Elon & Twitter

[ElectricIAC]

Yep, twitter is already looking like a beautiful town square full of civil discourse among moderates

There’s always tribal social if Twitter isn’t to your liking.

As for me, I’ll just be here enjoying the sodium chloride coming from the blue checks.

 

[EVNow]

Also - yeah advertisers don't really want to be associated with 4chan levels of bile.

Someone said it right - its not the Town Square - its a bar of ill-repute in a tough part of the town.

Anyway, I had already switched off twitter for a few months now. Definitely not going back - who wants to be subjected to racists verbal assaults all the time ?

 

[daniel]

... not moderating it beyond legal/illegal will completely decimate Twitter as neo-Nazis / abusers tend to drive everyone else away. ...

"Free Speech" sounds great until you consider the real world. It's fine when anybody who wants to can stand on a soap box on the street corner and shout that the world is flat or that Jesus is coming back to smite the sinners.

It's a totally different thing in a world of calculated lies spread by highly-organized and well-funded propagandists, where conspiracy mongers make patently false claims of election fraud, where broadcasters with followings in six figures shout that the parents of murdered children are hoaxing the nation, where social media is used to organize an attempted overthrow of the government, etc., etc., etc.

If Elon Musk really does throw open the doors of Twitter to unmoderated free speech, the result will be the greatest destabilization of Democracy since Facebook. The prospect terrifies me.

 

[ohmman]

Personally I’m going to keep using Twitter the way I always have - once annually.

 

[_Redshift_]

"Free Speech" sounds great until you consider the real world. It's fine when anybody who wants to can stand on a soap box on the street corner and shout that the world is flat or that Jesus is coming back to smite the sinners.

It's a totally different thing in a world of calculated lies spread by highly-organized and well-funded propagandists, where conspiracy mongers make patently false claims of election fraud, where broadcasters with followings in six figures shout that the parents of murdered children are hoaxing the nation, where social media is used to organize an attempted overthrow of the government, etc., etc., etc.

If Elon Musk really does throw open the doors of Twitter to unmoderated free speech, the result will be the greatest destabilization of Democracy since Facebook. The prospect terrifies me.

To think this is the guy who started Tesla for, among other reasons, to fight AGW.

Money corrupts even the greatest minds.

 

[ZsoZso]

I remember some speeches of Elon when he stated about climate change, that it is the dumbest experiment we are running to find out how bad we can mess up the climate with CO2.

Now, he is trying to top that by running the dumbest social experiment turning a popular social media platform into an unmoderated free-for-all.

 

[_Redshift_]

Personally I’m going to keep using Twitter the way I always have - once annually.

I am genuinely curious. What do you tweet once annually?

I am not any social platform, so I don’t follow you or anyone.

 

[ElectricIAC]

To think this is the guy who started Tesla for, among other reasons, to fight AGW.

Money corrupts even the greatest minds.

Gotta love how so many here are so quick to throw the baby out with the bathwater like they can predict exactly what Elon will do. He’s a hype man, and you’re doing exactly what he wants you to do right now.

Talking about him.

 

[ohmman]

I am genuinely curious. What do you tweet once annually?

I am not any social platform, so I don’t follow you or anyone.

I don't typically tweet (aside from some local wildfire updates in 2017, it appears I tweeted only a handful of times). I open it and scroll through some stuff, and go "oh yeah, that's why I don't use this app much." It's the signal:noise ratio that turns me off. Outrage as a product isn't really enticing to me. But I do like humor or information, which is why reddit appeals to me (slightly) more.

 

[_Redshift_]

Gotta love how so many here are so quick to throw the baby out with the bathwater like they can predict exactly what Elon will do. He’s a hype man, and you’re doing exactly what he wants you to do right now.

Talking about him.

I was hyping Elon and Tesla free of charge from 2013-2018. I have personally influenced many EV fence-sitters to buy Tesla. I know couple of senior execs at Tesla, and even had an opportunity to meet with him in a business setting at the Palo Alto HQ. (I had politely declined that opportunity, much to my regret, at that time)

Now, I don’t hype either Elon or Tesla. I am moving on.

My early investment into TSLA not only paid for my two cars, but much, much more. I want to thank Elon for that. I also want to thank him for making the environment a bit cleaner, by making EVs mainstream and desirable. One problem confronting humanity is at least being solved, although very slowly, bit by bit.

Now that Elon has moved on to policing social media, I wish him all the best. It will be much more of a headache to him than he has appreciation for, right now. More than the FSD problem which he underappreciated the complexity of.

 

[ElectricIAC]

I was hyping Elon and Tesla free of charge from 2013-2018. I have personally influenced many EV fence-sitters to buy Tesla. I know couple of senior execs at Tesla, and even had an opportunity to meet with him in a business setting at the Palo Alto HQ. (I had politely declined that opportunity, much to my regret, at that time)

Now, I don’t hype either Elon or Tesla. I am moving on.

My early investment into TSLA not only paid for my two cars, but much, much more. I want to thank Elon for that. I also want to thank him for making the environment a bit cleaner, by making EVs mainstream and desirable. One problem confronting humanity is at least being solved, although very slowly, bit by bit.

Now that Elon has moved on to policing social media, I wish him all the best. It will be much more of a headache to him than he has appreciation for, right now. More than the FSD problem which he underappreciated the complexity of.

Thank you for your clear and cohesive response. He’s not perfect but I’m confident in his ability to turn Twitter into something other than a tankie wet dream.

 

[ohmman]

Mr. Musk also now confronts the challenge of actually running Twitter, a money-losing company with 7,500 employees and 240 million users, some of whom are highly prominent and vocal.

That excerpt cracked me up. Article in full here.

Elon Musk Starts Putting His Imprint on Twitter

The billionaire began as Twitter’s new owner by announcing a content moderation council and meeting employees, as some of the social media service’s users celebrated.

www.nytimes.com

 

[ElectricIAC]

That excerpt cracked me up. Article in full here.

Elon Musk Starts Putting His Imprint on Twitter

The billionaire began as Twitter’s new owner by announcing a content moderation council and meeting employees, as some of the social media service’s users celebrated.

www.nytimes.com

How soon we forget that Tesla, too was burning through cash at one point.

 

[ohmman]

How soon we forget that Tesla, too was burning through cash at one point.

Of course. Twitter has been around since March 2006, though. Not exactly fledgling. But that wasn't what made me laugh - it was the "some of whom" clause.

 

[mongo]

"Let the good times roll"

Racist tweets quickly surfaced after Musk closed Twitter deal

An emboldened cast of anonymous trolls spewed racist slurs and Nazi memes onto Twitter in the hours after billionaire industrialist Elon Musk took over the social network Thursday, raising fears of how his pledge of unrestricted free speech could fuel a new wave of online hate. Twitter has...

www.yahoo.com

I'm sure none of this will splash back onto Tesla at all...

Reminds me of when a new creator of the New York Times crossword puzzle took over... and everybody was complaining about the new ones... but they were still using puzzles from the previous guy.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1586149451348910081

 

[ZenRockGarden]

Reminds me of when a new creator of the New York Times crossword puzzle took over... and everybody was complaining about the new ones... but they were still using puzzles from the previous guy.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1586149451348910081

...so why was Elon personally working today to get assorted people unbanned when they were banned under current content policy?

 

[ElectricIAC]

...so why was Elon personally working today to get assorted people unbanned when they were banned under current content policy?

For the salt mine, of course.

 

[ohmman]

Reminds me of when a new creator of the New York Times crossword puzzle took over... and everybody was complaining about the new ones... but they were still using puzzles from the previous guy.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1586149451348910081

Same thing happened with Wordle.

 

[ZenRockGarden]

For the salt mine, of course.

You gotta love that Elon's first symbolic tangible action at Twitter where he plans to build his Town-Hall Utopia.... was to work personally to get a conspiracy nut and poo flinger by the username of "cat-turd" unbanned while insisting that he's not changed the moderation policies that said feline excrement user got banned for.

He is clearly laser focused on the greater good of the nation and civil discourse!

 

[ElectricIAC]

was to work personally to get a conspiracy nut and poo flinger by the username of "cat-turd" unbanned

He got you and a lot of Twitterati talking about an account named cat turd. Let that sink in.