Twitter - Elon Musk takes control and renames X

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Yel

Yel

Chatty Member
Moderator
Starting a thread now Elon musk has just bought it. I'd say if anything it'll get less relevant as time goes on.

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Twitter board agrees to $44bn takeover by Elon Musk
Published2 minutes ago
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The board of Twitter has agreed to an $44bn takeover offer from the billionaire Elon Musk.
Mr Musk, who made the shock bid less than two weeks ago, has claimed he is the right person to "unlock" the social media firm's "extraordinary potential".

He has suggested a series of changes from relaxing its content restrictions to eradicating fake accounts.

The firm initially rebuffed Mr Musk's bid, but it will now ask shareholders to vote to approve the deal.

Mr Musk is the world's richest man, according to Forbes magazine, with an estimated net worth of $273.6bn mostly due to his shareholding in electric vehicle maker Tesla which he runs. He also leads the aerospace firm SpaceX.
 
What a crazy amount of money 😳 I’ve got to an age where I don’t understand the world! However I really hope he cleans up the platform it is so full of hate it’s unreal.
 
I really don't get his MO of bringing free speach to twitter.

They already allow loads of disgusting things that they refuse to take down.

As much as it might sound nice for no moderation and for no one to ever be silenced, in reality that makes an awful awful place. It just doesn't work. I can't even imagine the impossible position of deciding what is acceptable on a big tech site with millions of messages an hour.

I can't imagine having that much money and voluntarily wanting another complex toy to play with.

Who will decide what is misinformation?
 
I find it interesting how quickly a massive company like Twitter is happy to sell to one person. I guess the payday is one they could never expect to top again. so it’s take the cash and say ‘thank you very much sir?’

I don’t quite know how I feel. On the one hand Twitter is such a cesspit where the woke rule and you can be banned and be policed for daring to use a term that the raging woke deem offensive, yet also some really nasty stuff gets gets to stay on there.

I hate how the mainstream media basically use Twitter as the almighty source for news, basically just quoting tweets verbatim as their articles. I hate how Twitter is seen as a reliable source. Twitter is an echo chamber and not necessarily representative of the majority. I think it is responsible for a lot of trends that whip up social contagion and I would be quite happy to see Twitter banned for that reason.

I wonder whether Elon has proper motive for Twitter or whether he’s just bought it because he has the cash and it would be cool to say “I wanted it, I bought it”. Surely he won’t close it because that would make it worthless. So, how will he use it?
 
Not particularly invested as I don't use it, but as much as I like the idea of making it fully free speech in theory, in practice that just sounds like it would get overrun by spam and trolls (more so than it already is). You generally need at least minimal moderation to have a useable platform. A lot of the current 'woke policing' is from users starting pile-ons rather than the site itself banning people, so I'm not sure how much difference it'll make in that respect either.

If he could actually crack down on fake users and bot accounts that would be a huge improvement though. I don't know what kind of wizardry that would involve or whether it's even possible with existing tech, but if I had to pick someone to try he's far from the worst choice IMO.
 
I don’t think he is doing it for free speech. It’s more than just celebrities and journalists on there. It’s politicians too. Elon Musk has had a lot to say politically in the recent past. He publicly went after Elizabeth Warren who criticized his finances. I think he’s going to try to use Twitter to influence politics and any attempts at tax reform to his liking. Even though I am a Warren stan I don’t really care because at the end of the day, it’s the people who make the app. We’ve already seen a comparative app to Twitter pop up used by conservatives. Nothing is there to stop liberal Democrats from doing the same.

This situation reminds me of when Bake Off was bought out and all the talent left the show. Someone remarked that essentially, the new channel had bought a very expensive tent. It’s the exact same thing here: it’s the people who make the app not the other way around.
 
I think twitter should be replaced by some sort of open source Blockchain type stuff. Not that I quite understand how that would work, but something decentralised.

It's just a micro blogging site. People use it because it's all in one place and consistent rather than going to all these people's blogs. A few people could clone twitter in days and the only thing it would lack is the users that make the content.

Such a tiny percentage of people actually post on there.
 
I don't know why someone so wealthy would want to get involved with such a cesspit (as is any huge social media site).

There's definitely been a bias with it, but content moderation and what's allowed under free speech is such a difficult balance.
 
Yel said:
I don't know why someone so wealthy would want to get involved with such a cesspit (as is any huge social media site).

There's definitely been a bias with it, but content moderation and what's allowed under free speech is such a difficult balance.
Click to expand...
Power.
Controlling the narrative on social media?
Musk may even control the internet one day/have his own web.
He already has his StarLink thing which is currently giving Ukraine safe internet access as they fight Putin.
I can't help but picture Musk sat in a luxurious underground dwelling, stroking a white cat with a 6-skin spliff hanging out of his mouth.
 
Yel said:
I don't know why someone so wealthy would want to get involved with such a cesspit (as is any huge social media site).

There's definitely been a bias with it, but content moderation and what's allowed under free speech is such a difficult balance.
Click to expand...

Ive seen theories bandied about today that it’s an instant way into phone access (those who have the app/visit the site) rather than to create a brand new app/site and hope it takes off.
 
I wonder if more people will start leaving the site now. It’s a cesspit as it is, but I expect Musk will relax the rules to the point that a tweet would need to be very severe in order to be deleted.
 
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