Musk offers to buy Twitter

[Deleted member 215]

Twitter is already trash and it has no direction to go but up. I don't get the argument that Musk is going to turn Twitter into another Gab/Parler/Truth Social. Don't we already have three of those right-wing circle jerk sites? And aren't they all floundering financially? What would be the point of doing the same to Twitter?

 

[Eric]

This site is my social media. I haven't felt like I've missed anything in years and am often more informed than people I know who are actively on social media.

I see sites where rapid fire one off posts to the world as social media, forums are a different beast and were around long before FB or Twitter. It's the difference between a drunken bender and a nice glass of wine to me.

 

[Citysnaps]

I see sites where rapid fire one off posts to the world as social media, forums are a different beast and were around long before FB or Twitter. It's the difference between a drunken bender and a nice glass of wine to me.

My buddy Elon just messaged me. He wants to know what your price is, Eric.

 

[lizkat]

This site is my social media. I haven't felt like I've missed anything in years and am often more informed than people I know who are actively on social media.

I see sites where rapid fire one off posts to the world as social media, forums are a different beast and were around long before FB or Twitter. It's the difference between a drunken bender and a nice glass of wine to me.

User experience does depend at least in part how one uses whatever tools a site provides to manage information flow according to preferences. I'll be watching for any reduction in ability on Twitter to tweak ad preferences, mute accounts etc.

In the meantime because I follow certain mainstream news sites, Twitter's existing algorithms occasionally pop tweeted news from other mainstream sources into my timeline. Otherwise I'd not have been aware --for instance-- that some NBC journos had traced the newish "tailgate parties" and armed "watchers" near drop boxes back to massive encouragement by TruthSocial influencers to create those situations.

Now while I found that interesting indeed, if I start seeing all sorts of "news" from TruthSocial members themselves popping up on Twitter because they've had their Twitter accounts reinstated, that could be a different thing, and problematic if I have to spend time tweaking my timeline using more keywords and mutes etc.

 

[Eric]

My buddy Elon just messaged me. He wants to know what your price is, Eric.

Every man has his price.

 

[lizkat]

Twitter is already trash and it has no direction to go but up. I don't get the argument that Musk is going to turn Twitter into another Gab/Parler/Truth Social. Don't we already have three of those right-wing circle jerk sites? And aren't they all floundering financially? What would be the point of doing the same to Twitter?

It's probably why Musk has already tried to clarify that Twitter will not be an unmoderated site, i.e. he does know that the site needs to follow the law and also not lose advertisers, at least not while Twitter still relies on ads for its revenue stream.

Musk's intent to expand the platform into an "everything app" will take some time even to get onto a drawing board, never mind into revenue-producing status. That is, unless he intends instead to buy and bolt on some existing services. One should not forget that the guy co-founded PayPal. And that he also managed to borrow billions of bucks from some major banks in order to buy Twitter.

At the moment the state of the global economy is such that the lending banks will likely be carrying that debt on their balance sheets, rather than securitizing it and selling it on, which was almost certainly their original intent. Right there is some indirect but substantial leverage that Musk might use to entice one of banks to cooperate in helping him add banking services to his newly acquired Twitter platform.

 

[shadow puppet]

I'm not bailing yet. I have too many folks I follow and enjoy, all conveniently in one place. But I have been adding those that also have an IG account to who I follow on Instagram just in case. If Twitter gets weird or out of control, then yes, I'll leave. Just hoping that doesn't happen or a better alternate venue presents itself. At least for the sane accounts.

 

[Nycturne]

It's probably why Musk has already tried to clarify that Twitter will not be an unmoderated site, i.e. he does know that the site needs to follow the law and also not lose advertisers, at least not while Twitter still relies on ads for its revenue stream.

I’ll believe it when I see it after Musk has spent so much time on Twitter complaining about free speech, “woke culture” and other things that come from the same mindset as those who founded places like Gab and Parler. The clarification is a walk-back of his previous promises for the site.

It’s already clear that there’s going to be large changes to current policy around moderation, with undoing lifetime bans, and ousting the current executive overseeing the current policy for moderation: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/elon-musk-reverse-lifetime-bans-121209360.html

With as much trouble as this guy has generated lately with the SEC, etc, I don’t really trust him to be able to walk that line successfully with advertisers. Especially if the end goal is to reduce reliance on advertising and monetize via other services. He may be willing to burn bridges sooner and try to ride some debt on the way to that goal.

Now, one potential side effect here is that minorities won’t be seeing harassment from users and the reporting system itself, but since it also means more users will be around to harass, I’m not sure that’s a net positive.

Musk's intent to expand the platform into an "everything app" will take some time even to get onto a drawing board, never mind into revenue-producing status. That is, unless he intends instead to buy and bolt on some existing services. One should not forget that the guy co-founded PayPal. And that he also managed to borrow billions of bucks from some major banks in order to buy Twitter.

Which isn’t great news for Twitter if Musk erodes trust in the platform in the mean time.

 

[Eric]

I'm not bailing yet. I have too many folks I follow and enjoy, all conveniently in one place. But I have been adding those that also have an IG account to who I follow on Instagram just in case. If Twitter gets weird or out of control, then yes, I'll leave. Just hoping that doesn't happen or a better alternate venue presents itself. At least for the sane accounts.

It wasn't a decision I took lightly, it took a long time to get that many followers and I also had those I really enjoyed following. I spend most of my time on IG now as well, I find it to be a bit more genuine without all the bitching and complaining. I also have several celebrities who follow me there, they're much more genuine on that platform for some reason.

 

[Cmaier]

Looks like Kanye was just allowed back on twitter? So the toxic hellscape is well on its way…

 

[Edd]

Looks like Kanye was just allowed back on twitter? So the toxic hellscape is well on its way…

Bad sign, West has never been so toxic.

 

[Arkitect]

Ah well…
I will definitely not be missed on there, but I just hit the delete button on Twitter.

Recently I have been "off" social media as much as possible — Twitter was certainly the easiest call to make.

Instagram is the last holdout for me as it is unfortunately the most visible channel for an artist nowadays.

O tempora, o mores…

 

[Arkitect]

Looks like Kanye was just allowed back on twitter? So the toxic hellscape is well on its way…

The celebrations over at MR is stomach turning…

 

[Cmaier]

The celebrations over at MR is stomach turning…

I’m not over there anymore, but adding anti-semitism to their toxic hellstew seems about right.

 

[lizkat]

The celebrations over at MR is stomach turning…

Speaking of toxic...

 

[lizkat]

Welp, Musk should have read this Verge piece before letting West back on. It was addressed to him directly....

Welcome to hell, Elon

Owning Twitter means owning a host of impossible political problems. Is Elon ready?

www.theverge.com

Here are some examples: you can write as many polite letters to advertisers as you want, but you cannot reasonably expect to collect any meaningful advertising revenue if you do not promise those advertisers “brand safety.” That means you have to ban racism, sexism, transphobia, and all kinds of other speech that is totally legal in the United States but reveals people to be total assholes. So you can make all the promises about “free speech” you want, but the dull reality is that you still have to ban a bunch of legal speech if you want to make money. And when you start doing that, your creepy new right-wing fanboys are going to viciously turn on you, just like they turn on every other social network that realizes the same essential truth.

 

[Nycturne]

The hilarious thing is, you don’t even have to successfully ban it, just enough of an effort to keep the advertisers happy.

 

[lizkat]

The hilarious thing is, you don’t even have to successfully ban it, just enough of an effort to keep the advertisers happy.

Well I do think they're gonna have to ditch Ye Olde (or, newe) Kanye West. He is clearly a bridge too far for brand name advertisers.

I read somewhere that Twitter's engineering division has put a hold on all changes or releases of new modules for "at least over the weekend". If that's true then some newly revived accounts may promptly get shut down again, depending on which exceptions to that announcement were put in before it was made.

 

[shadow puppet]

Welp, Musk should have read this Verge piece before letting West back on. It was addressed to him directly....

Welcome to hell, Elon

Owning Twitter means owning a host of impossible political problems. Is Elon ready?

www.theverge.com

It's somewhat amusing reading the comments on this article at Verge's site vs the comments about this article on their FB page.
Thanks @lizkat. I always enjoy a salty read.

 

[Eric]

Looks like Kanye was just allowed back on twitter? So the toxic hellscape is well on its way…

Is this for real?? Glad I've got other things to do with my life in retirement these days, if I don't see it on here I'm none the wiser.