Next he'll overload them with
| near impossible targets and you can't bullshit yourself out of
| it. You deliver or you're out. I would expect him to run this for
| a year or so and accomplish more than Twitter's dysfunctional
| product team did in their entire history.
|
| 4. Free speech. His goals are good: focusing on the 80% bandwidth
| of free speech, but getting there for sure is going to be tricky.
| This has to be by far the biggest risk factor.
|
| Concluding, I'm mildly optimistic. I wouldn't care if Twitter
| totally sinks, but it's so bad currently that in a way the only
| way is up.
| aclatuts wrote:
| My belief is marketing. Toyota spends 1.3 billion in marketing
| world wide. Tesla has no marketing team but Elon himself is the
| marketing engine on Twitter.
|
| With Elon owning Twitter he can automate the marketing for
| whatever companies he runs now and in the future. Also he can
| invisibly or visibly promote his own tweets. On top of that the
| company makes 5 billion a year.
|
| I think Elon probably has a very techy view that marketing is
| bad. And if he has to do it, he will do it in his own weird way
| with 100% control of how it will be done.
| batch12 wrote:
| I'd work for twitter if they were less driven by political
| ideology. Maybe I am wrong, but it looks from the outside that
| one would have to walk the thought line to succeed in many of
| these west coast companies.
|
| Edit: If I am wrong (possible), help me understand why.
| fleddr wrote:
| You're entirely right, but it's not a popular thing to say in
| this forum.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| >His goals are good: focusing on the 80% bandwidth of free
| speech, but getting there for sure is going to be tricky. This
| has to be by far the biggest risk factor.
|
| What I think will be the real litmus test is Azealia Banks,
| whose account currently remains suspended [0]
|
| She was banned for allegedly transphobic tweets [1] which
| _were_ political speech by any reasonable definition (she was
| banned because the way she said it, not the content of the
| idea).
|
| Why I don't think she'll be allowed back is because she has a
| personal relationship with Musk/Grimes where she sends that
| same kind of hate their way.
|
| But like I said, interesting litmus test.
|
| [0]https://twitter.com/Azealiaishere
| [1]https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/10/14/azealia-banks-
| suspende...
| fleddr wrote:
| The trans debate is extremely polarizing and aggressive on
| both sides. I'll leave it at that.
|
| I think the real litmus test is a possible Trump unban.
| That's would be earth shattering.
| grecy wrote:
| > _The trans debate is extremely polarizing and aggressive
| on both sides. I 'll leave it at that._
|
| While that might sadly be true in some countries, please
| know there are many where people are perfectly happy to let
| people be whoever they want to be.
|
| It does not have to be aggressive.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| It's hard to imagine the Trump ban staying given what he
| was actually banned for. I'm not a Trumper but he tweeted:
|
| "To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the
| Inauguration on January 20th."
|
| Twitter interpreted this to be an incitement for terrorist
| attack on the inauguration and banned him, the sitting
| president of the US, for that. It is hard to imagine any
| platform with a semblance of free speech stand behind that
| kind of logic. If you are willing to read into statements
| that deeply, any speech is bannable.
|
| https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspensi
| o...
| freejazz wrote:
| That's pretty much entirely devoid of the context of
| everything else he tweeted and the rest of his actions
| and you can pretend that none of that matters but it
| obviously does.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| here is the context for the rest of his tweets:
| https://www.thetrumparchive.com/
|
| He was absolutely and obviously questioning and denying
| the election results. Maybe that should be a bannable
| offense, but that isn't what they did.
| freejazz wrote:
| "He was absolutely and obviously questioning and denying
| the election results"
|
| And ginning up the capital mob.... but keep ignoring the
| context.
| Karunamon wrote:
| Oddly enough, this is the first time I have read their
| reasoning for the ban. I did not know they had an article
| on it until now.
|
| Having read the link given to Twitter's interpretation of
| "context" of the other tweets he made, my conclusion is
| that it is impossible to dispassionately read the cited
| tweets and come to the conclusion they did without having
| a number of unstated priors, based entirely in partisan
| animus.
|
| The tweets literally do not say what they claim they say.
| Up until now I had taken it on faith (well, more like
| widely reported media exposure) that he had actually
| "incited violence"; but after reading the cited tweets, I
| am left scratching my head. Election conspiracy
| mongering, sure, and perhaps that is not something
| Twitter wants to be in the business of carrying, but
| violence? Nope. Not in those messages.
| namuol wrote:
| Regarding #3: I think the stated missions of e.g. SpaceX and
| Tesla are the main draw of talent. The rest is loyalty, without
| which most talent would leave for less a less stressful work
| environment. At the very least I think we can expect much
| higher turnover and a distinctly younger talent pool. Sounds
| almost good if you don't have concerns about the chaotic whims
| of ruthless and impatient leadership.
| k__ wrote:
| While I'm no fan of Elon anymore, I think some change is
| desperately needed for Twitter.
| strangattractor wrote:
| Free speech argument is BS. Free speech cannot repay his
| investors. He plans to launch a TwitCoin or some other scammy
| type endeavor.
| memish wrote:
| How do you know?
| strangattractor wrote:
| Obviously my opinion but based on some observations. He is
| not unfamiliar with the fintech space (Paypal). Remember
| the old joke about printing money - with TwitCoin he would
| be doing it - literally. Biannce is an investor. He cannot
| get rid of bots even if he wants to. People do not hand you
| billions of dollars without some hope of being paid back -
| even if you are Elon Musk.
| fleddr wrote:
| You can't just start a shitcoin and print it, you need to
| back it up with real assets. See SEC and what happened to
| Facebook's libre.
|
| Getting rid of bots has to be stupidly easy. They start
| posting the second he tweets. Hundreds of them with the
| same avatar and slightly misspelled name.
| strangattractor wrote:
| OMG: And what assets back up Bitcoin? Dogecoin? XXXCoin.
| In Tether we trust:) Those are just the stupid obvious
| bots. Linkedin recently purged half the accounts that had
| people claiming to work for Apple and AWS. It is far from
| as easy as you think. It cost pennies per fake account
| creation. As they say in the QANON universe - do your
| research.
| ben_w wrote:
| Does he really need to make it repay anyone, so long as the
| investors are on board with this?
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Twitter has to repay a $13 billion dollar loan at the very
| least.
| strangattractor wrote:
| Yes - if his investors want to ever have anyone trust them
| to invest money ever again.
| ben_w wrote:
| I think you missed the point I'm trying to make, so I'll
| rephrase:
|
| Do the investors care in this specific case, or did they
| invest in this plan knowing specifically that his goal
| was to prefer free speech over profit?
| strangattractor wrote:
| Unless there is a rational, defensible argument (which I
| have not heard) of how a free speech platform can repay
| the investors (investors require more money back than
| they put in) I cannot see how an investor cannot care -
| legally. You have to remember that the money they are
| investing, in part or in whole, is likely other peoples.
| It would be naive in my opinion to think otherwise.
| dub wrote:
| Class A players don't work for controlling managers who
| overload them with near impossible targets. Class A players
| have plenty of options in tech, and have no need to tolerate
| having their skills called into question or disrespected by
| pointy-haired middle managers.
|
| When Bill Coughran was asked how he was able to successfully
| manage so many famously high performers (engineers like Jeff
| Dean), Bill explained how that caliber of engineer tends to
| have strong opinions and you basically have to build a whole
| team around them and give them the freedom to do their thing.
| tomohawk wrote:
| Class A players especially don't like working with slackers
| and non-performers. If Elon cracks the whip and gets the
| bozos out of the performers way, they'll love him for it.
| fleddr wrote:
| You're wrong.
|
| This is exactly how he runs things at Tesla and SpaceX. Class
| A players are well compensated and love working on challenges
| that are extreme and/or world relevant. They live and breath
| what they do.
|
| If you're that type of player, Musk will respect you and your
| opinion.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| Everyone I know that worked at SpaceX left due to
| substandard compensation. I don't think it's a secret that
| you work at SpaceX for "the mission" versus "the money".
| yreg wrote:
| Depends on how they value their stock options, no? SpaceX
| grows rapidly and if you believe in the mission you might
| believe the sky is (not) the limit.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| Do you know anyone who has worked for a Musk company, or
| are you just imagining what it is like?
| cbsks wrote:
| That's true, but does working for Twitter inspire employees
| the same way that Tesla and SpaceX do? The koolaid goes
| down easy if you are working on cutting edge problems like
| self driving cars and rockets. A social media (i.e.
| advertising) company doesn't do the same for me.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Yeah, I think that is part of his management style. Maybe
| he can make a Twitter brand Kool-Aid.
| haliskerbas wrote:
| And all of my talented Stanford/MIT/FAANG/whatever pedigree
| friends quit Musk companies or would never touch one of his
| companies. I wonder why.
| fleddr wrote:
| Doesn't matter, somebody else will.
|
| I know Musk is widely disliked, but there will never be a
| shortage of talented engineers wanting to work with him,
| on interesting challenges, for very high compensation.
| kenhwang wrote:
| > I know Musk is widely disliked, but there will never be
| a shortage of talented engineers wanting to work with
| him, on interesting challenges, for very high
| compensation.
|
| But how many talented engineers want to work with him, on
| interesting challenges, for very _low_ compensation.
| Because historically with his other companies that 's
| what he offers.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Space X and Tesla are more inherently interesting
| regardless of the person in charge. Twitter is not. That
| _modus operandi_ will not work for this.
| hot_gril wrote:
| > But how many talented engineers want to work with him,
| on interesting challenges, for very low compensation.
| Because historically with his other companies that's what
| he offers.
|
| But people still take those jobs at the other companies.
| Whatever he wants in his employees, recruiters will offer
| the lowest it takes to hire them, just like anywhere
| else.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Did they live and breathe what they do? Just working for
| FAANG or whatever doesn't mean that they do.
| sassy_quat wrote:
| Astronauts and physicists are separate categories of human.
| Obviously those who thrive on danger and those who thrive
| on puzzles are different. Though, it could be risky to
| present such an upfront contradiction to someone with an
| established worldview.
| recuter wrote:
| "Frankly, I hate doing mgmt stuff. I kinda don't think anyone
| should be the boss of anyone. But I love helping solve
| technical product design problems."
|
| Elon Musk texts Parag Agrawal (now fired)
|
| https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1585804674170355712/ph.
| ..
| IgorPartola wrote:
| To your point number 2: perhaps part of the reason why Twitter
| is the town square is because it is not super profitable. If it
| was as chock full of ads as Facebook I think it would cease to
| be usable.
|
| In reality if we want a public square, we ideally want it to be
| a public utility not a for profit corporation.
| skilled wrote:
| The irony being that the public square at large is a disease
| of the people and not the consequence of a specific platform.
| fleddr wrote:
| I'm not sure if that really is the reason. I do agree though
| that Twitter's ads are hilariously irrelevant.
|
| I would absolutely not want a social network to be ran by any
| government, no thanks.
| esoterica wrote:
| > 3. Brain drain. I expect the exact opposite. This is the part
| where Musk thrives and also where he's at his cruelest. He will
| remove slackers and non-performers without mercy and surround
| himself with class A players only. Next he'll overload them
| with near impossible targets and you can't bullshit yourself
| out of it. You deliver or you're out. I would expect him to run
| this for a year or so and accomplish more than Twitter's
| dysfunctional product team did in their entire history.
|
| Is Musk planning on paying Twitter employees substantially more
| than other tech companies? Why would any class A player want
| the privilege of being "overloaded" with work when they can
| make similar or better money elsewhere and also have better
| work-life balance? Why do all the Elon worshippers seem to
| assume that everyone is as enamored him as they are and will
| happily volunteer to be exploited by him so the world's richest
| man can get even richer?
| fleddr wrote:
| You clearly don't know what an A player is. An A player does
| not have any work life balance.
|
| And no, when you make hundreds of thousands of $ per year,
| you're not "exploited".
|
| And yes, quite a few people would love to work for Musk just
| because he's Musk. Exciting things happen around him.
| esoterica wrote:
| > You clearly don't know what an A player is.
|
| If you work harder than the B players and don't get paid
| more than them, then you are not an A player, you are just
| a gullible rube who lets other people exploit them. A
| players may or may not work harder than the B players, but
| they definitely command more money than them.
|
| > And no, when you make hundreds of thousands of $ per
| year, you're not "exploited".
|
| Yes you are, if other equally qualified people can make
| more money working less.
|
| > And yes, quite a few people would love to work for Musk
| just because he's Musk.
|
| Musk has a cult of personality and there are some people
| out there with no self-respect who will let themselves be
| exploited by him. Those people are not A players, though.
| fleddr wrote:
| In your last point, you reveal your true point: you just
| don't like him. I don't necessarily do either, but that
| shouldn't get in the way of a rational discussion.
| freejazz wrote:
| Weird how you ignore the point where he describes how if
| you work more than someone else who is also getting paid
| more than you, then you are getting a bad deal...
| JasserInicide wrote:
| Musk is famous for paying meager wages relative to other
| companies in exchange for being able to say "I worked at
| Tesla". And those are on public companies where you have to
| keep up with the quarterly earnings rat race. Normally you'd
| expect to see better wages in a private company, but given
| that it's Musk who knows.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| >Town square. The one thing that keeps Twitter standing is its
| cultural relevance.
|
| Social networks rise and fall. Twitter is no more the town
| square than MySpace, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, YouTube,
| TikTok, Mastadon, Snap, LinkedIn, etc. are, and the attempts to
| redefine them as such are only a means to political end.
|
| Musk cares more about making money than anything else - he
| didn't become a billionaire by being altruistic and he's not
| going to start now after this investment.
| fleddr wrote:
| False, none of those other platforms have the town square
| vibe. They're fragmented boxes of content and conversation.
| recursv_thnkng wrote:
| I expect #3 to be true to an extent. Elon is very good at
| attracting very high performing, industry leading engineers to
| join him but they never last long. He burns out the high
| performers just as much as the low performers.
| peppertree wrote:
| "Class A" players answer call to rid the world of fossil fuel
| and explore deep space. There's nothing meaningful or
| productive about Twitter.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| More obviously part of his work as CEO and owner will be to
| develop a meaning and provide Direction.
|
| Maybe he can get people to drink the Kool-Aid that Twitter is
| and well will be the future of productive Democratic
| conversation. If I actually believe that, I would want to
| work there
| wrycoder wrote:
| > _It is the town square for the elite (politicians,
| celebrities, experts)_
|
| Only for a subset of those elites who conform to certain
| ideological views. The rest have been actively censored or
| banned from Twitter.
|
| > _There isn 't really anywhere else to go._
|
| And that has been the problem for those with non-preferred
| views. Twitter clones have been actively denigrated and, in
| some cases, forced to shut down.
|
| IMO, Twitter needs to add up and down voting, like HN has.
|
| Open discourse is not for the faint of heart. Never was - it
| can get your adrenaline up and teach you self control.
| [deleted]
| hn8305823 wrote:
| He literally said it will not be a free for all. He may be
| chaotic, but he's not stupid.
|
| There is a huge difference between no moderation (anarchy), and
| not targeting conservative voices solely based on ideology.
| davidw wrote:
| There are tons of conservative voices on Twitter.
| rglullis wrote:
| But you simply don't know if "the algorithm" is being fair at
| giving reach to these voices.
| [deleted]
| matsemann wrote:
| Yes, we do. Internal research at Twitter found that right
| wing tweets actually got promoted _more_ by their
| algorithms.
| rglullis wrote:
| > Yes, we do.
|
| No, we don't. This is not an yes/no answer. This is the
| type of question that should be answered in terms of
| confidence intervals.
|
| > right wing tweets actually got promoted more
|
| In relation to what? What is a "right wing" tweet? What
| is a "left wing" tweet?
|
| E.g, if the algorithm is focused on filtering out
| disparaging extreme messages, and it ends up filtering X
| amount of "non-extreme right wing content", 3X of
| "extreme right-wing content" and 5X of "extreme left-wing
| content", it satisfies the claim that "it promotes more
| right-wing content" while _also_ silencing conservative
| voices.
| Rainydae wrote:
| This is not exclusive to Twitter, but here's a recent
| research papaer on the comparative advantage of "the
| right" in dissimination of information on social media.
|
| The advantage of the right in social media news sharing:
| https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/1/3/pgac137/66
| 516...
|
| Upenn article summary:
| https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/Penn-research-Twitter-
| gives...
| redeeman wrote:
| yes, let us ask twitter for their opinion on whether they
| are doing improper things.
|
| its like if a policeman is accused of wrongdoing, he gets
| to investigate if he did that himself.
| uoaei wrote:
| Dear readers, this thread (post above very much included)
| is a great demonstration of the U and D in FUD[1]. Be aware
| of undue or obsolete skepticism.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty,_and_doubt
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33375286.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| > _targeting conservative voices solely based on ideology._
|
| Clearly happening, yet even here already we have four people so
| far claiming that it doesn't, and people flagging/downvoting
| you for telling the truth.
|
| They banned a conservative _satire publication_ ffs. The
| Babylon Bee.
|
| "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and
| ears. It was their final, most essential command."
|
| --George Orwell, 1984
| slg wrote:
| The problem is that when leftists and centrist say "censored
| for conservative views" they think of lower taxes and
| deregulation, but when conservatives point to examples of
| which views get censored, it is always "Oh, you know the
| ones"[1].
|
| The Babylon Bee was suspended for targeted harassment.
| Harassment is not a conservative view.
|
| [1] - https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1050391663552
| 67174...
| somenameforme wrote:
| This is the article they were indefinitely suspended for
| posting: https://babylonbee.com/news/the-babylon-bees-man-
| of-the-year...
|
| That's only "targeted harassment" when redefining words in
| an arbitrary and disingenuous fashion. The article is not
| even especially mean hearted, let alone "targeted
| harassment." And then factor in the fact that the subject
| is a high ranking and public political figure on top of all
| of this.
| slg wrote:
| >The article is not even especially mean hearted
|
| The article is saying that Levine's entire gender
| identity is a lie. You honestly don't see anything mean
| spirited about that?
|
| Levine is a random bureaucrat that no one in the public
| would know the name of if she wasn't trans. By singling
| her out, conservative media and the Babylon Bee are
| encouraging people to harass her for no other reason than
| her transness.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| WaxProlix wrote:
| I see people asking for examples of conservative voices being
| targeted, not just blanket "nuh uh!"s.
|
| The Bee was banned for violating the rules and promoting
| transphobia. Is that the "conservative voices... ideology"
| you're thinking of?
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > They banned a conservative satire publication ffs. The
| Babylon Bee.
|
| Nitpick: suspended until they deleted a tweet which they have
| refused to do.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| Nitpick: I respect them for not going through the little
| Maoist Struggle Session that twitter built for people it
| found guilty of wrongthink.
| phailhaus wrote:
| So why aren't there any sources demonstrating this "clear
| bias" you're so sure of? There are actual numbers
| demonstrating pro-right-wing bias, and yet your only response
| is "no there isn't! I saw a right wing person get banned the
| other day!" How is this supposed to be convincing?
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| Yeah it's crazy that Twitter banned all Conservatives from
| twitter and not just ones that blatantly and repeatedly broke
| their guidelines. Oh wait...
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| jshier wrote:
| No one has been targeted on Twitter solely for being
| conservative.
| paganel wrote:
| This certainly must not be true.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| As captured pretty well in the classic fake meme-exchange
| that goes something like:
|
| "I was cancelled from Twitter for posting about my
| conservative views!"
|
| "Oh no, you were cancelled for posting about restrained
| fiscal policy?"
|
| "LOL no, not that."
|
| "Free trade?"
|
| "Not even close."
|
| "Well... what conservative views are you talking about?"
|
| "Oh, you know the ones" _wink_
| brigandish wrote:
| Stating that humans are sexually dimorphic? That a man
| claiming to have transitioned to female is still a man?
| That got the Babylon Bee sanctioned, _for satire_.
|
| I would also hope that's not a "conservative" view as it's
| simply a scientific fact.
| yunwal wrote:
| yeah, those ones
| zo1 wrote:
| It's easy to say that when you define conservative opinions
| as breaking the rules or harassment. So they get banned for
| hate and harassment instead of just being conservative or
| right leaning. Congrats you won on a technicality.
|
| So both sides are right, and yet the conversation between the
| extremes moved backwards instead of finding common ground.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| >It's easy to say that when you define conservative
| opinions as breaking the rules or harassment.
|
| That's literally what they did. "misgendering someone" is
| hatespeech/harassment. When from a sane perspective outside
| the woke cult: Humans aren't clownfish and cannot change
| their gender.
|
| The emperor's new dress doesn't make him a woman.
| JSchmoe wrote:
| >Humans aren't clownfish and cannot change their gender.
|
| Hit the nail on the head here. Hence, the medical
| community's current response is to adjust the
| individual's body, appearance and treatment from others
| to match their gender as closely as possible.
| phailhaus wrote:
| > not targeting conservative voices solely based on ideology.
|
| This literally does not happen, and is entirely made up in a
| form of projection. In fact, Twitter has been found to be
| biased towards recommending right-wing sources. [1]
|
| [1]
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/22/twitter-a...
| [deleted]
| phpisthebest wrote:
| kevingadd wrote:
| But claims that right wing voices are being censored would
| come from... right wing sources, no? Are those valid but
| not the left wing sources? If so, why?
| phpisthebest wrote:
| Claims that right wing voices are being censored are from
| my own observations. including the examples I cited in my
| comment. To be clear I do not think left voices should be
| censored, I am 100% opposed to all censorship, banning
| ect
|
| In the 90's I was fighting conservatives that wanted to
| censor the much smaller and newer internet from things
| like violence (games) and porn.
|
| Today it is the left that is attempting to censor the
| internet over much more nebulous and undefined terms like
| "misinformation" and "hate speech" all of which have very
| subjective definitions and seem to be a moving target.
| Rainydae wrote:
| First let's start here:
|
| Science: There is no liberal media bias in which news
| stories political journalists choose to cover
|
| https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.aay9344
|
| -----------------------------------------------------------
| ---------------------
|
| Trade-offs between reducing misinformation and politically-
| balanced enforcement on social media.
|
| https://psyarxiv.com/ay9q5
|
| I.e. Analyzing Twitter suspensions shows that users'
| sharing of links to misinformation sites was as predictive
| of being suspended as was the users' political orientation.
| "Conservative" accounts share more misinformation, and
| violate with greater frequency policy rules.
|
| -----------------------------------------------------------
| ---------------------
|
| And next, you might in response link this article:
|
| https://quillette.com/2019/02/12/it-isnt-your-imagination-
| tw...
|
| A study that although argues twitter has a bias, readily
| admits in it's data sampling that the banned/suspended
| accounts violate terms and conditions at a mich higher
| rate.
|
| Reasons listed for banning these individuals in Hanania's
| own data sheet include "violent threats," "harassment,"
| "inciting violence," "targeted abuse," "doxxing," "pro-Nazi
| tweets," and "racist slurs." Additionally, about a quarter
| of the accounts listed are still active and no longer
| suspended.
|
| Kicking off a bunch of Nazis and trolls isn't very
| compelling evidence that your average conservative is
| getting unfair treatment on Twitter. The majority of the
| "victims" here seem to have been engaged in abuse, and it's
| reasonable for a private company like Twitter to kick off
| people who are undermining the quality of their platform by
| harassing or threatening other users.
|
| -----------------------------------------------------------
| ---------------------
|
| Lastly:
|
| " We then investigated potential political bias in
| suspension patterns and identified a set of 9,000
| politically engaged Twitter users, half Democratic and half
| Republican, in October 2020, and followed them through the
| six months after the U.S. 2020 election. During that
| period, while only 7.7% of the Democratic users were
| suspended, 35.6% of the Republican users were suspended.
| The Republican users, however, shared substantially more
| news from misinformation sites - as judged by either fact-
| checkers or politically balanced crowds - than the
| Democratic users. Critically, we found that users'
| misinformation sharing was as predictive of suspension as
| was their political orientation. Thus, the observation that
| Republicans were more likely to be suspended than Democrats
| provides no support for the claim that Twitter showed
| political bias in its suspension practices. Instead, the
| observed asymmetry could be explained entirely by the
| tendency of Republicans to share more misinformation."
|
| https://www.benton.org/headlines/twitter-biased-against-
| cons...
|
| -----------------------------------------------------------
| -
|
| "We were surprised," says Gonzalez-Bailon, an associate
| professor in Penn's Annenberg School for Communication.
| "Previous work has documented that Twitter users tend to
| have a liberal bias. But we found that across the board,
| the news most often shared has a right-leaning bias. This
| increases the visibility of conservative voices, even in
| the context of protest mobilizations with liberal goals."
|
| https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/Penn-research-Twitter-
| gives...
|
| Research paper: The advantage of the right in social media
| news sharing
|
| https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/1/3/pgac137/6651
| 6...
| phpisthebest wrote:
| >>. During that period, while only 7.7% of the Democratic
| users were suspended, 35.6% of the Republican users were
| suspended. The Republican users, however, shared
| substantially more news from misinformation sites -
|
| The key flaw here was "misinformation" at that time
| included what is now considered "fact" about COVID
| Policies, and "science", including mask effectiveness,
| vaccine effectiveness, Lab leak theory, and a whole host
| of other things that were "misinformation" in 2020 but
| not in 2022. that is the entire problem with the
| "misinformation" narrative
|
| Science after all is not "experts telling us what to
| think" but instead is in reality it the act of continual
| questioning of established narrative
|
| Shutting down debate for "misinformation" is itself anti-
| science
| Rainydae wrote:
| Actually, you're wrong. Read the paper. And I quote:
|
| "Reasons listed for banning these individuals in
| Hanania's own data sheet include "violent threats,"
| "harassment," "inciting violence," "targeted abuse,"
| "doxxing," "pro-Nazi tweets," and "racist slurs."
| Additionally, about a quarter of the accounts listed are
| still active and no longer suspended."
|
| Twitters Covid misinformation policy didn't come into
| effect untill the end of Dec, 21. So 2020 is incorrect.
|
| Why don't you read the actual policy instead of making
| stuff up?
|
| https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/medical-
| misin...
| naasking wrote:
| That's a very selective reading of the article. Twitter
| boosts things that attract more views and shares. Outrage
| generates those views. But why would mainstream right-wing
| politicians and articles generate more outrage on Twitter
| than non-rightwing content?
|
| That only makes sense if Twitter is predominantly anti-right
| wing, and people who are anti-rightwing get outraged by
| rightwing nonsense more than leftwing nonsense, and thus
| rage-click, share and comment on that content more.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| There's another theory that fits the data: rightwing
| sources are more likely to share things that are enraging
| to rightwing readers. After all, rightwing sources are
| mostly followed by rightwing readers, same as with
| leftwing. Usually they just stay in their bubble. As to why
| rightwing sources would do this, I can think of a couple of
| reasons, but they are outside of the scope of my comment.
| treeman79 wrote:
| redeeman wrote:
| in other news, criminals dont agree they are criminals, and
| publish a story saying they are not, so that is now fact.
| bbreier wrote:
| I'd love to see some clear examples of conservative voices
| being targeted solely based on ideology, cause I don't think
| they exist.
|
| The replies so far seem to just confirm my point. Doesn't seem
| like any of them were banned "solely based on ideology" at all.
|
| Come on y'all, show me one example where someone was banned for
| asking for lower taxes!
| kyleblarson wrote:
| There was this guy with strange hair and an orangeish
| complexion who had a lot of followers who was banned.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| For breaking the rules regarding inciting violence, not his
| ideology.
| kyleblarson wrote:
| Yet the ayatollah still has an account. Strange.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| The two tweets for which he was banned were:
|
| "The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me,
| AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a
| GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be
| disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or
| form!!!"
|
| and
|
| "To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to
| the Inauguration on January 20th."
| heurist wrote:
| Why was he banned? Someone at Twitter that day felt a duty
| to prevent the person who led his violent supporters to the
| capitol from continuing to speak through their platform.
| Are you saying this was a purely political decision?
| jpadkins wrote:
| If their intention was to reduce violence from his
| supporters, then why did they delete the video he
| uploaded at 4:16 that stated
|
| "I know your pain. I know you're hurt. We had an election
| that was stolen from us," he said. "It was a landslide
| election, and everyone knows it, especially the other
| side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace.
| We have to have law and order. We have to respect our
| great people in law and order. We don't want anybody
| hurt."
|
| The president called it a "very tough period of time,"
| calling the election "fraudulent."
|
| "But we can't play into the hands of these people," Trump
| said. "We have to have peace. So go home. We love you.
| You're very special. You've seen what happens, you see
| the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I
| know how you feel. But go home and go home in peace."
|
| > who led his violent supporters to the capitol The
| capitol was breached while Trump was still speaking to
| the larger crowd several blocks away.
|
| if twitter's goal was reduction of violence, then they
| would have amplified Trump's video calling for peaceful
| dispersion, not delete it.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| Given that he claims that he won the election in that
| video, yeah it makes sense to delete it.
|
| > We had an election that was stolen from us," he said.
| "It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it,
| especially the other side.
|
| Is _not_ a call for the peaceful transition of power and
| for people to go home. Speaking out of both sides of your
| mouth is not a call for peace. Trump 's tweet wasn't an
| effort to reduce violence, it was an effort to continue
| to stoke the flames while appearing to help, and people
| didn't fall for it.
| naasking wrote:
| > I'd love to see some clear examples of conservative voices
| being targeted solely based on ideology, cause I don't think
| they exist.
|
| Certain biases are baked into Twitter's content moderation
| policies. For instance, on COVID and gender. It just so
| happens that conservatives statistically disagree with the
| positions taken by those policies significantly more than
| liberals.
|
| Is that an anti-conservative bias? Well, liberals often make
| the argument that the drug war was prejudicial against black
| people because the laws specifically targeted drugs that were
| more common in black communities. If you accept this
| argument, by parity of reasoning, you should also accept that
| Twitter's rules are prejudicial against conservative views.
|
| For examples of prominent cancellations, there was Alex
| Berenson, Megan Murphy, Jordan Peterson, among others. These
| people aren't all strictly conservatives, but they were
| banned for views that conservatives mostly agree with.
| Rainydae wrote:
| You have any data sources to back your claims? Or are these
| your opninions?
| naasking wrote:
| What claims do you want data for? That conservatives had
| opinions COVID that often ran contrary to mainstream
| narratives? Or that conservatives have views favouring
| traditional gender roles and their identification with
| biological sex? Or that both of these sets of
| conservative views run afoul of Twitter's policies?
| Rainydae wrote:
| Any quantifiable data/research that concludes/outlines
| specific biases baked into Twitters algorithm. Peer
| reviewed?
| naasking wrote:
| I didn't even mention Twitter's algorithm so I have no
| idea what that has to do with anything.
| petilon wrote:
| The problem is that a lot of miscreants hide behind the label
| "conservative voice". Like people who spread hate,
| misinformation and conspiracy theories online. We need to
| differentiate between these fake "conservative voices" and
| real conservatives. Pretty sure people in the second category
| are not being targeted.
| uoaei wrote:
| No true conservative, eh?
|
| I implore you (all) to consider this angle when complaining
| about "left" boogeymen. Do the fixie-riding anarchists
| represent the left? Do the alt-right racist and
| misanthropic school shooters represent the right? What of
| each side encourages these extremities? Further, _which
| ones do commit societal (psychological, economic, etc.)
| damage_?
| o_1 wrote:
| I think psychological damage can be blamed on all degrees
| of the spectrum, both sides.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| The label of "hate" very often does get slapped on real
| conservative voices. Supporting sex-segregated sports is
| considered hate speech by many, for instance. If your label
| of "hate" encompasses typical conservative view, then it's
| just a shallow attempt to deflect from the fact that
| conservative views are indeed being suppressed.
| koolba wrote:
| The entire Hunter Biden laptop saga isn't enough for you?
|
| Days before a national election they deliberately censored a
| story pertaining to corruption of one of the candidates,
| censored anyone that shared the story, and censored anyone
| that mentioned the censoring of the story.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| What about the laptop suggested anything unethical done by
| _Joe_ Biden?
|
| Ultimately that's the reason the story was "censored", it
| was fake. Something vaguely suspicious sounding about
| Hunter used to try and malign his dad, and ethical news
| sites and journalists wanted nothing to do with it.
|
| To this day, there's no evidence of any actual wrongdoing,
| and even Trump's own justice department failed to charge
| Hunter, or even continue the investigation, because it was
| so clearly nothing of note.
| jpadkins wrote:
| suppression of the hunter biden story was the clearest one.
| (let me know if you need details or citations on the NY Post
| article & account being banned by twitter before the
| election).
|
| Also Alex Berenson's lawsuit with Twitter revealed that
| public officials leaned on twitter to suppress his voice. I
| think these emails are revealing on the 'coziness' between
| the current administration and twitter policy team.
| https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/the-white-house-
| privatel...
|
| Can you imagine if the Trump administration put pressure on
| twitter to suppress reporters they thought was 'epicenter of
| disinfo'?
| zo1 wrote:
| Jordan Peterson.
|
| But you'll find a reason for this example and any other to
| not to fit your criteria.
|
| Another: Stefan Molyneux.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| LibsofTiktok was banned so many times.
| headhasthoughts wrote:
| Libel isn't legal in the US.
|
| > In since-deleted tweets, the account specifically accused
| Chasten Buttigieg and The Trevor Project organization of
| grooming.[40][32][94]
|
| And outright misinformation isn't really an "ideological
| difference."
|
| > The account has been criticized for spreading hoaxes,
| including the litter boxes in schools hoax about bathrooms
| accommodations for students that identified as cats, and a
| false claim that students in a second-grade class in
| Austin, Texas were being taught about furries.[12][95][94]
|
| Outright lies are destructive to "public square"-style
| communication, and Twitter definitely can't be seen,
| legally, facilitating libel.
| scythe wrote:
| >Libel isn't legal in the US.
|
| In order for something to be libel, you have to know it
| is false and intend for people to believe it is true. The
| litter box story for example was spread by a trolling
| organization with the intention of fooling people like
| LoTT and Tucker. It's not libel because they fell for it
| -- it's stupid, but it's not libel. Likewise, the
| criticism of the The Trevor Project likely reflects a
| sincerely held belief that the known activities of TTP
| constitute "grooming", and not a measurable claim that
| TTP staff are actively engaging in activities
| conventionally understood as pedophilia. Also not libel.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| This is not true.
|
| Defamation (libel and slander) in the US is distinct
| depending on how well known the victim is. For a famous
| victim, yes you must essentially know the statement was
| false.
|
| But if the victim is not a public individual, you need
| only act with negligence (e.g. violate the reasonable
| person standard). The litter box story, for example,
| doesn't involve famous people, it's like random local
| school districts, and no reasonable person would believe
| it to be true. The Trevor project likely does constitute
| a public organization, so the standard is higher, but
| only requires actual malice, which means "reckless
| disregard" for the truth of the statements. It's probably
| not met, because it is a high standard, but it doesn't
| actually _require_ that they know themselves to be lying.
| PathOfEclipse wrote:
| > > In since-deleted tweets, the account specifically
| accused Chasten Buttigieg and The Trevor Project
| organization of grooming.[40][32][94]
|
| Leftists accuse conservatives of far worse things than
| that without ever getting censored. Leftists can event
| threaten other peoples' lives without getting censored:
| https://www.dailywire.com/news/7-twitter-accounts-that-
| have-...
|
| Is it worse to be called a groomer or a Nazi? I guess, if
| you're twitter, it's worse to call a leftist a groomer
| than it is to call a conservative a Nazi. @NYCAntifa
| clearly gets away with the latter!
|
| > The account has been criticized for spreading hoaxes,
| including the litter boxes in schools hoax about
| bathrooms accommodations for students that identified as
| cats, and a false claim that students in a second-grade
| class in Austin, Texas were being taught about
| furries.[12][95][94]
|
| Libs of tik tok spread the misinformation, but they
| didn't create it. They cited someone else. If you don't
| think it's ok to cite someone else, later find out they
| lied, and then retract your statement, well, you probably
| have two standards, one for yourself and one for people
| you disagree with.
|
| > Outright lies are destructive to "public square"-style
| communication, and Twitter definitely can't be seen,
| legally, facilitating libel.
|
| It's amazing how many lies come from the left and never
| see any twitter censorship:
| https://www.dailywire.com/news/numerous-leftists-on-
| twitter-...
| slg wrote:
| >Is it worse to be called a groomer or a Nazi? I guess,
| if you're twitter, it's worse to call a leftist a groomer
| than it is to call a conservative a Nazi.
|
| "Groomer" is a noun that describes someone's actions.
| "Nazi" is a noun that describes someone's political
| beliefs. It is absolutely worse to be called a "groomer"
| because that is a direct claim of immoral and often
| illegal behavior. "You are doing something bad" is a more
| serious accusation than "you believe something bad".
| PathOfEclipse wrote:
| If your belief system allows you to support genocide,
| does that make you better than someone who is doing
| something bad now that doesn't support genocide? No, I
| don't think your moral compass is any less subjective
| than mine, here. People act on and are motivated by their
| beliefs, and, if you're a Nazi, you're going to do things
| that move the world in a particular direction.
|
| And, here is an article talking about how the Trevor
| project "does" groom people:
| https://personandidentity.com/mother-of-trans-child-
| poses-as...
|
| And another on the same story:
| https://pitt.substack.com/p/the-trevor-project-
| undercover-mo...
|
| Are those going to get censored if I post them on
| twitter?
| slg wrote:
| >If your belief system allows you to support genocide,
| does that make you better than someone who is doing
| something bad now that doesn't support genocide?
|
| Many people who use the term "groomers" as loosely as
| LibsOfTikTok already think of this "grooming" as
| equivalent to a genocide. That is my point. "Groomers"
| implies that the bad is already happening while "Nazi"
| implies the bad is a belief with undefined actions. It is
| the difference between being call a murderer and a
| psychopath. One says you already did something bad. The
| other says you might be capable of something bad.
| jl6 wrote:
| False accusations of being a Nazi have on occasion led to
| successful libel claims, so I'm not sure it a whole lot
| less serious than a false accusation of child abuse (if
| that's what groomer is supposed to mean).
| PathOfEclipse wrote:
| To groom is to "prepare or train (someone) for a
| particular purpose or activity."
|
| It also has a more specific definition: "the act of
| deliberately establishing an emotional connection with a
| child to prepare the child for child abuse".
|
| Today, I think people are using the word to mean a hybrid
| of the above two definitions, namely, to train or
| indoctrinate a child into sexual deviancy, even if the
| person doing the grooming does not take part in it
| directly.
|
| I think some uses today are also just synonyms for
| indoctrination, which fits only within the more general
| definition of grooming.
| jsight wrote:
| > Is it worse to be called a groomer or a Nazi? I guess,
| if you're twitter, it's worse to call a leftist a groomer
| than it is to call a conservative a Nazi. @NYCAntifa
| clearly gets away with the latter!
|
| I can see why you are being downvoted, but I've been
| observing this trend lately too. Its popular on some
| social media sites to call half of the country nazis or
| at least nazi sympathizers.
|
| Neither side has clean hands, but this vilification is
| extremely harmful.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| This is not an accurate representation of what
| LibsofTiktok is and what content they post.
|
| There are specifics about what false claims. All they do
| is repost TikTok's insanity.
|
| In some ways, LibsofTiktok has done world a whole lot of
| good, by exposing and immunizing against extreme left
| ideologies that even the most devout progressives reject.
|
| We need more of this that exposed extremes of either
| ideology. Because clearly the media has totally failed to
| do this.
| redeeman wrote:
| libsoftiktok literally just puts an eye on content other
| people choose to make public to begin with
| smcl wrote:
| That's laughably false - take a peek at some of their
| tweets, shedloads of transphobic hate sprinkled with a
| bit of targeted harassment:
|
| https://github.com/salcoast/deleted-tweets-
| archive/blob/main...
| PathOfEclipse wrote:
| I'm not sure why GP was downvoted. There are many, many
| examples. You would probably see them if your primary news
| sources weren't the NYT, the Washington Post, CNN, or MSNBC.
| Twitter is the poster child for authoritarian leftist social
| media!
|
| The easiest way to get censored for ideological beliefs was
| to state that biological sex is a reality:
| https://www.dailywire.com/news/twitter-censors-tucker-
| carlso...
|
| Babylon Bee got banned for harmless satire:
| https://www.dailywire.com/news/babylon-bee-a-factor-in-
| musk-...
|
| Libs of tiktok was banned for "hate speech." I'm not sure
| they ever even let the account owner know exactly what was
| said that deserved censorship:
| https://www.dailywire.com/news/twitter-censors-popular-
| accou...
|
| A classic is when the NY Post got locked out for posting
| factual information that the left wanted to bury before the
| 2020 election: https://www.dailywire.com/news/nypost-remains-
| locked-out-of-...
|
| Twitter censored health experts whenever what they said
| didn't fit the COVID narrative put forth by the CDC:
| https://www.dailywire.com/news/twitter-censors-white-
| house-h...
|
| There is still, today, multiple years after the start of the
| pandemic, no strong evidence that masks did anything
| significant to slow the spread of COVID. I can provide many
| citations if you need them. In fact, much of what big tech
| censored turned out to be true or still plausible today,
| like: the lab leak theory, natural immunity being more
| effective than the vaccine (even Bill Gates admits this
| now!), and so on.
|
| James Lindsay got locked out for saying "OK groomer".
| https://www.dailywire.com/news/author-james-lindsay-
| banned-f...
|
| Leftists have said many, many more vile and hateful things
| than that without suffering a single consequence, including
| making threats on others' lives:
| https://www.foxnews.com/media/libs-of-tik-tok-creator-
| twitte...
| vehemenz wrote:
| Free rhetorical tip: stop using the word "leftist" if you
| want people to take you seriously. Just because people are
| opposed to the Republican Party doesn't mean they are
| leftists. Suggesting they are is to present a false
| dichotomy.
| PathOfEclipse wrote:
| I appreciate the tip, but what word should I use instead?
| Progressive? I think just about everything being done on
| the left today is regressive. Liberal? I think the left
| in general today is about is illiberal as it gets. Non-
| conservative? I think it includes too many people,
| because I do believe there are moderates, independents,
| and people who could care less either way.
|
| I agree that "leftist" can be divisive, but I haven't
| found a different word to use that doesn't also convey
| what I believe to be a falsehood. I also carefully use
| the word "conservative" instead of "Republican", because
| I don't think those two are the same thing either. It's
| also hard to use equivalent language because, while you
| can say "leftist", you can't really say "rightist".
|
| Fundamentally, a conservative wants to preserve the
| status quo because they think proposed changes would make
| it worse. A progressive wants to change the status quo
| because they think they can improve it. But often when we
| use these words we are instead referring to a set of
| political ideals and beliefs supported by a group of
| people. There are lots of things conservatives would want
| to change today because they think we've gone in the
| wrong direction, and there are plenty of wins the left
| wants to preserve that are under assault by
| conservatives.
| mullingitover wrote:
| This list makes Twitter look better at content moderation
| than they actually are.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| For a while "learn to code" could get you kicked off
| twitter. It was OK when journalists do it to other people.
| guelo wrote:
| If you didn't only read conservative news maybe you'd know
| about canceled leftists. Actually you wouldn't know about
| canceled leftists since there is no left wing popular
| media. We have corporate media and equally powerful far
| right media. That's it.
| PathOfEclipse wrote:
| Conservative: makes claims, provides sources.
|
| Leftist: makes claims, can't be bothered to cite anything
| to support them.
|
| If only this weren't a typical pattern!
|
| No leftwing popular media? Are you joking? Even left-
| leaning "bias" sites show that the biggest names in news
| as being on the left: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/new-
| york-times/
|
| https://www.allsides.com/news-source/new-york-times
|
| And for AP: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/associated-
| press/
|
| My only disagreement is to replace "left-center" with
| far-left.
| bink wrote:
| I'll never understand how people can justify seeing the
| world in such binary terms. You don't honestly think
| someone is "bad" or "good" based on political ideology,
| do you?
| PathOfEclipse wrote:
| It's easy to summarize the world in binary terms based on
| empirical evidence that comes from your own experiences.
| In my experience, conservatives are far more likely to
| back up their claims with evidence than those on the
| left. Is it always true? Of course not. But it certainly
| is a trend I am convinced exists.
| nervelink wrote:
| Conservative: makes claims, provides "sources"
|
| You reference mediabiasfactcheck.com a hobby site by a
| creator who says "his methods are not rigorously
| objective." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Bias/Fact
| _Check#Methodol...
|
| You reference the dailywire so much when even your own
| source (mediabiasfactcheck) rates them just short of
| "extreme right" and rates their "Factual Reporting" as
| "MIXED"?
|
| Why would anyone take the time to respond to each of your
| points any more than they would a random Facebook post?
| PathOfEclipse wrote:
| And, from your own wikipedia article: " A study published
| in Scientific Reports wrote: "While [Media Bias/Fact
| Check's] credibility is sometimes questioned, it has been
| regarded as accurate enough to be used as ground-truth."
| Thanks for the source! I love being given more material
| that backs my claims!
|
| What does it mean to rigorously and objectively classify
| a news site as on the left or on the right? More
| importantly, what's your alternative classification
| system that is more objective and rigorous? It's so easy
| to criticize, and yet so hard to come up with something
| better. Again, you bring absolutely nothing to the
| conversation. How do you intend to convince anyone of
| anything?
| petersellers wrote:
| This is part of what makes political discourse so
| challenging today. It's really easy to conjure up
| evidence in the form of poorly written articles with bad
| sources (or outright fabrications), but exponentially
| more difficult to go and fact check every one of these
| sources any time they are trotted out.
| [deleted]
| chroma wrote:
| The Babylon Bee has been suspended for this tweet.[1] Meghan
| Murphy was permanently banned for a tweet that simply said,
| "Men aren't women."[2] The majority of Americans agree with
| these banned views. In the latest Pew polls, 60% of US adults
| say that gender is determined by one's sex at birth and
| cannot be changed.[3] Whether that view is right or not, it's
| pretty silly to issue bans for saying something that most
| people believe.
|
| I've seen accounts get banned for replacing "white" with
| "black" in popular hateful tweets. Apparently only one kind
| of racism is allowed on Twitter.[4]
|
| If you read Twitter's reasoning for suspending Trump, you'll
| see it's based on two tweets, neither of which calls for
| violence.[5] Twitter had to use the excuse that some people
| might be emboldened to commit violence by his tweets. That's
| true for almost any politician. But the president of South
| Africa's Black First Land First party can threaten to kill
| white people and only get a seven day suspension.[6] Ali
| Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, still has a Twitter
| account[7] despite endorsing the fatwa against Salman
| Rushdie. Rushdie is now blind in one eye and has lost the use
| of an arm after an assassination attempt in August.
|
| The double standard could not be more obvious.
|
| 1.
| https://twitter.com/TheBabylonBee/status/1504155537008697352
|
| 2. https://web.archive.org/web/20190407204840/https://lawandc
| ri...
|
| 3. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-
| trends/2022/06/28/america...
|
| 4. https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=55863
|
| 5. https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspens
| io...
|
| 6. https://web.archive.org/web/20181216163405/https://citizen
| .c...
|
| 7. https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir
| implements wrote:
| > In the latest Pew polls, 60% of US adults say that gender
| is determined by one's sex at birth and cannot be changed
| ...
|
| What is "gender" in the above sentence?
|
| It's a 1950s attitude that males are born masculine and
| females feminine - that was largely rejected from the 70s
| onward, people being held to be unique individuals and
| gender stereotyping deemed sexist and oppressively
| limiting.
|
| I was under the impression that young people think gender
| identity is determined biologically independently of
| reproductive sex - hence (to them) "Trans women are women"
| because of their innate gender identity.
|
| Which (if either) is right? - The issue appears to me to be
| very philosophically confused.
| jl6 wrote:
| It's a highly semantic issue. "Woman" historically
| denotes sex. Some people want to change that to make it
| denote gender. The people formerly known as women were
| generally not consulted about this change.
| o_1 wrote:
| The entire interview with JRE Vijaya Gadde can be referenced.
| Like Tim Pool or not he clearly shows the bias, Jack is
| mostly silent on those instances.
| ipaddr wrote:
| The latest Kanye West purely ideologist posts could be on.
|
| Silencing those who oppose: co-ed bathrooms, gender
| reassignment for tweens and teens or gay marriage. Can we
| jump to the covid blacklists yet
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Kanye West was not targeted "solely based on ideology."
|
| > In one post on Twitter, Ye said he would soon go "death
| con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE," according to internet archive
| records, making an apparent reference to the U.S. defense
| readiness condition scale known as DEFCON.
|
| https://apnews.com/article/twitter-inc-entertainment-
| music-b...
|
| That entirely reads as a _threat_ against Jewish people.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| > That entirely reads as a threat against Jewish people.
|
| When I saw that, my assumption was that it was a
| malapropism.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Reading it either with the word death as written or DEF
| as intended, it's still a threat.
| ipaddr wrote:
| koonsolo wrote:
| I was a big Elon Musk fanboy for what he was able to accomplish
| on both Tesla and SpaceX. I had the impression that he was very
| genuine and really wanted to "save humanity".
|
| I ignored the crazy things he said on twitter. I think his
| accomplishments overshadowed his less favorable behavior.
|
| But after his tweets about Ukraine, it really started to dawn on
| me that his "save humanity" was not really save humanity, but
| just a really good sales pitch. He fooled me, I confess.
|
| Right now, I see him as a very successful businessman. But if he
| can choose between making money or "doing the right thing", I
| think it's clear by now that he would go for the money (like jump
| into bed with Russia or China in a heartbeat, as long as it
| delivers the extra buck).
|
| Buying Twitter seems like a really bad idea, for both society and
| his pocket. I think we're seeing "Haughtiness comes before the
| fall" (I didn't use 'pride' because in Dutch this expression
| seems better)
| jackblemming wrote:
| You typically don't become a billionaire unless you choose
| "whatever makes the most money" as the default choice.
| dathinab wrote:
| > SpaceX. I had the impression that he was very genuine and
| really wanted to "save humanity".
|
| One think I which people would realize more is that you can't
| "safe humanity" by populating mars or anything like that.
|
| Even if earth becomes extremely hostile due to climate change,
| or lets say a catastrophic event like it killed the Dinos it
| would still be docents if not even hundred of times easier to
| live on earth then on mars.
|
| Just to double down on it. It is even true if every single tree
| on earth burned down, the equator regions are frequently over
| 100C, the oceans are completely dead and no mice can survive on
| the surface. Even then it would not only be simpler to survive
| on earth then on mars it also would still be much much more
| easy to make earth livable again the it would be to do so with
| Mars...
|
| Or in other words geo-forming/(long term, self sustainable,
| growable populating) Mars is technologically so far away that
| implementing faster then light traveling might turn out easier.
| It's _that_ hard. And SpaceX at most contributes to getting
| there and nothing more. And sure you have to start at some
| point. But SpaceX never was about saving humanity it always was
| about making money. And what provides reliably more money then
| getting state investment for rockets for a mars mission?
| sgu999 wrote:
| Same goes for Tesla. Transporting people in a sustainable way
| is what public transports do, already, not electric cars with
| 1,1 passengers. Electric cars do make tons of money, however.
| Ferrotin wrote:
| So the whole "let's not escalate to nuclear war" thing is what
| convinced you he didn't want to save humanity.
| koonsolo wrote:
| No, the "Crimea clearly belongs to Russia" part, among other
| things. And submitting to Russia does not equal "saving
| humanity" in my book. Far from it in fact.
|
| Also the "cost" of keeping Starlink alive in Ukraine, while
| it clearly has or will have a return on investment.
| (Ukrainians are already buying and paying subscriptions for
| that).
|
| Edit: What was also disgusting was to ask what Kasparov did
| except tweet. And after it became very clear that he was
| protesting the Putin regime for many years already, Elon had
| the guts to up the ante and state that he's an "idiot".
| Sorry, but such things reveal what kind of person you are.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Giving Russia Crimea would just return to the de-facto
| borders of 2021 and formalizing them. Of course that's a
| concession to Russia, but to deescalate you have to give
| both sides something to claim as victory.
| koonsolo wrote:
| Sure, in 2004 they poisoned Yushchenko. In 2014 they
| illegally annex Crimea and invade a part of the Donbas.
| Then by Elon and your suggestion, in 2022 they legally
| take Crimea, and after killing all the locals let's have
| some official elections in the landbridge areas. Ukraine
| stays "neutral", just like they already were (seemed to
| work out great for them!)
|
| Any predictions for 2030?
| wongarsu wrote:
| Given that conceding Crimea would make the entire war
| eerily similar to the Winter war, my prediction for 2030
| would be that either Germany or China attacks the West in
| all out war, and we join forces with Russia to fight them
| (/s)
|
| Conceding territory isn't great if your main goal is to
| dissuade Russia, but nobody ever claimed that that was
| Musks goal. His purported goal is reducing the risk of
| human extinction, even from some less likely risks. It's
| a different risk assessment that leads to different
| priorities.
|
| > and your suggestion
|
| I didn't suggest it, I merely tried to show that Musk's
| suggestion is completely in line with "saving humanity"
| and completely in character.
| jimmyjazz14 wrote:
| I think a lot of people in the United States do not fully
| understand the Crimea thing and Ukraine's stance on the
| area (before the conflict). I don't have an opinion on the
| matter other than to say it is probably worth learning more
| about Crimea and its history before jumping to conclusions.
| koonsolo wrote:
| I agree and I fully understand. I'm from EU working with
| Ukrainian colleagues, so for me it's closer.
|
| I was never too bothered with other wars that were "far
| away", so I understand for US it's "far away'. But it was
| really strange to see all these rich US Silicon Valley
| guys wanting to share their uninformed opinion, and then
| get trashed by people who do know.
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| It was closer to "let's not escalate to nuclear war by
| surrendering."
| jrockway wrote:
| It's a little more complex than that. You probably don't want
| to send the geopolitical message that you can have whatever
| you want if you threaten to use nuclear weapons. If that's
| the case, then North Korea gets South Korea, China gets
| Taiwan, etc.
|
| You can't just immediately concede to bullies, or all that
| will be left are bullies. That doesn't save humanity.
| [deleted]
| misiti3780 wrote:
| I really dont understand why his Ukraine tweets were
| controversial. He clearly has done in support of Ukraine with
| providing Starlink etc.
|
| He doesnt have control of arms shipments or policy decisions
| that the Western powers are making (sanctions, etc). Yet
| another example of how polarized the US (maybe the West) is,
| where if you say *any* that questions our unilateral support
| of Ukraine (even if that has to do with increased chances of
| nuclear war) you're an asshole.
|
| I'm sorry, but this situation has a lot of nuance - quit
| acting like it doesnt. You can cautiously support Ukraine but
| also realize that the US has little to gain as each day goes
| by with Russia getting smoked by Western weapons and
| training.
| koonsolo wrote:
| > He clearly has done in support of Ukraine with providing
| Starlink etc.
|
| Do you know that Ukrainians are buying and paying
| subscriptions for that. I'm sure the return on investment
| is very well calculated.
|
| Ok, so we give up a part of Ukraine to avoid nuclear war.
| Works very good for Russia. In a few years Russia takes the
| rest of Ukraine. Are you going to risk nuclear war then?
| No? Great!
|
| Then Russia invades the Baltic states. Want to risk nuclear
| war now? Of course not. Then they take the rest of central
| Europe that was under their control.
|
| Is East-Germany worth the risk of nuclear war in your
| opinion, or not?
| misiti3780 wrote:
| > Do you know that Ukrainians are buying and paying
| subscriptions for that. I'm sure the return on investment
| is very well calculated.
|
| I'm sorry, did the Starlink units not help ?
|
| > Is East-Germany worth the risk of nuclear war in your
| opinion, or not?
|
| Last time I checked, Germany was a member of NATO.
| koonsolo wrote:
| > I'm sorry, did the Starlink units not help ?
|
| Of course, any business is a win-win for both parties.
| But don't act as if it's from of the kindness of the
| heart.
|
| > Last time I checked, Germany was a member of NATO.
|
| Funny, because last time I checked, the Baltic states are
| too. But I guess NATO could give those up to avoid
| nuclear war. You didn't respond to them being taken over
| by Russia, did you?
| misiti3780 wrote:
| I guess I meant "Last time I checked, they are all
| members of NATO"
| david422 wrote:
| > I really dont understand why his Ukraine tweets were
| controversial
|
| Because peace at this point means the aggressor keeps
| territories.
|
| If Canada moved troops into a bunch of US states - NY, NH,
| Maine, Pennsylvania etc. would you be willing to just cede
| that territory over so that everybody can have "peace"? Ok,
| let's have peace, I guess Canada gets New England now.
| nghou wrote:
| > If Canada moved troops into a bunch of US states - NY,
| NH, Maine, Pennsylvania etc. would you be willing to just
| cede that territory over so that everybody can have
| "peace"? Ok, let's have peace, I guess Canada gets New
| England now.
|
| As a New Yorker... please? How soon after annexation do I
| get my healthcare?
| misiti3780 wrote:
| Are you un-insured currently?
| misiti3780 wrote:
| Ya I get it, and that is one option, of many, for
| resolving this conflict. How do you think this ends if
| the Western powers keep funding the war and Ukraine takes
| Crimea? Do you think Putin will just say "OK" ?
|
| Comparing Russia to Canada is in bad faith. Canada is a
| democracy, not run by a dictator.
| david422 wrote:
| > How do you think this ends if the Western powers keep
| funding the war and Ukraine takes Crimea? Do you think
| Putin will just say "OK" ?
|
| You mean if Ukraine returns to their sovereign borders
| and has a crap ton of weapons and can physically repel
| any Russian attacks? Doesn't matter what Putin says.
|
| > Comparing Russia to Canada is in bad faith.
|
| What? Ok, how about just pretend Russia takes over the
| Alaska and the western seaboard. Does that work for you?
| koonsolo wrote:
| > Do you think Putin will just say "OK" ?
|
| I think NATO or the West is playing a very strategic game
| here. They don't offer Ukraine 100% more firepower than
| Russia, which would end the war quickly. They offer them
| a bit more so that Russia is struggling. And notice that
| when Russia would try to subdue Ukraine with more
| powerful weapons like a tactical nuke, NATO already made
| it clear that they would move in. They are basically
| exhausting Russia to death. Right now, Russia is really
| scraping to throw everything they got into this war. If
| this war keeps going, it will totally destruct Russia's
| economy and society. Unfortunately, Ukraine is paying a
| very heavy price for this. But from a NATO strategic
| standpoint, we're now in an ideal scenario.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| i hope you're right.
| sorenjan wrote:
| > Comparing Russia to Canada is in bad faith. Canada is a
| democracy, not run by a dictator.
|
| Isn't that an even bigger reason to not let the dictator
| get his way? In Putin's latest speech he reiterated that
| Ukraine isn't a real state and that Ukrainians and
| Russians should live together in one country, Russia.
| Giving in to any of his demands will not deter him or
| bring peace, it will embolden him and prove that he was
| right to invade, and he will do it again.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| Comparing Russia invading territories that Americans
| haven't even been to let alone heard of is nothing like
| Canada, of all countries, invading the continental US.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| It's _very_ much like it for the Ukrainians.
| anotherman554 wrote:
| If all he had said is "let's not escalate to nuclear war"
| then there would be no controversy.
| wongarsu wrote:
| He also gave concrete steps on how to achieve that, and
| everyone got up in arms because those steps involved
| throwing Russia a bone so they can spin the peace as a win
| domestically.
|
| Of course that's unpopular right now because Ukraine is
| winning the war and everyone wants to go with "let's push
| Russia out and hope they take it with dignity". But Musk
| has a different risk profile and would prefer de-
| escalation. And I'm not sure how you would deescalate
| without some concessions to both sides.
| [deleted]
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| I'm not sure that "try to conquer the country, fail, and
| still get to keep 20% of it" is the precedent that we
| want to set. But that's where "some concessions on both
| sides" is going to get you. (Concessions less than that -
| I presume - won't be regarded as "some concessions" by
| Russia.)
| heavyset_go wrote:
| I'd venture to guess it was the "Ukraine should capitulate to
| their invaders lol" plan and not the empty platitudes Musk
| regularly tweets.
| tim333 wrote:
| I've been following Ukraine and read his tweets and I'd say he
| was just a bit under informed which is not surprising given
| he's busing running like five companies and doesn't have a
| background in Russian/Ukrainian history.
|
| It's easy to think you should get peace by giving away some
| land until you look into the details. Though ask any of the
| Eastern Europeans who have lived their lives near Russia and
| they will generally point out flaws with that scheme. (To name
| but one subtlety Ukraine signed an agreement with Russia and
| the US in 1994 to secure its borders in return for giving up
| its nukes. Do we now say disarmament agreements are worthless
| and the aggressive countries can just say ha ha suckers and
| take land if you don't have nukes? - would be a bad precedent.)
|
| >like jump into bed with Russia or China in a heartbeat, as
| long as it delivers the extra buck
|
| doesn't really fit with him supplying loads of Starlinks much
| to Russia's annoyance.
| mcculley wrote:
| I love the description, "whimsical chaotic energy". I would like
| to meet that man. I'm not sure that is the best way to describe
| the man who labeled a critic as "pedo guy".
| mkl95 wrote:
| I find it kind of shocking that Musk likes Twitter _that_ much,
| but at the same time it makes sense. If you ignore the wealth
| differential, his behaviour is similar to the average Twitter
| user. He may be the perfect owner in that sense. I also think it
| will be a clusterfuck within 5 years like some of his "side
| project" companies.
| remram wrote:
| He bought it on the last possible day a court would allow, so I
| don't know how much he likes it really. He did try every
| possible move to get out of it.
| saalweachter wrote:
| The weirdest part to me about this saga is the extent to
| which Elon Musk is getting away with pretending he didn't
| spend the last six months trying very hard _not_ to purchase
| Twitter.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Well he clearly wanted to own Twitter. He also clearly
| regretted the price that he was paying. I don't think the
| second point negates the first.
| [deleted]
| LegitShady wrote:
| musk makes it clear why he likes twitter - because it lets you
| talk to the public without any filter at all, easily. Musk
| himself is whimsical and trollish on twitter but its not clear
| how much of that is real vs public image
| mzs wrote:
| Musk immediately terminated twitter's general counsel and head of
| legal policy, trust, & safety - this does not bode well with
| anticipated 3/4 downsizing:
|
| >2. A stripped-down trust-and-safety team is unable to deal with
| government subpoenas or complex law-enforcement requests. A bare-
| bones team might, for example, accidentally assist outside
| efforts to identify anonymous dissidents and activists in foreign
| countries.
|
| >3. The trust-and-safety team is unable to stop coordinated
| efforts from fraudsters orchestrating low-level scams. Similarly,
| a strapped trust-and-safety department is unable to combat or
| monitor child-sexual-abuse material, sex-trafficking efforts,
| nonconsensual pornography, and copyright violations.
|
| ...
|
| >One former trust-and-safety engineer for a large social network
| told me that many elements of the job that seem boring or
| straightforward are actually incredibly fraught, like how to
| define and take action on different kinds of spam. Trust-and-
| safety officers in charge of such efforts aren't just dealing
| with Viagra ads or crypto-scam bots; they're figuring out how to
| handle bulk messages from legitimate political organizers
| exploiting the platforms for mass messaging. As one person put
| it, there are good actors and bad actors and also "spammy but not
| necessarily malicious businesses trying to get you to buy things
| in between, and all those things can look very similar to
| machine-learning models."
|
| >Those with trust-and-safety experience at the platform told me
| that a big percentage of the job is dealing with the messy edge
| cases that are difficult for a computer to decipher. Programs
| might be able to address specific product quirks if a user files
| a clear help ticket reporting an obvious problem. "But if I wrote
| in, 'My account has been hacked because it "accidentally" liked a
| porn tweet on 9/11 and I'm U.S. Senator Ted Cruz,' that's going
| to be a lot for a computer to unpack," Brian Truebe, a former
| Twitter trust-and-safety professional, told me over email.
|
| >"A lot of things humans say and do are only easily
| interpretable/decoded by other humans," he continued. "And when
| all speech is happening in a few places, those few places need
| more humans to review, not fewer."
|
| >Reactionary tech figures such as Musk like to imply that
| content-moderation teams act as a kind of thought police. But
| these teams largely work on protecting users' privacy, complying
| with laws, or keeping the site from becoming overrun by the kind
| of spam that no human wants to encounter. "To really have a
| robust security-and-abuse team, you need a massive amount of
| actual humans to respond and filter things that need to be
| filtered out," Southey Blanton, a systems technician who worked
| in trust and safety at MySpace, told me. Blanton said that cuts
| to his team led to a skeleton crew of moderators, who had to rely
| on imprecise AI tools to get rid of bots and spam--which led to
| many legitimate human accounts getting banned as well. "Overall,
| a social-media site is under attack, as well as being
| overwhelmed, basically 24/7, 365," he said. "I am fully convinced
| that if Musk does what he is saying he will do, it will be an
| absolute shitshow."
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/10/elon-...
| thinkingemote wrote:
| They need to re-free up the API. Early adopters and hackers
| really did some great work using the API until they walled-
| gardened it and rate limited it to make it unusable. They need to
| do this for goodwill at the very least, but I think it will spark
| the fire to make it popular with techies again.
|
| Based on the recently published discovery chats we will probably
| see:
|
| * High def video
|
| * Focus on music publication
|
| * The highest revenue sharing cut from any social media platform
| for content creators to get people to switch.
|
| * Removal of twitter blue but some kind of subscriptions to edit
| tweets
|
| * Paid push DMs to followers (e.g. follow this account for drops,
| then the tweeter has to pay to tweet to this group)
| jmyeet wrote:
| > High def video
|
| Twitter's video serving is embarrassingly woefully bad. Like
| really, really bad. So much so that Twitter videos buffering is
| a meme. This should be a core focus.
|
| > They need to re-free up the API
|
| Nobody cares about that. I mean a few developers do but 99.9%
| of users don't. Nor do they care about the consequences. Time
| and time again we've seen a growing platform embrace developers
| until they're large enough not to want to deal with it anymore.
| This is Lucy and the football at this point. When will we
| learn?
|
| > They need to do this for goodwill at the very least.
|
| Again, nobody cares about this issue, just like nobody cares
| about "free speech". They care about not being silenced for
| their particular positions. Elon's Twitter will reflect this
| and Elon is very much a conservative (in the US sense).
|
| It's why you only ever hear about "free speech" when it comes
| to hate speech and never, say, to Palestinians getting silenced
| on Twitter [1].
|
| [1]: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/5/13/social-media-
| co...
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| They need to stop ruining the experience for those of use
| without an account. Everyone was using Twitter as basically an
| open bulletin board and then they go and make it visitor-
| hostile. I look at ads either way.
| matttb wrote:
| I have an account and every time I hit that signup/in wall I
| just close the page rather than sign into my account
| tomxor wrote:
| +1, for anyone who doesn't stay signed in it's a "go away"
| signal - which is ironic because those people are more
| likely to sign in if they are allowed to read more.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| It's possible that the reduced usage from a bad experience
| costs less than the gain from de-anonymizing visitors.
| Because they are under FTC consent orders, their ability to
| connect shadow profiles to anonymous visitors for improved
| targeting may be limited, and they are willing to piss you
| off because that's more effective from a metric perspective.
|
| Not saying it's the right way of doing business or that it
| won't bite them in the butt... but they definitely don't
| "need" to do it to save the business if the analytics point
| otherwise.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I agree, it is super annoying. I can see why they do it
| though. They want to be able to serve you more lucrative ads,
| and they want to be able to count you as an active user. (Now
| that I think about it, they probably count anon visitors
| somehow, but IDK how they would count them without massively
| overcounting.)
| humanistbot wrote:
| Absolutely. Too many people (especially managers) have
| Monthly Active Users drilled into their heads and can't
| comprehend that there is a bottom line ($$$) that is the real
| KPI.
| strangattractor wrote:
| Sounds like you think he will move in exactly the same
| direction as all the other social media platforms. He has to
| make the platform unique in a way that will be difficult for
| competitors to simply imitate. Or preferably in a direction
| where there are no competitors at all.
| taternuts wrote:
| I loved the free twitter API! So much interesting data to play
| with, was really sad when they closed it up.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| yes, but it probably won't be free
| cutenewt wrote:
| I think it's going to be more in the other direction.
|
| He really hates the bots, so he'll probably close up the API.
|
| Until bots gets solved, no developer should expect the API to
| open up.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| The problem isn't the bots, the problem is the lack of
| differentiation between bots and real accounts. I say open up
| the API and let people make whatever bots they wish, but if
| you tweet through the API then you get a big "BOT" tag next
| to your username on the feed.
| freejazz wrote:
| This is just kicking the can down the next level on the
| issue. They can't tell which bots are bots so what
| difference does it make it if the solution isn't to ban
| them but to just limit them? The problem is identifying the
| bots.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Without an API, the default "I want to write a bot for
| Twitter" path forward is to automate the human UI -- to
| some extent, this makes you look like somebody who is
| trying to evade bot detection.
|
| I suspect there are lots of people in the class of "wants
| to do something interesting, isn't particularly
| interested in being malicious but doesn't mind breaking
| the rules." Maybe an official bot API would dry up that
| ecosystem?
| jonny_eh wrote:
| I tweet using the iPhone app Tweetbot. Would my tweets be
| marked as a bot?
| redavni wrote:
| Do you identify as a bot?
| jonny_eh wrote:
| So you're saying "bot identification" would be an opt-in
| feature? That would go well.
| themitigating wrote:
| I'm pretty sure he was making a right wing juvenile
| comment
| reitanqild wrote:
| Telegram does something like this.
|
| But it also allows (even encourages) third party clients,
| which can act on behalf of ordinary users.
| mbesto wrote:
| Good example:
|
| AwareOps tweets every time a solution goes down:
| https://twitter.com/awareops
|
| Is that spamming bot stuff or useful or both?
|
| How about the kid who wrote an app that tweets everyone
| position of a billionaire's airplane location?
|
| That's the point.
|
| > but if you tweet through the API then you get a big "BOT"
| tag next to your username on the feed.
|
| What if I do this through Zapier? What about Hootsuite?
| Who's a BOT and who isn't?
| elorant wrote:
| If I were to build a bot I wouldn't even touch the API. Why
| not simulate everything through a headless browser and stay
| under the radar. Then build a farm of those simulations and
| you can publish/promote everything you desire pretty much
| undetectable.
| tasuki wrote:
| > If I were to build a bot I wouldn't even touch the API.
|
| If you were to build a _malicious_ bot, sure. If you were
| to build a bot to tweet about the weather in Sheffield,
| you might as well use the API.
| pooper wrote:
| > If you were to build a bot to tweet about the weather
| in Sheffield, you might as well use the API.
|
| I don't think twitter is that place and it hasn't been
| for a while if it ever was.
|
| I just watched this video again...
|
| https://youtu.be/ddO9idmax0o
|
| To me, the draw of twitter was you could text messages
| (SMS) to 40404 or get texts from 40404 from people I
| choose to follow. I had unlimited minutes and unlimited
| texts but I didn't have an app phone back in 2008 when I
| signed up for Twitter. The world has changed since
| then...
|
| I'd say if you were to build a bot to tweet about the
| weather in Sheffield, you are probably better off setting
| up your own server to write blog posts or something like
| that? Maybe look into microdata or RSS or something too?
| redox99 wrote:
| Yeah but the bots that people complain about are the
| malicious bots that try to pass as humans.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Those become a lot easier to work with when you
| differentiate them from good-faith bots.
|
| Discord does something similar, although I feel they've
| gone way too far with policing it.
| mmpdev wrote:
| But not every tweet through the api would be bots right?
| Like someone using a custom twitter client as a single user
| shouldn't get that label, no?
| scotty79 wrote:
| > Like someone using a custom twitter client as a single
| user shouldn't get that label, no?
|
| Why not? If it's a niche client not many people use such
| false positive would be rare. Also such people probably
| don't have huge audirnce and they and their audiences
| won't care.
|
| And it might be deterrent against people trying to build
| popular alternative client that might compete with main
| twitter app.
|
| I don't think aiming for 100% accurate label is on the
| table.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > And it might be deterrent against people trying to
| build popular alternative client that might compete with
| main twitter app.
|
| That's horrible for users.
|
| Twitter's iOS app is a third-party app they bought
| because it was so much better than their own at the time.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweetie
| [deleted]
| hinkley wrote:
| That's going to be tricky too because I could imagine
| someone offering a service to actors and other public
| people to help manage their twitter accounts (maybe
| discourage them from posting stupid shit at 1 am. I'm
| looking at you, Elon), in which case you wouldn't even
| have a 1:1 ratio.
|
| The usual solution, historically, it to provide different
| levels of service based on your account type. The couple
| of times I've worked somewhere that the admins had a
| disjointed set of servers from the users was really a
| huge stress relief. You want admins to 'see' what the
| user sees, but to be able to work even if the site is
| being DOS'ed. And ideally you want users to be able to
| use the site even if the admins manage to DOS themselves
| (admin functions tend to have a higher fanout than end
| user functions, so the danger of catastrophic fanout is
| always higher).
| schrodinger wrote:
| Humans are really creative. One potential outcome is a
| few well known ppl start using a 3rd party client, tell
| their followers that's why it says bot, and the badge
| loses its meaning.
| duckmysick wrote:
| One option would be to ban custom Twitter clients. As a
| bonus, enforcing official apps opens more possibilities
| for monetization. Twitter could even release a special
| app for advertising agencies who manage multiple accounts
| on behalf of their customers and charge appropriate
| subscription.
| Uehreka wrote:
| As a bonus? Maybe for Twitter, but as a user, I would not
| care for this at all.
| dheera wrote:
| My take is banning custom clients should be deemed an ADA
| violation.
|
| You should be allowed to create your own client for any
| service you want, that is customized to your input needs.
| varjag wrote:
| How are you going to tell?
| pvarangot wrote:
| They can distribute keys associated to an identity and
| have humans review the apps or bot purpose and content,
| but charge for the review.
| pasquinelli wrote:
| is there anything stopping me from writing a browser
| extension to make posts on the site automatically? i did
| work for a guy on that sort of setup spamming used car
| dealership ads, and it may have been a hastle keeping it
| running but we got plenty of ads out.
| dheera wrote:
| What about people who use the API for accessibility reasons
| because the official app isn't compatible with their needs?
| ZainRiz wrote:
| With an open API, you even open up the door to "moderation
| bots" that autoban users from your timeline if they appear
| to be bots
|
| Hmm...this may turn into "Ban speech from my account that's
| promoting right/left wing agenda" moderation bots
|
| Let the bot wars begin
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Those already do kind of exist, I recall scripts existing
| which can be used to block users from lists, and
| inevitably those were used for reinforcing echo chambers.
|
| On the other hand, providing users with tools to curate
| their timelines is much better than having the company
| shove some arbitrary rulings down everyone's throats.
|
| Edit: In a sense this would be one of the things I have
| come to really enjoy about running a Misskey instance.
| The content is all out there on other Mastadon, Pleroma
| and Misskey instances in the fediverse, both stuff I
| would enjoy and stuff I would find extremely offensive
| but that doesn't really matter because what I can see is
| entirely in my control.
| potta_coffee wrote:
| I'm not going to lie, "bot wars" sounds a lot more fun
| than current Twitter. I want to play.
| FormerBandmate wrote:
| Musk hates bots mainly because of all the iel * ph 3yrk
| wants to give you free money scams. That isn't really
| caused by the API
| VancouverMan wrote:
| I think the "bot" versus "real" account differentiation is
| quite irrelevant in practice.
|
| For example, every now and then I check what some elected
| Canadian politicians have tweeted recently.
|
| Even though these are Twitter accounts that would probably
| be considered "real", and they often have a check mark,
| pretty much everything they tweet is, in effect, following
| a script.
|
| Often, these tweets are just a useless acknowledgement of
| some obscure holiday celebrated by some unrelated ethnic or
| religious group that they want the votes of, or they're
| tweets delivering pointless congratulations for an
| irrelevant "accomplishment", or they're tweets
| regurgitating some very specific party talking point that a
| bunch of other representatives from the same party are
| simultaneously regurgitating.
|
| These accounts are seen as "real" accounts corresponding to
| "real" people, yet what they produce is consistently some
| of the most artificial content I've ever seen.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| One of the secrets of getting positive value out of
| Twitter is to block all or most politician accounts you
| come across. Mute the names of the popular politician for
| extra measure.
| dwaltrip wrote:
| That's an unusual example. Most posts on twitter are not
| formulaic recognition of holidays by politicians.
|
| In general, not knowing if a machine or a human wrote a
| twitter post is a bad thing.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| There's many variations of this.
|
| News outlets and fans tweeting sports results. Public
| event celebration (new year, xmas, father day etc.). The
| vast majority of these tweets could be managed by bots
| and we wouldn't know the difference.
|
| I actually follow many bots on twitter knowingly, but
| they could be people in disguise I wouldn't care.
|
| In my opinion, the content of a tweet (is it spam ? is it
| abusing the platform ?) matters way more than wether it's
| a bot or a human doing the spamming/abuse.
| throw_nbvc1234 wrote:
| > In my opinion, the content of a tweet (is it spam ? is
| it abusing the platform ?) matters way more than wether
| it's a bot or a human doing the spamming/abuse.
|
| What about replies and retweets? EX: If you have high
| quality (or good faith) content that's supported/attacked
| by bots vs real people.
| krisoft wrote:
| Most politicians are boring. So what? Just don't follow
| them.
|
| The problem with bots is not that they are "artificial
| sounding". They can and are used for scaming people, they
| can and are used for manipulating the public discourse.
| strangattractor wrote:
| The problems with bots is they jack up advertisers cost
| and don't buy things and cannot be influenced. Follow the
| money.
| mmcwilliams wrote:
| I think the problem is less that many official accounts
| are "boring" and more that they are run by staff and
| don't have the feel of direct communication that makes
| Twitter interesting to begin with.
| nradov wrote:
| Politician social media accounts are mostly run be teams
| of staffers who are literally paid to manipulate the
| public discourse. They are no different from bots.
| andrepd wrote:
| > Often, these tweets are just a useless acknowledgement
| of some obscure holiday celebrated by some unrelated
| ethnic or religious group that they want the votes of
|
| Lol. Yes that's a mandatory part of being a politician. I
| hardly think that when most people think of the problems
| of twitter/social media they are thinking of Trudeau
| tweeting "congrats Mattea Roach on winning 23 consecutive
| games of Jeopardy" or whatever. Btw, actually I just
| scrolled through his twitter and his tweets are almost
| entirely practical https://nitter.it/justintrudeau.
|
| Anyway, the problem here is bot farms creating tens of
| thousands of sockpuppets posing as "average citizens" to
| push some sort of narrative and try to manufacture
| consent, which is qualitatively different from what you
| are describing.
| MarkSweep wrote:
| They added this a year ago:
|
| https://blog.twitter.com/common-
| thread/en/topics/stories/202...
|
| I have not seen many obvious bot accounts using it, even
| the "good" ones.
| teawrecks wrote:
| They should try to detect bots not using the API and ban
| them.
|
| IMO all modern freedom of speech issues stem from not
| being able to differentiate between humans and bots. And
| it may be the case that it's not a solvable problem and
| we should assume any sentiment expressed online is always
| just noise.
| sbf501 wrote:
| When I used twitter a decade ago, I used TweetDeck, which
| used the API to post to twitter for me. So that would label
| me as a Bot just because I like a better UX/UI.
| KMnO4 wrote:
| That's a trivial problem to solve.
| i_see_things wrote:
| [deleted]
| 101011 wrote:
| So trivial that nobody has ever solved it at scale.
|
| If there's a flow that a human can go through to oauth
| with an application, then there's a way to bypass that
| same flow through a bot.
| andrepd wrote:
| How is that not a problem for the official interface
| then?
| pasquinelli wrote:
| well, it is. so the problem is the quest to get rid of
| bots.
| NaughtyShiba wrote:
| That's not the bot issue everyone is talking about. It's
| bunch of fake/empty accounts posting/replying something
| what pushes some fakenews, propoganda, etc.
|
| It has been especially noticeable this year, since February
| 24th
| miohtama wrote:
| With free API, third party providers can fill the gap with
| bad spam moderation Twitter could never figure out
| themselves.
|
| Instead of trying to maximize in-house value open ecosystem
| works better for Twitter.
| gregshap wrote:
| Lots of the "bots" are people. The solution is to show high
| quality content and suppress low quality content, regardless
| of input.
| fooey wrote:
| Part of his pitch during the acquisition was charging for
| embeds, so I would not be making any bets on the API
| loosening up
| IshKebab wrote:
| That would be awesome. Maybe sites will stop using them and
| take screenshots instead.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > Maybe sites will stop using them
|
| Yeah, good luck getting someone like the BBC to pay for
| embedding tweets.
|
| > and take screenshots instead.
|
| I'd assume that would be against TOS (probably is
| already.)
| lazide wrote:
| I can't imagine a screenshot of a tweet would be anything
| but fair use, or stoppable. Worse case, the BBC takes a
| screenshot of another screenshot?
| addaon wrote:
| Accessing tweets does not seem to require agreeing to any
| Twitter TOS. They have the option to not serve data to
| your client (browser), but once they've chosen to, there
| doesn't seem to be any agreement that would restrict your
| right to screenshot. Republishing those screenshots could
| run afoul of copyright restrictions, but no more so than
| embedding currently does.
| freejazz wrote:
| I've never seen TOS that don't state you agree to them by
| using the service...
| addaon wrote:
| Go to a direct link to a tweet from an anonymous browser.
|
| Until a court case says that the act of receiving bytes
| from an HTTP server constitutes agreement to a contract
| that was never even presented to you, it's hard to see
| how you can possibly have agreed to a TOS. The user must
| be presented with a TOS and have the option to reject it
| in order to have agreed to it.
| freejazz wrote:
| You agree to using the TOS by accessing the service, have
| you seen a case not enforcing that paradigm?
| MacsHeadroom wrote:
| Generally all ToS and EULA that do not require an action
| of explicit consent (an "Agree" button or checkbox, not
| checked by default) are not enforceable. This is well
| established case law.
| GabrielTFS wrote:
| In Specht v. Netscape, the court declined to hold
| Netscape's browsewrap (i.e. "putting a link to the ToS
| somewhere in the web page") enforceable because the
| hyperlink's placement at the bottom of the screen failed
| to put users on notice of Netscape's terms.
|
| In Hines v. Overstock.com, the court found
| Overstock.com's browsewrap unenforceable because the
| website failed to prominently display the link to the
| online agreement in a way that would put users on notice
| of the website's terms and conditions.
|
| And if you think it's all because "you have to scroll to
| see the hyperlink" and that Twitter's one is valid
| because there's always a "Terms and Services" hyperlink
| in small text on the screen at all times, I can tell you
| of Nguyen v. Barnes & Noble, in which the court held that
| Barnes & Noble's browsewrap was unenforceable despite the
| fact that the hyperlink was prominently placed next to
| the buttons users must click in order to complete online
| purchases.
|
| Van Tassell v. United Marketing Group also states:
|
| > Because no affirmative action is required by the
| website user to agree to the terms of a contract other
| than his or her use of the website, the determination of
| the validity of a browsewrap contract depends on whether
| the user has actual or constructive knowledge of a
| website's terms and conditions.
|
| In other words, w.r.t. the enforceability of Twitter's
| ToS on users that have never agreed to it explicitly,
| they have the burden of proof and have to give the court
| convincing proof that you knew about their ToS when you
| broke it.
|
| This is all based on a rather obvious common law
| standard:
|
| > An offeree, regardless of apparent manifestation of his
| consent, is not bound by inconspicuous contractual
| provisions of which he is unaware, contained in a
| document whose contractual nature is not obvious. -
| Specht v. Netscape
|
| So yes, I have seen cases not enforcing this paradigm.
|
| Sources:
|
| Specht v. Netscape: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_ca
| se?case=958708515918483...
|
| Hines v. Overstock.com: https://scholar.google.com/schola
| r_case?case=163224540731670...
|
| Nguyen v. Barnes & Noble: https://scholar.google.com/scho
| lar_case?case=110038111392175...
|
| Van Tassell v. United Marketing Group: https://scholar.go
| ogle.com/scholar_case?case=174994243217056...
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| You can visit Twitter (logged out) and see tweets without
| ever having agreed to or being shown the TOS. After
| viewing 5 or so they put up a big "Please Register" popup
| that cannot be closed, but if you clear your cookies
| you're good again.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| Elon only mentioned the bot 'problem' to get out of the deal.
|
| He shut up about the bots as soon as it was evident the
| excuse wasn't working. Bots are of no concern otherwise.
| bradgessler wrote:
| IMO framing it as "get rid of the bots" is the wrong way to
| solve the problem because it's unsolvable, especially as we
| head more towards a world of content being generated by
| increasingly sophisticated ML algorithms.
|
| It's probably best to embrace the bots and instead think
| about it as a problem of categorizing, quantifying, and
| applying more metadata to messages that let people, agents,
| or other bots determine the qualities about the information
| that they want to know.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| 100%. Allow open, reasonably rats-limited access to the
| API, and use the absolutely gargantuan amounts of data
| Twitter has built up to sort through bots. If other
| services can do it why can't Twitter?
| pixl97 wrote:
| Who says other services have. Any examples here on your
| part?
| reilly3000 wrote:
| The only thing that can stop a bad guy with an API (besides
| policy and moderation) is a good guy with an API. Some of the
| very best misinfo research and tooling came from academics
| having access to firehose data.
| kenhwang wrote:
| > * High def video
|
| Maybe as a paid/subscriber feature; even YouTube seems to have
| a cost problem with high def video. Video ads are barely
| profitable, I can't imagine serving high quality video content
| at a loss being a good business decision.
|
| > * Focus on music publication
|
| I think this is a niche that Twitter currently excels at. The
| music industry constantly has small announcements which is well
| suited for Twitter's format. Should be fairly easy to add a
| high quality music player, and that should also save a bit on
| bandwidth costs since musicians currently upload a video just
| to play music.
|
| Plus, if you look at musician profiles, many pay for a
| linktree-like service since Twitter only supports one profile
| link; they can easily capture much of that business for
| themselves.
|
| Funnily enough, this is what MySpace tried to pivot to be.
| Every music brand wants to have some sort of home page they can
| use for advertising/promoting and communications. Difference is
| Twitter currently has a critical mass of musicians.
|
| > * Removal of twitter blue but some kind of subscriptions to
| edit tweets
|
| Just charge for verification. They can even be cute and make
| different kind of verification checkboxes with additional
| information like they currently do for politicians (maybe even
| charge the politicians). Easy ones off the top of my head:
| business owner with business info, musicians, brands.
|
| > * Paid push DMs to followers (e.g. follow this account for
| drops, then the tweeter has to pay to tweet to this group)
|
| They kinda did this the other way around, OnlyFans style, which
| makes sense since there's more people consuming tweet than
| notable people making tweets. Users can pay/subscribe to get
| noticed by the tweeter. I believe Instagram also recently
| launched a similar feature. There's a lot of value in having an
| OnlyFans feature set without the pornographic association. Or
| Patreon but with a massive userbase.
| tenpies wrote:
| I really like your industry/user-type approach.
|
| In the Fintweet community the wish list is probably something
| like:
|
| * Ban all spam bots
|
| * Ban all spam bots (it's that bad)
|
| * Ability to edit tweets
|
| * Maybe a slightly better to tack tickers. Currently you'll
| do something like $META but this gets problematic when there
| are dual-listings, or the same ticker in different markets.
|
| * Have URLs not count towards character limit
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Can they run twitter on starlink sats?
| colinsane wrote:
| > They need to re-free up the API.
|
| it's not easy to regain that trust once you lose it. how long
| would Twitter's API need to remain open until you decide
| they're not going to reverse course and that it's worth
| building on? 2 years, minimum? and even then there'd be a
| bitter taste when i do: it would always be in the back of my
| mind that "what i'm building is only temporary, they're going
| to take this away again at _some_ point".
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