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Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll

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Re: Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll

#471
post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"To illustrate the extent to which Rupert Murdoch used to micro-manage his newspapers,..." The 2011 article you linked emphasizes his activity with tabloid newspapers. I'm unfamiliar with those. From what I've read, he doesn't meddle with his "prestige" newspaper like WSJ. Maybe that's why the WSJ didn't censor itself on negative Theranos stories even though he invested $125 million in it and Elizabeth Holmes asked…

Even though I don't agree with the WSJ I trust their reporting to the extent that if someone used it as a source I would accept it without debate. Rupert Murdoch on the other hand is quite possibly the biggest piece of shit in the entire world outsides of dictators, the tailban , etc. You should read how he meddled in UK politics and played king maker https://www.businessinsider.com/gordon-brown-rupert-murdoch-... I…

I assume you hate everyone who worked at Twitter on the "Trust and Safety" team, the FBI, mainstream media outlets, etc, and want them to die as well?

They meddled in USA politics to throw the presidential election.

Re: Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll

#472
post #339
post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>, but his entire media empire is built around promulgating his (increasingly revanchist) politics. Yes, I understand that and we know that WSJ leans more conservative than New York Times. Murdoch's empire reflects his worldview. I mean "stay out of it" as in micro-managing day-to-day newspaper stories or writing constant op-eds to respond to his critics. That's the type of distracting minutiae that Elon has sucked h…

The editorial pages of WSJ are definitely conservative. The news side tends to lean center left. As a conservative and subscriber to Wall Street journal for the past 6 years, the news side regularly butts heads with editorial side.

When you get far enough right, everything is left (and vise versa)

Re: Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll

#473

Am I the only one who doesn’t know Paul Graham is today, cause everyone is talking about him as if they personally know the guy. Is he particularly famous or something? And I bet Elon Musk is praying people vote for him to step down. So if you can, vote for him to stay as head. It’s not everyday you see 40-odd billion dollars as well as Tesla stocks plumetting - it’s quite fascinating so little it seems to bother him…

This site was started by Paul, he coded up most of the software you are using and he's been instrumental in growing it and YC (arguably the worlds largest and most successful startup incubator and seed fund) to something pretty impressive. I don't always see eye to eye with him but I have a grudging admiration for what he's achieved and how he did it.

Re: Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll

#474
Here is where I'm confused. A couple of months ago Elon stated that the network was lousy with bots. Now we are taking polls. Polls that presumably have real results for the network. But it seems to me we need some evidence and some trust built to take these polls seriously. Am I crazy? where is the flaw in my thinking here?

Re: Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll

#475
Excellent, that way either one of two things happens: Twitter gets saved and Elon looks like a genius or Twitter goes down and someone else takes the blame. Is MM looking for a job? This seems to be ideal.

For those tempted to vote 'yes': Elon can see your votes.

Re: Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll

#476

I would love Elon Musk to stay. So he can accomplish his mission of destroying Twitter for good, take down BlueSky and all the associated crypto crapware with it, and take down his own other businesses in the process. Two birds with one stone: 1. The whole idea of social media owned by large private companies that make money out of ads and surveillance will get a big hit, and open ActivityPub-based social media can f…

That's a very interesting viewpoint. You may be on to something there.

Re: Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll

#477

Here is where I'm confused. A couple of months ago Elon stated that the network was lousy with bots. Now we are taking polls. Polls that presumably have real results for the network. But it seems to me we need some evidence and some trust built to take these polls seriously. Am I crazy? where is the flaw in my thinking here?

You're not crazy and there is no flaw in your thinking. I guess we'll have to trust the serial liar on the results.

Re: Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll

#478
The phrasing of this is... weird. What does it mean to "step down as head of Twitter?" Is he going to sell the company? Is he going to hire someone else as CEO to make decisions?

What are people actually voting on here... it feels simultaneously obvious, and completely unclear to me.

Re: Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll

#479
post #162

Now that the poll is leaning toward "yes", Elon is adding conditions, namely, you have to invest your life savings. Lex Fridman volunteered to do it for free, and Elon replied: > One catch: you have to invest your life savings in Twitter and it has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy since May. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1604626103326253056

So, the guy who has blocked half of the Internet for having any kind of counter-argument whatsoever will become its new CEO? Context: https://twitter.com/search?q=%22blocked%20by%20lex%22&src=ty...

In all fairness, that's the whole point of the block feature - to avoid interaction with people you don't want to interact.

I'm definitely off an opinion that people should block and mute as much as possible to sanitize their social media exchanges. After all, how often do people turn around on strangers that were worthy of a block?

Re: Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll

#480
post #133

He's realised it's not in his best interests to be there, but can't mentally tolerate the idea of supporters thinking he's quitting or there against his will. Which is why I think he frames these decisions as a vote. If the vote doesn't go the way he wants, he'll try it again later, come up with another reason or whatever. It's easier to ascribe blame for something that goes wrong if it was a popular vote rather than…

The extremely unpopular link-banning policy makes sense in this context. He wanted something to anger people right before the poll so it’s guaranteed he gets voted out.

What's with the second guessing of Elon's motivations as some kind of clever ploy? Let's consider the possibility that this just isn't his cup of tea and he's acting stupid beyond reason.

If you asked me to perform brain surgery on someone I'd first refuse, then if you pointed a gun at me I hope I would probably still refuse but on the off chance that I did not I think I would have more success than Elon has at formulating a social media policy that has a fighting chance of working. This just isn't an engineering problem and bringing an engineering mindset to it ("let's fix the bugs and plug the holes") is going to make things much worse even than doing nothing.

For this to work you need to have a fairly broad understanding of social affairs, a high degree of empathy and an ability to work with a team of people who may disagree with you on key points. Musk does not seem to have any of these to a sufficient degree (to be polite) to make this happen.

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