Elon Musk Twitter Trainwreck Mega-Thread

[Danioover9000]

@Roy

13 hours ago, Roy said:

Seeing Twitter collapse brings me so much joy. It's one of the most toxic technologies humans have invented and been a net negative for our species.

   I agree, and a close second is Tic Tok, it's got to go.

[Leo Gura]

This topic will be a shitshow for months to come.

Either Musk will get things right or he will piss off a lot of people.

Personally I think he's being a jackass, but I admire his boldness on this. It will either sink or swim.

[Leo Gura]

 

[Leo Gura]

So there's gonna be a whole culture war over this.

 

[Tyler Robinson]

Why should anything bring you joy or sorrow? 

 

[thisintegrated]

I feel like I'm the only person on the internet who actually wants Elon to succeed.

The bigwigs are angry at Elon cause now they suddenly can't just silence whoever they want.  And I'm guessing American media turned the narrative into "far-right asshole billionaire wants to charge $8 for twitter", and now the masses are anti-Elon and are doing exactly what they've programmed to by TV/Reddit.

The only dumb thing he's done, besides signing the deal prematurely, is charging $8 without offering anything new in return.  Paying $8 to retain something will feel like a net loss, and people feel losses stronger than gains.  He should've offered some small "twitter premium" bonuses to those buying the verification badge.  Literally anything at all, and his PR would've been largely saved.

Edited November 7, 2022 by thisintegrated

[Leo Gura]

12 minutes ago, thisintegrated said:

The bigwigs are angry at Elon cause now they suddenly can't just silence whoever they want.

Nobody was silencing you on Twitter unless you were being an asshole.

Bigwigs don't care about what you say on Twitter. But don't expect them to spend billions of dollars buying ads from you if you refuse to police hate speech.

Everyone told Musk before he bought Twitter that not having moderation would not work. Now he's learning that the hard way.

If moderation wasn't necessary then I wouldn't be on this forum every day policing people. As if I don't have better things to do with my time. And we don't even have advertisers here, I just do it to have a healthy forum. And our Mods too.

Musk's idea of free speech is so childish it wouldn't even work in kindergarten.

Pulling ads IS free speech. If Musk wants to play hardball, welcome to war. But then don't cry when people take their ball and go home. No serious person wants to be at war over Twitter. They'll just leave.

Edited November 7, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Tyler Robinson]

Does being an asshole degrade culture? 

[thisintegrated]

Now that Elon owns "Vine" due to owning Twitter, he could say he'll bring Vine back in the near future and offer lifetime "Vine Premium" to anyone who buys the twitter badge subscription for at least a month or year or something.  He'd basically suddenly receive a $1b+ interest-free loan, enough cash and time to turn things profitable.  This seems even more likely when you realise it's the exact fund-raising strategy he already uses with Tesla car pre-orders.

Edited November 7, 2022 by thisintegrated

[thisintegrated]

10 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Nobody was silencing you on Twitter unless you were being an asshole.

Bigwigs don't care about what you say on Twitter. But don't expect them to spend billions of dollars buying ads from you if you refuse to police hate speech.

Everyone told Musk before he bought Twitter that not having moderation would not work. Now he's learning that the hard way.

If moderation wasn't necessary then I wouldn't be on this forum every day policing people. As if I don't have better things to do with my time. And we don't even have advertisers here, I just do it to have a healthy forum. And our Mods too.

Musk's idea of free speech is so childish it wouldn't even work in kindergarten.

Pulling ads IS free speech. If Musk wants to play hardball, welcome to war. But then don't cry when people take their ball and go home. No serious person wants to be at war over Twitter. They'll just leave.

 

Edited November 7, 2022 by thisintegrated

[Leo Gura]

I don't see any amount of money making Twitter profitable given how much money Musk paid for it. You can't squeeze $44 billion out of Twitter. But in the act of trying to do so, you may likely kill it.

The whole point of buying Twitter was that it was not supposed to be about the money. Now it's a mad scramble just to break even.

Edited November 7, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Tyler Robinson]

What if he remodels Twitter like Patreon? 

[mr_engineer]

@Leo Gura Here's the thing, though - 'hate-speech' can be subjectively defined. And who gets to define that? 

Is it the lowest common denominator of snowflake who defines 'hate-speech'? 

[Leo Gura]

1 minute ago, mr_engineer said:

@Leo Gura Here's the thing, though - 'hate-speech' can be subjectively defined. And who gets to define that? 

Is it the lowest common denominator of snowflake who defines 'hate-speech'? 

Ultimately it's defined by common decency and whatever advertisers are willing to tolerate.

You can't dictate such things from one man. If it works that way what you'll see is less free speech than before Musk took over. All the right-wing platforms have worse free speech standards than all the mainstream "liberal" platforms. Because right-wingers never cared about free speech, they only care about it for themselves. Whereas mainstream platforms actually enforce policy fairly evenly across the board. It's just that more right-wingers violate it because most of the racists, homophobes, sexists, transphobes, etc are right-wing.

[Fleetinglife]

17 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Bigwigs don't care about what you say on Twitter.

They do to an extent if you are actually influential in the real social world and have some power there. For example, the former PM of Pakistan Imran Khan got his popular movement started over his 'unconstitutional' premature suspension by using Twitter as a digital platform to enhance its reach and perception of popularity among the people in Pakistan and the world.

Also, why do you think in part the Russian leadership and high-command decided to target and missile and drone strike Ukrainian critical electric grid infrastructure in the country's capital if not to also contain and curb the Ukrainian government's and its supporter's social media influence, war propaganda, and reach in the social media-using wider world?

Edited November 7, 2022 by Fleetinglife

[Leo Gura]

4 minutes ago, Fleetinglife said:

They do to an extent if you are actually influential in the real social world and have some power there. For example, the former PM of Pakistan Imran Khan got his popular movement started over his 'unconstitutional' premature suspension by using Twitter as a digital platform to enhance its reach and perception of popularity among the people in Pakistan and the world.

Also, why do you in part think the Russian leadership decided to target and missile and drone strike Ukrainian critical electric grid infrastructure in the country's capital if not to also contain and curb the Ukrainian government's and its supporter's social media influence, war propaganda, and reach in the social media-using wider world?

In those cases you're talking about authoritarian countries which don't have free speech. Yeah, of course, Russia, India, China, etc will crack down on free speech. But in the US and Western Europe no one cares what you say as long as you're not bullying others.

Bullying others is not a freedom you should expect to have. Because no one wants to be part of such a community except for Nazis.

Edited November 7, 2022 by Leo Gura

[mr_engineer]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Ultimately it's defined by common decency and whatever advertisers are willing to tolerate.

And advertisers will respond to the Karens the most. Cuz they want to please the public. So, it does boil down to the lowest common denominator of snowflake if Twitter doesn't have free speech, right?! 

[Leo Gura]

3 minutes ago, mr_engineer said:

And advertisers will respond to the Karens the most. Cuz they want to please the public. So, it does boil down to the lowest common denominator of snowflake if Twitter doesn't have free speech, right?! 

Yeah, advertisers don't like it when people are calling each other Jews and N*ggers. Go cry me a river.

You dismissively call it "Karens" when in practice some very sick bullying happens every day on Twitter. You just don't see it.

Edited November 7, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Tyler Robinson]

I thought Twitter was a place where least bullying happened? 

Maybe you're referring to the Elliot Page incident. But then Peterson was canceled too

 

 

[thisintegrated]

17 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

I don't see any amount of money making Twitter profitable given how much money Musk paid for it. You can't squeeze $44 billion out of Twitter.

PayPal, too, looked like a stupid idea to everyone before Elon made it succeed.

Twitter is a short-form communication app.  Short-form media is a still-growing trend, and so Twitter's potential is likely still largely unexploited.

And when evaluating the potential profitability of the purchase, you have to take the potential of Vine into account.

 

TikTok is, to some extent, a national security risk (because of Chinese law).  It's also hated as it takes like 90% of creator profits, and has an association of "dancing teenagers".

YouTube shorts are the only real competition, but they suck.

Vine actually has the best sentiment/reputation of them all, so a comeback is not unlikely.  And it becoming the biggest short-form-video app in the US is also a possibility, especially as it's in the interest of national security and reducing the US to China cashflow, so can't rule out government support (but maybe a bit far-fetched, lol).

Edited November 7, 2022 by thisintegrated