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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

#481
post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unbiased moderation" is fundamentally impossible for an international service like Twitter with millions of users. Especially given that the pool of California tech people from which Twitter might draw moderators are to the left of 99% of that international community of users.

You can bet that in many countries the conservative right is more the left that the Democrats. Inter-cultural policy differences aren't new and being able to moderate on an international online forum like Twitter is pretty challenging.

We’re not talking about “democrats.” We are talking about college educated California democrats. On cultural issues—which dominate when it comes to moderation decisions—the Overton window of a typical Twitter employee is well to the left of people in most European countries, and far to the left of those in Asia or Africa or the Middle East. For example, center left Emmanuel Macron or solidly left Mette Frederiksen wouldn’t be able to express their views on immigration at a Twitter staff meeting: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20221102-mette-frederi...

Contrast the recent post about Stanford’s language policing guide, with Macron calling such guidance “woke nonsense.” https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/emmanuel-mac...

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

#482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Everything app" seems like a great vision. Let's not get hung up on the details of, you know... everything.

Haha, funny response, but I did say the details matter ;-) I may be projecting my own ideas onto "everything". When Elon took over Twitter, I was inspired by his idea, and combined with concepts from some projects I'm working on, over two weeks or so, in my free time I wrote like 50+ pages of notes on what "Twitter 2.0" might be. Is Elon's idea anything close to so comprehensive, I don't know. We only know he wanted…

You put more thought into it than he did.

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

#483

Am I cynical in thinking that if you vote yes, it’s a permanent record on your Twitter account, which he can then use later to mete out anti-musk retaliation punishments? I mean, it’s not like he’s used the platform to do punish anyone who opposes him or his views before. Maybe I’m reading by too much into it.

Plot twist: you vote yes and in 24 hours you're banned from Twitter.

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

#484
post #226

It's instructive to contrast what other billionaires did with media properties they owned: - Jeff Bezos personally bought Washington Post but he left it alone and let the editors run it. What Jeff did do was invest some money into the IT department to modernize the workflow tools (metrics dashboards, etc) for journalists. He stayed out of the decisions of what stories get run on the front page. - Rupert Murdoch owns…

I think, in his own way Elon, is trying to apply his engineering first principles. AFAIK, his #1 rule is "The best part is no part", which I think explains a fair number of his (non-ego driven) choices.

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

#486
post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to vote "keep Musk as CEO" just to give him more rope

I believe the majority of "No" votes are people thinking like this.

“There is no logical reason for someone to disagree with me.”

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

#487

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.

I just really liked him as a bad ass engineer. Sucks that he went this far

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

#488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fun to think about until you realize building the company/service portofolio that can support a mega-app would almost certainly attract ire from regulators even within the U.S., ignoring the amount of capital investment required to achieve it. Plus, Uber/Spotify/Doordash/Yelp can barely turn a profit as-is. What incentives will the everything app offer to pull consumers away from these existing competitors other…

Let's imagine Google Cloud, AWS, Azure are resp. Google's / Amazon's / Microsoft's everything apps. They are managing to handle the regulatory weight of supporting applications of all kinds of nature, and if you rethink Twitter as a platform you can do the same as well. Many things are possible, and the Twitter app today may even continue to work as-is. But underneath it will be able to power more apps and more use c…

Google, Amazon, and Microsoft absolutely do not have "everything" apps. Google Maps is the closest to a mega-app and it's still highly focused on things that are location-based.

These companies also don't favour their own services over others on their cloud platforms. That's why regulators aren't coming after them. Twitter is not a cloud service provider and it's not hard to see why the argument you presented does not hold up.

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

#489

If this is originating from Qatar, I would speculate this poll is the result of a bet. The Emir, or another royal family member offers to make Elon whole on his $40B investment if he is willing to put his future in the hands of his users/subjects. If Elon wins, the Emir pays out, maybe for a small equity stake, and if Elon loses, the Emir gets to pick the new CEO of Twitter, and probably buys a significant equity sta…

Or he has already decided to step down (or was forced to by his investors), knows how the poll will turn out, and is creating the illusion that the masses have a say in it.

If he wants to stay, he'll game the poll, right?

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

#490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I just really liked him as a bad ass engineer. Sucks that he went this far

I think the money really went to his head. And I'm wondering if he's been doing drugs.

edit: To expand a bit on that: I grew up in Amsterdam and I've seen more than one person that was smart and on a very successful trajectory go down in flames due to drugs. Some of Elon's tendencies very much remind of that.

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