Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far • Hacker News Board

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#951

Post by Veedrac » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 1:22 PM UTC

dathinab wrote: post #376

I always find it strange when he positions himself as pro-democratic and pro-freedom when his actions say pretty much the opposite: He is pushing for a political system/values which: - doubles down on money == power, to a point where only money is power - uses pretext of "freedom" to remove protections which limit in how much companies can abuse people, mainly in forms which move money from them to the companies. But…

This is just, like, normal economic liberalism? The think to keep in mind is that such liberals tend not to share your priors, and hold beliefs like ‘free trade is positive sum’ and ‘optionality is good.’

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#952

Post by nemo44x » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 1:22 PM UTC

r721 wrote: post #848

roughly wrote: post #831

Firing Vijaya is a hell of a move here. Parag had been in the CEO seat for less than a year and had no real experience, and Twitter's not such a unique company financially that the CFO is anything special, but Vijaya had been in charge of legal and policy for a decade at a company that regularly has to tangle with nation state governments, as well as navigate all the other kinds of various policy hell that is Twitter…

Mike Masnick's post on this topic: >Elon Musk’s First Move Is To Fire The Person Most Responsible For Twitter’s Strong Free Speech Stance https://www.techdirt.com/2022/10/28/elon-musks-first-move-is...

Wow, talk about double-speak.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#953

Post by MrMan » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 1:26 PM UTC

edmundsauto wrote: post #687

rednerrus wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like Musk is going to tell advertisers to kick rocks and try to monetize the platform. Where are people gonna go if not on Twitter? The left isn't gonna have better luck with their own truth social or parler. The network effect is too big with Twitter. It's not fun if you're not dunking on your enemies. That's the fun of Twitter.

I thought one of his big free speech flag poles is that he was going to run it as it should be run, monetization be damned?

he bragged that he didn't care about making a profit in one of those public Q&A rountables this year. a lot of weird statements about a company that he seems to hate despite using it to pump his fortune

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#954

Post by posterboy » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 1:29 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #390

julianeon wrote: post #57

In the spirit of trying to be high-information and add value: Where Musk is going, there are no maps. So it's very very hard to project. But we can predict likely developments. At a very high level, it's going to involve: bringing back controversial personalities like Donald Trump; increasing Twitter's commitment to 'free speech'; assuaging skittish advertisers; retaining users who might be concerned, while bringing…

What if he just loses a big pile of money while Twitter twists in the wind because there isn't much of a plan? That seems likely enough really.

Isn't that reminiscent of Bezos buying a news paper as public mouth piece?!

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#955

Post by Kye » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 1:52 PM UTC

loceng wrote: post #946

roughly wrote: post #831

Firing Vijaya is a hell of a move here. Parag had been in the CEO seat for less than a year and had no real experience, and Twitter's not such a unique company financially that the CFO is anything special, but Vijaya had been in charge of legal and policy for a decade at a company that regularly has to tangle with nation state governments, as well as navigate all the other kinds of various policy hell that is Twitter…

You're forgetting he has access to teams of competent lawyers (and their networks) who will already have to interact with international law for Tesla et al.

There's a reason lawyers specialize. No one is as qualified to fight for speech on Twitter as the person who's done it through the company's most tumultuous decade. The next most qualified person is probably Facebook's general counsel since they deal with all the same problems, and the places they differ probably still benefit from the portable experience. After that, there aren't a lot of people leading work on speech policy at this scale. You can't just drop in an IP lawyer or a real estate lawyer and hope for the best.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#956

Post by newswasboring » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 2:12 PM UTC

posterboy wrote: post #954

maxerickson wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if he just loses a big pile of money while Twitter twists in the wind because there isn't much of a plan? That seems likely enough really.

Isn't that reminiscent of Bezos buying a news paper as public mouth piece?!

I don't think Jeff had to take out loans to buy Washington post. That changes a lot.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#957

Post by origin_path » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 2:40 PM UTC

jensgk wrote: post #947

origin_path wrote: post #915

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the left wing perspective, not some universal truth. Obvious counterexamples: America, the internet, e2e encrypted messaging.

America???

... is neither "hell" nor a "cesspool" by any sensible definitions of the words.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#958

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 2:42 PM UTC

concordDance wrote: post #936

dalbasal wrote: post #934

High-indignation, low information commentary is... I feel, almost inevitable here. Elon himself has not really , IMO, provided any information about his plans. His points about making Twitter free, bot problems and such are themselves low-information, high-indignation. The "business plan" regarding advertisers, revenue and such that we have seen so far is basically boilerplate. It reads like generic business school w…

> Meanwhile, Wikipedia has been far more resilient to misinformation, politicisation, and such How could you tell? It's wikipedia (well, the information aggregate that includes wikipedia as a major component) that decides what is or isn't misinformation.

[deleted]

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#959

Post by spiderice » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 2:46 PM UTC

roughly wrote: post #831

Firing Vijaya is a hell of a move here. Parag had been in the CEO seat for less than a year and had no real experience, and Twitter's not such a unique company financially that the CFO is anything special, but Vijaya had been in charge of legal and policy for a decade at a company that regularly has to tangle with nation state governments, as well as navigate all the other kinds of various policy hell that is Twitter…

Just watching Tim Poole throw hard questions at her and her dodging for two hours on Rogan is enough to make me understand why Musk would fire her. She doesn’t share Musks vision at all when it comes to censorship.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#960

Post by strix_varius » Sat, Oct 29, 2022, 2:54 PM UTC

hedora wrote: post #847

julianeon wrote: post #57

In the spirit of trying to be high-information and add value: Where Musk is going, there are no maps. So it's very very hard to project. But we can predict likely developments. At a very high level, it's going to involve: bringing back controversial personalities like Donald Trump; increasing Twitter's commitment to 'free speech'; assuaging skittish advertisers; retaining users who might be concerned, while bringing…

Musk has media attention, but I'm not sure it's much of an advantage at this point. I tried getting a solar system from Tesla, and it convinced me not to consider their cars. I know it is a different side of the company, but I ended up with a used electric BMW. I was resigned to dealing with the B-hole stigma around having a beamer, but whatever. It's a nice car, environmentally friendly, and was inexpensive. That's…

Absolutely. How many times have you heard this statement?

"Our next car will be electric... But not a Tesla."

I hear that all the time now. My wife, who recently turned 30, would be mortified for her friends to see her in a Tesla. They associate the brand with a creepy, slimy billionaire and a legion of tech bro sycophants.