Twitter needs to be acquired by Google.
Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit?
51–60 of 320 posts
Re: Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit?
#52I am curious what the mechanics of this would be - take thee company private and then apply for classification as a 501(c)(3)? Looking at the guidelines I'm guessing the type would they be a "private operating foundation"? https://www.501c3.org/what-is-a-501c3/ Just as one example 501c's are heavily regulated where politics are concerned. Given that Twitter is utilized heavily by politicians as well as political camp…
Sure they could still do it as long as the company itself remains non-partisan, but they just couldn't take money from politicians or political campaigns. They would have to find some other sort of donor capital to sustain their operations.
Re: Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit?
#53It seems weird to say that twitter discussion was so significant in furthering different causes. From the outside (I don't use it), I've still heard plenty about those events. From the inside, I'd bet it seems like they were the original source for the events, or at least the cause of it getting so big. On reddit/imgur/9gag/4chan/etc, there seems to be an idea that whichever one you are on is the source of whichever meme is getting popular. I think it's the same kind of thing. Maybe the discussion grows "organically" and that causes it to grow on each of these platforms, instead of the platform causing the growth.
Re: Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit?
#54Twitter is the odd one out. While others built walled gardens, twitter kept the gate open. We now have a general catalog of human discourse for the last decade. Record of great tragedy, revolutions, elections past and future. It would be shame if this was bought and locked up by some gardeners.
>general catalog of human discourse I would contest this. Twitter represents a very narrow sector of society.
A good recent example is the Democratic Primary-Twitter massively magnified Sanders' supporters, and a lot were genuinely surprised that Twitter does not in fact represent the will of the Democratic Primary.
Re: Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit?
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
More importantly twitter profiles are public by default. That's not true for most social media.
> More importantly twitter profiles are public by default. That's not true for most social media. Maybe, but now logged-out users (or users without an account) cannot see more than the last few tweets on an account. Twitter is a lot less open than it was two or three years ago, and while it's more public-by-default than Facebook, it's less public-by-default than Blogger was.
Wait, what? I don't have a Twitter account, but still follow several people's Twitter feeds. I've never had a problem seeing their full timeline.
Re: Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit?
#56Perhaps not Twitter's fault per se, but I don't mind seeing it die a lonely death for the only reason that it gave voice to the truly despicably racist, homophobic and planet hating assholes all around the world.
Re: Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit?
#57Perhaps not Twitter's fault per se, but I don't mind seeing it die a lonely death for the only reason that it gave voice to the truly despicably racist, homophobic and planet hating assholes all around the world.
Yep, gave a voice to them and only them.
Re: Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit?
#58I'm not going to pretend you can run Twitter on an DigitalOcean box for $40pm with one guy. But when I see things like $100m in losses - I can't help but feel there is a real opportunity for Twitter to streamline its engineering and operational costs? Is there a breakdown available of where/how they spend their money?
They have 3,860 employees.
Re: Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit?
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't necessarily hold this view, but I can see the merit in it. I tend to lean toward purist as far as free speech goes. Slippery slope arguments and what not. Personally, I like the concept of outsourcing the policing/moderation of a community to the community itself. I think what online forums do by promoting moderators from the long time, trusted user base is a step in the right direction. The upvote/downvote s…
Great freedoms come with great responsibilities. I tend to think that free speech works only when the consequences of using that free speech...y'know...exist. In a universe of pseudonymity and anonymity, those consequences don't exist. Even when you are literally committing the crime of assault (friendly reminder: assault is the threat of violence, battery is the violence) against somebody because they have the temer…
If by "assaulted" you mean assaulted by words alone, then I am not sure that the right to not be assaulted should trump free speech.
I believe dealing with newly generated accounts can be dealt with as a separate problem, distinct from the community at large. Reputation and filtering messages/content, and or restrictions based on account age are some examples.
If you don't think there can be any consequences for free speech on the internet, then I don't see how you can give any credibility to threats of violence, which you can simply block out yourself instead of having to have big brother do it for you.
Re: Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit?
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't necessarily hold this view, but I can see the merit in it. I tend to lean toward purist as far as free speech goes. Slippery slope arguments and what not. Personally, I like the concept of outsourcing the policing/moderation of a community to the community itself. I think what online forums do by promoting moderators from the long time, trusted user base is a step in the right direction. The upvote/downvote s…
Great freedoms come with great responsibilities. I tend to think that free speech works only when the consequences of using that free speech...y'know...exist. In a universe of pseudonymity and anonymity, those consequences don't exist. Even when you are literally committing the crime of assault (friendly reminder: assault is the threat of violence, battery is the violence) against somebody because they have the temer…
The problem with that is pragmatically the cost of real estate in a Potemkin village is apparently zero.
You can write a sellable poem that people like about wine, all its good and (mostly) bad. But good luck selling a poem about sucralose or aspartame.