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Twitter is a hugely established channel though which is why we are sharing tweets here. Also the Ukraine thread - most of the public discussion and expert commentary is there. And if it's not there it's shared and linked to from there.
It's one thing for individuals to shift their social media to another platform but a lot of professional communicators and journalists are using it as an important channel.
It’s one thing for individuals to shift their social media to another platform but a lot of professional communicators and journalists are using it as an important channel.
If he takes it down the path he currently appears to be, then I can see that change happening. It wouldnt be instant and id expect for a while for those accounts that drive Twitter to be active on two or more (as many already are) platforms simultaneously. Until one of the alternatives gains enough traction and reach to leave Twitter.
Theres nothing particularly special about the platform once those contributors are excluded.
Then again, I dont know how much of a counter force the advertisers will be. None of it happens without them.
id expect for a while for those accounts that drive Twitter to be active on two or more (as many already are) platforms simultaneously.
Yeah. It'll be like when you'd tweet and you could have it mirrored to FB. There'll be apps that send your comment to multiple platforms, professionals will use that and followers can choose to read it on whichever. That way we'll be free to leave Twitter without missing out.
It’s one thing for individuals to shift their social media to another platform but a lot of professional communicators and journalists are using it as an important channel.
Which is both a strength and a weakness for them. For most platforms you need to get a critical mass out of everyone and their dog to move so they can talk about what they watched at the weekend in one place.
With twitter the target group is far smaller. Get those professionals to move and everyone else is dragged with them.
Ha ha, Elon wants to build the ultimate "Free Speech Rights Space" and is losing his shit because advertisers are exercising their free speech right to not participate.
Ha ha, Elon wants to build the ultimate “Free Speech Rights Space” and is losing his shit because advertisers are exercising their free speech right to not participate.
For such a supposedly intelligent human being, the complete lack of self-awareness in his tweets is bizarre. He's gone from speaking out against cancel culture, to threatening to cancel corporations who pull advertising on his app. Its all just about power really, isn't it. Game of Thrones.
With twitter the target group is far smaller. Get those professionals to move and everyone else is dragged with them.
This is it - Twitter is nothing without good content, no 'professional' users/creators no Twitter. Thing is Elon in his quest for 'free speech' will end up with a select type and focus of creators, alienating others and his town hall of speech will turn into a biker bar of brawling.
Mark Zuckerberg must be laughing his tits off
For now he’s not the most toxic social media platform owner. I’m sure he’s savouring that novelty
It’s all just about power really, isn’t it. Game of Thrones
He clearly disappeared up his own arse many years ago. Now he’s gone full ‘Mad King’. I suppose this is what inevitably happens when you never hear the word no
It is quite amusing watching him destroy his expensive new plaything. It’s never good for any business when the owner becomes the story
For such a supposedly intelligent human being
Americans love a hero to worship. That's why they end up in these tribes of fans and that perpetuates these myths.
Musk's alleged fortune comes from his close ties to the American national security state. SpaceX (Starlink) is the grid, the hardware.. Twitter the software. Neuralink is the human link hardware that will replace devices. And people think he cares about the people's 'free speech'. LMFAO. The guy is a deep state puppet actor. Wake up folks.
I don't know a huge amount about Musk and his companies, but this sums up the issue for me.
Completely irrelevant conversation, but if he spends his life surrounded by sycophantic yes men, then you can understand how he's ended up like this.
Americans love a hero to worship. That’s why they end up in these tribes of fans and that perpetuates these myths.
Musk nut swingers traverse boundaries of nation and identity though.
They are also the most entertaining, ultimately their whole raison d'être boils down to, "PLEASE PUMP MY CRYPTO BAGS ELON"
Edit: timely cross posting with that video above.
It's obvious that all the tech bros blowing smoke up his rear have him deluded
This thread is revealing
No wonder he's had to make staffing cuts!
https://twitter.com/GoAngelo/status/1588696157794242560?t=xuN7sstKrrqGvAydXY1PZw&s=19
Musk’s alleged fortune comes from
his close ties to the American national security statemining, getting a few bets on changing markets and tech spot on, and a good dose of subsidies and investors chasing those tech market bets.
Fixed that little bit for you. Can’t help you with the rest.
Musk’s alleged fortune comes from
...Borrowing money from his [insanely wealthy] dad and a couple of lucky investment guesses.
There's no need for conspiracy theory crap when it comes to Elon, it's all in the open. The weird thing is , Musk would just love that you think he's some deep state actor, when he's just a kid from wealth.
I quite enjoyed the BBC Sounds series on him. I binge listened to it this week. The guy who impersonates him is brilliant 🤩
During the dotcom years there were loads of companies all trying to do similar things. In some cases it's pot luck which ones succeeded. Some of these dotcom billionaires often aren't geniuses they just had an idea and got lucky with it.
What’s stopping the ex employees just setting up a better version?
You just described Bluesky I think.
Didn't know about Bluesky, that's interesting.
From the web:
"Bluesky is an initiative to develop a decentralized social network protocol. Organized by Twitter as a non-profit initiative, it was announced in 2019 and is in a research phase as of 2022. Bluesky is owned by the team itself, formally under Bluesky Public Benefit LLC, without any controlling stake held by Twitter."
That's the answer - when does it go live?
If I were involved in Bluesky I'd have a guerrilla advertising campaign ready to go before launch. Bluesky is a great brand name for starters.
Remember 'The future's orange", I'm sure a campaign like that could work.
Something like "If you're lost in a cloud, look for the Bluesky "
Jesus H Corbett /\/\/\
Elon Tweeted:
“Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists,”
This makes no sense to me, it’s hard to argue that nothing has changed when it’s reported that about half of Twitters employees have been let go.
Are these “activists” the same as the “tofu-eating wokerati”?
This makes no sense to me
Why are you against free speech? Are you some sort of commie to dare question the great Musk?
Are you some sort of commie to dare question the great Musk?
Musk (much like many super-rich and dictators and like some politicians) has surrounded himself with yes-men and acolytes his whole life.
Either he's paid people to tell him he's amazing or he's got a bunch of groupies around him hero-worshipping the ground he walks on.
Dissenting voices are fired or slandered (like the cave rescue guy who told him his sub idea was bollocks, Musk called him a paedo). They've never been told they're wrong so they're conditioned to see themselves as geniuses.
Still trying to work out if he's actually as dumb as he seems (but he's just had vast wealth to hide some of it) or, like this Twitter thread, he's a RW extremist...
https://twitter.com/andygawt/status/1588506524045152263?t=Ds1LM7pLbIPl3WTMT4g5aA&s=19
Musk is the latest in a long line of businessmen who look successful. Typically they then publish a ghostwritten book explaining how great they are, which actually sells quite well, making them money and inflating their ego still further. All their subsequent business ventures crash and burn, because actually they weren't that smart, they were just lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time with the right people working for them. Examples that spring to mind are Alan Sugar and Lee Iacocca.
Surely you’re missing the greatest living example, who manages to convince gullible half-wits that he’s some kind of business genius, despite all the evidence to the contrary…
Actually, there appear to be a growing list of similarities between the two of them
Fair point @binners, I did consider editing my post to add the godlike genius that is Donald Trump, but I knew someone would be along to do it for me. I still think it's entirely possible that far from being a billionaire he could be technically bankrupt. Certainly would be if he had to return all the money he just stole rather than earned.
Trump always worked on the same principle as Robert Maxwell. If you owe the bank thousands of pounds, it’s your problem, if you owe them millions, it’s their problem.
The only money Trump genuinely made was when he had millions in capital that daddy gave him when New York was effectively bankrupt (a situation deliberately engineered by financiers) so had to have a fire sale of all their property
Apparently, being in the right place at the right time, with suitcases full of your dads money is what marks you out as a business guru
Trump has only ever been a grifter and Elon Musk seems to be cut from the same cloth
The amount Twitter is worth as a business must be going through the floor by the day. He’s properly Liz Trussed it!
He’s properly Liz Trussed it!
I like that as a phrase.
The Guardian used Trusster**** the other day which I also enjoyed.
44 days and her name is a euphemism for a complete catastrophe! Wonder how long it'll take for Musk to reach the same levels of meme?
With marketing managers looking where they’re going to spend their budgets, it’s all about optics.
If you look at the people leaping to Musks defence, they’re all far right nutjobs for whom ‘freedom of speech’ seems to involve their right to be be really abusive and offensive
With friends like those…
I imagine those who haven’t pulled their advertising already will be looking at all this and reaching the same conclusion as those that have already headed for the exits
If you owe the bank thousands of pounds, it’s your problem, if you owe them millions, it’s their problem.
Actually that's true of most of the millionaires / billionaires who are on paper value. In a way they borrow to spend so cannot be taxed (not salaried). How that works I don't know go ask the accountants.
The problem with blue sky, Twitter, Facebook and the rest (including this place) is the success largely comes down to the the moderation. Get it right an people will want to stay and discuss. To tight and it becomes an echo chamber, too loose and it's a bear pit. I can't believe that Elon didn't see that and it looks like he wanted it a bit more open but whether or not that is possible is a different matter. This stuff is super finely balanced.
Musk is a pretty fascinating case study tbh. The successes and disasters pretty much all come from the same source- that he's a loose cannon with nobody who tells him no and enough resources to not need much support from outside people who would also tell him no. But the more it goes on, the worse it gets, as tends to be the case with these things. Obviously more so if you have aspergers, adhd, and a shipping container full of good weed.
It's frustrating because you can't quite separate the things that makes him call random people paedophiles, or say cars have "autopilot" then act surprised when people think they have an autopilot, or contradict himself in 2 adjacent tweets, with the things that makes stuff like a falcon heavy happen. And more so, happen quickly. That's really dependent on having a shortfall in people with common sense. So it's just a matter of degrees but it's so hard to say where the line is, til you're way over the line.
I think when it comes down to it Elon Musk is a bit of a fascist.
Like I mentioned earlier, a bit like that other rocket man and doubtless his hero, Wernher Von Braun. They'll both cosy up to any regime, autocratic or otherwise who will fund their fantasies.
Both have no moral moral compass, their particular dispositions leaving them devoid of empathy. Their ambitions for mankind are for mankind as a species, not as human beings.
I'm not a Twitter user. I thought it's raison d'etre was that it was way of quickly sharing short messages. I've viewed various tweeks via this thread and the Ukraine thread and can see that videos and photos can also be shared.
The product doesn't seem particularly rich in terms of functionality.
So I was kinda surprised to learn that they had a workforce of 7500...anyone have any background of what all those 7500 employees did? For a "software company", Id assume a large percentage of those employees were developers but did they sit around all day twiddling their thumbs cos I can't see much evidence of "product"!
Or where they all content moderator's? If so, and they've fired half the moderators, that doesn't bode well...
Or where they all content moderator’s? If so, and they’ve fired half the moderators, that doesn’t bode well…
Certainly many of them are/were, remembering that different jurisdictions have different laws on what can be posted and stopping obvious (and not so obvious) hate speech I can see how the workforce could get large.
I only use it for looking at stuff on the Ukrainian war and some political stuff and even then, not often.
I won't have the app installed so I run it in a tab on my mobile. I don't want it to be too accessible for me. I find it hugely toxic if I spend any length of time on there, it really gets me down...
I’m not a Twitter user. I thought it’s raison d’etre was that it was way of quickly sharing short messages. I’ve viewed various tweeks via this thread and the Ukraine thread and can see that videos and photos can also be shared.
The product doesn’t seem particularly rich in terms of functionality.
It's really useful for following news feeds, etc. Nearly all the people I follow are blue checkmark journalists, academics, or sportspeople/teams. I follow a few parody accounts, but block anyone who is an obvious troll or spreader of disinformation.
Elon's plan to sell blue checkmarks will make it much more difficult to separate the useful stuff from the sewage.
https://twitter.com/Wolfiesmom/status/1588969800675782656
I thought it’s raison d’etre was that it was way of quickly sharing short messages.
It was many years ago along with the 100 something character limit. I thought it was pretty good back then but now it just has overlong posts, vides and a LOT of adverts and recommendations - none of which existed 10 years ago.
I only follow a small number of people and never read any comments made back to their posts and find it okay but it is definitely worse to use than it was when it started.
So I was kinda surprised to learn that they had a workforce of 7500…anyone have any background of what all those 7500 employees did? For a “software company”, Id assume a large percentage of those employees were developers but did they sit around all day twiddling their thumbs cos I can’t see much evidence of “product”!
Global platform, operating across dozens if not hundreds of languages on however many software platforms there are; the coding, security and moderation requirements for all that plus standard back-office admin (HR, legal, finance...). Fairly easy to get to 7500, I'd have thought!
He's insane - fire all your IT security staff, then ask all blue tick users for their credit card info to pay $8 a month. Erm... Nope!
For a “software company”
Yeah, that's what Elon thought he was buying as well. I mean obviously it uses software, but that's not how or why it makes money. It's like saying Space X is in the rocket fuel burning business, or Tesla is in the recharging business.