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Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

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Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#451

Post by elorant »

_fat_santa wrote: post #312
cutenewt wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's going to be more in the other direction. He really hates the bots, so he'll probably close up the API. Until bots gets solved, no developer should expect the API to open up.

The problem isn't the bots, the problem is the lack of differentiation between bots and real accounts. I say open up the API and let people make whatever bots they wish, but if you tweet through the API then you get a big "BOT" tag next to your username on the feed.

If I were to build a bot I wouldn’t even touch the API. Why not simulate everything through a headless browser and stay under the radar. Then build a farm of those simulations and you can publish/promote everything you desire pretty much undetectable.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#452

Post by vanshg »

rootusrootus wrote: post #330
vanshg wrote: post #262

Could this be the largest purchase ever made by a singular individual?

I think that depends on some definitions. There have been much larger purchases in the past that largely boiled down to one individual. And what about Berkshire Hathaway? That's sort of just another name for Warren Buffett. Certainly some large acquisitions there.

I'm coming from the POV that a financial decision boiling down to one individual on behalf of some company is different than a purchase made by an individual

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#453

Post by Zigurd »

saltminer wrote: post #420
bambax wrote: post #353

The reason why Musk eventually bought Twitter, when he did, and at the price he paid, was to avoid having to testify under oath in the lawsuit against him. He was going to be deposed, exposed, and in the end he was also going to lose and suffer the indignity of having to pay a high price for something he fiercely said he didn't want anymore. Better bite the bullet earlier than later. Now that doesn't explain why he w…

I've read some speculation that Musk did it because he wanted to dump a bunch of Tesla stock without tanking its price (with the justification being to help fund the Twitter buyout) and thought he could somehow back out of the agreement unscathed. I have no idea how accurate that is, though, and I'm certainly not a lawyer.

An odd was to do that.

TSLA is down by half from last year. If you believe the TSLA bulls he sold at the bottom to buy something that instantly loses him half what he paid.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#454

Post by president »

ginger2016 wrote: post #64

Elon Musk wants to set the bird free. But is the bird going to be free? Even free speech people don’t like speech that is critical of their beliefs, the pressure on Elon Musk to widen the definition of hate speech will be significant. The pressure from advertisers will force him to cave. There will be pressure from platform owners like Apple and Google as well. If the moderation is weak Apple could decide to remove t…

> Even free speech people don’t like speech that is critical of their beliefs

This is like saying people that like apple pie don't like apple pie. Yes, there are liars and hypocrites out there but those aren't the true believers.

That said, despite the challenges out there, that doesn't mean you just give up the fight for free speech. There will always be bias but the goal here is to even the playing field so we can return to a time where the rules are applied evenly to all players.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#455

Post by HWR_14 »

cutenewt wrote: post #299
mooreds wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I think he understands that, as indicated by https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1585619322239561728 That doesn't sound like someone burning Twitter to the ground. Also, many are acting like Musk has free rein in running the company. Yes and no. Beyond needing employees to actually run the thing, he also has loans to pay back ($13B!) and investors to maintain good relationships with. More on that here: https…

The investors can't really do anything -- the board has been dissolved.

The old shareholders cannot do anything. His new investors are like a dozen on billionaires who own pretty big pieces.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#456

Post by cwkoss »

e40 wrote: post #219
nightski wrote: post #130

We can argue about free speech & all that jazz to no end. But at the end of the day it's as simple as not banning elected officials. I don't care how divisive they are, we need to know what they say and do. These are people chosen by the people whether you love or hate them. Secondly, I just visited Twitter today and at the top it has statements about false accusations and fact checking prominently displayed. I follo…

Are you also for allowing elected officials to shout "fire!" in a theatre when there is no fire? What if someone dies in the rush to the exit, when there was no fire? People have already died because of lies being spread. People's lives have been ruined. It's only going to get worse, especially if the election deniers get voted in en masse in Nov.

I think that's more a failure of our justice system than the privately-owned public-square app.

Why can't the DoJ go after those have killed with their lies?

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#457

Post by Beltalowda »

maxerickson wrote: post #390
julianeon wrote: post #57

In the spirit of trying to be high-information and add value: Where Musk is going, there are no maps. So it's very very hard to project. But we can predict likely developments. At a very high level, it's going to involve: bringing back controversial personalities like Donald Trump; increasing Twitter's commitment to 'free speech'; assuaging skittish advertisers; retaining users who might be concerned, while bringing…

What if he just loses a big pile of money while Twitter twists in the wind because there isn't much of a plan? That seems likely enough really.

Isn't that kind of the story of Twitter thus far already? Certainly on the financial front they never seemed to have much of a plan, and on the product side things always seemed like a bit of a mess to me as well.

Some fresh leadership might not be a bad thing for Twitter. Whether Musk is the right person for that...

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#459

Post by [deleted] »

Ferrotin wrote: post #408
koonsolo wrote: post #388

I was a big Elon Musk fanboy for what he was able to accomplish on both Tesla and SpaceX. I had the impression that he was very genuine and really wanted to "save humanity". I ignored the crazy things he said on twitter. I think his accomplishments overshadowed his less favorable behavior. But after his tweets about Ukraine, it really started to dawn on me that his "save humanity" was not really save humanity, but ju…

So the whole “let’s not escalate to nuclear war” thing is what convinced you he didn’t want to save humanity.

[deleted]

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#460

Post by jpadkins »

bbreier wrote: post #125
hn8305823 wrote: post #69

He literally said it will not be a free for all. He may be chaotic, but he's not stupid. There is a huge difference between no moderation (anarchy), and not targeting conservative voices solely based on ideology.

I'd love to see some clear examples of conservative voices being targeted solely based on ideology, cause I don't think they exist. The replies so far seem to just confirm my point. Doesn't seem like any of them were banned "solely based on ideology" at all. Come on y'all, show me one example where someone was banned for asking for lower taxes!

suppression of the hunter biden story was the clearest one. (let me know if you need details or citations on the NY Post article & account being banned by twitter before the election).

Also Alex Berenson's lawsuit with Twitter revealed that public officials leaned on twitter to suppress his voice. I think these emails are revealing on the 'coziness' between the current administration and twitter policy team. https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/the-white-house-privatel...

Can you imagine if the Trump administration put pressure on twitter to suppress reporters they thought was 'epicenter of disinfo'?

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