Cool. I'm curious if any real change will come of this or if twitter will continue chugging along like it has for years.
Twitter set to accept Musk's $43B offer – sources
341–350 of 1001 posts
Re: Twitter set to accept Musk's $43B offer – sources
#342People act like this is some spiteful thing he's doing in order to just post edgy memes or have a 'private' social media for himself. Twitter, despite being a toxic place the majority of people avoid, brought in over 5 billion dollars last year. If elon removes bots, welcomes non-extremists back on, gets comedians and entertaining accounts back on board and lets people say what they want instead a bot army of shills…
>People act like this is some spiteful thing he's doing in order to just post edgy memes
Well, he did reveal the intent to do it with a series of snarky tweets.
Re: Twitter set to accept Musk's $43B offer – sources
#343Honest question, why can Elon, and only Elon solve the bot problem? Software devs have been trying to solve this problem since the beginning of the internet and yet bots still fill every space on the web.
He has experience with it but he's not the only one. I'm sure Max Levchin would be very capable of putting together a team and fighting off the bots.
Combating fraud was a key technical challenge in building PayPal and bad actors on that network had more direct financial incentives to write them because PayPal was transmitting money rather than social updates.
Re: Twitter set to accept Musk's $43B offer – sources
#344This is interesting to me for a couple of reasons. One that is being discussed here in other threads is basically, "What does Musk think he can do that others before him haven't been able to?" Are we going to see a stroke of real genius here?
The second point is also interesting, but isn't being discussed: Twitter enacted a poison pill on 15 April which could allow Musk to pay a ton but not get board control. I'm not an expert but what I've read is that if Musk (or anyone) tries to get a controlling share then other shareholders can gain voting shares for cheap, which makes it very expensive for Musk to actually achieve a takeover in the sense that he can do what he wants with the company. I'd love for somebody who knows more about that to help clarify it.
Re: Twitter set to accept Musk's $43B offer – sources
#345The ONLY way to solve the toxic nature of Twitter is to enforce a)a real name policy, and b)fully verified[1] identities for all users/bots (opt-in, where others by default filter out non-verified accounts in their feeds) Bots can continue to exist, but must be identifiable as such and connected to a verified real user. Not only will this clean up twitter dramatically, it will also push off those who wish to hide beh…
Hidden real identity verification is an interesting idea. Limits bots and abuse without curtailing legitimate free expression.
The question is whether people can trust Twitter with that information.
Re: Twitter set to accept Musk's $43B offer – sources
#346Am I the only person here that finds Twitter a nice place? I'm careful about who I follow, most of whom are tech people or educators. My feed is a really nice place to go, and I can't remember the last time I read or saw anything that triggered me in the slightest. I'm seeing loads of comments about how toxic Twitter is, but isn't that on you? Don't follow or engage and the algorithm will skip you over.
As long as you use latest and not the algorithm view and stay away from trending it is very calm and nontoxic.
There’s a very very vocal minority of accounts that spam up every trending topic to make it as politically divisive as they can.
Re: Twitter set to accept Musk's $43B offer – sources
#347The ONLY way to solve the toxic nature of Twitter is to enforce a)a real name policy, and b)fully verified[1] identities for all users/bots (opt-in, where others by default filter out non-verified accounts in their feeds) Bots can continue to exist, but must be identifiable as such and connected to a verified real user. Not only will this clean up twitter dramatically, it will also push off those who wish to hide beh…
> the human race isn't quite ready for anonymous 'free speech' online
Speak for yourself. I've been participating in anonymous and pseudonymous internet communities for decades and it's great. If nutjobs and shills are the price we must pay for their continued existence, then so be it.
Re: Twitter set to accept Musk's $43B offer – sources
#348People act like this is some spiteful thing he's doing in order to just post edgy memes or have a 'private' social media for himself. Twitter, despite being a toxic place the majority of people avoid, brought in over 5 billion dollars last year. If elon removes bots, welcomes non-extremists back on, gets comedians and entertaining accounts back on board and lets people say what they want instead a bot army of shills…
I think a lot of people see the potential that Twitter has but it's unattainable in the current structure.
The changes needed are drastic and in any environment where there's a lot of ceremonial overhead that slows down a clear vision, those changes can't be attained. Having somebody in a leadership position who can clearly say, "this is where we are going, this is how we are going to get there and no, I don't have to run it by anybody for approval" is worth it.
The users are already there.
Re: Twitter set to accept Musk's $43B offer – sources
#349i'm skeptical. we can't see the future, but if Denial Of Service has happened with Tesla Cars that same power dynamic could be applied to Twitter.
Re: Twitter set to accept Musk's $43B offer – sources
#350Am I the only person here that finds Twitter a nice place? I'm careful about who I follow, most of whom are tech people or educators. My feed is a really nice place to go, and I can't remember the last time I read or saw anything that triggered me in the slightest. I'm seeing loads of comments about how toxic Twitter is, but isn't that on you? Don't follow or engage and the algorithm will skip you over.
Same here, I only follow tech and creative people doing work that's relevant to my interests and unfollow at the first whiff of unrelated political topics. The only problem with this approach is that you do have to unfollow a lot of people to make it work (or be invested enough in the good stuff on Twitter to sift through a timeline full of garbage looking for it, which I am not). For some of my interests, like infosec, I can't really follow anyone because it's just the norm to use your professional account to broadcast your uninsightful pro/anti/smugly aloof views on the hot US political topic of the week.
I doubt changes in Twitter leadership will change much for people who use Twitter this way. It's unlikely it would be in Twitter's interests or even widely popular but I do hope for better tools for configuring your feed, especially options to filter out politics and current events if that's not what you're on Twitter to read about.