Elon Musk Is Officially Purchasing Twitter for $44 Billion

[turbineseaplane]

Advertisers who want to appeal to as large a customer base as possible decide good vs. bad speech. That’s why even though it’s completely legal to say the N word, social media companies will censor you for typing it because their advertisers don’t want to be associated with that. Same with anti-LGBT speech. Now if Elon says screw that it’s my company all legal speech is allowed as he said in his latest tweet, then that 44B valuation will evaporate as people leave and twitter becomes another 4chan.

And I'll tell you -- Elon better be paying attention straight away.
Just looking at the unsavories that are "THRILLED!!!" about this news is very telling (and concerning)

 

[mclld]

The left is just mad they can't censor and control narratives as easily and throwing a tantrum. I remember when free speech was a huge thing for the left, why the change I don't know but it is not good. Everyone, regardless of what isle of politics you are on should want and embrace free speech, it is vital and one of the most important things

 

[0092762]

You know this is a horrible move when lots of GQP’ers are praising it. Most liberal folks will move over to Counter Social and Twitter will just become another Parler.

Most people who’ve been using the internet for over 20 years have hopped thorough countless social media platforms. It’s silly to think any social media platform is irreplacable. Maybe Whatsapp because they actually became telecom companies in developing nations, but other than that, all of them are replacable.

 

[Jensend]

I don't believe anyone in this thread is truly in support of not moderating people from speech illegal under any federal or state statutes, or obvious targeted harassment

Some people think Twitter should have more permissive moderation policy. Great. I may agree with them in some cases.
But the whole “Twitter should allow all legal speech” thing is not only completely naive, but also incompatible with other goals Musk has stated, such as removing spam and “authenticating humans”.
Twitter apps would be removed from app stores.
Many advertisers would leave, and fewer would join to take their place.

if someone can show me a forum/social media service on the internet that allows all legal speech, is open to the public, has more than 1000 members, and isn’t a complete cesspool, please let me know.

Perhaps there is a way to have *less* moderation but give more powerful tools to users and third-party developers to do their own filtering. I think that would be an interesting area for experimentation. I’d love to be able to automatically block anyone with an N*F*T profile picture.

 

[transpo1]

Liberals moving out of Twitter is a possibility. But consider this; most people are middle ground and don't swing left or right all that far. They are far less likely to leave. So by liberals leaving, they just risk going to an isolated echo chamber. It's better if everyone just try to get along.

I agree. And the Left won’t leave anyway. It’s too important a platform.

 

[Premium1]

There's the problem..

How do you know if a news story is fraudulent content or not?
If a story is totally BS, it shouldn't be shared to zillions of people, right?

Who decides?

See how fast this gets messy?

(not poking at you by the way --- just highlight how hard this really actually is)

I think the bigger issue is that most people won't do any research or have any critical thinking skills to say "Hmm this doesn't sound right, let me see if I can find anything to corroborate that" and just share/retweet. If people had any shred of common sense (or basic search skills) this would not be near the issue that you make it out to be because then they would know that it is B.S.

 

[iObama]

Don't stop there. You could double or maybe quadruple your impact by departing from all social media, including comment boards like the MR forums. That would give your departure true meaning. There's no reason to be sad.
Think about it.

...This argument is a spectacular failure of reasoning...

...

Please keep us briefed on the details. It may take time to calculate the impact of your departure from those platforms.

If someone disagreeing with you is such a trigger for you, feel free to ignore me. I've been here just about as long as you have, bud.

Have a nice life.

 

[Stratus Fear]

Some people think Twitter should have more permissive moderation policy. Great. I may agree with them in some cases.
But the whole “Twitter should allow all legal speech” thing is not only completely naive, but also incompatible with other goals Musk has stated, such as removing spam and “authenticating humans”.
Twitter apps would be removed from app stores.
Many advertisers would leave, and fewer would join to take their place.

if someone can show me a forum/social media service on the internet that allows all legal speech, is open to the public, has more than 1000 members, and isn’t a complete cesspool, please let me know.

Perhaps there is a way to have *less* moderation but give more powerful tools to users and third-party developers to do their own filtering. I think that would be an interesting area for experimentation. I’d love to be able to automatically block anyone with an N*F*T profile picture.

I would be surprised if you got into a deeper discussion with any of the “unmoderated free speech” people and found any of them to be in disagreement on spam. And people absolutely should be able to do their own filtering, which Twitter already has to some small extent with block and mute (could definitely be improved). I don’t want to speak for everyone, but when I say “free speech” and Twitter in the same sentence, I simply think that Twitter shouldn’t have a moderation policy or algorithm that excludes plain discussion of opinion, and I imagine that is largely the opinion of others citing free speech as well. Illegal speech, harassment, spam, and bots aren’t plain discussion of opinion, generally. So really, I agree with you.

 

[FloatingBones]

If someone disagreeing with you is such a trigger for you

Not a trigger at all. I'm curious why you -- or any non-celebrity -- feels the necessity to announce your departure from the a social media platform. I don't know why anyone would need to announce anything; posters can just leave.

Also, why are you certain what's going to happen on Twitter if Musk's purchase happens? What do you think is going to happen, and how are you certain those things are going to happen? Could you at least enumerate the things that you think are going to happen?

Do you agree that Twitter was grossly irresponsible in its censorship during the 2020 election cycle? Were you shocked that the ACLU didn't raise any objections to that grossly irresponsible action? Do you think that censorship had any impact on the election? Now that Twitter is no longer censoring that news, have you followed those stories? Facts are stubborn things, and those facts are now coming home to roost.

, feel free to ignore me.

Facts are stubborn things. Feel free to ignore straightforward questions about Twitter, and Musk's planned purchase of the social media platform.

All things equal, I'd prefer to have a rational discussion, but that's not always possible.🙁

 

[iObama]

All things equal, I'd prefer to have a rational discussion, but that's not always possible.🙁

I don't believe that to be true at all, otherwise you wouldn't have posted your last comment.

I'm allowed to say in a news article discussion that I feel like it's personally time for me to leave the platform. I'm sorry that's against your personal rules of social media platform CEO discussion. Fortunately for me, I don't abide by those rules.

I have no interest in debating with you. You feel how you feel about Elon and I feel how I feel about Elon. Let's just leave it at that.

 

[Darth Tulhu]

Taking away freedom of speech is a slippery slope.

We need freedom of speech.

Instead, what we should be doing is holding people accountable for their lies. This is not unprecedented in America, similar to saying you have a bomb at an airport or filing a false police report.

The question is, how do we do that when the cops, lawyers, "journalists", and judges are allies of the ones doing the lying?

"Who watches the Watchmen?", indeed.

There has to be a line for everything.

Advocating for the elimination of rights of some of our society should fall under that same category as "inciting a riot", and "filing a false police report". The Hippocratic Oath of "do no harm" should be in play.

For example, you can call yourself a Nazi freely and publicly, but you cannot call for the destruction of Jews, blacks, gays, etc. If you get caught doing it, you should be arrested for calling for the harm of other individuals.

The US thinks itself so great but it is and always has been setup to support the oppression and subjugation of any that the people that make up the government deem to be worthy of it.

So it can be the greatest country in the world, or a worse-than-the-Third-Reich fascist state.

Americans' actual freedom is in danger every four years, and every moment in between when the right-wing fascists are hard at work in Congress to win back an election they (cannot admit they) lost.

 

[Madhatter32]

Taking away freedom of speech is a slippery slope.

We need freedom of speech.

Instead, what we should be doing is holding people accountable for their lies. This is not unprecedented in America, similar to saying you have a bomb at an airport or filing a false police report.

The question is, how do we do that when the cops, lawyers, "journalists", and judges are allies of the ones doing the lying?

"Who watches the Watchmen?", indeed.

There has to be a line for everything.

Advocating for the elimination of rights of some of our society should fall under that same category as "inciting a riot", and "filing a false police report". The Hippocratic Oath of "do no harm" should be in play.

For example, you can call yourself a Nazi freely and publicly, but you cannot call for the destruction of Jews, blacks, gays, etc. If you get caught doing it, you should be arrested for calling for the harm of other individuals.

The US thinks itself so great but it is and always has been setup to support the oppression and subjugation of any that the people that make up the government deem to be worthy of it.

So it can be the greatest country in the world, or a worse-than-the-Third-Reich fascist state.

Americans' actual freedom is in danger every four years, and every moment in between when the right-wing fascists are hard at work in Congress to win back an election they (cannot admit they) lost.

There are lines. Well established Supreme Court precedent has established those lines. What you are advocating for is not free speech at all.

 

[jon9091]

There were a few bad actors, as I've mentioned before, but most were just strolling through the capitol taking photos. Some were let in by the Capitol. Some were even talking with the Capitol Police.

820 people have been charged…so far. That‘s more than a few bad actors. It’s a cult having a widdle tantrum.

 

[transpo1]

Taking away freedom of speech is a slippery slope.

We need freedom of speech.

Instead, what we should be doing is holding people accountable for their lies. This is not unprecedented in America, similar to saying you have a bomb at an airport or filing a false police report.

The question is, how do we do that when the cops, lawyers, "journalists", and judges are allies of the ones doing the lying?

"Who watches the Watchmen?", indeed.

There has to be a line for everything.

Advocating for the elimination of rights of some of our society should fall under that same category as "inciting a riot", and "filing a false police report". The Hippocratic Oath of "do no harm" should be in play.

For example, you can call yourself a Nazi freely and publicly, but you cannot call for the destruction of Jews, blacks, gays, etc. If you get caught doing it, you should be arrested for calling for the harm of other individuals.

The US thinks itself so great but it is and always has been setup to support the oppression and subjugation of any that the people that make up the government deem to be worthy of it.

So it can be the greatest country in the world, or a worse-than-the-Third-Reich fascist state.

Americans' actual freedom is in danger every four years, and every moment in between when the right-wing fascists are hard at work in Congress to win back an election they (cannot admit they) lost.

You may have noticed that it is the Left-Wing Fascists who are in favor of censorship and opposed to free speech on Twitter.

 

[transpo1]

820 people have been charged…so far. That‘s more than a few bad actors. It’s a cult having a widdle tantrum.

Most of them have been charged with very minor offenses...like trespassing for strolling through the Capitol after the Capitol Police opened up the barricade. And many have been held without bail or due process.

If you are in favor of a free society (and not a Fascist state) this should concern you.

 

[Michael Scrip]

I think the bigger issue is that most people won't do any research or have any critical thinking skills to say "Hmm this doesn't sound right, let me see if I can find anything to corroborate that" and just share/retweet. If people had any shred of common sense (or basic search skills) this would not be near the issue that you make it out to be because then they would know that it is B.S.

Yep... someone sees a tweet that says "Hillary eat babies" and they think "Yeah that checks out" and they just send it along.

The question then becomes... should someone be allowed to say "Hillary eats babies" in the first place? On a private platform?

I'm glad I'm not a content moderator.

Also... I'm hungry...

🤣

 

[transpo1]

I dunno... I found many links to many stories about the "mysterious Hunter Biden laptop" on Twitter during that time.

The story was certainly out there if anyone cared to read it.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The NY Post’s tweet about it was censored— the main post.

 

[Michael Scrip]

The NY Post’s tweet about it was censored— the main post.

But the story still got out. And that's what matters. Anyone could read about Hunter Biden's Amazing Laptop. Even today.

Look... I don't know about the particular tweet you're referencing. Maybe because it was censored or whatever. Maybe it violated Twitter's terms of service. Who knows.

But no one can hide the story. And that's what you want, right? You want everyone to know the story of dirty Hunter Biden. Well you got your wish.

And no one needs Twitter... especially for hard-hitting journalism from the NY Post.

The NY Post should publish all their stories on their free website.

Oh, they already do?

Awesome.

 

[Jensend]

The NY Post’s tweet about it was censored— the main post.

I disagree with Twitter's decision to take down that post. But on the other hand, it's likely that it got even more attention than it would have if Twitter had just ignored it.

 

[Mr. Skeleton]

This reminds me of Android people. More obsessed with apple then even the fanboys, to the point they will spend hours bashing the product on apple fan forums.

Now, in this very thread, we see examples of people so empassioned at this Twitter move by Elon, that they have spent closer to 100-200 posts trying so hard to explain how it will fail, why it’s bad, racist, etc etc.

Let’s be clear, they are seen. They sat on a high horse of political censorship for a little to long, and losing that power enrages this certain (very devout) political group that relies on lies, and silencing words.

But go ahead, spend hours of your day explaining why it’s bad. You won’t convince anyone.

 

[Jensend]

I would be surprised if you got into a deeper discussion with any of the “unmoderated free speech” people and found any of them to be in disagreement on spam.

Sure, but they should stop using phrases like "free speech absolutist" and "all legal speech."
And even if people agree that spam is bad, defining spam is much more complicated., especially if it's around a political issue.
I remember (perhaps misremember) a case were there was one person who had several Twitter accounts, and claimed in each one to be a different nurse who had seen several COVID vaccine injuries. The accounts were taken down, not just because of the claims in a single account, but because the person was impersonating several different (fake) people.
If someone was following them, they may think that the account was taken down to censor negative views of the vaccines. I suppose Twitter could more publicly give their reasons for removing posts, but that may not be as straightforward to do as it seems.

And people absolutely should be able to do their own filtering, which Twitter already has to some small extent with block and mute (could definitely be improved).

There's an endless supply of people to be blocked. Blocking accounts one at a time may not work, especially for people with larger followings.

I don’t want to speak for everyone, but when I say “free speech” and Twitter in the same sentence, I simply think that Twitter shouldn’t have a moderation policy or algorithm that excludes plain discussion of opinion, and I imagine that is largely the opinion of others citing free speech as well. Illegal speech, harassment, spam, and bots aren’t plain discussion of opinion, generally. So really, I agree with you.

"plain discussion of opinion"
Well, that's open to interpretation 😆

 

[Mr. Skeleton]

Sure, but they should stop using phrases like "free speech absolutist" and "all legal speech."
And even if people agree that spam is bad, defining spam is much more complicated., especially if it's around a political issue.
I remember (perhaps misremember) a case were there was one person who had several Twitter accounts, and claimed in each one to be a different nurse who had seen several COVID vaccine injuries. The accounts were taken down, not just because of the claims in a single account, but because the person was impersonating several different (fake) people.
If someone was following them, they may think that the account was taken down to censor negative views of the vaccines. I suppose Twitter could more publicly give their reasons for removing posts, but that may not be as straightforward to do as it seems.

There's an endless supply of people to be blocked. Blocking accounts one at a time may not work, especially for people with larger followings.

"plain discussion of opinion"
Well, that's open to interpretation 😆

It’s pretty simple dude. No need to go all theoretical and make it complex. It’s not.

- Don’t ban/suspend accounts because because they posted something/website that disagrees with twitters political stance.

- Dont manipulate trends or create fake trends

- Don’t manipulate followers or create fake followers for any accounts

- Don’t manipulate peoples news view (see new European laws)

- Open source all the algorithms

These aren’t Twitter specific, this is a popular sleuth of cocktail censorship tools that Democrat-run media companies love to use.

Get rid of those, with the current rules, you got a deal!

 

[turbineseaplane]

Good piece from Time magazine

Twitter Employees Have Spent Years Trying to Make the Platform Safer. Elon Musk Could Undermine All That

Twitter employees told TIME that the billionaire's record bodes poorly for the company's anti-harassment efforts

time.com

 

[Mr. Skeleton]

Good piece from Time magazine

Twitter Employees Have Spent Years Trying to Make the Platform Safer. Elon Musk Could Undermine All That

Twitter employees told TIME that the billionaire's record bodes poorly for the company's anti-harassment efforts

time.com

Terrible peice. Quote from the article you linked “some would wonder if this would undermine democracy”.

Oof. Talk about overused scripts. Elon was right.

 

[bumblebritches5]

Good piece from Time magazine

Twitter Employees Have Spent Years Trying to Make the Platform Safer. Elon Musk Could Undermine All That

Twitter employees told TIME that the billionaire's record bodes poorly for the company's anti-harassment efforts

time.com

But many on the frontlines of the fight for democratic spaces online have questioned whether Musk’s ownership of Twitter would undermine, rather than bolster, democracy.

they've bolstered Democrat spaces online, not democratic ones.