Elon & Twitter

[heltok]

vox populi vox dei

The full quote is not very much on point:

Vox populi - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

An early reference to the expression is in a letter from Alcuin to Charlemagne in 798.[6] The full quotation from Alcuin reads:[7][8]
Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, Vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit.
Translation:
And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.

 

[wdolson]

Wokies won’t work an honest 80hrs so that’s moot to EM.

Whether a techie is willing to work insane hours or not has little to do with their politics. One of the most workaholic techies I know is also among the most liberal people I know. And living in Seattle and Portland the last 35 years, I know a lot of liberals.

FWIW, from when I previously glanced at their financials releases at Twitter, Inc. - Financial information - Financial releases, subscription revenue was puny vs. their ad revenue.

Example is for Q2 2022,
"Q2 revenue totaled $1.18 billion,
...
Advertising revenue totaled $1.08 billion
...
Subscription and other revenue totaled $101 million"

Was similar for Q1 2022.

As I said the other day nobody has figured how to make money from social media except through advertising. If Twitter's experience deteriorates without paying a fee, people will find another place that doesn't charge. Advertisers are pulling back from Twitter because of the chaos. Without income Twitter isn't going to make it.

With Tesla and SpaceX the ultimate challenges were/are Physics and Chemistry. The engineering stems from that and with good engineering customers follow. The ultimate challenge with Twiiter is human behavior and that's a realm where Elon is lost at sea.

Questions:

1.) What would be a reasonable guess at what Twitter pays to use AWS?

2.) Does Tesla, or SpaceX for that matter, make significant use of AWS?

I found the information the other day, it's right around $1 billion a year. The interest alone on the loans Elon took out are over $100 million month,

 

[MABMAB]

The full quote is not very much on point:

Vox populi - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

An early reference to the expression is in a letter from Alcuin to Charlemagne in 798.[6] The full quotation from Alcuin reads:[7][8]
Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, Vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit.
Translation:
And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.

Congrats on being right, yet oh so wrong at the same time. special talent there.

 

[OrthoSurg]

What kind of big company ceo makes that kind of decision with a Twitter poll ?
Democrats “ll live with Trump back on Twitter. It’s not the end of the world. Twitter’s finances on the other hand may never recover.
If Trump truly does come back, Twitter is finished as a viable business. Even if he does not come back, it will probably still pay a steep price.
And for what ? The five minute thrill of owning the libs

I would have agreed with you if he did not come back as a presidential candidate. However, he is running again. So the world is finished as a viable business following the same logic.

Media will probably post a headline sounding like « Elon Musk buys Twitter for 44B to unban Trump »

I wonder if Trump will be more friendly to Elon in 2 years if he is elected again. That political move from Elon is probably going to be the one with the most effect to make a group of people from Truth Social come back on Twitter. It will be interesting to see if Elon killed Truth social or Twitter with that poll.

The one thing we can’t argue is that he transformed Twitter in the most interesting circus in the world. Everybody is talking about it. My 72 years old mom speaked about Elon Musk and Twitter yesterday when I called her. Next step she is going to install Twitter in her iPad.

 

[trayloader]

What we don’t need is Parler 2.0 and the current downturn of Tesla is caused by his questionable moves installing someone who is an anti democrat. Twitters image will be Teslas downfall. The shareholders will sue the sugar out of him

 

[2Pearls]

A little history lesson for those who don't have a good memory.

Twitter and Facebook pre 2016: The Algorithms promoted anything and everything that drives engagement to bolster advertising dollars. This led to many of the most heinous Trump tweets, racist Tweets, and hate speech getting promoted by the algorithm. Much of Trumps most viral posts were driven by the algorithms like wildfire. Lots of research suggests "recommendations" by Twitter, YouTube, and FaceBook were a huge part of the radicalization of the right and the rise of Trump.

Twitter "The Cancel Culture Era" ~2016-present day: Rather than admit that their algorithms were a huge part of the problem, Twitter just decided the best way to "Fix" their problem with hate speech going viral was to ban anyone who abused it... and some people and posts which people at Twitter just didn't like. It worked... sort of. But skewed the platform demographics significantly. People can still post abuse, it still gets promoted and goes viral... but then they get banned if they do it too many times. People who want to promote hate are essentially encouraged by the platform to find the fine line between banned and maximum engagement.

Musk Twitter: Rather than ban people who abuse the algorithm, fix the algorithm so it doesn't promote abusive posts. Everyone still gets a voice, but hate speech is demoted. Twitter will not advertise opposite any of these tweets and they are not surfaced in searches. Unless you specifically seek it out, you will never see this content. It is in many ways a soft ban.

Obviously... "Musk Twitter" doesn't exist yet. Equally obvious, many people don't think the algorithm is fixable or just think some people's voices shouldn't be heard at all. Maybe its just a pipe dream and it will never happen. I'm certainly not a prophet and some problems are untenable. But Twitter, Facebook, and Google haven't even really attempted to fix it previously because the algorithm drives revenue.

On top of this, Musk expects to deliver:

• Video content which is a good match because a lot of YouTube content is promoted on Twitter.
• ECommerce and likely direct sales on Twitter.
• Avenues for content providers to get paid either directly or through % of advertising.
• End to end encrypted DMs.
• Ways for sites to get revenue in exchange for bypassing their paywalls.

Lots of pieces of this puzzle that engineers will find intriguing or want to be a part of.

Except didn’t Musk state he would form a “content Moderation council” before any decisions would be made on who would be allowed back on twitter?

And, wasn’t it musk who wanted to know what percent of bots were on twitter as he felt much more than 5% were bots? Makes his twitter poll to ask if trump should be allowed back on useless considering many of those votes were fake.

At what point do we believe “what musk states” is what musk states Is what he believes, vs. what musk states is not true at all and his words than mean nothing of value?

 

[trayloader]

This Board needs a reset and reminder on the mission

100%. Agree. There must be a wedge now between Elon and Tesla in order to gatekeep the demolition he’s doing for the brand

 

[winfield100]

I guarantee that Elon is doing this mainly for the mDAUs - that seems to be the one KPI that he keeps on bragging about, and for sure, this is another announcement that will drive people to Twitter to catch a glimpse of the dumpster fire.

I still think it's a mistake, but it's not surprising.

Also, as I previously mentioned, I will actually be surprised if Trump actually comes back. Maybe he comes back at some point in the future, but I don't think he wants to be seen coming back due to Elon who has bashed him on occasion. His ego is too big.

I still can't figure out why he thinks 24-hour Twitter polls are of any actual value or represent the "will of the people".

@Dave EV
a (mostly) rhetorical question (and moot anyway)

did they filter the bots out of voting? I find that most likely not personally.
I suspect a fairly large proportion of bots "stuffed the ballot box", both sides, ___unless__ they were "verified users" , a verified user at this point seems to by any sentient or barely sentient bot/nonbot

 

[2Pearls]

Despite my criticism of Elon & Twitter, $TSLA is getting down into the price range where it's a very good value. I have to think that Elon will only be temporarily distracted by Twitter and will eventually go back to focusing on SpaceX and Tesla. I am also hoping that the pressure forces the board of each company to put Elon into a role better suited for his strengths.

If it drops down to the $150 level or below, it could be time to add significantly to your position.

Not advice.

@Dave EV, clearly, I think we are at that price value situation already, and, I am guessing, similar to me, you are still holding 1400% profits or more since we have bought in at the 2011-2013 time frames,

BUT, it should never have gotten to this. Nothing has changed with the fundamentals of Tesla and their execution (even considering the softness of China’s and the economy), they are running on all electrons.

As for the Board, when have they ever muffled Or tried to guide Elon, I do not recall ever... But they should be for the sake of where we could be heading.

 

[Beltsbear]

Sounds more like a threat than a warning. If anything happens, they’ve likely directly implicated themselves in criminal acts.

This is absurd. You let go of the people who keep up the servers…. Those people are not responsible when they fail. This is simply the finding out part for Elon.

 

[Singuy]

The full quote is not very much on point:

Vox populi - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

An early reference to the expression is in a letter from Alcuin to Charlemagne in 798.[6] The full quotation from Alcuin reads:[7][8]
Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, Vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit.
Translation:
And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.

vox populi vox dei is Latin, its not a quote. I don't know what the quote of someone using the words in any form of sentence is relevant. Did Elon quoted someone in his statement?

 

[Matias]

What we don’t need is Parler 2.0 and the current downturn of Tesla is caused by his questionable moves installing someone who is an anti democrat. Twitters image will be Teslas downfall. The shareholders will sue the sugar out of him

”Journalists have described Parler as an alt-tech alternative to Twitter, and users include those banned from mainstream social networks or who oppose their moderation policies.[15][16][17][18]”

Parler - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Sounds like Musk should have bought Parler

 

[jerry33]

I and many I know who never voted for trump in an election, did vote to allow Trump back on Twitter.

That attitude is what has landed us where we are. A bunch of isolated echo chambers.

I was taught in school to defend a person's right to say something, even if I didn't like or believe it. So while I'm not a Trump supporter, I think banning does more harm than good. (However, I will likely do a "not interested" in any tweets.)

 

[NicoV]

Interesting article about Twitter tech community notes endorsed by Elon: Elon Musk Embraces Twitter's Radical Fact-Checking Experiment
This might be the thing that may make Twitter useful for those seeking unbiased information (which seems to be missing a lot of mainstream media).

 

[EverettRuess]

I am concerned about the mission. I don't care about another platform that spews misinformation. There will always be a way to do that. If this makes a large group of people buy Cybertruck I would be happy. I don't think that will happen. Maybe it would help if Elon installed a large engine noise speaker that could be heard for miles.

 

[Matias]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1594101861564534784

I’m not saying it is better or worse now, but anyway change is evident.

Disclaimer; we don’t know exactly, who the people in the “before“ picture are and in the latter they apparently are from the meeting Musk had with coders.

 

[OrthoSurg]

Cough-up for a red supporting membership and you have 12 hours to edit a post, I suspect the same for delete, but not 100% sure as I never tried it

Might be a bit of a shock to some folks here, but most of the World doesn't care if Trump is on Twitter, if Elon fires all Twitter employees, they just want the best car, it's models, pricing and features that will determine whether people buy Teslas or not

There are 2 class of consumers ; the one buying the product and the one buying into the brand.

The latter might be affected by what is happening in social media but one thing is sure the more people talk about a product the greater the chance it becomes their new choice when they decide to purchase an EV.

Some people will be turned away, the same for TSLA investors however new consumers and investors will arrive, someday.

 

[EVMeister]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1594101861564534784

I’m not saying it is better or worse now, but anyway change is evident.

Disclaimer; we don’t know exactly, who people in the “before“ picture are and in the latter they apparently are from the meeting Musk had with coders.

One shows a group of people who were living it large with a cushy job with more perk than work. The other shows a dedicated group of people who were hard at work after midnight trying to get sugar done. Software engineers with that level of dedication have a natural male-bias - you can't blame Elon for that. And Elon likes to run profitable businesses, not charities.

 

[Unpilot]

I have always believed the best disinfectant is sunlight.
By changing the way information flows (with the ability to fact-check in real time) it makes us all better.

There in only one person I know who is trying to do this.

 

[EverettRuess]

There are 2 class of consumers ; the one buying the product and the one buying into the brand.

The latter might be affected by what is happening in social media but one thing is sure the more people talk about a product the greater the chance it becomes their new choice when they decide to purchase an EV.

Some people will be turned away, the same for TSLA investors however new consumers and investors will arrive, someday.

Some of my friends on the left will not buy a Tesla but they will buy a EV from another company. That is fine with me.