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

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

#751

Post by zimpenfish » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 8:35 PM UTC

syshum wrote: post #683

abnry wrote: post #631

Ways I think Twitter could immediately improve, from the perspective of users: - Optional verification check marks for anyone who wants them. Throw out the Blue Check status symbol. Offer "real person" twitter filter. - Transparent and consistent moderation policies. Bans are inconsistently applied for reasons that are often hard to figure out. - Return to a reverse chronological time and/or down selection of rage-ba…

I have never understood this aversion to Anonymous Speech, free speech requires Anonymous Speech. Some of the most important events in history (like the Founding of the United States) would never have happened with out Anonymous Speech. We should debate idea's not authors. Anonymous Speech enables idea's to be spread not personality cults, one would thing those opposing Elon believing that people just support him bec…

> We should debate idea's not authors.

This only works if you guarantee that both sides are going to argue in good faith and, well, gestures at the world, that just isn't realistic right now?

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

#752

Post by ulkesh » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 8:35 PM UTC

robbomacrae wrote: post #705

This could be dangerous for democracy. The worlds richest man can influence whether a politician is de-platformed or re-instated to Twitter whilst legally protected in such decision making by section 230. We have seen him act petty when offense is taken [0]. We have seen him be quite opinionated on tax proposals [1]. Is no one else concerned by this? It seems a more powerful control of the narrative and politics than…

I'm concerned, but there's effectively nothing I can do about it. I vote based on issues mostly and also vote based on whether or not I feel the person or people are saying and doing what I want to see, for the public good.

Unfortunately, there is a severe education gap in the United States which allows conmen to gain political power. And until education can be properly addressed, and the people have a willingness to learn and critically think, this will only continue to get worse.

EDIT>> The point being, the uneducated allow themselves to be duped by said conmen on Twitter, their choice of news outlet, Facebook, etc. And voting is the only power that I, an educated, reasonable, and critically-thinking citizen, have to combat anything I am concerned about.

Because if we're being truthful, the issue at stake here is the fact that Musk is clearly a Republican who thinks there are free-speech issues at play with Twitter due to the silencing of Trump and others on that platform. I will disagree completely because Trump and those others who have been silenced from those platforms are quite free to create their own Twitter (and have) and work to gain a critical mass. It doesn't really matter, though, since almost every single social network on the planet is just an echo chamber of what people want to hear. But I, for one, have no interest in hearing lies being made with a very huge bullhorn such as Twitter -- no matter who it comes from.

If this deal is done, I will wait and see what Musk does. If he does what I expect him to do (unban everyone he agrees with politically, financially, etc. despite those who were banned for good reason), then I'll happily stop using Twitter. The good news for me, is that I have choice. While I cannot control what the other masses will do, I have control over what I will do. And very, very little will change in my life if I no longer use Twitter.

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

#753

Post by spurgu » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 8:35 PM UTC

toephu2 wrote: post #635

abnry wrote: post #631

Ways I think Twitter could immediately improve, from the perspective of users: - Optional verification check marks for anyone who wants them. Throw out the Blue Check status symbol. Offer "real person" twitter filter. - Transparent and consistent moderation policies. Bans are inconsistently applied for reasons that are often hard to figure out. - Return to a reverse chronological time and/or down selection of rage-ba…

> Return to a reverse chronological time They've had this for years. Press the "swish" (stars) button top right.

You can also use Tweetdeck.

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

#754

Post by overgard » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 8:36 PM UTC

I don't really love the notion of billionaires buying up media; but given how incredibly important twitter has become to media and its influence on democracy and politics, I think it's a huge improvement that a free speech advocate will be in charge at least. I don't buy that content "moderation" (ahem, or as it should be called, censorship) is desirable when a tech company can silence people that have legit-if-undesirable influence on the world.

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

#755

Post by runako » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 8:37 PM UTC

pastor_bob wrote: post #640

abnry wrote: post #631

Ways I think Twitter could immediately improve, from the perspective of users: - Optional verification check marks for anyone who wants them. Throw out the Blue Check status symbol. Offer "real person" twitter filter. - Transparent and consistent moderation policies. Bans are inconsistently applied for reasons that are often hard to figure out. - Return to a reverse chronological time and/or down selection of rage-ba…

I personally would love to see how many people a person has Blocked, similar to Following/Followers number. would find it very informative about a tweeter

In general, I would expect a person's blocklist to correlate roughly with how active they are on the site, and how long they have been on the site. More activity leads to more interactions with spam and other undesirable accounts.

I'm not sure how that confers much useful information about a user.

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

#756

Post by tensor » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 8:37 PM UTC

abnry wrote: post #631

Ways I think Twitter could immediately improve, from the perspective of users: - Optional verification check marks for anyone who wants them. Throw out the Blue Check status symbol. Offer "real person" twitter filter. - Transparent and consistent moderation policies. Bans are inconsistently applied for reasons that are often hard to figure out. - Return to a reverse chronological time and/or down selection of rage-ba…

Mine is this, if you want twitter blue to be at all appealing, make it so that you can eliminate all ads, including promoted tweets. Getting rid of ads is my #1 ask. I'd pay for it.

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

#757

Post by overgard » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 8:37 PM UTC

altacc wrote: post #41

He's already said that he'd follow all local laws so it would be interesting to see if he can find the elusive path of maintaining free speech, following the law and not having Twitter being a toxic cesspool used mainly to shout down those not our your "side". Personally my reservations are because I think running a social media site is a lot about understanding people and defining a healthy culture for your elusive…

> following the law and not having Twitter being a toxic cesspool used mainly to shout down those not our your "side".

Well, from that perspective I don't think it can get any worse.

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

#758

Post by 13415 » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 8:38 PM UTC

abnry wrote: post #631

Ways I think Twitter could immediately improve, from the perspective of users: - Optional verification check marks for anyone who wants them. Throw out the Blue Check status symbol. Offer "real person" twitter filter. - Transparent and consistent moderation policies. Bans are inconsistently applied for reasons that are often hard to figure out. - Return to a reverse chronological time and/or down selection of rage-ba…

I've tried Twitter recently for the first time to get more recent information about the Ukraine war. Maybe long-term twitter users see it differently because they've fine-tuned it and got used to it, but to me Twitter looks like a horrible and awful medium. I just can't see any purpose for it. People on Twitter post opinions and are subsequently mocked and insulted by other people who also value their opinions above all else. As far as I can see, Twitter is the most passive-aggressive place on the web. I'd go nuts if I read it daily.

Then I tried the fediverse, and it was worse, except that it was much weirder overall and posts mostly concerned extreme fringe topics and opinions.

I like good blogs and I'm fine with some Youtube channels, even though the signal to noise ratio is high. But microblogs seem like a complete waste of time to me. Can someone explain the appeal of these sites to me? What do people get from them? What interesting things do you read on Twitter?

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

#759

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 8:38 PM UTC

toephu2 wrote: post #635

abnry wrote: post #631

Ways I think Twitter could immediately improve, from the perspective of users: - Optional verification check marks for anyone who wants them. Throw out the Blue Check status symbol. Offer "real person" twitter filter. - Transparent and consistent moderation policies. Bans are inconsistently applied for reasons that are often hard to figure out. - Return to a reverse chronological time and/or down selection of rage-ba…

> Return to a reverse chronological time They've had this for years. Press the "swish" (stars) button top right.

[deleted]

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

#760

Post by donmcronald » Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 8:38 PM UTC

Trias11 wrote: post #693

abnry wrote: post #631

Ways I think Twitter could immediately improve, from the perspective of users: - Optional verification check marks for anyone who wants them. Throw out the Blue Check status symbol. Offer "real person" twitter filter. - Transparent and consistent moderation policies. Bans are inconsistently applied for reasons that are often hard to figure out. - Return to a reverse chronological time and/or down selection of rage-ba…

Quoted post unavailable.

How does that work? Isn't it "woke culture", not "woke policy"? I don't understand how Twitter can change that. Do they ban people for using the wrong pronoun or saying the word "landlord"? Assuming they don't, how can they control a subset of users that act in unison to "cancel" someone? Ban them all?

It's a really hard problem IMO.