3436

Seems pretty appropriate then.

3437

Don’t know if this really means anything, but the Verge thinks it might.

Edit: apparently it happened yesterday, so maybe this was already posted here?

3438

Yes.

“If Elmo were being paid to destroy/deligimitize a platform used by journalists, dissidents, etc to resist authoritarian regimes, how it looks different than what he’s doing?”

See also: “If TFG was being run by Russia, how would that look different than what he’s doing?”

3439

He’s going to lose so much more money on this than he could possibly be being paid.

3440

The illuminati doesn’t repay favors with the currency of paltry human governments.

3441

Depends on how much he enjoys the taste of…

Never mind.

Also, we’re seeing in real time this is not actually a very bright guy.

Or he just loves sucking up to terrible people as he tries to fill the gaping hole where regular people have humanity/a soul.

3442

Actually, what Russia really wants is Signal exploits on Android because that’s what Ukraine is using.

Not sure if Iranian dissidents are using it as well, but it would be the way to go, not twitter…

3443

TFG in the Russia example is a wee bit more orange than Elmo ;-)

3444

Yeah, well, adrenochrome doesn’t grow on trees.

3445

He’s just trying to create the maximum amount of controversy because publicity is the closest thing he has to value right now.

Stuff like the poll was never a genuine concept, he was always gonna reinstate Trump. He’s just milking it for all the attention it’s worth.

I suspect Trump is doing the same. Trump isn’t smart, but he doesn’t need to be to understand that being on Twitter is a lot better for him than not. This way he can generate 50 stories about coming back instead of settling for one. And the press will oblige him, as they always have.

I don’t know if it would be good for his other businesses, but personal squabbles notwithstanding, Musk has a lot to gain by helping Trump get elected. Nothing could be better for the Musk hellscape than another weak, transactional, nepotistic US government with poor oversight.

I think Karen Swisher, quoted by @HumanTon above, was more or less on the money.

Right now he’s burning what’s there to the ground so he can rebuild it as the hellscape, and as long as he keeps everyone talking and caring about Twitter he can probably get the funding to keep the lights on, and advertisers will be back once things settle down.

What I don’t get is how the hellscape could be worth more than the previous iteration of Twitter. Smaller staff and more automation, I suppose. But that probably won’t be enough to protect advertisers, and I don’t think Musks “4chan for sophisticateds” will seem as attractive to people as the Twitter of yesterday.

3446

It will keep a certain set of folks, but it won’t be profitable.

There’s a reason pro wrestling wasn’t considered prestigious programming despite the ratings- who is watching matters as much as how many are.

3447

Regarding the chief of Apple’s app store dropping Twitter, didn’t some other unmoderated sites run afoul of Google and Apple’s terms of service?

3448

Oh yes they did - not a good sign for Twitter’s profitability if they are raising the Ire of the Two Gatekeepers of the present Internet.

3449

I was thinking about @JonRowe 's well-taken point before that all companies are horrible in their own way, so why should we treat Twitter differently?

And I think it does come down to an emotional response rather than a logical one, for me at least. The public displays of toxic management, the courting of right-wing whackjobs, and the public face of Musk himself being astonishingly unlikeable… It all adds up to giving me the ick, which is enough for me to step away from Twitter for now. In terms of the value I get from a company, it’s way below Spotify, news orgs, Apple, Amazon etc, so it’s not exactly a big sacrifice on my part.

It remains to be seen what this all does to Twitter as a brand over the long term - maybe it’s strong enough to weather it, maybe not. If Musk gets bored and appoints a grown-up to run the company, the damage could be limited.

3450

Whataboutism at its worst. Why care about anything when everything is bad? There are varying degrees of bad. Where those things fall on the Bad Scale for people is going to differ from person to person, but I can’t get behind the idea that we should just accept all bad things because other people are also doing bad things.

If someone is too addicted or too reliant to quit Facebook or Twitter or Amazon or Blizzard or whatever, I’m not going to judge because I have my own things to add to that list. I can’t avoid all bad things, but I can choose to not support the things that tip the Bad Scale too far.

EDIT: Just to clarify, this reply was directed more at the topic you raise in general, not a reply directed at you specifically. On re-reading I worried I came across as argumentative with you and that wasn’t what I was trying to say at all, wavey.

3451

I’d disagree. What Musk is doing at Twitter is bad and we all agree on that but is it especially bad in the grand scheme of things? I think it’s getting extra attention because it’s been so public and Musk is very calculatedly leaning in on the “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” angle to turn this into a spectacle. He’s definitely stealing from Trump’s playbook and trying to dominate the narrative by turning Twitter into a circus. I mean look at all the bigger and more important things going on in the world, yet this thread has easily the most QT3 P&R posts in the last week.

I think it’s important to keep a sense of proportion here and try to ignore the spectacle. At the end of the day Musk bought Twitter, fired a bunch of people, and let back a few banned names. It’s a thing, but not a huge world-altering deal.

3452

Well that’s what I meant when I said it was going to differ from person to person. If you (general you, not you) look at social media and the platform that Twitter provides as a threat to our democracy, then it’s really bad. If you think that’s not an issue at all, then it’s just a dickhead billionaire running a company in the ground. Sucks for the employees, but it’s not such a big thing in the grand scheme of things.

From reading this thread, you can see all kinds of different perspectives all across the spectrum on how bad it is or isn’t.

3453

I guess I think that giving a bullhorn to racists (MTG), anti-semitism (Kanye), mysogyny (Andrew Tate), and a former President who attempted a literal coup (Trump… if you didn’t know) is pretty freaking bad.

YMMV and that’s ok

3454

This is the way I feel as well.

3455

Oh I’m not going to tell you are wrong for believing that, but it’s just a few really public figures and they had plenty of publicity anyway. In the grand scheme of things, what plays out on twitter isn’t our culture (despite various news orgs believing otherwise because it’s convenient). I really don’t think it harmed society very much in the grand scheme of things.

I want Twitter to fail and Musk to be shown up for this clownish takeover and mismanagement, but if he pulls it out and makes Twitter more successful (and more regressive) then meh. Whatever. It’s just not that big a deal. My personal opinion is that a lot of observers are getting swept up in the drama and spectacle of it all.