America & World IV: Trump's Taxing Day

[Neon Ignition]

From the little bits of info doing the rounds, if others run the business it won't change much because twitter is partially the way it already is because it has to be that way. The complexities of his 'say what you want' approach are too much so it'll not shift much, money wise he'll likely never make a profit on it but he's the last to care about that.

[MartyG]

It was never about giving everyone free speech on Twitter, it's about giving it to himself.

I don't believe Musk has much of an understanding of rocket science either. It hasn't stopped him. He doesn't need to understand it all; he just needs people to do the work for him. He's not gonna be cutting code here.

No, he was never going to cut code, but I'm not sure what relevance cutting code has. What he does do is set the company policy and has to make the decisions on where those policies are applied. Musk can set it so anyone can say anything under the guise of free speech, but there will ultimately be implications and consequences from that.

If Twitter becomes ever more toxic because hate speech is tolerated as free speech it'll shed users faster than the ludicrous speed pack.

[fishbowlhead]

It was never about giving everyone free speech on Twitter, it's about giving it to himself.



No, he was never going to cut code, but I'm not sure what relevance cutting code has. What he does do is set the company policy and has to make the decisions on where those policies are applied. Musk can set it so anyone can say anything under the guise of free speech, but there will ultimately be implications and consequences from that.

If Twitter becomes ever more toxic because hate speech is tolerated as free speech it'll shed users faster than the ludicrous speed pack.

Then problem solved for people concerned, if everyone deletes their accounts because they don’t like what content thats allowed/not, then thats 44b down the drain and up in smoke.

[Neon Ignition]

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/apr/27/concern-over-elon-musk-twitter-takeover-wipes-126bn-off-tesla-value

The cost of buying Twitter just rose sharply, on news Musk was buying the social media site it wiped an eye watering $126bn off the value of Tesla

Fears rose that the purchase will prove a distraction from the car maker and that Musk will need to sell shares to finance the Twitter deal

The fact that that level of value can be lost so easily to me showcases how much Tesla and Musk's scale of fortune is smoke and mirrors compared to other billionaire's with more stable businesses.

[Brad]

I'm not a Musk fanboy but I don't know that Musk has any less of a clue about runinng Twitter thasn the people currently running it do. It's basically impossible really. Do you allow free speech or not? Or do you allow free speech but nothing promoting anything illegal, nothing that might offend anyone, anywhere, ever and also fact check it before allowing the tweet? What about jokes that target someone's disability? And who decides what a disability is? Essentially putting tweets in a moderation queue. And who are the moderators? Who decides what's ok? Do you employ lawyers to check everything before it's tweeted? Or do you do those checks afterwards? On everything or only on stuff that gets reported?

I wonder if he'll just allow everything and stand back and see what happens...

[Dogg Thang]

You can’t run a social media platform with an algorithm and play the free speech card. The second one message is boosted over another, the platform is taking a level of responsibility for the messaging and the effects. Although I would make the case that they have that responsibility anyway. When your owner will call a rescue worker a pedo because his own ego-driven solution was rubbish, that’s already a bad tone to set for a social media platform. And really that’s all this is. It’s not a business decision. It’s an ego thing.

[Brad]

Good point. I'd forgotten about the rescue worker thing! On the flipside, Twitter gave him a platform to say that. And I don't think they banned him after he said it? Maybe they did. Like I say, I'm not a fan of the guy, just pointing out I think it's an impossible task, as witnessed by its current state. It's not like Twitter is currently fine right now.

[Asura]

I wonder if he'll just allow everything and stand back and see what happens...

I seriously suspect he's going to go down this route. He can't just remove all the safeguards; doing so would cause Twitter to be banned in too many countries - but I suspect he'll do this to the maximum extent he can. And this would be bad.

[Colin]

I just have this image in my head of Donald Trump furiously refreshing the Twitter app to see if his access has been restored under the new regime. I binned Twitter years ago for my business as it's an absolute cess pit as it is, I dread to think where it'll go next.

[Brad]

Same. I requested my account be closed, then I got a temporary 20 minute email address, changed my twitter login to that address, changed my password to random garbage and then just waited 20 minutes until I was effective locked out of the account so couldn’t accidentally login somewhere, which would revoke the request to close it.

My girlfriend’s way was easier. She just told someone who was being racist that they were racist, they complained, twitter told her to remove the post, she said no, banned. Easy!

[Dogg Thang]

I just have this image in my head of Donald Trump furiously refreshing the Twitter app to see if his access has been restored under the new regime. I binned Twitter years ago for my business as it's an absolute cess pit as it is, I dread to think where it'll go next.

Part of Twitter is how you curate who you follow but the problem now is that it shoves things onto your timeline that you didn’t ask for. And that’s exactly why there absolutely is a responsibility here - it can’t be a free speech free for all because not all voices are equal. But when Trump got booted, the place chilled out so quickly. It was amazing how much difference it made. I can only speak for my own timeline but it’s a much better place than it once was. I do not look forward to having angry dumbass voices back and boosted again.

[Asura]

Part of Twitter is how you curate who you follow but the problem now is that it shoves things onto your timeline that you didn’t ask for. And that’s exactly why there absolutely is a responsibility here - it can’t be a free speech free for all because not all voices are equal. But when Trump got booted, the place chilled out so quickly. It was amazing how much difference it made. I can only speak for my own timeline but it’s a much better place than it once was. I do not look forward to having angry dumbass voices back and boosted again.

All those people went to Parler. Then complained it was full of people posting porn, gore, excrement and nazi stuff.

[Neon Ignition]

The stuff in the last few weeks about them is just... dark. Trump clearly opened up a pandora's box of horrors with emboldening that party and given how staggeringly inept the Democrats are at making use of their position it feels like whether Trump mounts a return to office or not the Republicans are going to get back in and the level of problems in the US then will tower over what Trump accomplished

[charlesr]

Also America: "Hey honey, check out this unexploded bomb I found on the ground in Israel. Let's pop it into the hand luggage and take it home."

Israel Airport: OMGOMGOMGOMG

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[Neon Ignition]

The education system in the US is in such a bad state