Elon Musk Owns Twitter; CEO and CFO have left • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by Nomentatus » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 5:15 AM UTC

lapcat wrote: post #28

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.

> one thing you used to get right is freedom of speech before big tech had so much influence Before big tech, there were no global platforms where anyone could just speak to millions/billions of people for free (as in money). You weren't "censored" by big tech because there was nothing much to censor. In the past, if you wanted to reach a massive audience, you had to go through the traditional news media, big book pu…

Indeed, the fringers scraped together enough cash to mimeograph a few dozen leaflets and tucked them under cars windshield wipers; but that didn't get them far. They might be able to take out a cheap ad in a rag magazine advertising a self-published book, but that's about it. There weren't boards to put up posters, and putting a poster on a telephone pole (etc) was a crime (recent court cases have changed that without a change in the law, where I am.)

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

#42

Post by Nomentatus » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 5:21 AM UTC

helf wrote: post #12

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.

His absolutism doesn't extend to bots. His absolutism probably doesn't extend to having no real recommendation algorithm, and just random views for everyone. If he throws in a PageRank-like algorithm a la the central Google algorithm; or even just the choice of that, you might get the equivalent of some pretty solid moderation. Google definitely has holes and problems, but it can't be considered absolutist re free speech.

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

#43

Post by onethought » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 5:29 AM UTC

helf wrote: post #12

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.

Can you give some examples of silencing his dissenters? Or where he has undermined democracy to make money?

I'm genuinely curious if I've missed these, as I'm not familiar with any by my own recollection.

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

#44

Post by onethought » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 5:32 AM UTC

jerojero wrote: post #37

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.

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.

But that's not really true - few shareholders or shareholder groups had enough % to choose the board.

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

#45

Post by wellthatsawrap1 » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 5:40 AM UTC

thesis wrote: post #38

DarknessFalls wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No post body was provided.

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

#46

Post by wellthatsawrap1 » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 5:49 AM UTC

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.

This man is building the infrastructure to colonize Mars. Tell me more about how much harder it is to run a social media company.

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

#47

Post by phi-y » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 5:49 AM UTC

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 would believe this comment if it was some other billionaire. Elon Musk is a talented executive for tech companies. He got his start as a founding employee for paypal and moved onto tesla, which is essentially a tech company that makes cars

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

#48

Post by fzeroracer » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 5:58 AM UTC

Nomentatus wrote: post #40

fzeroracer wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

'Paypal' was literally falling apart and Musk had to be ousted and replaced because he was destroying the company. It was Peter Thiel that took over, renamed it Paypal and it became the success as we know it today. So if your barometer of success is Paypal, then Twitter is doomed.

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

#49

Post by wellthatsawrap1 » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 6:00 AM UTC

joshmn wrote: post #14

A part of me is curious about what will happen next. And then there is a part of me, as a participant of whatever democracy is left in the United States, is concerned with what could happen if a particular user is allowed to use Twitter again after their orchestration of certain events.

Like if people voted him back into the presidency. That would be terrible for democracy.

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

#50

Post by Veen » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 6:10 AM UTC

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.

Ochlocracy isn’t democracy.