Musk offers to buy Twitter

[lizkat]

Yeah, no, more like the EU has spoken.

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Tweet link

Also lying about doxxing his location. Again.

The people have spoken? More like members are writing limericks about him. He's toast!

 

[Edd]

Deleted my Twitter account. My wife is holding onto hers tight. I’d guess her internet activity consists of 20% Instagram, 20% Amazon, 20% Zappos, and 2000% Twitter.

 

[Eric]

Deleted my Twitter account. My wife is holding onto hers tight. I’d guess her internet activity consists of 20% Instagram, 20% Amazon, 20% Zappos, and 2000% Twitter.

Well, you'll have 30 days should you decide to return, this has always been the policy. Here's a link and a screenshot, as @Cmaier mentioned, I would be surprised if this remains in place with the massive purge, they may eventually take steps to prevent this. In my case the account did get permanently removed in 30 days.

How to deactivate your Twitter account | Twitter Help

Deactivation puts your Twitter account in a queue for permanent deletion. Find out how to delete your Twitter account.

help.twitter.com

 

[lizkat]

Deleted my Twitter account. My wife is holding onto hers tight. I’d guess her internet activity consists of 20% Instagram, 20% Amazon, 20% Zappos, and 2000% Twitter.

You now have the ideal household setup: one foot in Twitter to see what's going on and the other foot on record w/ Twitter as "deactivated..." so you can see if they entice you to return via email "opportunity" or something... we can only imagine the limits of Elon's imagination at this point:

"Come back and see what you've been missing! Special offer for those reactivating: for a short time we are offering blue checkmarks for only 88c instead of $8 by way of a $7.12 credit to your account after purchase, if your first post upon returning would probably have got you a suspension in the bad old days! Your credit will be applied inside of six months! Free speech rules!" /S​

 

[lizkat]

This is comic book villain stuff.

x.com

twitter.com

He’s going to use his pawns (who else is paying for Twitter Blue?) to turn Twitter into a massive echo chamber by reducing the reach of people muted/blocked by them.

Not only that, but if downvotes are shown and work the same as likes, members can see who exactly has downvoted tweets, so this new gig of Elon's may invite harassment of people who mute/block accounts by "friends" of the owners of those muted/blocked accounts, or by those owners operating from alternate accounts.

 

[shadow puppet]

You now have the ideal household setup: one foot in Twitter to see what's going on and the other foot on record w/ Twitter as "deactivated..."

It's become such a thing to say "I deleted my Twitter". I'm still there and I will be until whatever card Elon plays is my final end point.

Neither Post or Mastodon currently does it for me. I can't even look at Post for more than a few minutes due to no dark mode UI and Mastodon just seems like too much work in certain regards. I like how one of my favorite Twitter accounts puts it re: staying or leaving: "I do think what happens here is too important to give up on. If we cede the informational battleground, this place just turns into an alt-right cesspool. I’d rather stay and fight the disinfo."

 

[Andropov]

Not only that, but if downvotes are shown and work the same as likes, members can see who exactly has downvoted tweets, so this new gig of Elon's may invite harassment of people who mute/block accounts by "friends" of the owners of those muted/blocked accounts, or by those owners operating from alternate accounts.

I expect it to work per account rather than per tweet. Which is probably going to be even worse for the community. It discourages dialog: accounts that fact-check or try to fight the narrative of the Twitter Blue subscribers will have a much higher chance of being blocked/muted, which in turn will reduce the reach of those accounts into oblivion. Some communities with little connections to Twitter Blue subscribers may see little effect for this change tho.

This is a terrible idea unless your goal is to polarize the community. With the additional caveat that one of the 'poles' has power over the other. Twitter Blue users will have their visibility boosted, while also being able to cut down the reach of the most notable accounts they don't like. Blocking/Muting them has a dual effect: Twitter Blue users won't see their accounts *at all* (creating a strong echo chamber) and those accounts will reach less users in their own communities (making the survival of opposing communities more difficult).
For users in the middle ground, they'll see a distorted version of reality: Twitter Blue users narrative will be promoted, while dissenting voices will be silenced in a sort of self-sustaining way, making lies more difficult to catch.

We'll see how strong the effect of those downvotes is going to be (if there are enough devs to actually implement this). On the flip-side, this sort of environment can quickly become toxic and make people migrate to other platforms.

 

[shadow puppet]

I couldn't wish this on a "nicer" guy. Except perhaps TFG.

 

[turbineseaplane]

It must be just my circle of interest, but I say I’m getting 90% of what I used to enjoy on Twitter over on Mastodon…

The Tapbots Ivory app has made it so incredibly similar in feel also.

And Mastodon has shown me basically zero negativity or nastiness …. It’s like a dreamland of great people having nice conversations and sharing things and being friendly and engaging


Only thing I’m popping into Twitter for is occasional sports stuff during games.

 

[shadow puppet]

It must be just my circle of interest, but I say I’m getting 90% of what I used to enjoy on Twitter over on Mastodon…

The Tapbots Ivory app has made it so incredibly similar in feel also.

And Mastodon has shown me basically zero negativity or nastiness …. It’s like a dreamland of great people having nice conversations and sharing things and being friendly and engaging

Glad it works for you. I'll keep learning my way around and hope either Post or Mastodon will evolve into something better for me. But I've never been a crowd follower and prefer to find my own way. I keep my Twitter feed mostly free of the nastiness and negativity. I also love my collection of Twitter lists I've cultivated over the years.

Or maybe I'll just stick with Instagram. I do enjoy all the amazing photography.

 

[lizkat]

I've axed my follows down to some media outlet homepage accounts, and a few NGOs and public interest accounts plus some government agencies. Yeah weather and wildlife etc. They're all in a couple lists which I use instead of bothering with my timeline. So really they might as well be browser bookmarks and that's all I see short of occasionally linking in there when some pal says "ya gotta see this." I looked in there yesterday and before that I think it was a few times in late November.

I'll be gone if Musk decides to try to paywall the whole platform for individuals after 2 minutes or three hits on links or whatever, if he can't get enough advertisers back on board. Is he that nuts? Otherwise I'm sitting on a pretty locked-down setup and hoping for the best after regulators finally tire of L'Enfant Terrible.

 

[Eric]

It's become such a thing to say "I deleted my Twitter". I'm still there and I will be until whatever card Elon plays is my final end point.

Neither Post or Mastodon currently does it for me. I can't even look at Post for more than a few minutes due to no dark mode UI and Mastodon just seems like too much work in certain regards. I like how one of my favorite Twitter accounts puts it re: staying or leaving: "I do think what happens here is too important to give up on. If we cede the informational battleground, this place just turns into an alt-right cesspool. I’d rather stay and fight the disinfo."

It's a very personal decision so I get it. I waited until the day I learned Musk's purchase was final, as I mentioned I had over 8000 followers, many who were truly verified as well, so it was not something I took lightly but when I make up my mind that's that. I don't know that I've ever found anyone more off putting than Musk, not even Trump and not a day goes by that I don't regret letting him profit off of me for that car.

 

[Andropov]

It's a very personal decision so I get it. I waited until the day I learned Musk's purchase was final, as I mentioned I had over 8000 followers, many who were truly verified as well, so it was not something I took lightly but when I make up my mind that's that. I don't know that I've ever found anyone more off putting than Musk, not even Trump and not a day goes by that I don't regret letting him profit off of me for that car.

Honestly he got a lot of us. I used to think he was a net positive force in society until not that long ago. Had I been in the position a few years ago of needing a car and having enough money for an EV a few years ago and I'd have probably bought a Tesla. Weird that he took all that branding and reputation effort put into Tesla and smashed it into the ground for no apparent reason.

 

[shadow puppet]

It's a very personal decision so I get it. I waited until the day I learned Musk's purchase was final, as I mentioned I had over 8000 followers, many who were truly verified as well, so it was not something I took lightly but when I make up my mind that's that. I don't know that I've ever found anyone more off putting than Musk, not even Trump and not a day goes by that I don't regret letting him profit off of me for that car.

I agree, it is very personal. Believe me, I can't stand Musk. But I also don't want to just give up. And it's not about followers for me. It never has been. I originally joined Twitter to have a place to post anonymously. As a freelancer who relies on work contacts connected on Facebook, I have to be careful about what I post. But on Twitter, no one really knows me so it's a safe zone to spout politics, etc. It's been a weird yet interesting psychology experiment. I have followers and have no clue why they find my ramblings interesting enough to follow. But that's been part of the fun.

What I really hate is that we can't just slide over to a new platform and have all the people and lists we followed in one place. Folks are spread out all over the place now: Mastodon, Post, Substack, Instagram, Discord and Patreon, to name a few. I spend too much time on SM as it is. I don't want to spend more time tracking down and sleuthing out where everyone I followed, landed. They used to be conveniently in one place.

Sigh.

Maybe this is my nudge to spend less time on SM. That's not necessarily a bad thing. But I would definitely miss certain people.

 

[Andropov]

He’s now claiming that the journalists were making a “criminal offense”.

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Maybe people who claim the journalists had to be un-suspended to avoid breaking the EU’s Digital Services Act law were right. He doesn’t seem too happy about it.

 

[Cmaier]

He’s now claiming that the journalists were making a “criminal offense”.

x.com

twitter.com

Maybe people who claim the journalists had to be un-suspended to avoid breaking the EU’s Digital Services Act law were right. He doesn’t seem too happy about it.

Remember, he accused good law firms of being corrupt. So he now probably gets his legal advice from the Trump counselor clown car.

 

[lizkat]

He’s now claiming that the journalists were making a “criminal offense”.

x.com

twitter.com

Maybe people who claim the journalists had to be un-suspended to avoid breaking the EU’s Digital Services Act law were right. He doesn’t seem too happy about it.

Remember, he accused good law firms of being corrupt. So he now probably gets his legal advice from the Trump counselor clown car.

His lack of self-control causes him to make such a spectacle of himself. It's one thing to take a company private and then create mayhem or make mistakes behind the scenes with the modification (or demolition, stripping, etc) of the acquisition. But meanwhile in this case Musk remains the CEO of a very visible publicly traded company, Tesla, and also head of SpaceX which although private is expected eventually to hit IPO status. He clearly doesn't see himself as others see him now, in the overall context of his [expected] business leadership. He has a blind spot the size of an ocean. It will suck him in and drown him if he doesn't take counsel from someone in time to save Twitter from bankruptcy or just ruination.

 

[dada_dave]

He’s now claiming that the journalists were making a “criminal offense”.

x.com

twitter.com

Maybe people who claim the journalists had to be un-suspended to avoid breaking the EU’s Digital Services Act law were right. He doesn’t seem too happy about it.

You know I half considered answering “never” on that poll for precisely that reason …

I didn’t - I didn’t interact at all because ewww I’d have to interact with his account - but it was a temptation I had to resist

 

[Pumbaa]

Elon sharing his location in real-time is kinda funny now.

 

[Cmaier]

Elon sharing his location in real-time is kinda funny now.

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“Assassination coordinates”