I thought the Musk / Twitter deal was DOA a long time ago.
It’s going to trial this fall. Twitter is going to ask courts to enforce the agreement, making Musk buy them. My guess is he’s blustering to shore up his negotiating position, and will have to make Twitter whole in the range of $10b. Or he believes his own tweets, will go to trial, and be forced to make the purchase. Like everyone, I’m bad at predicting the future.
He’s going to end up buying Twitter but it will be at a discount due to the bot numbers. My prediction is he ends up leading a group of investors to purchase it for roughly $35 billion.
On the one hand we have a legend with impressive track record that is trying to bring to light serious issues at a large company and he has not much to gain but a lot to lose by making false accusations. On the other hand we have the Twitter CEO who does not have any comparable track record and has all to gain by trying to deflect and a lot to lose by admiting that the company under him has serious issues. He does ha…
Just curious: why is FB evil but TWTR isn't? They both seem to share similar social media posts and both seem to apply quite a bit of censorship at times.
> why is FB evil but TWTR isn't?
Facebook’s senior leadership has shown a pathological pattern of lying. They’ve also predated on children in a way Twitter either hasn’t prioritised or hasn’t been able to. The only reason Instagram for Kids is because of literal Congressional hearings.
This person seems to be pretty far out of their depth TBH. Writing emails like this genuinely is difficult and you are optimizing for a very diverse set of stakeholders - not just engineers - but this is amateur hour. From a purely utilitarian perspective the cost/benefit of directly attacking Mudge obviously doesn't work out.
Yeah, if this was really meant to placate a nervous team there's no reason to mention Mudge personally at all, it'll just make anyone who respects him extremely pissed off, and everyone else even more jumpy as the professionalism gloves are clearly off for any interaction about this.
Nice way to lead with a direct attack on a former executive, and one who is very highly regarded in the broader computer/network/hacker sphere. The whole second paragraph is just useless fluff. The "important work" they are doing, with no references at all to any specifics, it's just a feel-good word jumble. He also does not make any claims that Mudge's accusations are patently wrong, it's couched in "what we've seen…
> reads as rushed, ill-informed, and overly emotional
Agreed. Bad email. Zero specifics. Not even an apology for letting the situation get to this point. Just empty promises and mud slinging. (Also, formatting? Also, an email? You know what your product is, right? Did you think this wouldn’t get leaked?)
Is a CEO publicly accusing someone publicly of "ineffective leadership and poor performance" a libelous statement?
If it's not true, it is libel or slander depending on how it was delivered. It may be that Twitter's HR records say "fired for cause: ineffective leadership and poor performance" in which case the statement would be technically true. It's much more likely that Twitter's HR records say something like "fired, not a good fit" in which case it's back to reputational harm.
If the HR records say that, and it’s not true, that doesn’t get twitter off the hook. It might make it harder to sue the CEO directly though, depending on who was involved in writing the HR record.
Lots of people are rushing to defend Mudge, and maybe it's warranted, but being an alumnus of cDc and l0pht doesn't make one a competent executive. It is possible for someone to be a great hacker but a mediocre manager. Twitter's taken a lot of body blows recently and Parag is obviously trying to motivate his people. He's not necessarily lying even if it's a rather unprofessional way to speak I'll of someone who's be…
Between Mudge, Dildog, Beto O'Rourke, Wysopal, and I'm sure others, cDc/l0pht actually seems to have been an amazingly good breeding ground for competent executives compared to most dev teams.
On the one hand we have a legend with impressive track record that is trying to bring to light serious issues at a large company and he has not much to gain but a lot to lose by making false accusations. On the other hand we have the Twitter CEO who does not have any comparable track record and has all to gain by trying to deflect and a lot to lose by admiting that the company under him has serious issues. He does ha…
> Twitter IMHO is not as evil as for example Facebook
Just curious: why is FB evil but TWTR isn't? They both seem to share similar social media posts and both seem to apply quite a bit of censorship at times.
Faking video engagements stats to convince a whole generation of small news sites to pivot to video and ultimately fail. Running psychological experiments on users. Amplifying hate groups associated with everything from genocide in Myanmar to the groups that brought Kyle Rittenhouse to Kenosha. Blatantly breaking state facial recognition laws. I’m sure that’s just scratching the surface.
What groups brought Kyle Rittenhouse to Kenosha? He worked in Kenosha, his father lives in Kenosha, and he was staying with his sister's boyfriend in Kenosha.
Twitter locks accounts for verification and then turns around and sells the phone number used to verify the account to advertisers. This kind of behavior can only happen in thoroughly rotten companies.
What? I’ve worked in adtech for years and have seen a user’s phone number
Eh, hard to grok why you think Twitter is not evil like Facebook. Have we learned nothing about the public/private partnership between the social media companies and the surveillance state? Twitter management is littered with "former" government officials. For all we know, Mudge himself and his whistle are moves in an ongoing internecine fight over who calls the shots at a valuable tool of social control. We were rec…
I believe he didn't say they weren't evil like Facebook, just that they weren't as evil as Facebook. That "as" is important nuance. Personally I think that's fair when looking at Facebook's history[1]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook
That sort of hairsplitting doesn't make much sense to me. It's like saying one gangster isn't as bad as another because one has a shorter wrap sheet. It's a difference that doesn't make a difference. They are evil in the same way, as media institutions of a accelerating surveillance and propaganda regime. Facebook is older and has been at it longer, but Twitter is no slouch when it comes to being a front organization for the secret police state. Twitter is another co-opted tech company whose libertarian minded leadership has long been gelded by institutional power. Assume the management of these companies is seeded with government allies at a minimum, incentivizing, cajoling, sabotaging, or threatening the public leadership of the company, as need be.