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Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

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Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term originally referred to an adult gradually influencing a child to make them vulnerable to sexual abuse. Now it's commonly used to refer to teaching children progressive values, which I think is hateful. It's also generally used in extremely low signal comments. For example, a person might talk on Twitter about how they think teachers putting up posters saying they support gay students is helpful. They'd then…

>The term originally referred to an adult gradually influencing a child to make them vulnerable to sexual abuse. Now it's commonly used to refer to teaching children progressive values, which I think is hateful. The problem is, you seem to be intentionally misconstruing the definition of the word "hateful" in order to categorize words you don't like as "hate speech". There is no other way that the thing you described…

Hate speech is usually full of euphamisms, indirect language, and inference. It also often depends a lot of context.

In the specific case of the use of "grooming," I can see how it is not obvious that this is hate speech, but once you connect the dots, based on the context, it becomes quite obvious.

For example, teaching books that feature any LGBTQ characters has been called "grooming." What is the usual definition of grooming? Preparing a child for sexual abuse, which is morally reprehensible -- a behavior that is, frankly, deserving of hate.

However, when the only reason "grooming" is brought up is specifically because a book feature a gay character, we are expected to "hate" the "morally reprehensible." Why is it morally reprehensible (hateful), in this context? Certainly not because children are being groomed for sexual abuse. The only reason is that the gay character is in the book.

Now, some people might think that presenting characters that are gay is morally reprehensible. They might think the same thing about featuring Black characters, Asians, Jews, or some other group. It's all hate speech. Even if it's not using the most blatantly obvious inflammatory language.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#752
post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are competitive cars vs tesla for electric It is my belief that those "competitive cars" wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for Tesla.

Nissan was selling the Leaf after the Roadster but before the S/X/3/Y. The Leaf and the 3 basically met in the middle at the same time at about the $45K price point for similar cars. Tesla was only first in the category of outrageously expensive cars for virtue-signalling rich people who fake-care about evironmentalism. And fake self-driving.

I bought a top-spec 2015 LEAF for $33K before $10K of incentives. If someone paid $45K for a LEAF around the 3's launch, it better have had $10K in cash in the trunk.

Looked at another way, if the LEAF and 3 cost the same, would many people have bought the LEAF?

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#753
post #727

I've been using Twitter since it's main novelty was that it was a successful Ruby on Rails app, and honestly I've been trying to figure out where the exit is for my personal use of Twitter lately. If the acquisition goes through, Twitter won't make enough money to service it's debt, and the things they will do to fix that are pretty much guaranteed to lower the quality of the platform, which frankly has never worked…

> Twitter won't make enough money to service it's debt This isn't (necessarily) true. While buying Twitter seems like a stupid investment if you want to make money, it's financials[1] very obviously point to streamlining which would make the debt serviceable. In 2021 Twitter spent USD$1.2 billion on "Research and Development". Think about number - when did Twitter actually substantially change the platform? In their…

Twitter has 7500 employees. There have been no major changes in the UI or functionality since its original release over a decade ago. What exactly are those people doing? You could cut 7000 of them and nothing would change.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#754
post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are competitive cars vs tesla for electric It is my belief that those "competitive cars" wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for Tesla.

Nissan was selling the Leaf after the Roadster but before the S/X/3/Y. The Leaf and the 3 basically met in the middle at the same time at about the $45K price point for similar cars. Tesla was only first in the category of outrageously expensive cars for virtue-signalling rich people who fake-care about evironmentalism. And fake self-driving.

Similar cars? Sure, they both have four wheels and are electric. I don't see many similarities though. Tesla's emergence put the world on track to end ICE cars at least a decade sooner. That is a lot of CO2 that will not be put into the atmosphere. Getting people with expendable income to fund it is both a smart strategy and very equitable.

Their recharge network still sets them apart as well.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#755

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're 100% correct. They shut down Vine. TikTok is now a billion dollar industry. As far as I'm concerned, every product manager involved in that decision shouldn't be involved with Twitter anymore, because they display an astonishingly level of incompetence.

Vine was exploding when they shut it down, and some of the biggest influencers of today started on Vine. It's incomprehensible to me why anyone would shut down such an absolute jackpot, bizarre really!

Vine should have been what TikTok is today, it was so close to being a product that I wanted to see and use. TikTok without the close relationship with the People's Republic of China would be so much fun to use.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#756

I've been using Twitter since it's main novelty was that it was a successful Ruby on Rails app, and honestly I've been trying to figure out where the exit is for my personal use of Twitter lately. If the acquisition goes through, Twitter won't make enough money to service it's debt, and the things they will do to fix that are pretty much guaranteed to lower the quality of the platform, which frankly has never worked…

Musk’s idea of “anything that is legal” is a terrible idea, it comes from someone who’s clearly never moderated a community. Generally any unpleasantness and lack of civility needs to be moderated out in some extent, or the platform gets completely taken over by trolls and normal people leave. That’s just the end result. Anyone who’s been involved in online communities know this. I see this in subreddits. The subredd…

Unfettered free speech is evolutionarily new to humans. Is it any wonder we don’t handle it well?

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#757
post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vine was not too early by any means. It was exploding in popularity when they shut it down. It absolutely would have been as big as Tik Tok if they got the algorithm right.

Was it, though? My memory isn't perfect, but I seem to recall the days after Instagram copied the video feature, there were articles on tech blogs mocking Vine on how Facebook was going to eat their lunch. You could even refresh your browser on Vine's Twitter page and watch the count of its followers decreasing in realtime. Not pushing back, I just remember it kind of petering out in popularity (in the US, at least)…

The 6 second limitation was holding them back and their competitors knew that longer formats would be more successful. The vine 6 second format was interesting and kind of "created" the format that turned into tik tok, but there is no doubt that vine would had to have pivoted sooner rather than later. Still, the decision to shut it down was shocking and short sighted.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter is worth a lot less than what it's trading for. Musk's bid is rather idiotically high. Twitter's shareholders will be desperate if they start to see the full mauling that other prominent, hyper overvalued tech stocks have enjoyed lately. They will take a lower offer accordingly, whether that's from Musk or other. The stock is going into the $20s if they don't take an acquisition offer from someone.

> Musk's bid is rather idiotically high Well, it was either $54.20 or $69.00 (I suppose he could have gone for $44.20 but would that have tempted anyone?)

A real meme-lord would bid $42.069

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#759
post #84

So there's two options right - the first is that Parag is for some reason making big strategic decisions about the direction of the company despite the fact that we all know he'll be gone if the deal closes. Or he's making big strategic changes at the behest of the acquirers before the deal closes. Neither of these things seem particularly kosher moves to make. The question is how to figure out which one it is. It wo…

Not weird that he's doing things at behest of Musk which I think is likely. It may be part of acquisition agreement either implicitly or explicitly. Musk most likely has people he knows in company (he is friends with Jack) that are advising him and suggesting changes. Much easier to oust top execs before coming in then later.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#760

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Job offer or not, $42 million for doing almost nothing is a great deal.

$42 million is a pittance for a man at his level. VCs with a tenth of the risk have taken home more money than that over the years from several deals. He has also been at the company for a very long time. I’d be enraged at a $42 million exit when I’m a child prodigy who has worked his ass off to finally helm one of the most publicly visibly corporations on the planet.

No human being needs $42 million for anything, let alone more. I'm sure he'll be fine.
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