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Elon Musk to join Twitter’s board of directors

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Re: Elon Musk to join Twitter’s board of directors

#731

Post by trashtester »

orblivion wrote: post #691
fleddr wrote: post #678

I think people are really over-analyzing this move. I think it's motivated by prestige, not money, nor is free speech the heart of the matter. Twitter is a stagnant company. They have thousands of engineers that in the span of a decade don't seem to produce much at all, nothing visible or memorable anyway. Long-lasting Twitter problems (culture, spam, algorithm issues) never seem addressed. User growth is stagnating…

Why would Elon Musk spend his capacity to get things done on something like Twitter? He's got planets to colonize. Interesting point to question his motives, but for now I take him at his word regarding the free speech thing. I guess it could be something more nefarious as well.

No post body was provided.

Re: Elon Musk to join Twitter’s board of directors

#732

Post by dieortin »

fleddr wrote: post #678

I think people are really over-analyzing this move. I think it's motivated by prestige, not money, nor is free speech the heart of the matter. Twitter is a stagnant company. They have thousands of engineers that in the span of a decade don't seem to produce much at all, nothing visible or memorable anyway. Long-lasting Twitter problems (culture, spam, algorithm issues) never seem addressed. User growth is stagnating…

In my experience Twitter is way more appealing to younger people than Facebook.

Re: Elon Musk to join Twitter’s board of directors

#734

Post by systemvoltage »

memish wrote: post #699
fleddr wrote: post #678

I think people are really over-analyzing this move. I think it's motivated by prestige, not money, nor is free speech the heart of the matter. Twitter is a stagnant company. They have thousands of engineers that in the span of a decade don't seem to produce much at all, nothing visible or memorable anyway. Long-lasting Twitter problems (culture, spam, algorithm issues) never seem addressed. User growth is stagnating…

He could do that with any number of stagnant companies. Think bigger picture. Tesla: Sustainable transport SpaceX: Becoming a multiplanetary species Twitter: Free speech in the public square IMO it's actually the most important mission of the 3 since it's the basis for societal progress.

I think this is a charitable interpretation of what’s going on, unfortunate to see so many IMO reasonable comments getting downvoted here.

Re: Elon Musk to join Twitter’s board of directors

#735

Post by Gene_Parmesan »

bpodgursky wrote: post #632
packetlost wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who lives in the midwest, very disconnected from the SV bubble, this is spot on. I know several conservative-minded people that absolutely care about the censorship and policies SV companies push and despise them for it.

Facebook, for better or for worse, is a really central piece of infrastructure for civic society all across the country nowdays — it's used to organize churches, meetup groups, neighborhood parties, restaurants, festivals, etc. People care because censorship does affect how they build their real lives.

I'll take that as a given.

I think what you're missing is that most people don't want to run into vitriolic hate speech while they're going about trying to organize their neighborhood parties (and so on). We can talk about the idealism of free speech all we want; the problem is any platform that stakes a claim as caring about Free Speech almost immediately gets overrun by that sort of vitriolic hate that most people don't want to be around in their daily lives.

I went on one of the "free speech" video platforms about a year ago because I was curious, and on my first visit, right on the front page, were videos about how the Jews rule the world and Holocaust denial. I'm not remotely Jewish and I was immediately put off from ever revisiting.

This is a core problem that people who legitimately care about censorship and free speech need to address. It's extremely unfortunate, but "anti-censorship" has well and truly become a dog whistle in the modern era.

Remember that free speech is about the 'market of ideas.' In even totally free markets, not every product sells. An anti-censorship social network startup cratering because its platform immediately got overrun with hate is not censorship, it's the market at work. The vast majority of 'regular' people I know do not consider Facebook's rules prohibiting hate speech to be censorship. They're just grateful they aren't running into it every time they open their phones to scroll their feed.

Re: Elon Musk to join Twitter’s board of directors

#736

Post by nonethewiser »

noetic_techy wrote: post #557

It's either this or one of its competitors rises to take them on at some point and we get a bifurcated society where specific companies cater to specific politics. That may be unavoidable anyways. I think people outside the SV bubble (I grew up there, don't live there anymore) don't realize how hated and despised their censorship policies really are. Musk has his pulse on that, so I'm happy to see him step in and sha…

"It's either this or one of its competitors rises to take them on at some point and we get a bifurcated society where specific companies cater to specific politics."

Not ideal, but better than the status quo where there is 1 company catering to 1 group.

Re: Elon Musk to join Twitter’s board of directors

#737

Post by throwanem »

ceeplusplus wrote: post #730
MisterSandman wrote: post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> at the same time if Twitter as a company isn't really doing much, why do they have thousands of developers on staff? ...to keep the app running? New devices, new standards, a lot of things change that you need devs to keep up with. Also, what's up with people saying twitter is stagnant? They've added Spaces, Twitter Blue and Crypto Profile Pictures - all 3 massive features added to their product. They're all trash,…

Those things you mention hardly justify thousands of expensive developers to maintain and create. I bet a team of 10 top notch engineers could create Spaces+Blue+Crypto pfp's in a couple months and run it at Twitter scale. Don't forget Instagram was acquired when it had 13 employees serving tens of millions of users. Speaking out of experience, most engineers in big tech are bike shedding on internal tools that don't…

Speaking out of what experience? You've just appealed to your own authority; it seems not out of line to ask whence that comes.

Re: Elon Musk to join Twitter’s board of directors

#738

Post by TameAntelope »

caffeine wrote: post #612
TameAntelope wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when is "published" a meaningful quality barrier to content? Any idiot with a WP site can "publish" a "news story". Besides, if I reply to your tweet, "My child just died in a fire." with an article about how fire deaths are among the most painful ways to die, it doesn't really matter much how "published" that "news story" is, it's hateful and has no place on the Internet.

> it's hateful and has no place on the Internet. Well that’s where we (you and I, but also us collectively as a country, it seems) disagree. I don’t care that it’s hateful, and I think it should have a place on the internet, and so long as we allow monopolies on the internet, then it needs to have a place on whatever monopoly platform there is. Anyone who thinks they should be deciding what is “hateful and has no pla…

You're totally right, I was trying to do a two part thing and I ruined it by saying, "no place on the Internet".

I should have said, "No place on Twitter." On the Internet? Yeah, totally in agreement.

On Twitter? Couldn't disagree more, and my one-two punch of a point was going to be that 1) it's up to Twitter to decide that, and 2) they've landed at about as free as American society will tolerate.

1) because Twitter has rights too. If we actually respect freedom of speech, we also have to respect Twitter's right to decide who to associate with and,

2) Twitter is completely tolerant to many things we'd probably consider offensive. My example probably isn't even enough to get banned on Twitter for, even though I think Twitter would be wise to avoid associating with people who get that mean in their trolling.

I think the only way to support free speech is to support Twitter's right to decide who it allows on its platform. I don't think they should let Trump on their platform, for example, but that's up to them, and they can change their minds. And now, apparently, (at least partially) up to Elon!

Re: Elon Musk to join Twitter’s board of directors

#739

Post by nonethewiser »

tedivm wrote: post #645
packetlost wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who lives in the midwest, very disconnected from the SV bubble, this is spot on. I know several conservative-minded people that absolutely care about the censorship and policies SV companies push and despise them for it.

I also live in the midwest, and literally no one I know (family or friends) outside of the tech industry cares at all about this. I'm sure that means my bubble is a bubble- but again, until I see real numbers either way this just looks like people pushing a narrative and using imaginary people to do it.

Well, are you liberal?

Re: Elon Musk to join Twitter’s board of directors

#740

Post by prvc »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #493

"For so long as Mr. Musk is serving on the Board and for 90 days thereafter, Mr. Musk will not, either alone or as a member of a group, become the beneficial owner of more than 14.9% of the Company’s common stock outstanding at such time, including for these purposes economic exposure through derivative securities, swaps, or hedging transactions." This is the second line in the linked filing, and something a number o…

What is the maximum number of seats he could control under those conditions?
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