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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

#661

Post by maelito »

jasode wrote: 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…

Rich people owning a media don't need to do anything for the media's editorial line to be changed.

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

#662

Post by lukerag »

rayiner wrote: post #481
elkos wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wo…

No post body was provided.

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

#663

Post by mcv »

SanjayMehta wrote: post #530
theGnuMe wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could be neutral now but be called leftist if you won't publish disinformation.

True. I couldn't find the original of the cartoon in this piece. This problem cuts both ways though. https://nypost.com/2022/04/29/elon-musk-says-woke-progressiv...

The original version of that has the right moving to the extreme right while the left stays in place. I guess both sides feel that the gap has grown, but both sides blame the other side.

Before we descend into both-sideism, though, it's worth to get a bit more perspective: the left-wing version of the comic looks at the growing divide over a period of decades; just after WW2, social democracy was strong in the US. Support for unions was strong, workers' rights, social security, all sorts of social democratic programs were broadly supported. Only with Reagan, did the Republicans suddenly start moving to the right: lower taxes, end social programs, deregulation, privatisation. And in the 1990s, the Democrats followed them on that part; both the regulation of the banks that enabled the 2008 crash and the crime bill that gave the US the largest prison population in the world, happened on Clinton's watch.

So the left-wing version of the comic is absolutely correct, and people have started to push back, which may have inspired the right-wing version of the comic.

Except I've got the feeling that the right-wing version is about something completely different: the pronouns issue. And frankly, that's barely a left-right issue. It's got nothing to do with economic inequality. It's entirely possible to support economic equality yet oppose accepting transgender people as their target gender (see JK Rowling, for example), or to oppose economic equality yet support accepting transgender people (classic/economic/neo-liberalism, many corporations).

Politics is simply not the one-dimensional field that these comics suggest it is.

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

#664

Post by nicce »

lucideer wrote: post #623
jasode wrote: 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…

Almost everything in your comment is highly likely to be wrong, simply because of one fundamental difference between WaPo/WSJ and Twitter: Twitter contributors are not employees. Stating unilaterally that Bezos & Murdoch exert no influence over the content of their publications can't be grounded in any fact because any potential influence they might exert would never be public knowledge. It's falsifiable (as many com…

Washington Post has had many "Opinions" in the past, which are directly related on supporting Bezos's wealth or business models.

Whether they have been pressured by Bezos or in some way, is uncertain, but it certainly leaves the benefit of the doubt.

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

#665

Post by mcv »

licebmi__at__ wrote: post #627
machina_ex_deus wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you go back to Musk deal, it was immediately after Babylon bee was banned for an anti trans remark about man of the year. I'm speculating a bit, and I'm not supporting his actions, I'm trying to explain then. I think he already had disagreement with his son that came out as trans later, and I think the major reason he changed his political position is because of his child. The child also cut all ties with him. He…

>I'm speculating a bit, and I'm not supporting his actions, I'm trying to explain then. I think he already had disagreement with his son that came out as trans later, and I think the major reason he changed his political position is because of his child. The child also cut all ties with him. Maybe, but I find it more likely that his child cut ties with him because he was always fucking awful.

That's probably the child's perspective, and not one that Musk shares. He will prefer to reject the idea that he was always fucking awful, and instead prefers the idea that his child was taken from him by a "woke mind virus".

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

#666

Post by cmrdporcupine »

x0x0 wrote: post #417
phphphphp wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter was doing fine financially, they were consistently floating around break even and they had lots of opportunities to move into profitability if their financial situation became tenuous. As far as technology companies go, they weren’t anything to write home about, they weren’t printing money the way Google does, but they were doing fine. Twitter doesn’t need to make constant product changes, as is evidenced by…

I don't think Twitter were fine: they were consistently losing money (to your point, not a ton, but still, losing money even in a great economy), with large layoffs to come, esp once you factor in a 20% or so fall in ad income. With more income cuts, and hence layoffs, on the way as privacy laws worldwide make Twitter worse as an ad platform. So I would argue that Twitter desperately needs to either get much better a…

Pretty much "everyone" in the valley had large layoffs coming. Only Apple and Google have escaped it so far. This is a product of the stupid "grow unbounded" consensus that reigned there, not any idiocy unique to the companies.

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

#667

Post by additall »

jasode wrote: 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…

But that's solely because media has always been a drug (clickbaits, cognitive tricks, etc.) serving as a power tool. The ones you mentioned, including HN belong one way or another to a "Democratic" party. And all these billionaires, well, they chose their side (as all billionaires do when it comes to power and politics) and we have what we have (i.e. "democratic" media not discussing "republican-leaning" billionaires' jets).

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

#668

Post by UncleMeat »

czbond wrote: post #194
ckastner wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does seem so, and hilariously, it appears to be backfiring. "As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it" https://notabird.site/elonmusk/status/1604623424164282368

He doesn't want to lead Twitter... social media is a junk hole mostly filled with lowest common denominator users. He's definitely tired of the stupid issues on both sides that are filled with entitled users and whiners. It's a lose lose, let someone else fill their day with that.

He bought Twitter. From day one he didn’t need to be CEO. But he chose to immediately show up and make big changes, both in personnel and in the platform itself. He doesn’t need a poll to hire somebody else to run the company.

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

#669

Post by nkozyra »

jiggywiggy wrote: post #658
wpietri wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a big Musk critic, but I think his rise demonstrates a genius for hype and PR. The amount of free media and cheap capital that Tesla got was extraordinary, and I think that was down to Musk. But I think Musk is also a good example of the reason that I would probably not work for a company whose head is a sales guy. Salespeople are great at hype, but they often do it by living in a fantasy land, and someone insuf…

Twitter is drama entertainment. As far as I can see Elon and the platform are perfect for eachother. Messy as it is. Twitter hasn't gotten as much attention since so seems like he is doing something's right.

There's only so much fuel for that fire and it seems like it's running out now that he's no longer going to be making wild changes or potentially stepping down.

That it coincided with a period of advertiser regression doesn't help.

I think we need to stop pretending that the only possible answer for seemingly misguided decisions is secret brilliance.

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