Twitter set to accept Musk's $43B offer – sources • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter set to accept Musk's $43B offer – sources

#531

Post by asdfman123 » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 5:26 PM UTC

MarcScott wrote: post #178

Am I the only person here that finds Twitter a nice place? I'm careful about who I follow, most of whom are tech people or educators. My feed is a really nice place to go, and I can't remember the last time I read or saw anything that triggered me in the slightest. I'm seeing loads of comments about how toxic Twitter is, but isn't that on you? Don't follow or engage and the algorithm will skip you over.

I got on twitter to follow COVID-19 and then election news, but accidentally stumbled across a great community. Lots of bright, interesting people -- very y-combinator and slate-star-codex-esque.

People are starting to organize hangouts/parties with people in "this corner of twitter." I even met up with dudes from twitter last weekend and had a great time!

@visakanv and @eigenrobot (among many others) seem to be some of the biggest community members. Even though it's probably more lib-right than I am there's a wide range of fascinating people who I pretty much consider internet friends.

Re: Twitter set to accept Musk's $43B offer – sources

#532

Post by memish » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 5:28 PM UTC

rosenjcb wrote: post #457

Does anyone else feel like he's going to start doing petty shit like banning people he doesn't like (e.g. that musk flight tracker account)? He talks a lot about free speech but he has a track record of limiting speech on the platform (blocking multiple people) and off (making the founders of Tesla sign a hush contract).

No.

There is a difference between choosing who to follow, who to mute, who to block and Twitter deciding these things for you. He's advocating the former, not the latter.

Re: Twitter set to accept Musk's $43B offer – sources

#533

Post by megak1d » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 5:28 PM UTC

MarcScott wrote: post #178

Am I the only person here that finds Twitter a nice place? I'm careful about who I follow, most of whom are tech people or educators. My feed is a really nice place to go, and I can't remember the last time I read or saw anything that triggered me in the slightest. I'm seeing loads of comments about how toxic Twitter is, but isn't that on you? Don't follow or engage and the algorithm will skip you over.

Agree with this. Twitter is by far and away my favourite platform for consuming stuff from (mostly) others in my industry and OS intel on things like the Ukrainian war.

I can’t remember blocking anyone in recent memory and follow ~350 people. I’ve also had some of my best customer service experiences there, typically from places that, without twitter, I’d have to phone and spend hours on hold.

My simple rule for anything on my phone is that I’m extremely tight on what app I give notification rights to. I can count on one hand how many apps have that ability and twitter most definitely isn’t one of them.

Re: Twitter set to accept Musk's $43B offer – sources

#534

Post by longtimegoogler » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 5:30 PM UTC

As an ethnic Jew, pure un-moderated free speech is a frightening prospect for me.

I can't wait for twitter to become another Parler or 4-chan filled with hateful content.

As someone impacted by this kind of speech, I don't see how this is any different than yelling fire in a crowded theater.

We are essentially normalizing ideas that will lead to violence and oppression of certain groups.

Re: Twitter set to accept Musk's $43B offer – sources

#535

Post by AbrahamParangi » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 5:32 PM UTC

It's absolutely wild that many of the same people against Elon Musk controlling twitter are okay with the Chinese Government controlling an app with literally 10x as many users.

Re: Twitter set to accept Musk's $43B offer – sources

#536

Post by sixQuarks » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 5:33 PM UTC

boredumb wrote: post #105

People act like this is some spiteful thing he's doing in order to just post edgy memes or have a 'private' social media for himself. Twitter, despite being a toxic place the majority of people avoid, brought in over 5 billion dollars last year. If elon removes bots, welcomes non-extremists back on, gets comedians and entertaining accounts back on board and lets people say what they want instead a bot army of shills…

Elon says he is not buying Twitter for economic reasons, he doesn't care about that. Hear it from the horses mouth directly here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdZZpaB2kDM&t=930s

Re: Twitter set to accept Musk's $43B offer – sources

#537

Post by grapescheesee » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 5:35 PM UTC

MarcScott wrote: post #178

Am I the only person here that finds Twitter a nice place? I'm careful about who I follow, most of whom are tech people or educators. My feed is a really nice place to go, and I can't remember the last time I read or saw anything that triggered me in the slightest. I'm seeing loads of comments about how toxic Twitter is, but isn't that on you? Don't follow or engage and the algorithm will skip you over.

Every time I tried to make a Twitter account it was locked and needed a phone or email. Never posted just followed, made accounts just for Conferences or a city I was going for travel.. . It was years ago and years before that as well. After getting locked out for just wanting a feed with personal data exploitation so many times .. I'll never understand how anyone defends Twitter. I would only use it if someone paid me at this point.

Maybe I have a different experience than most. I just wanted an anon account for specific times and organic content. Guess if you do that you are evil and shouldn't have that right.

Re: Twitter set to accept Musk's $43B offer – sources

#538

Post by bengale » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 5:36 PM UTC

giarc wrote: post #147

Honest question, why can Elon, and only Elon solve the bot problem? Software devs have been trying to solve this problem since the beginning of the internet and yet bots still fill every space on the web.

It also seems an odd thing for him to be solving since a lot of the marketing noise for his companies is bot driven. Perhaps he's more interested in "solving" the problem in specific ways.

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-04-12/musk-is-of...

Re: Twitter set to accept Musk's $43B offer – sources

#539

Post by dundercoder » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 5:36 PM UTC

MarcScott wrote: post #178

Am I the only person here that finds Twitter a nice place? I'm careful about who I follow, most of whom are tech people or educators. My feed is a really nice place to go, and I can't remember the last time I read or saw anything that triggered me in the slightest. I'm seeing loads of comments about how toxic Twitter is, but isn't that on you? Don't follow or engage and the algorithm will skip you over.

I never got into twitter, but I feel that way about instagram. Took me a while, but carefully following and unfollowing, I have a nice, non-toxic, interesting pastime when I want it.

I do occasionally get the random suggestion that is irrelevant, but that's a quick fix.

Facebook however. I don't think there is any help for my feed. I've abandoned trying.

Re: Twitter set to accept Musk's $43B offer – sources

#540

Post by LadyCailin » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 5:38 PM UTC

longtimegoogler wrote: post #534

As an ethnic Jew, pure un-moderated free speech is a frightening prospect for me. I can't wait for twitter to become another Parler or 4-chan filled with hateful content. As someone impacted by this kind of speech, I don't see how this is any different than yelling fire in a crowded theater. We are essentially normalizing ideas that will lead to violence and oppression of certain groups.

Yeah. I can’t help but think his goals for Twitter just already describe a few existing platforms. They’re all full of vile, racist stuff, which advertisers don’t want to touch with a 30 foot pole, and aren’t worth anywhere near $40 billion. So I’m really not sure what he’s going to change, at least not without lighting his money on fire.