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Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

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Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#991
post #917

As much as people dislike Musk, he draws excitement and captivation not only to himself, but to whatever he touches. Now for the first time people actually care about the "future" of Twitter, or in a sense, have a vision for its future that isn't defined by its frequent moderation-related controversies. Is Musk's financial success and unparalleled cultural relevance a science that can be replicated? I mean, as much a…

> Even a man for a while much richer than Elon, Bezos, couldn't muster much in terms of cultural relevance for Blue Origin than a PR stunt with William Shatner. When/if Blue Origin starts actually launching ships to orbit and then landing them, they'll gain a lot of relevance.

I mean, yeah? If I personally started launching ships to orbit and landing them, I would gain a lot of relevance too.

The point is, somehow SpaceX is able to do things Blue can’t. Combined with Tesla being able to do things other automakers can’t, it seems there’s a common factor.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#992
post #955
post #946

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 spee…

"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."

That's putting forward a ton of assumptions, none of which you cited supporting evidence for; length of time is quite a weak-shallow argument point.

Let's also bring up the fact that maybe they stayed in those positions so long because they were willing to take a knee to the fascists in governments, willingly toeing the line for them - so then therefore lacking principles and integrity - which is an unacceptable foundation to be fighting from for anything.

Quite the straw man argument you end with.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#993

I am not sure what Elon's vision of a "free speech" platform is, but if you allow absolutely all legal free speech, with limited/no moderation, it will turn into a cesspool. This "Welcome to Hell, Elon" article sums up most of my points so I won't bother to repeat them all here. https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/28/23428132/elon-musk-twitt...

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

>America

What do you even mean by this? "America" is not a forum or platform, it's a country.

>the Internet

most forums on the Internet are moderated. Forums without moderation quickly are known to become toxic cesspools. Even sites like 4chan needs to moderate beyond legal requirements.

>e2e encrypted messaging

again, not sure what you mean by this. A messaging platform doesn't need central moderation because users chose who they want to message.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#995
post #837

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 In charge of, but almost certainly not the DRI, or related talent, for any of that. Her direct experience is most certainly minimal, compared to the people actually doing that work. This assumes there's not significant corruption of course. So the questions would be, will Elon see t…

I can tell you emphatically that Vijaya indeed had a lot of day-to-day exposure to and involvement with policy, having seen her in action directly.

I’m sure there was exposure and involvement, but I would find it incredibly hard to believe if the brute force of the work was not a group of lawyers, with that exposure and involvement being easily exchanged for another, or even more hands off, CEO.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#996

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…

I'm excited about the possibility of a more decentralized / open source WeChat coming out of this. Twitter has their BlueSky project for decentralized social media and is bringing on many pro-crypto people into management (e.g. https://twitter.com/sriramk). It would be a great story of USA freedom vs Chinese control that could be really good for the world and Twitter.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#997
post #900

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every one of us has run into situations where choosing to be honest has materially cost us. You accidentally scratch a parked car on your way out. Do you stop and leave a note with contact info or not? The richer you are, the more leverage you have and larger the material cost for these situations. A fellow rich friend gives you a little insider info that a stock you hold is about to crater. Do you sell some? In othe…

I think what you are talking about is morality and not honesty. Musk is brutally honest - with the people he works with, with the investors, with his followers on twitter and everyone. He is brutally honest by letting them know on their face what he thinks is right and wrong. I would argue that not being honest about something wouldn't make you move forward. You can be brutally honest and immoral at the same time. No…

> Musk is brutally honest - with the people he works with, with the investors, with his followers on twitter and everyone. He is brutally honest by letting them know on their face what he thinks is right and wrong.

He is brutally honest when it benefits him. But he is completely willing to lie when it suits him. See:

https://elonsbrokenpromises.com/

Or search for "Musk broken promise" or "Musk failed prediction" to see many other examples. You might argue that, "Well, he honestly intended these things to pass." But at his level of power, I believe there is a moral obligation to be reliable in one's public predictions.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#998

If I was working at Twitter right now I would be looking for a different job, regardless of what I think of Elon's politics/motives. The talk of layoffs and major policy changes creates massive uncertainty and I don't think I'd risk sticking out the transition. I bet many inside the company feel the same. This begs the question: If there is a major exodus, will it even matter? And, if it does, how will the problems m…

Slower feature velocity? Less innovation? Based on a few articles I've read, it appears he may be bringing developers from Tesla into Twitter but I have not seen anything from him directly stating that. I doubt they will hit the ground running but with time can probably dig into the code and processes. Sadly I've been in an industry that was focused on taking over after entire IT/engineering/development teams were le…

I've done that too, it really sucks. My boss wasn't thrilled about it either but it was a directive from a lot higher up than she was. I took that as cue to look for a new job myself, as did others. Not everyone left but enough such that between the layoffs and the devs/BAs that quit caused a project to slip such that they had to pay "fines" as designated in the contract and a couple senior leaders were let go.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#999
post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an account and every time I hit that signup/in wall I just close the page rather than sign into my account

You can get a much better experience by using nitter[0]. Easiest way to do it is by replacing twitter.com with nitter.it (or some other nitter instance) in your link. 0: https://nitter.net/about

Question is: why is it allowed, and will Musk continue to allow it.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#1000

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.

Facebook could allow for special profiles that are only comprised of statuses. That would be a Twitter clone in a nutshell that would already have high adoption. That would require Facebook to make a shrewd business decision though so never mind.

It would also require people, who I am assuming lean left, to trust Zuck over Elon after the last 5 years of talking about how terrible Zuck and his platform are. I don't see that happening. Nobody wants grandma reading their tweets.
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