Elon Musk Buys Twitter For $44 Billion (prnewswire.com) 630
Twitter today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by Elon Musk, for $54.20 per share in cash in a transaction valued at approximately $44 billion. Upon completion of the transaction, Twitter will become a privately held company. Press release: Under the terms of the agreement, Twitter stockholders will receive $54.20 in cash for each share of Twitter common stock that they own upon closing of the proposed transaction. The purchase price represents a 38% premium to Twitter's closing stock price on April 1, 2022, which was the last trading day before Mr. Musk disclosed his approximately 9% stake in Twitter.
"Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated," said Mr. Musk. "I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential -- I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it." Earlier on Monday, Musk tweeted: "I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means."
"Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated," said Mr. Musk. "I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential -- I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it." Earlier on Monday, Musk tweeted: "I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means."
Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:5, Funny)
Why can't the edge lords start their own web site and the rest of us can opt out by never visiting it?
Re:Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:5, Insightful)
Enjoy your new, gold-plated toilet. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:5, Interesting)
I always hated twitter can't wait to see Musk destroy it.
Re:Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:5, Funny)
Could he please buy facebook and destroy that too.
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Re:Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:5, Funny)
Why should we abandon the thing we built just because some rich asshat wants it?
Now you have a glimpse into how we have felt for years. Get used to it.
Re:Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:5, Insightful)
Right!
Here we have someone who said that he wants it to be free speech and we have certain imbeciles thinking this is a bad thing, while when free speech was being suppressed they held it as a good thing.
Really highlights the idiot logic of some people when they see suppression as being better than freedom.
But really, ignorance is strength right?
Re:Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:4, Insightful)
But who knows, maybe Musk will turn it into a legitimate free speech site. Then it will be like 8chan, so incredibly toxic even 4chan wouldn't put up with them, and nobody will want to join a site where it's all "KILL THE N_RS" and "FCK U F_G-T" all the time except the people who want to say things like that.
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Re:Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:5, Insightful)
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We do, in fact, need to explain to minors that the reason their classmate has two mommies is that sometimes two girls love each other the way a boy and girl typically do. Completely refusing to address that topic while the kids get bullied for it because
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You're basically imagining this shit.
You do NOT come between a parent and their children.
It's just a big fucking no-no.
And YES, polling on the Parental Rights bill is overwhelmingly pro. Not just on the right. But across the board.
Moreover, it's complete equality under the law.
Gay, straight, trans, whatever. You CANNOT discuss this stuff, or medication regimens with SOMEONE ELSE'S CHILD.
Not without PARENTAL CONSENT.
Regardless of your sexual orientation or gender, nobody should be talking to your kids abo
Re:Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:5, Interesting)
That's ... very confused. Twitter has been shown to amplify conservatives viewpoints, yet you guys still insist that they're actively suppressing them!
Further, look at any of the so-called "free speech" platforms started by the right over the past few years. They are some of the worst offenders when it comes to banning users and certain kinds of speech.
Getter has inexplicably banned the term "groyper", which appears to refer to a fat version of a cartoon frog.
Truth Social has banned users for making fun of Devin Nunes.
Parler is very quick to ban users for making "leftist" posts.
These are just a few examples, of course. The point is that the right is very quick to censor speech that they don't like. For all the flack the left takes over "cancel culture" the right are by far the worst offenders. It's funny, the folks on the left are far more libertarian when it comes to speech. You'd never know it from the way the guys on the right cry about it, all while they're busy trying to get books removed from public libraries!
If you want to freely express your "conservative" views online, Twitter is (or was) one of the best options available.
Re:Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:5, Insightful)
That's ... very confused. Twitter has been shown to amplify conservatives viewpoints, yet you guys still insist that they're actively suppressing them!
The only thing that "amplifies" conservative posts on Twitter is hate retweets by the 90% left-leaning inhabitants. Engagement on junk posts is not "favoring conservative viewpoints."
Getter has inexplicably banned the term "groyper", which appears to refer to a fat version of a cartoon frog.
Truth Social has banned users for making fun of Devin Nunes.
Parler is very quick to ban users for making "leftist" posts.
More than happy to agree with you that all of those are all failures to uphold free speech. If they claim to be neutral services catering to the public forum, then also happy to hold them to same standard as Twitter.
It's funny, the folks on the left are far more libertarian when it comes to speech.
Is this the same left has banned entire speech platforms? Amazon, Google, and Apple literally dismantled Parler to where no one could access it for months. What far worse thing has the right done that grounds your claim the left is "far more libertarian"?
Just off the top of my head, The Babylon Bee - a satire site - is presently banned on Twitter. Should satire be protected? They are extraordinarily vanilla - won't even use curse words - has to be mom appropriate humor basically - so it's shearly an ideological dispute.
Defiant L's was recently banned. Literally 100% of their tweets are simply two tweets from a (usually) left wing person combined together into a single screenshot to show hypocrisy. How can they be banned for posting content that is clearly allowed in the accounts they are reporting on?
Libs of TikTok was recently banned. They, as you might guess, share what they consider embarrassing videos from people on the left.
A couple of accounts recently banned wokal_distance and MythInFormedMike. I can't say I actually follow them but I've seen a lot of their content retweeted without anything edgy. But they are constantly engaged with progressives, which makes them a target.
Some things that have gotten people widely banned on twitter - tweeting 'learn to code', insisting a person's sex is determined biologically, posting/sharing the initial NYP article on the recovery of Hunter Biden's laptop (the idea it was his laptop was called "Russian disinformation" without any grounds in fact).
Notably in many of the cases where conservatives are banned, the appeal is granted and the ban is lifted, i.e., a mistake is acknowledged. So by Twitter's own admission the bans should not have occurred. Where is the tally of popular left-leaning accounts that are subject to similar "mistakes"?
you'd never know it from the way the guys on the right cry about it, all while they're busy trying to get books removed from public libraries!
Can't say I am a fan of removing any books from the library - other than relocating child-inappropriate books from the children's section. I'd be interested to know of any book the right has taken issue with that has been completely removed from publication [jpost.com], or banned by Amazon [newsweek.com] (85% of the book market). I've seen some bookburnings by some backwards attention seekers on the right, but how about on this scale?
Here's the simple incontrovertible fact: the people in power like censorship, the people out of power don't. For a long time the right had the strongest institutional hold, peaking probably ~2004, and they were the main perpetrators of censorship. And certainly they still have bad actors, as they always will. But the left has nearly
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What did you build that was stolen buy a rich person?
Re:Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:4, Insightful)
The only thing I've heard he really wants to do is open the service to more diverse voices.
You consider that a bad thing?
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Far left's key ideological point is that while it's utterly intolerable to most humans, they can make their ideology work by making themselves the only ideology available in the public.
It's how we go the collapse of Communist regimes across Eastern Europe in late 1980s and early 1990s, where people would get a glimpse of hope and get out on the streets to protest fully expecting to be denounced by all of their neighbors... only to see all of their neighbors standing right next to them on the street with the
Re: Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:5, Insightful)
Your post shows that you have no ability to empathy, and can only project your own views upon others. As you oppose free speech, so those that oppose you must also oppose free speech. As you don't listen to others, so others will not listen to you. As you label everyone but those in your ideological bubble an extremist, so must all those that oppose you.
The funniest part is that your last sentence is exactly what I described above. You need to be the only ones heard, because that's the only way your ideology can be reliably forced on the populace. The moment there are viable alternatives available, most people abandon its horrors.
It's why us on mainstream left who haven't submitted are far more abhorrent to you than any nazis. Nazis are your ideological progressive comrades. They are in full throated agreement on the methods, they merely disagree with direction of the methods.
But Musk isn't a nazi. Just like overwhelming majority of people you targeted for torture, infliction of suffering and violence on the streets aren't. And just like most people who celebrate your stranglehold on discourse loosening a little bit. Maybe.
That is why I'm hopeful that this is the first step on dismantling the oppressive structures your kind built, before most of the populace is so tortured and filled with vengeance that their response is going to be more of what happened in Romania than simply removing your stranglehold on public discussions and ending it there.
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Yes, conservative views like "men can't become women by thinking about it". And by "amplify" you mean "ban".
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Projection is quite hilarious. You genuinely believe that I'm advocating for censoring far left views, when I want them to be as visible to normal people as possible.
It's how my nation's Green Party went from being a solid contender for a Prime Minister spot to a rapidly shrinking party that lost half of its support from that peak. There's nothing that turns mainstream populace off more than just getting to see far left views aired openly in public.
It's why this account's owner got doxxed and targeted for a
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History shows this. Me thinking this is simply following historic examples. And as I note above, far left has a very, very big problem with history, because theirs is the most genocidal, enslaving and torturing movement of 20th century by a massive margin.
So it's no wonder that its adherents simply don't know basic historic facts like ones I list above about Eastern Europe. Understanding history is one of the best vaccines against adopting far left ideology.
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He has said he is a free speech absolutionist, i.e. be consideres 8chan to be the pinnacle of human discourse.
His actions are more worrying. He uses his wealth to silence critics.
His idea of diverse is that he's an exception to the rules and should be able to say anything he likes, despite what the SEC says.
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If he runs Twitter like 8 Chan, it will rapidly dwindle to the same sized user base. I mean Twitter is already the internet personification of a garbage fire, but there's only so much people will put up with before they find somewhere else.
I suspect he won't set fire to $44 billion but you never know.
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This is a very typical intentional misunderstanding of the subject, followed by an example that actually goes against the misunderstanding. Individual poisoning many other individuals doesn't commit a single crime against a collective. He commits many individual crimes against many individuals. This is the example where collective rights become a good tool to excuse extreme criminality, which can be observed in collectivist nations, where such crimes are often excused specifically because individuals are ir
Re: Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:4, Insightful)
The moment "free speech" includes the deliberate stifling of those on the left, as proposed by the purportedly libertarians here, it ceases to be free.
Prove to me you want free speech. It's easy enough. Make it for everyone, without exception, including those you don't agree with. No, saying they have an equal opportunity to drown out other voices isn't good enough. Elevate your opponents and ensure they are heard.
Anything less is a sham.
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Rea
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Why can't the edge lords start their own web site and the rest of us can opt out by never visiting it?
Even Trump has only posted *once* [nymag.com] on his own site, "Truth Social" (as of March 24, 2022):
So, here’s an exhaustive list of all the “truths” Trump has posted to the site since it officially launched:
Donald J. Trump: "Get ready! Your favorite President will see you soon!"
That is all.
I'm guessing he means Lincoln, but not sure how that's going to work ... :-)
Re:Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:5, Informative)
I'm pretty sure nobody is interested in the "truths" of Zombie Lincoln, Zombie Jefferson, Zombie FDR, or Zombie Washington. After all, they are consistently ranked as the best presidents by historians [cbsnews.com], year after year.
And let's face it, that's a tough group to crack into if you're aspiring. One literally set the precedent for how to be President. Another doubled the size of the country after writing half the rules for how the government operates, including the set of rules that the US House of Representatives still uses today. Another risked losing half the country in order to fight for what was morally right. And to round out that little brotherhood, the last established the first part of the social safety net we all take for granted, and built some of the largest public works in the nation's history.
It's especially hard if you're absolutely delusional, as well as ranked between Warren G. Harding and James Buchanan at #42 out of 44. I mean, when you're looking up at the guys who: ... well, you've got a long way to go. I mean, being the sorest loser in the history of American politics and attempting an "inside coup" fits pretty well into that group, so they probably have it about right.
- signed into law the Fugitive Slave Act (Millard Fillmore)
- only served a month before dying of pneumonia (William Henry Harrison)
- later joined the Confederacy after leaving office (John Tyler)
- presided over the worst economic crisis in history (Herbert Hoover)
- signed the first immigration law that made the following classes of people essentially legally equal in the eyes of the law: paupers, criminals, lunatics, and Chinese (Chester A. Arthur)
- started two foreign wars, one of which was based on complete horseshit (George W. Bush)
- withdrew northern troops from the South too early during Reconstruction, giving a free pass to establish Jim Crow and another 100+ years of institutional racism (Rutherford B. Hayes)
- actual criminal conspiracy and obstruction of justice (Richard M. Nixon)
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They tried that a few times, and every one of them failed. See: Parler, Gab, Truth Social.
It turns out that a successful social media network requires a critical mass of active people engaging with the platform, and without that you're a footnote in tech history at best, and more likely a subject of relentless mocking as the Microsoft Zune of microblogging.
Re:Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:5, Interesting)
That's weird. Then how did all the existing ones come to be so popular? They certainly didn't start with a critical mass. And don't say it's because they got started so early, because a) there were other competitors back then too, and b) tiktok was only created in 2016 and it is on fire.
No, I think the problem is that you can't just create something successful purely out of rage that you weren't allowed to lie to the detriment of democracy and at the expense of human lives. You need some talent to make something good, and some perseverance (and more talent) to see it through when it isn't an overnight success.
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Trying to be unique in the sense that you're allowing anyone to speak out is not good enough, though, and it doesn't necessarily mean you're creating it o
Re: Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, I forgot about all the libs trying to ban abortion, ban books, ban teaching about historical racism, and calling people who disagree with them "groomers" and other terms associated with pedophelia.
And it's certainly not an attempt to tell anybody else what to think when you go out of your way to pass laws punishing organizations that dare to have different opinions on public policy. Who passed a law to do that in Florida last week again?
Fuck your "balance" - the right is just as guilty, if not more so. They are definitely far more hypocritical, complaining about being "cancelled" when they are undergoing efforts to "cancel" Disney, "cancel" non-binary gender identification, "cancel" reproductive rights, "cancel" gay marriage, and "cancel" voter rights.
Re: Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know if you're trying to sweep under the rug what they did or not. But that's what you're doing.
Yes, your statement is true, but what they actually did, what they INTENDED to do, is create a mechanism to go after any liberal or progressive idea that any teacher might share with students.
It doesn't matter if a teacher is talking about something entirely different from CRT, if they merely mention something that can remotely be associated with racial issues, they can be targeted now. It is one of the largest attacks on free speech, education, and history in a very, very long time. It's a giant blow towards moving towards racial equality in the US.
You can't solve a problem if you can't talk about it, and this law is designed to crush any teacher talking about any societal problems that might touch on race. We are fast moving to a minority-majority in this country, and that is the reason for this. It's white backlash to try to retain power and keep half the country from demanding equal rights.
It's straight up evil and racist, no two bones about it.
Re: Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:4, Insightful)
To be fair, the very worst that caused the banning, was being taught is like 6 public schools across the entire country. Unfortunately, something that should have been handled locally, ended up as a talking point for the GOP. Yea, fear mongering.
Re: Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:4, Insightful)
Please now give examples of where anybody was attempting to "force sex education on kindergarteners" other than attempting to answer a question from a kindergartener, such as "why does Johnny have two daddies?"
Which, by the way, is now illegal to answer in Florida if you are a teacher. So well done on that. The party of small government and individual liberties telling teachers what to teach, and what not to teach, from on high.
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https://www.lifenews.com/2020/11/05/washington-state-oks-ballot-measure-forcing-sex-ed-on-kids-as-young-as-5-years-old/
Here's how you answer ``why does Johnny have two daddies?``: some children have two parents, some kids have one parent, some have none at all, that`s just how that is.
I hope the Gender Unicorn stays the fuck away from kindergartens.
Re: Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:5, Informative)
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Personally, I think if someone is too stupid to follow the rules of the road, they shouldn't be allowed to drive.
I do think if someone is so stupid that they use a word that means freedom as an insult, well that's their right.
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Re: Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:3, Insightful)
Meanwhile Trump gets banned from Twitter yet the leader of the Taliban gets to keep his. Trump might be a clown, but last time I looked he hadn't murdered entire towns, enslaved woman and removed all their rights. But hey, optics, right?
Re: Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:5, Insightful)
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Both the Taliban and Trump have attempted to bring down democratically elected government of the United States. The difference is Trump actually came pretty close to succeeding in that goal. When it came down to it there was just a single capitol hill defending a corridor which lead to the stairwell down which members of congress were fleeing. That officer had a horrible decision to make, shoot Ashli Babbitt or end democracy in the United States, unfortunately for Ashli Babbitt he chose the former.
Trump no
Re: Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:5, Insightful)
Who said forgive? Just apply the rules evenly. Either ban all political troublemakers or none of them. Dont pick and choose based by your own political leanings as twitter do.
You don't give him enough credit (Score:3)
If he had bought Facebook, I might tend to agree. I don't think you're giving him enough credit though. Twitter could still get a lot worse.
Re: Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet it's ok for the Taliban to have a twitter account, right? How many people have they killed and tortured vs the adolescent white supremacist poseurs? Not to mention plenty of other murderous regimes happily tweeting away too. If Twitter applied the rules evenly no one would complain, but they dont, they ban groups and people their management have a beef with. Trump bad man, ban him. Amrullah Saleh? What's the problem?. Fucking hypocrites. Hopefully musk will show the current management the door.
Re: Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:5, Insightful)
The taliban are smart enough to adhere to the TOS.
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Re: Taliban is careful not to violate Twitter's ru (Score:3)
There are no leftist hate groups for two reasons. First, "leftist" is a pejorative invented by right-wingers to label anyone they don't like, it isn't a label with any actual meaning.
Second, the left wing is defined by hope, the right wing is defined by hate. That is the essence of these philosophies. You cannot have a left wing hate group because of how the philosophy is defined.
Re: Taliban is careful not to violate Twitter's ru (Score:4, Informative)
A "leftist" is a descriptor (albeit far from a perfect one), it's not a pejorative.
A fast search shows this on reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskRe... [reddit.com]
If it was pejorative, that would dominate the comments. It does not. Everyone understands what is being spoken of here, is my point.
>Second, the left wing is defined by hope, the right wing is defined by hate
This is totally ludicrous. Right wing politics are mostly defined by tolerance of, adherence to, or promotion of, hierarchies. Left wingers tend to have giant beefs with hierarchies and inequalities. Nothing is about "hope" or "hate".
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Re:Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:5, Insightful)
I bet you can't name a single person who was banned for their opinions outside of that handful of white supremacists.
Libs of TikTok were suspended by Twitter at least once.
This is not an endorsement or anything, but in my understanding they just re-quote existing public video content. So what gives?
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Complete and utter bullshit.
They banned The Babylon Bee, for bog's sake, just because they made a joke about a transvestite: https://thehill.com/policy/tec... [thehill.com]
Shall we count the number of elected officials, people who were selected by a majority of the voters, who have been banned. They certainly aren't "act
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Meanwhile look at who's left: if Twitter was just banning people with views that most Twitter employees disagree with, don't you think Shapiro and Andy Ngo would have lost their accounts by now?
They don't have to ban, they just deprioritize posts they don't agree with. Mr. Dorsey sat in congress and told them he wasn't beholden to free speech laws because he's a corporation, and he's not a monopoly. He's right of course, but that doesn't make the whole thing any more palatable.
What would be incredible is if a majority of employees that disagreed with those people didn't find a way to deprioritize their posts.
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The rumor that they "deprioritize" posts has been going around for a long time now and nobody has ever come up with any evidence beyond
You're right, nobody can prove anything because they don't publish their algorithms. If only there was a way to quash these rumors.
As for what Dorsey said in Congress, what of it?
Exactly what I wrote. You can scroll up if you want to re-read it.
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Yeah, I want the source code to Windows too because I believe they're relaying all my complaints about it to Redmond and each time going "Hahaha! Now we really know what Squiggleslash hates, let's change it and make it even worse!"
Timely post, wouldn't you say?
Google, Meta, and Others Will Have To Explain Their Algorithms Under New EU Legislation
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
Because of those ludicrous, paranoid, conspiracy theorists running the EU.
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Re:Maybe I'll give it another try (Score:5, Informative)
The Azov battalion was a neo-nazi group in the past, at a time when Russia was actively invading Donbas region and the Ukraine military was not ready for this, leadingt to the formation of volunteer battalions to defend the country. This seems reasonable, if they're not prepared for the invasion then they're not prepared to give litmus tests to volunteers. In the intervening 8 years though, the Azov brigade has been more integrated into the military, and the original leaders who had neo-nazi leanings have left the group and formed offshoots.
None of this justifies Russia's further invasion and atrocities, and Russia's propaganda regarding Ukraine being comprised of nazis is wholely to be discounted as unreliable information, as the existence of Azov brigade defenders in one location, which only had neo-nazi assocations in the past, is insufficient proof to justify war crimes and crimes against humanity to root out "nazis". Even the existence of avowedly pro-neo-nazis in a country can never justify the invasion of a country (otherwise they'd invade the US), and does not justify the mudering of civilians, including children.
Russian also has a very different definition of "nazi" than the west does. We see the nazis in the west as racist, performing genocide against jews, and performing military incursions against many countries. Russia is a bit different - it sees nazis as enemies because they fought Russia, not because of genocide, and not because of military expansions. This is because Hitler and Stalin had a gentemen's agreement to split central Europe between themselves, Stalin appearing in history as second only to Hitler in terms of brutality and repression. Stalin, and early czars before him, were quite virulently anti-semitic. When Hitler broke that agreement, Stalin went to war. Putin today has said that he admires Stalin, he does not see Stalin as a bad man. So it seems that Putin's idea of what makes nazis bad is also the same as Stalin's - Nazis are bad because they oppose Russia, that's the only definition that matters to him. Thus Ukraine opposed Russia, prefering to be independent and democratic, therefore Putin assumes Ukraine must be nazis. Which is absurd to the west because the president of Ukraine is Jewish. To Putin however, being Jewish is irrelevant, only that he doesn't welcome Russian overlords with open arms.
As far as the war in Ukraine, and it IS a war, the existence of nazis or the Azov batallion is utterly irrelevant and they're not a cause of the war or a justification.
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Dear Elon... (Score:3)
Roll Twitter back to about 2010 and don't fuck with it anymore.
80% of Twitter won't notice (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, people just tweeting about sports and Korean pop stars will just carry on. The political side of Twitter is actually a minority of users but just very loud.
People claiming they are going to leave Twitter because of this are just as cringe as those who said they were going to leave Twitter to run to Gab or Parler or Truth. Until something changes enough to force a mass exodus theres no point, Twitter is where the audience is, that's what he's buying, it's userbase. The tech is essentially worthless.
I can see plus and minuses to this but from his proposed changes it doesn't seem too bad. I think a show of good faith would be to put some of these axioms and rules he seems to have for the site in some sort of charter and take away peoples fears the he might make changes on a whim.
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Seriously, people just tweeting about sports and Korean pop stars will just carry on.
Following breaking sports news is pretty much my only reason for using Twitter.
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That's true but there are people on there right now who ride the line and have for some time (a previous reply to this mentioned Andy Ngo still has his account, talk about riding the line). People can dogwhistle terrible things all day long and never see any moderation on Twitter.
Much of the issue with social media moderation like Twitter comes from the vagueness of how they enforce things. If the rules are more clear and evenly enforced the real bad actors should find themselves banned in short order ag
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If the rules are more clear and evenly enforced the real bad actors should find themselves banned in short order again,
When rules are clear and evenly enforced, the bad guys quickly find a work-around.
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There is no solution.
Nuke it from orbit. That's the only way to be sure.
$5/mth for verified user status (Score:4, Insightful)
If Twitter started charging a monthly fee for a simple verified user status (not even the blue check), then that would help reduce the influence of the bot brigades.
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Fueled by Narcissism! (Score:3)
If anything being part of an elite club with $5 to spare will be welcomed by Twitter's overwhelmingly narcissistic userbase! Maybe in the future we'll see the classic BMW/rolex/iphone photo but now the phone will have that paid twitter app with a shiny blue checkmark.
Hopefully it dies off now (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm going to laugh if it dies off like Tumblr. Dig, Myspace etc, and he just blew 44 billion.
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The first thing to be learned is to not ban porn like Tumblr did.
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Your approach to combat those things is just sweeping it under the rug and hoping for the best.
Without actual discussion and debate, you can't actually kill bad ideas. You will end losing some of your bad ideas as well in the process, but that's good.
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Without actual discussion and debate, you can't actually kill bad ideas"
Oh boy. The claim once was that the Internet would allow instant and in-depth fact checking and lies, bad ideas and conspiracies would die because people could go find the truth. Like that happened.
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Seeing the open debate of terrible ideas as harmless or beneficial is what got us into this mess:
https://www.wired.com/story/id... [wired.com]
The debate and discussion doesn't change the minds of those who know why terrible ideas are terrible or those who see the awfulness as not a bug but a feature, it just spreads those ideas to vulnerable people who don't know better either way. It's like spreading a pathogen over a crowd made of vaccinated, infected, and uninfected people. In the end, more just get infected. Pushin
There goes the neighborhood. (Score:2)
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Musk can't be President, he chose the next best .. (Score:3)
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FTFY
The ruling elite exercising power (Score:3)
This isn't something you, me, or anyone who isn't a centi-billionaire could do. I don't like Musk. Or any of the other centi-billionaires like Gates or Bezos or Soros. I make no secret of that.
But I would like everyone to pause and reflect on just how much power is being wielded here. And ask yourself, will it really be wielded for your benefit? Or do you expect to stay neutral? Is it that easy to be neutral? Switzerland's about to join NATO, so it looks damn hard to me...
"I believe in free speech" (Score:5, Interesting)
Great news for the Flat Earth community (Score:3)
First thing he should do is fire the moderators (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully the first thing Elon Musk will do is fire all of the Twitter "moderators" that are happy to allow Antifa and BLM to do their terrorist thing on Twitter, while banning conservative parody accounts for making jokes. The second thing he needs to do is fire all the people who insist on making Twitter switch to that algorithmic crap that seems designed to funnel left-wing talking points to you. I'm sure the woke hashtags are really trending with only 1000 tweets, while other things languish with hundreds of thousands of tweets without "trending."
Twitter can only improve under Elon Musk.
Re:First thing he should do is fire the moderators (Score:4, Interesting)
...but you have it reversed.
This is the "speaking out" part, not the "coming for" event.
The people running Twitter are the "they" in that quote.
He hopes they'll stay (Score:3)
Earlier on Monday, Musk tweeted: "I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means."
He hopes they'll stay, but will they be able to? If they get subjected to an endless torrent of abuse in their PMs and replies, it's going to be very difficult for them to stay around... and it sure doesn't sound like Elon has much interest in banning the sources of that abuse.
Good Luck to Elon with Twitter (Score:3)
Leftist meldtown in 3...2...1... (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh the humanity! Musk has promised to open source the algorithm. Seems reasonable to me. He wants to rid Twitter of bots. Seems reasonable to me. He wants to encourage lively discussion rather than blocking or banning the accounts of people that don't necessarily agree with you. Seems reasonable to me.
Even Jack Dorsey realizes that the current Twitter board is dysfunctional. Big changes were needed and big changes will come.
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I hope he does open source it. That would prove the research paper that right wing news spreads faster.
https://cdn.cms-twdigitalasset... [cms-twdigitalassets.com]
I'm looking forward to the excuses (Score:3)
Anyone wanna place bets on what those excuses will be? My money's on "it's Musk's platform, he can do whatever he wants" and "they had it coming".
What will happen next? (Score:5, Insightful)
It won't be long before the media starts to depict Twitter as a bad entity, even though they have been showering it with praise for the past few years. This is a given, period, and it demonstrates the liberal bias of the media.
What will Musk do? He will get rid of the board and do sweeping changes (unseen by the public) to the employee base. Each person will undergo review for their past practices and be let go if they are determined to have used their own bias in making decisions -- he won't make the same mistake that Trump made when he failed to get rid of the shadow government after he was elected. Bear in mind, a company cannot survive when the employees make decisions for the company based on their own biases. Musk I do not believe has the intent of turning on the liberals. I think he'll be fair and allow users to speak. Remember, Twitter pretty much banned those that were well known and had a strong opposing narrative.
Trump indicated he won't return. I did not expect he would, primarily due to the fact that he has his own platform. He now knows that when he runs in 2024 he won't have to deal with the biases of the media on two social media platforms and certainly on the most censorious of them all. We should though see the return of many others that were banned, such as Project Veritas (if they are still banned).
Musk hopefully knows he will have to deal with a tidal wave of complaints from both sides. He hopefully realizes that this will take time, that the board and the employees have been tactically acting in a way that could be viewed as a dead man switch. What I mean is that sabotage is a possibility, and destruction of company product is another. I can imagine he is building a team that are going to go in and tear through the company's policies and practices and hopefully they are aware that they will have to deal with the potential sabotage.
As far as the developers that claimed they will not tolerate by staying with Twitter, let's just remember, that anyone can be replaced and there are those that will go, those that will be let go, and those that will stay behind believing they can control things from within. Typically when a company fires programmers in such a way they will eliminate most if not all of them. This happened at a company that I worked for. They took a team of developers and fired them. The night before they changed the locks and secured the office. Then they replaced the whole team with one programmer, hah.
The programmers will threaten to build their own platform which will start, falter, and end sooner than later.
The reactions will be loud and mouthy and the complaints will cover that users have to read things that make them uncomfortable. To that I say stop reading, stop following those people, and find something that doesn't give you so much stress. That's the best thing you can do for yourselves.
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Showering Twitter with praise?
Did you not see all the stuff about Russian bots interfering with Western democracy? Or the coverage of Jan 6th? Or the endless articles about trolling on there?
Re:Authenticating All Humans (Score:5, Funny)
You don't have to worry, unlike Mark Zuckerberg
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You're in a desert walking along in the sand when all of the sudden you look down see a tortoise. You reach down, you flip the tortoise over on its back.
The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun beating its legs trying to turn itself over but it can't, not without your help, but you're not helping.
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Begun, the bot wars have...
Re: First post-Elon twitter post (Score:3)
Hopefully we'll start to see some left wing extremists banned now. The sort of evil shits in the trans lobby who deny women exist and hound any who want women only spaces free of delusional men in dresses creeping them out.
Re: wholly owned (Score:5, Informative)
That's not how loans work. The only way they could claim any control is if Musk violates the terms of the loan repayment plan.
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That's not how loans work. The only way they could claim any control is if Musk violates the terms of the loan repayment plan.
Sure, but he doesn't really "wholly own" Twitter until the loans are paid off.
And the bank owns much of my house. Doesn't mean they get to tell me what to color to paint it... or much of anything else, really. In fact, about all they get to tell me is that I'm required to have insurance and pay my property taxes.