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Twitter, Elliott Strike Truce That Leaves CEO Dorsey in Place

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Re: Twitter, Elliott Strike Truce That Leaves CEO Dorsey in Place

#61

Post by btown »

gdulli wrote: post #54
smachiz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Twitter is awesome because it doesn't operate under the growth for growths sake mentality plaguing many other companies. Is that really true though? They've been a huge beneficiary of fake news, astroturfing and bots. They've only relatively recently started to do something resembling policing of these things.

On Facebook you're bound to your friends/family/co-workers/etc, on Reddit you're bound to the shallowest lowest common denominator content (front page) or else endless spam and self-promotion (sort by new.) Twitter is where you're meaningfully in control of who you follow and what you see. That means it's on you to curate that, and many won't want to do that. I was on Twitter for a while before I found the real niche…

For what it's worth, Reddit becomes equally curatable to Twitter once you unfollow the default subreddits and join niche ones. There are multiple lines of defense that lend themselves to curation: niche subreddits have moderators who can remove off-topic posts; users are further disincentivized from making off-topic posts as they would run the risk of losing karma; subreddits tend to fracture into X/XMemes/XMetaDiscussion/XGifs/XVideo/SeriousX etc. so you can fine-tune what part of a topic you want; Reddit's "Custom Feeds" feature allows you to further separate your subscriptions into topic-specific buckets, allowing you to focus on one set of interests at a time. And the suggestion algorithm is both more rudimentary and just a jumping-off point to spend time on a specific subreddit you like.

What Twitter does bring is the ability for one to say "this is a person I know or am familiar with; I can now trust what they say" - which Reddit eschews in favor of simple popularity. But since the "Hot" algorithm weights based on time-scaled popularity within each community, it's not quite as bad as one might think.

Re: Twitter, Elliott Strike Truce That Leaves CEO Dorsey in Place

#62

Post by bosswipe »

Paul Singer, the CEO of Elliot, is extremely partisan and is a top donor to the Republican Party. Seen in this light these moves have caused fear that they are an attack on Twitter to turn it into a right-wing propaganda channel.

For example: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/29/paul-sing...

Re: Twitter, Elliott Strike Truce That Leaves CEO Dorsey in Place

#63

Post by im3w1l »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #26

Twitter is awesome because it doesn't operate under the growth for growths sake mentality plaguing many other companies. It really is an incredible public utility provided you liberally mute/block/unfollow all the petty fighting and find good people. Jack seems to understand that. I hope it doesn't devolve into a narrow reveneue maximizing ad-filled trashfire, but thats probably what the hedge fund will push for. I t…

As a user, the people who's opinions I wanted to read posted about day to day matters. And the people who's day to day matters I wanted to read about posted opinions.

As a non-user, I'm affected negatively by all of the crazies that are radicalized on twitter.

Re: Twitter, Elliott Strike Truce That Leaves CEO Dorsey in Place

#64

Post by thosakwe »

ForHackernews wrote: post #37
awinter-py wrote: post #15

It's always been confusing to me what twitter is as a company -- it feels more like a utility, or like the public service part of 20th century journalism without the profit model In many ways it's more important to society than FB & G (picking them as the 2 of the big 5 that are pure information plays), in that it hosts semi-public conversations and helps experts stay informed Would be interesting for some small coun…

It is genuinely frightening to me that influential people apparently believe this. Twitter is terrible. Even smart people sound like idiots on Twitter. The format deliberately rewards controversial hot takes and inaccurate garbage "breaking news". I can't think of another major internet property that's less in the public interest. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/04/twitt...

That's just an opinion, and one far removed from reality at that. There's an entire world of content on there besides "American politics takes," one that you probably haven't interacted with.

Re: Twitter, Elliott Strike Truce That Leaves CEO Dorsey in Place

#65

Post by ta3728744 »

bosswipe wrote: post #62

Paul Singer, the CEO of Elliot, is extremely partisan and is a top donor to the Republican Party. Seen in this light these moves have caused fear that they are an attack on Twitter to turn it into a right-wing propaganda channel. For example: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/29/paul-sing...

Twitter is already a leftist propaganda channel actively engaged in crushing dissent. Perhaps it’s time to balance the scales.

Re: Twitter, Elliott Strike Truce That Leaves CEO Dorsey in Place

#66

Post by HlessClaudesman »

dman wrote: post #42
brogrammernot wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorta. This feels more like Jack/activist investor coming to common ground on the direction of the company and also a proper succession plan for Dorsey to walk away from Twitter. He only owns 2% of the company, and at this point I’d imagine his only options were to strike this truce & have control over how he exits as opposed to be outed right now with a power vacuum causing Twitter to destabilize a bit. I’d expect t…

Any guesses of who they could pick? fwiw I think of all the networks Twitter seems to be the one that actually delivers tangible social utility.

I get the feeling this coup is driven by new investors who don't realise what it is they have bought into.

Cough cough Myspace.

Re: Twitter, Elliott Strike Truce That Leaves CEO Dorsey in Place

#67

Post by Mirioron »

smachiz wrote: post #34
zaptheimpaler wrote: post #26

Twitter is awesome because it doesn't operate under the growth for growths sake mentality plaguing many other companies. It really is an incredible public utility provided you liberally mute/block/unfollow all the petty fighting and find good people. Jack seems to understand that. I hope it doesn't devolve into a narrow reveneue maximizing ad-filled trashfire, but thats probably what the hedge fund will push for. I t…

> Twitter is awesome because it doesn't operate under the growth for growths sake mentality plaguing many other companies. Is that really true though? They've been a huge beneficiary of fake news, astroturfing and bots. They've only relatively recently started to do something resembling policing of these things.

>They've only relatively recently started to do something resembling policing of these things.

I'm unconvinced that this is even a good thing. It's really hard to police that without seeming biased. Take this new story about labeling a clip of Biden as "edited". Biden said those words, but the clip was cut short. This is essentially a sound bite without context. It makes Twitter look like they're defending Biden, but I doubt that this was Twitter's intent. I think that trying to police these things now will simply dig themselves deeper into a hole.

Re: Twitter, Elliott Strike Truce That Leaves CEO Dorsey in Place

#68

Post by meowface »

paxys wrote: post #20

I really thought Dorsey would use this opportunity to negotiate a nice exit package. I can't see him (or really anyone) wanting to be Twitter CEO at this point, especially since he also has that Square thing going on.

I don't agree, my guess is he probably wants to be Twitter CEO more than anything else, including even more than being the Square CEO. That's a very influential and potentially history-impacting position.

Re: Twitter, Elliott Strike Truce That Leaves CEO Dorsey in Place

#70

Post by meowface »

ForHackernews wrote: post #37
awinter-py wrote: post #15

It's always been confusing to me what twitter is as a company -- it feels more like a utility, or like the public service part of 20th century journalism without the profit model In many ways it's more important to society than FB & G (picking them as the 2 of the big 5 that are pure information plays), in that it hosts semi-public conversations and helps experts stay informed Would be interesting for some small coun…

It is genuinely frightening to me that influential people apparently believe this. Twitter is terrible. Even smart people sound like idiots on Twitter. The format deliberately rewards controversial hot takes and inaccurate garbage "breaking news". I can't think of another major internet property that's less in the public interest. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/04/twitt...

It's the same if you try to argue politics in a bar. It doesn't mean bars don't provide value in other ways.

And although it certainly is anathema to constructive political discussion and debate, I suspect the vast majority of the people tweeting/retweeting/arguing about politics all the time wouldn't sound much smarter or less sucked into the shitstorm if they were using something long-form.

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