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Elon Musk Owns Twitter; CEO and CFO have left

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Re: Elon Musk Owns Twitter; CEO and CFO have left

#31

Post by Flatcircle »

fzeroracer wrote: post #15

The odds are that Twitter will probably be dead in a year. He'll bring on a few yes-men executives that'll applaud him when he guts development and then when everything grinds to a halt they'll catch the blame. Especially since he'll probably force something like integrated NFTs on a whim. Unlike Facebook and how it's captured an older audience that's relative inelastic to moving to other platforms, I don't see peopl…

I'd argue that because twitter is the simplest social network it will last the longest. Just a place to post a short amount of characters.

That's why he wanted to buy it.

Re: Elon Musk Owns Twitter; CEO and CFO have left

#32

Post by skissane »

rpd9803 wrote: post #16
jackosdev wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't he going to be bringing back people who were banned off the platform, that's more democratic. US has a bunch of problems but the one thing you used to get right is freedom of speech before big tech had so much influence, I thought the major purpose of Elon wanting to buy twitter was to uphold freedom of speech as it is written in the constitution, given it's something of a town square now.

Quoted post unavailable.

“Free Speech” != “1st Amendment”. The later is a US constitutional amendment which aims to protect the former, but other US laws also protect free speech (state constitutional provisions, statute law)-the Bill of Rights is legally just a minimum, so other laws are allowed to go even further. Non-legal factors (culture/etc) also have a role to play in protecting free speech. And of course, other countries have free speech as well (to varying degrees), but the US constitution has nothing to do with that.

Re: Elon Musk Owns Twitter; CEO and CFO have left

#33

Post by jerojero »

Gigachad wrote: post #10
jerojero wrote: post #8

This whole thing has been rather interesting to observe. I do wonder how the platform will change now that it's privately owned. I don't really care a lot about the platform itself, but it's influence on politics is very real. Personally I don't think this acquisition is healthy for a democracy, but nonetheless, it's something I want to observe. I've always thought these platforms need more democratic structures of g…

Tbh the best direction for twitter to move in is to stop recommending content people did not subscribe to. And then adjust the rules to allow anything legal to be tweeted to your own page. If you object to someones tweets, don't follow them. There may still need to be rules on replying to others tweets since thats pushing content on people.

Discoverability is important, but imo there should be a dedicated section for it instead of mixing it with the tweets of the people you actually follow. But on the other hand, people might not really be willing to "switch tabs" and so if you move the feature somewhere else then people will never really see it.

It's kind of a trade off. I think what's a bit annoying is that often times these discovery features are used to advertise rather than to provide actual good recommendations.

Re: Elon Musk Owns Twitter; CEO and CFO have left

#34

Post by jerojero »

jackosdev wrote: post #9
jerojero wrote: post #8

This whole thing has been rather interesting to observe. I do wonder how the platform will change now that it's privately owned. I don't really care a lot about the platform itself, but it's influence on politics is very real. Personally I don't think this acquisition is healthy for a democracy, but nonetheless, it's something I want to observe. I've always thought these platforms need more democratic structures of g…

Isn't he going to be bringing back people who were banned off the platform, that's more democratic. US has a bunch of problems but the one thing you used to get right is freedom of speech before big tech had so much influence, I thought the major purpose of Elon wanting to buy twitter was to uphold freedom of speech as it is written in the constitution, given it's something of a town square now.

There are different views on what freedom means.

In my experience, and I used to run a "freedom of speech" channel back in IRC many years ago where I allowed anything as long as it wasn't illegal. These sort of measures end up restricting freedom of speech much more than enabling it. The reason is very simple, if people are allowed to say anything; then harassment becomes the norm and because a lot of the targets of these harassment are more sensitive then they end up leaving. You might think this is okay, but I tend to disagree, as I believe when people harass others out of a platform that it constitutes a form of violence.

Of course, I think this is actually a very complicated subject. And that's precisely my point on why I believe we need to have better conversations on what do we actually want. But as things stand now, this conversation is always reduced to what Elon Musk now thinks should happen. To me, this form of monarchic governance is sub-par to what is required for a platform as big as twitter.

Re: Elon Musk Owns Twitter; CEO and CFO have left

#35

Post by charlieyu1 »

fzeroracer wrote: post #15

The odds are that Twitter will probably be dead in a year. He'll bring on a few yes-men executives that'll applaud him when he guts development and then when everything grinds to a halt they'll catch the blame. Especially since he'll probably force something like integrated NFTs on a whim. Unlike Facebook and how it's captured an older audience that's relative inelastic to moving to other platforms, I don't see peopl…

You can like or hate Elon Musk but it is not going to happen. It is really hard for tech giants to die, if companies that were run way worse didn't die, Twitter is not going to die. And he has experience of running tech companies anyway.

Re: Elon Musk Owns Twitter; CEO and CFO have left

#36

Post by jerojero »

PainfullyNormal wrote: post #19
jerojero wrote: post #8

This whole thing has been rather interesting to observe. I do wonder how the platform will change now that it's privately owned. I don't really care a lot about the platform itself, but it's influence on politics is very real. Personally I don't think this acquisition is healthy for a democracy, but nonetheless, it's something I want to observe. I've always thought these platforms need more democratic structures of g…

> but it's influence on politics is very real. > Personally I don't think this acquisition is healthy for a democracy Fewer than a quarter of Americans use Twitter. Empty rhetoric is empty.

Every politician uses twitter. Every politician's speech is dictated by what their followers believe, it is in many cases the most direct form of communication they have with their constituents. I don't like this situation, but it is our reality.

And not just politicians, but as others have said, everyone in any sort of position of power is bound to have twitter. From corporations to personalities. Of course, there are other social medias but a lot of the speech and discussions that happen in the world are somewhat mediated by twitter.

Re: Elon Musk Owns Twitter; CEO and CFO have left

#37

Post by jerojero »

hitpointdrew wrote: post #24
jerojero wrote: post #8

This whole thing has been rather interesting to observe. I do wonder how the platform will change now that it's privately owned. I don't really care a lot about the platform itself, but it's influence on politics is very real. Personally I don't think this acquisition is healthy for a democracy, but nonetheless, it's something I want to observe. I've always thought these platforms need more democratic structures of g…

How on earth can you think this is less democratic? It is by far more democratic. Twitter under previous leadership was on a banning, censoring, rampage against anything that didn’t agree with their own narrative.

Because less people are now in control of the decisions. In theory, a public company is controlled by its shareholders who are the ones that choose the board. Now the company is privately owned, meaning there are less owners than before.

Less democracy means less people are in control of the decisions, that is precisely what has happened.

Re: Elon Musk Owns Twitter; CEO and CFO have left

#38

Post by thesis »

DarknessFalls wrote: post #25
hitpointdrew wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How on earth can you think this is less democratic? It is by far more democratic. Twitter under previous leadership was on a banning, censoring, rampage against anything that didn’t agree with their own narrative.

It's not a "narrative", it's called the Terms of Service, which specifically forbid inciting violence and hate speech. Trump, Kanye West, and other nut cakes broke those rules and that's why they got banned, after repeated warnings.

https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/22815824658

Re: Elon Musk Owns Twitter; CEO and CFO have left

#39

Post by fzeroracer »

charlieyu1 wrote: post #35
fzeroracer wrote: post #15

The odds are that Twitter will probably be dead in a year. He'll bring on a few yes-men executives that'll applaud him when he guts development and then when everything grinds to a halt they'll catch the blame. Especially since he'll probably force something like integrated NFTs on a whim. Unlike Facebook and how it's captured an older audience that's relative inelastic to moving to other platforms, I don't see peopl…

You can like or hate Elon Musk but it is not going to happen. It is really hard for tech giants to die, if companies that were run way worse didn't die, Twitter is not going to die. And he has experience of running tech companies anyway.

A social media company is a very different beast from a tech company, and very easy to quickly run into the ground. We've seen other platforms die very quickly because they institute things that chase off a bulk of users.

Re: Elon Musk Owns Twitter; CEO and CFO have left

#40

Post by Nomentatus »

fzeroracer wrote: post #39
charlieyu1 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can like or hate Elon Musk but it is not going to happen. It is really hard for tech giants to die, if companies that were run way worse didn't die, Twitter is not going to die. And he has experience of running tech companies anyway.

A social media company is a very different beast from a tech company, and very easy to quickly run into the ground. We've seen other platforms die very quickly because they institute things that chase off a bulk of users.

Not so different, perhaps, from his previous company PayPal however. There, detecting fraud with a hybrid AI/human examiner model was solution they found for that central difficult task. Unearthing bots and nation-state actors may not be too different, and Tesla AI is world-leading.

I understand that's not all that goes into managing a social network, but if he mostly gets out of the way other than bot-blocking, as seems to be his intent, he might be okay.

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