Live data from Hacker News

I resigned from Twitter

twitter.com

891–900 of 1001 posts

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#891
post #847
post #795

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are actively making even access to individual tweets very cumbersome to people without logins. I guess maybe compared to something like facebook where you are completely blocked without login it's ok, but "almost inaccessible" is only a small step ahead of "completely inaccessible" - that's hardly championing anything, let alone "decentralization" which Twitter is actively hostile to.

This is one thing that has bothered me with recent twitter.

I just stopped clicking on Twitter links

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#892

A few reflections on this announcement. 1) Remember that CEOs of public companies are essentially unable to say what they think or want. The cost of doing it is being sued for damages, having to spend countless hours with lawyers, etc. Jack might think X, but he's only allowed to say Y, and he doesn't want to go beyond that because he doesn't want to fight that fight. Only people in a close circle really know what's…

I don't think it is valid to say that the difficulty of running large successful companies buys moral leeway for their CEOs. They get payed the big bucks for a reason, let's hold them responsible.

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#893
post #608

I'm in a post-Thanksgiving charitable mood, so thank you, Jack. The execution hasn't been perfect (as has been commented on ad nauseam), but Twitter is the closest to a worldwide-accessible [1] Speaker's Corner [2] I know of, and that - despite all the completely valid criticism - is a valuable public service: mediating access to information has been the defining tool of control for those in power pretty much since c…

Perhaps a valuable public service should be owned and governed by...the public? In a corporation like Twitter, only people who can afford a financial stake have a say, and having more financial stake means having more say. Not a great structure if your concern is power. Perhaps everyone in the public (with a social rather than financial stake in a platform like Twitter) should have a voice in its governance.

The US Supreme Court is within spitting distance of wading into these waters. See Justice Thomas' concurrence in the grant of cert for Biden v. Knight First Amendment Institute[1]. "The similarities between some digital platforms and common carriers or places of public accommodation may give legislators strong arguments for similarly regulating digital platforms."

See also https://www.npr.org/2021/04/05/984440891/justice-clarence-th....

[1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/040521zor_32...

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#894

A few reflections on this announcement. 1) Remember that CEOs of public companies are essentially unable to say what they think or want. The cost of doing it is being sued for damages, having to spend countless hours with lawyers, etc. Jack might think X, but he's only allowed to say Y, and he doesn't want to go beyond that because he doesn't want to fight that fight. Only people in a close circle really know what's…

I lean moderately left and I really disagree with #3. The explosion of voices is only ones that are "allowed". Twitter is one of the biggest offenders of cancel culture (i.e. silencing people).

Meanwhile, I'm over here wishing that they actually applied their terms of service uniformly. Instead of making exceptions for famous people.

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#895
post #796

There's zero explanation in the email for why he resigned. He's re-iterating the point that the company is fine moving forward with the rest of the board, the new CEO and the existing team, but no actual reason as to why he left.

Twitter, ~$35B Market Cap, no profits, operating expenses keeps growing with Gross Profits. Future projection of profitability is still slim. Along with trillions of social / political issues that you have to due with because you are running social media. Square, ~$100B Market Cap, profitable, still mainly US based and growing. Crypto and Payment. Lots of potentials. It is not too hard to pick which one to run.

If your goal is personal monetary profit, maybe. Is it the case of Jack? Why want more when you already have too much

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#896

There's zero explanation in the email for why he resigned. He's re-iterating the point that the company is fine moving forward with the rest of the board, the new CEO and the existing team, but no actual reason as to why he left.

Honestly, does he really owe the public a reason? I am no Jack Dorsey fan, but it would be unusual for any CEO of even a moderately successful company to expose any internal business with the public.

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#897
post #608

I'm in a post-Thanksgiving charitable mood, so thank you, Jack. The execution hasn't been perfect (as has been commented on ad nauseam), but Twitter is the closest to a worldwide-accessible [1] Speaker's Corner [2] I know of, and that - despite all the completely valid criticism - is a valuable public service: mediating access to information has been the defining tool of control for those in power pretty much since c…

an extra special dick washer.

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#898

There's zero explanation in the email for why he resigned. He's re-iterating the point that the company is fine moving forward with the rest of the board, the new CEO and the existing team, but no actual reason as to why he left.

Running social media company is a job, where in the best case, half of the world hates you. No matter how good you’re, you’re always walking thin line between hate, free speech, conspiracy theories, political polarization, media and countless other issues. It’s a game you cannot win, and I’m pretty sure that’s why he’s resigning.

Maybe he just wants to do something else.

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#899

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lean moderately left and I really disagree with #3. The explosion of voices is only ones that are "allowed". Twitter is one of the biggest offenders of cancel culture (i.e. silencing people).

Realistically speaking, Twitter has "done more good than harm (unlike Facebook)" because: 1. Younger and left-leaning outrage tends to dominate on Twitter. 2. Older and right-leaning outrage tends to dominate on Facebook. 3. Any conclusions are going to be subjective AF accordingly, and HN is a more young and left-leaning cohort. All social media is a double-edged sword, under the most charitable view.

That's a weird conclusion to come to. There is a ton of alt-right, extremist content on Twitter. Not just in English, mind you.

Re: I resigned from Twitter

#900

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps a valuable public service should be owned and governed by...the public? In a corporation like Twitter, only people who can afford a financial stake have a say, and having more financial stake means having more say. Not a great structure if your concern is power. Perhaps everyone in the public (with a social rather than financial stake in a platform like Twitter) should have a voice in its governance.

The government mismanages almost everything it takes over. If it owned Twitter, the employees would take over, unionize, and demand and get a collective bargaining agreement that guarantees annual pay raises while making them almost totally immune to dismissal. There's a reason why the government was not able to effectively execute on developing a cost-effective space launch system, while SpaceX was. The efficacy of…

I didn't mention "the government." There are other models for democratic governance of businesses, such as co-ops. Credit unions and REI are examples consumer-owned co-ops that have been very successful and provide great service. REI shows that it is possible to govern a business in the US on the principle of "one member, one vote" instead of "more money, more votes" and still make billions in revenue.
Post reply on HN