Elon Musk $41B offer for Twitter
Discussion
WestyCarl said:
I have no idea about twitter but based on what he's done in other industries I'd bet the changes won't be naff all.
Still waiting to see the changes Boring Company is making. Lots was promised about massive improvement but not much happened. Biggest thing has been getting an obscene valuation on very little.Neuralink is similarly taking something that already existed, doing little with it, but building up massive hype.
Twitter is already big and hyped, so getting it working involves actual improvement without breaking it.
chemistry said:
I think this is great news.
I think there should be free speech on Twitter; I would censor anything that directly incites lawbreaking and/or violence against others, but that's about it. Possibly make the minimum sign up age 16?
People should be free to offend (and equally, people are free to leave Twitter if they don't like it).
So not actually free speech then. just the things you don't want. And if that offence crosses the line? Content moderation is hard. Very hard. I think there should be free speech on Twitter; I would censor anything that directly incites lawbreaking and/or violence against others, but that's about it. Possibly make the minimum sign up age 16?
People should be free to offend (and equally, people are free to leave Twitter if they don't like it).
Start to see the problem?
Now tell me how you verify ages.
bodhi said:
I have no interest in Twitter but those melts wetting themselves makes me happy. g3org3y said:
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hstewie said:
hstewie said: Got to admit I'm struggling with why some people seem to be so upset by this.
Likewise the idea Twitter is going to turn into some sort of "anything goes" badlands seems for the birds as public or private you can't just let people say what they like on your platform.
MSNBC aren't happy. Likewise the idea Twitter is going to turn into some sort of "anything goes" badlands seems for the birds as public or private you can't just let people say what they like on your platform.
https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1518777886...
Free speech still mean obeying the law and there will still be moderation and moderation will occasionally fail.
If he delivers what he says he will then it will be good for the world. Free speech should be a basic human right, and Twitter is the digital platform that has first-mover advantage over all other channels for communication online. If twitter is censored then all the bad stuff moves into the shadows and festers out of sight getting nastier and nastier. Having everything in one place and allowing differing opinions to be debated and challenged in public is good.
dimots said:
If he delivers what he says he will then it will be good for the world. Free speech should be a basic human right, and Twitter is the digital platform that has first-mover advantage over all other channels for communication online. If twitter is censored then all the bad stuff moves into the shadows and festers out of sight getting nastier and nastier. Having everything in one place and allowing differing opinions to be debated and challenged in public is good.
It's a nice idea.But, Free speech doesn't exist. And differing opinions being challenged and debated in a 180 character limited setting flattens the whole thing and just ends up as people trying to shout louder. We know this because it's happened, and when you're a platform dependent on advertisers you see them leave very quickly when their brand is then associated with the worst excesses.
bhstewie said:
hstewie said:g3org3y said:
bhstewie said:
hstewie said: Got to admit I'm struggling with why some people seem to be so upset by this.
Likewise the idea Twitter is going to turn into some sort of "anything goes" badlands seems for the birds as public or private you can't just let people say what they like on your platform.
MSNBC aren't happy. Likewise the idea Twitter is going to turn into some sort of "anything goes" badlands seems for the birds as public or private you can't just let people say what they like on your platform.
https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1518777886...
Free speech still mean obeying the law and there will still be moderation and moderation will occasionally fail.
I only follow people I’m interested in or sources I want to hear from and then ignore all the comments. Works perfectly and it’s not a cess pit of anything.
If musk has less bans it won’t look any different to me anyway for others it won’t either unless you’re reading all the comments or want to follow banned people I suppose.
Not sure how musk can improve it? Maybe some new features in messaging perhaps plus an edit button seems to be a popular request.
dimots said:
If he delivers what he says he will then it will be good for the world. Free speech should be a basic human right, and Twitter is the digital platform that has first-mover advantage over all other channels for communication online. If twitter is censored then all the bad stuff moves into the shadows and festers out of sight getting nastier and nastier. Having everything in one place and allowing differing opinions to be debated and challenged in public is good.
It’s never going to be a free speech platform though as he has to exist inside existing and future content publisher/provider laws. Plus if it ends up being toxic which is what will happen if there’s no rules, then business won’t want to be associated with it and there will likely be a knock on effect to musks other businesses.
El stovey said:
Twitter, like any social media (as you know) is entirely what we make it and all about how you use it.
I only follow people I’m interested in or sources I want to hear from and then ignore all the comments. Works perfectly and it’s not a cess pit of anything.
If musk has less bans it won’t look any different to me anyway for others it won’t either unless you’re reading all the comments or want to follow banned people I suppose.
Not sure how musk can improve it? Maybe some new features in messaging perhaps plus an edit button seems to be a popular request.
From the WSJ yesterday:I only follow people I’m interested in or sources I want to hear from and then ignore all the comments. Works perfectly and it’s not a cess pit of anything.
If musk has less bans it won’t look any different to me anyway for others it won’t either unless you’re reading all the comments or want to follow banned people I suppose.
Not sure how musk can improve it? Maybe some new features in messaging perhaps plus an edit button seems to be a popular request.
"Brian Wieser, global president of business intelligence at ad-buying giant GroupM, says most advertisers who work with Twitter “strongly prefer content standards” on the service.
That may not matter a great deal to Mr. Musk, who said of his own Twitter campaign that it “is not a way to make money” in an onstage interview at the Ted conference, on the same day of the filing describing his financial support. But more than half of that backing comes in the form of debt, from Morgan Stanley and “certain other financial institutions,” according to the filing. That means Mr. Musk will need to preserve Twitter’s cash flow—and ideally grow it—to service the debt. Some of that debt is in the form of margin loans backed by Mr. Musk’s Tesla shares.
Doing that without advertising would be difficult. Ads account for nearly 90% of Twitter’s revenue now, while data licensing provides most of the rest. The company launched Twitter Blue —its first consumer subscription offering—last year, rolling it out to the U.S. market in November. Chief Executive Parag Agrawal said on Twitter’s last earnings call in February that the company has seen a “strong response” from “our most heavy users” for the service. But he added that Blue is “not critical” to reaching $7.5bn of revenue in 2023, a target set at an analyst meeting in early 2021.
Mr. Musk will likely have his own goals in mind, and a privately held Twitter would be accountable only to him for reaching them. But since Mr. Musk has elected not to pay for Twitter entirely out of his own pocket, he’ll have to be accountable to others as well."
And let's not forget that his actions on Twitter might well impact the valuation of Tesla and the shareholders thereoff, something else to consider, particularly because of those margin loans.
El stovey said:
It’s never going to be a free speech platform though as he has to exist inside existing and future content publisher/provider laws.
Plus if it ends up being toxic which is what will happen if there’s no rules, then business won’t want to be associated with it and there will likely be a knock on effect to musks other businesses.
One way to deliver free speech is with reasonable anonymity but ultimate accountability. Similar to the way bitcoin works. If you think of an exchange of ideas as an exchange of value you can see how blockchain might fit in this picture.Plus if it ends up being toxic which is what will happen if there’s no rules, then business won’t want to be associated with it and there will likely be a knock on effect to musks other businesses.
El stovey said:
Twitter, like any social media (as you know) is entirely what we make it and all about how you use it.
I only follow people I’m interested in or sources I want to hear from and then ignore all the comments. Works perfectly and it’s not a cess pit of anything.
If musk has less bans it won’t look any different to me anyway for others it won’t either unless you’re reading all the comments or want to follow banned people I suppose.
Not sure how musk can improve it? Maybe some new features in messaging perhaps plus an edit button seems to be a popular request.
Likewise I use it to hear what the likes of Peston or Beth Rigby have to say and these days it's most likely on Twitter before it's on their respective outlets.I only follow people I’m interested in or sources I want to hear from and then ignore all the comments. Works perfectly and it’s not a cess pit of anything.
If musk has less bans it won’t look any different to me anyway for others it won’t either unless you’re reading all the comments or want to follow banned people I suppose.
Not sure how musk can improve it? Maybe some new features in messaging perhaps plus an edit button seems to be a popular request.
When I say "cesspit" I mean once you start scrolling down the comments to almost any tweet from almost anyone in the public eye I think it can get very toxic very quickly and I don't know if that's down to people thinking they're anonymous or quite what it is.
It's basically "I get to abuse whatever famous person I dislike but I can do it directly to their Twitter account" for some people and that already happens so I'm not sure the free speech angle will change that.
My absolute guess around "improvements" is payments or coins or some functionality like that.
I can't see how adding an edit button makes Musk any money.
El stovey said:
Not sure how musk can improve it? Maybe some new features in messaging perhaps plus an edit button seems to be a popular request.
If he can get rid of bots, without harvesting staggering amounts of very sensitive PII, then that'd be a huge step forward and I might even start using it again.Unlikely though.
Bandit said:
The fact that the woke, illiberal lefties and perpetually offended brigade don’t like Musks takeover of their pet communication platform certainly makes me happy.
This has got to be a good thing !
Where do you honestly experience these people or see their annoyance at this takeover. This has got to be a good thing !
Isn’t this all in imaginary internet world.
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