Elon Musk Now Owns Twitter

[billisonboard]

Nov 19, 2022 20:55:26 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

I'm hearing trump's account was reinstated based on a poll Musk created as to whether trump's account should be reinstated. Slight majority said yes.

Opinion: This ‘poll denier’ is suspicious of Twitter’s reinstatement of Trump

Call us Twitter “poll deniers,” but it’s challenging to believe it was a full and fair election. I mean, how can we trust the results without in-person voting and paper ballots, as Trump has claimed are required to ensure elections are secure?

Count me as one of those "deniers" also.

[thyme4change]

The conspiracy theory going around is that Musk and his (non-American) buddies raised the money and bought Twitter specifically to destroy it. It is the #1 source of information and yields power - and leans blue. So, if they take it out, the users will split into their separate groups and the US will stay divided, which theoretically benefits the GOP. Their proof is basically that he really can’t be **that** stupid. Even if he knows nothing about running a social media company, it doesn’t take too much corporate experience to know that losing more than 50% of your sizable workforce in a month is not a winning strategy for a large company. I am not sure I believe the story - but we shall see.

Did anyone watch Mythic Quest? I sort of background watched it, but they had a story line where characters could meet and socialize inside the game and white supremacists were using the feature to spread their message - and it was a big PR problem. So they isolated the supremists and put in fake people so they thought they were converting people. And I think there was another stop - like there were problems with the game becoming a place for hate groups to meet - even isolated - was still a problem. I can’t quite recall. But I keep wondering how Twitter will be “free speech” without being problematic. And, we seem to be seeing the limits of free speech that Musk will tolerate - as he has been banning anyone who makes fun of him. 😆 The whole thing is an entertaining shit show that will have consequences.

[djAdvocate]

free speech doesn't apply to corporations.

Musk's understanding is completely backwards OR possibly he understands it,
and wants to destroy it, as your conspiracy theory implies.

[tbop77]

Well, at least now they know how much it cost to own a lib:  $44 BILLION DOLLARS  

[seriousthistime]

I wasn't pushing back!  I was just thinking about how all these things could go wrong, or even more wrong than they've gone so far.  

I was thinking of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy which would give Twitter/Musk a chance to put payments on hold while they develop a workable reorg plan. I agree it would be way too soon for Chapter 7 liquidation. 

[swamp]

Nov 20, 2022 17:06:34 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

Nov 20, 2022 17:00:57 GMT -5 seriousthistime said:

At least part of the $44 billion was borrowed.  To stave off the creditors, he could file a bankruptcy petition and make those severed workers wait forever for their severance. 

banrkuptcies of recently purchased companies are extraordinarily rare.

i appreciate your pushback on this, but i would re-assert that there is money in the transaction to pay for this (or there damned well should be).  i think that Musk's bankruptcy talk is just that.  if there IS a bankruptcy in the future for Twitter, it will be way further out than 90 days.  the severed employees will have already been paid, and will have moved on to better companies.

NOTE: the above is entirely my opinion, based on my observations about Musk, social media companies, investor funding, and general corporate governance and timelines.

This.


Keep in mind i know "this much" (holds index finger and thumb very very close together) about bankruptcy, but since the reformation of the bankruptcy laws in 2005 (at the behest of republicans) it won't be that easy.   Elon's finances would be getting a colonoscopy.   

[swamp]

Nov 20, 2022 23:08:28 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

The conspiracy theory going around is that Musk and his (non-American) buddies raised the money and bought Twitter specifically to destroy it. It is the #1 source of information and yields power - and leans blue. So, if they take it out, the users will split into their separate groups and the US will stay divided, which theoretically benefits the GOP. Their proof is basically that he really can’t be **that** stupid. Even if he knows nothing about running a social media company, it doesn’t take too much corporate experience to know that losing more than 50% of your sizable workforce in a month is not a winning strategy for a large company. I am not sure I believe the story - but we shall see.

Did anyone watch Mythic Quest? I sort of background watched it, but they had a story line where characters could meet and socialize inside the game and white supremacists were using the feature to spread their message - and it was a big PR problem. So they isolated the supremists and put in fake people so they thought they were converting people. And I think there was another stop - like there were problems with the game becoming a place for hate groups to meet - even isolated - was still a problem. I can’t quite recall. But I keep wondering how Twitter will be “free speech” without being problematic. And, we seem to be seeing the limits of free speech that Musk will tolerate - as he has been banning anyone who makes fun of him. 😆 The whole thing is an entertaining shit show that will have consequences.

but social media platforms come and go, just llke every other company. 

Have you checked your myspace page recently? 

[djAdvocate]

Nov 21, 2022 10:37:37 GMT -5 swamp said:

Nov 20, 2022 17:06:34 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

banrkuptcies of recently purchased companies are extraordinarily rare.

i appreciate your pushback on this, but i would re-assert that there is money in the transaction to pay for this (or there damned well should be).  i think that Musk's bankruptcy talk is just that.  if there IS a bankruptcy in the future for Twitter, it will be way further out than 90 days.  the severed employees will have already been paid, and will have moved on to better companies.

NOTE: the above is entirely my opinion, based on my observations about Musk, social media companies, investor funding, and general corporate governance and timelines.

This.


Keep in mind i know "this much" (holds index finger and thumb very very close together) about bankruptcy, but since the reformation of the bankruptcy laws in 2005 (at the behest of republicans) it won't be that easy.   Elon's finances would be getting a colonoscopy.   

it will also make him look like a complete imbecile for having bought the company in the first place.  it is one thing to buy the company with the idea in mind to dismantle it, like Romney's old company used to do.  it is another to buy it with the idea of ushering in the golden age of free speech, and watch it fall apart in a year.

again, Musk made an horrendous error in making the $44B bid for the company.  he will be paying for it for years.  so will SpaceX.  so will Tesla.  those companies need his leadership in manufacturing technology.  instead he is caught in a wank fest for social media.

#sad

[swamp]

Nov 21, 2022 14:58:11 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

Nov 21, 2022 10:37:37 GMT -5 swamp said:

This.


Keep in mind i know "this much" (holds index finger and thumb very very close together) about bankruptcy, but since the reformation of the bankruptcy laws in 2005 (at the behest of republicans) it won't be that easy.   Elon's finances would be getting a colonoscopy.   

it will also make him look like a complete imbecile for having bought the company in the first place.  it is one thing to buy the company with the idea in mind to dismantle it, like Romney's old company used to do.  it is another to buy it with the idea of ushering in the golden age of free speech, and watch it fall apart in a year.

again, Musk made an horrendous error in making the $44B bid for the company.  he will be paying for it for years.  so will SpaceX.  so will Tesla.  those companies need his leadership in manufacturing technology.  instead he is caught in a wank fest for social media.

#sad

I think it may be time to the Tesla stock.

[laterbloomer]

Nov 15, 2022 21:50:08 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

is Twitter still cratering?

many people that were unhappy with Twitter before are already on Mastadon.
and love it.
how long will it take for Twitter to become MySpace?

What is Mastadon?

[djAdvocate]

Nov 21, 2022 18:19:10 GMT -5 laterbloomer said:

Nov 15, 2022 21:50:08 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

is Twitter still cratering?

many people that were unhappy with Twitter before are already on Mastadon.
and love it.
how long will it take for Twitter to become MySpace?

What is Mastadon?

it is a platform for "tweeting" that has gone from just a blip to 7M users in less than a month.

[Tennesseer]

Nov 20, 2022 22:41:23 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Nov 19, 2022 20:55:26 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

I'm hearing trump's account was reinstated based on a poll Musk created as to whether trump's account should be reinstated. Slight majority said yes.

Opinion: This ‘poll denier’ is suspicious of Twitter’s reinstatement of Trump

Call us Twitter “poll deniers,” but it’s challenging to believe it was a full and fair election. I mean, how can we trust the results without in-person voting and paper ballots, as Trump has claimed are required to ensure elections are secure?

Count me as one of those "deniers" also.

Elon Musk sees Twitter as a political weapon

Twitter CEO Elon Musk over the weekend reactivated Donald Trump’s previously banned Twitter account, triggering big questions about how the move might reshape Trump's 2024 appeal and how it could affect extremist activity on the platform. But one thing it immediately clarified is the kind of political actor Musk is evolving into and how he envisions Twitter's future.

When Musk first expressed interest in buying Twitter, there were many theories on what motivated him. In light of the fact that he already owned two other influential companies focused on engineering solutions, it was unclear if he was looking to sincerely improve a site he viewed as a video game, or seeking to accumulate social power and boost his businesses' bottom line, or if he was simply an excessively bored, excessively rich man having a laugh. These explanations may still illuminate part of why he acted the way he did. But it's now impossible to ignore the emerging reality that Musk values owning Twitter as a powerful weapon for right-wing activism.

On Friday Musk sent out a 24-hour "poll" to his followers on whether they wanted Trump's account to be reinstated. After a narrow majority of users who responded to the poll in his tweet responded affirmatively, he reactivated Trump's account, and tweeted, “The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated. Vox populi, Vox dei," using the Latin for “The voice of the people is the voice of God.”

It's important to not only observe the outcome of Trump's reactivation, but also how Musk framed it. Remember, in the wake of Jan. 6, Twitter had decided to permanently ban Trump because it believed “the risk of further incitement of violence,” in violation of its policies, was too high. Musk didn't address this criterion of incitement to violence in his public comments about reinstating Trump. Nor was the reinstatement a stand against all permanent bans in the name of free speech — just a couple weeks prior, Musk promised to permanently ban impersonators on Twitter without warning. (Notably, the impersonator ban popped up only after people began impersonating Musk en masse.)

What Musk did was sweep the question of violence under the rug by framing this as a matter of democracy through a "poll." Of course, no scientific survey or referendum can be administered through a spontaneous tweet to one's own followers. Only a small fraction of Twitter's user base voted, and most very well may not have known about its existence. Musk also knew that because of his rapidly growing right-wing fan base — and the slow trickle of liberal-leaning users off of Twitter altogether — it was probable that his poll would get traction on the right and skew toward a “yes” response. So when he said "the people have spoken," what he really meant was "my legions of right-wing fans have swarmed this online poll that I lobbed to them to deliver me a false mandate."

In his presentation of his faux referendum as a win for "the people," Musk appears to be trying on right-wing populism for size. And it's only the latest sign that he views Twitter as a platform for advancing his political agenda as he develops increasingly pronounced far-right views.

Musk's brief tenure at Twitter so far has been marked by extreme chaos: mass firings, ad hoc policies that are often suspended or inconsistently applied, and contradictory messaging about what Twitter does and doesn't stand for. But his behavior looks more intelligible if it is understood as crafting a political project.

Rest of article here: Elon Musk sees Twitter as a political weapon

[djAdvocate]

yeah, wank fest was inaccurate.  it is not just about Musk's pleasure.

it is about his inclinations, as the above article points out.

rather than Twitter being a corrective tool against oppression, it is now aligned with the oppressors.

[thyme4change]

Have we determined if naturalized citizens can run for President or not? I know we (the country) were debating that - but I can’t recall what the decision was. Could it be possible that Musk will be the next Trump? He would probably love the hero worship part of that.

[billisonboard]

Dec 1, 2022 10:35:22 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

Have we determined if naturalized citizens can run for President or not? I know we (the country) were debating that - but I can’t recall what the decision was. Could it be possible that Musk will be the next Trump? He would probably love the hero worship part of that.

The US Constitution states natural born and has not been amended.

[thyme4change]

Dec 1, 2022 10:38:05 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Dec 1, 2022 10:35:22 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

Have we determined if naturalized citizens can run for President or not? I know we (the country) were debating that - but I can’t recall what the decision was. Could it be possible that Musk will be the next Trump? He would probably love the hero worship part of that.

The US Constitution states natural born and has not been amended.

Good - we are safe for now.

[djAdvocate]

Dec 1, 2022 10:35:22 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

Have we determined if naturalized citizens can run for President or not? I know we (the country) were debating that - but I can’t recall what the decision was. Could it be possible that Musk will be the next Trump? He would probably love the hero worship part of that.

pretty much.  the argument now is between what constitutes birthright citizenship.

a naturalized person cannot run.

[Tennesseer]

'Free-Speech Musk'  

Twitter suspends Kanye West's account again

Dec 2 (Reuters) - Twitter Inc on Friday suspended the account of Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West again, just two months after it was reinstated, because Elon Musk said the rapper violated the platform's rules prohibiting incitement to violence.

Ye's account showed a notice that it was suspended, after one of his posts had earlier appeared to show a swastika symbol inside a Star of David.

The billionaire owner of Twitter, who calls himself a free speech absolutist, had welcomed the return of the rapper, now known as Ye, to the platform in October.

Full article here:  Twitter suspends Kanye West's account again

[Tennesseer]

Hate Speech’s Rise on Twitter Is Unprecedented, Researchers Find

Before Elon Musk bought Twitter, slurs against Black Americans showed up on the social media service an average of 1,282 times a day. After the billionaire became Twitter’s owner, they jumped to 3,876 times a day.

Slurs against gay men appeared on Twitter 2,506 times a day on average before Mr. Musk took over. Afterward, their use rose to 3,964 times a day.

And antisemitic posts referring to Jews or Judaism soared more than 61 percent in the two weeks after Mr. Musk acquired the site.

These findings — from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the Anti-Defamation League and other groups that study online platforms — provide the most comprehensive picture to date of how conversations on Twitter have changed since Mr. Musk completed his $44 billion deal for the company in late October. While the numbers are relatively small, researchers said the increases were atypically high.

The shift in speech is just the tip of a set of changes on the service under Mr. Musk. Accounts that Twitter used to regularly remove — such as those that identify as part of the Islamic State, which were banned after the U.S. government classified ISIS as a terror group — have come roaring back. Accounts associated with QAnon, a vast far-right conspiracy theory, have paid for and received verified status on Twitter, giving them a sheen of legitimacy.

These changes are alarming, researchers said, adding that they had never seen such a sharp increase in hate speech, problematic content and formerly banned accounts in such a short period on a mainstream social media platform.

“Elon Musk sent up the Bat Signal to every kind of racist, misogynist and homophobe that Twitter was open for business,” said Imran Ahmed, the chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate. “They have reacted accordingly.”

Rest of article here: Hate Speech’s Rise on Twitter Is Unprecedented, Researchers Find