# Now that Elon Musk has bought Twitter - now the Pit edition (Part 1) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 25, 2022, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442 "2022-04-25T22:50:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 451
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2024, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9006 "2024-02-16T01:51:05Z")
Speaking of SpaceX, it’s been in the news again regarding the war in Ukraine. Not in a good way. Well, that’s not too surprising, but in a _really_ not in a good way. > **[Russia is using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite devices in Ukraine, sources say](https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2024/02/russia-using-spacexs-starlink-satellite-devices-ukraine-sources-say/394080/)** > > Elon Musk’s company, once hailed for aiding the besieged country, now appears to be helping its invaders as well. Agile war profiteering? ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2024, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9007 "2024-02-16T02:29:17Z")
> [@epbrown](#): > > He’s reportedly transferred SpaceX’s incorporation from Delaware to Texas, so that’ll show’em! And wants to file in Texas for Tesla’s as well…though that has the same pesky issue he has now - as a publicly traded company, he’s required to get shareholder approval for the move It’s potentially another classic self-own. Companies incorporate in Delaware because it’s more friendly to corporation management and less to shareholders than pretty much every other state. If he didn’t win there, he’s going to run into worse headwinds elsewhere. That is, if the shareholders approve the move in the first place. Pesky shareholders demanding their rights! ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2024, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9008 "2024-02-16T02:35:46Z")
Top of the line in American sports Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2024, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9009 "2024-02-16T03:12:24Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > If he didn’t win there, he’s going to run into worse headwinds elsewhere. Texas is trying real hard to set new records for a) business friendliness, and b) willingness to be bribed by MAGA-oriented trollery. Delaware is corp-friendly, but isn’t wacko topsy-turvy friendly like Texas has become. Viva Paxton! is their rallying cry, and you can easily see Elmo liking the idea of hitching his wagon to that level of easily bribable crazy. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2024, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9010 "2024-02-16T03:42:21Z")
There’s business and there’s business. No doubt they don’t care about the little guy, but they’re going to be put in the position of having to choose between big institutional investors and Elmo. And I have no clue which side they’re going to fall on. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2024, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9011 "2024-02-16T03:50:05Z")
What I read was that Russia’s StarLink terminals were thru-transfers from purchases in Arab countries. But the terminals are supposed to be geofenced so that a satellite wouldn’t talk to a receiver within the bounds of Russia, so apparently they spoofed the location to be something permitted. Or at least, that’s the plausible deniability I’ve heard. ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2024, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9012 "2024-02-16T03:56:32Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Texas is trying real hard to set new records for a) business friendliness, and b) willingness to be bribed by MAGA-oriented trollery. Delaware is corp-friendly, but isn’t wacko topsy-turvy friendly like Texas has become. Texas is home to all sorts of class action suits in districts out in the boondocks. Also mentioning the MAGA federal judge who wears christian and anti-abortion message pajamas. . ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2024, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9013 "2024-02-16T05:25:04Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > Or at least, that’s the plausible deniability I’ve heard. Yeah, I mean it’s funny how Elmo was bragging that he had single-handedly saved the world from nuclear annihilation by selectively disabling Starlink in Crimea to stop the Ukrainian naval drone attack until he realized it made him look like a Russian dupe rather than the savior of the world, but somehow that doesn’t work for Starlink sets in Russian hands. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_McQwark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4da419/32.png) [@Steve\_McQwark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_McQwark)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2024, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9014 "2024-02-16T13:44:10Z")
IOWARDI (It’s ok when a Russian does it) ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2024, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9015 "2024-02-16T14:27:34Z")
Said another way … > When you’re a raging druggie, every idea seems like a great idea. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2024, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9016 "2024-02-17T00:36:38Z")
You won’t be shocked to learn that Xitter has a bot problem. Before clicking the link, however, try to actually guess what % of traffic to a bunch of advertisers on Super Bowl Sunday was driven by bots. ETA oh heck the link title is a big clue. 😅 > **[The majority of traffic from Elon Musk's X may have been fake during the...](https://mashable.com/article/x-twitter-elon-musk-bots-fake-traffic)** > > These numbers are legitimately shocking. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2024, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9017 "2024-02-17T03:22:50Z")
Clearly fake news, Elmo solved the bot problem on Twitter already, not once but twice! > **[Elon, Who Insisted He Had Solved The Spam/Bot Problem, Now Says He Will...](https://www.techdirt.com/2023/09/19/elon-who-insisted-he-had-solved-the-spam-bot-problem-now-says-he-will-paywall-twitter-to-stop-spam-bots/)** > > So, remember when Elon first announced his plans to buy Twitter, and he claimed that it was “the de facto town square” and his top priority was to eliminate spam and scam bots? “A top priority I wo… ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2024, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9018 "2024-02-17T12:39:39Z")
I’m confident that Elmo, perhaps with the assistance of his son, X AE A-XII, will solve the bot problem on X. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2024, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9019 "2024-02-17T15:28:50Z")
I meant to say, I don’t understand this from the Guardian article linked in the article I posted: > I specifically told X that my goal was clicks to my book’s landing page. And, according to X, it delivered: almost 350 “clicks”. > > To me, 350 “clicks” means that users saw my post, were interested in my book and clicked through to my landing page to download it. Exciting, right? Three hundred and fifty leads would be amazing. Even half that amount would be fantastic. I was excited. But not for long. Unfortunately, there was a bit of a discrepancy. During that same period, according to [Google](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/google)Analytics, my landing page received fewer than 10 views. And how many of those views came from X? Zero. > > I asked a few social media “experts” I know about this anomaly and they all offered similar responses: bots. You know, those non-human software robots that proliferate everywhere. Few, if any, of those clicks were actually human, they said. Whether or not it was a bot clicking the link to his page, it seems to me he should still be getting a page view. Maybe the answer is “Twitter lied”? ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2024, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9020 "2024-02-17T15:34:02Z")
I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say Twitter ‘lied’ - they’ve fired so many staff and the ones left aren’t necessarily the best. Simple incompetence could also be quite possible, i.e. you can’t lie if you don’t know the actual truth ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2024, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9021 "2024-02-17T17:55:56Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > Whether or not it was a bot clicking the link to his page, it seems to me he should still be getting a page view. Maybe the answer is “Twitter lied”? Certainly possible. Other possibilities: Google is better at detecting bot activity and filters out those page views, or the bot is “clicking” but doesn’t stick around for the target page to load. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2024, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9022 "2024-02-17T18:04:27Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > Google is better at detecting bot activity and filters out those page views Ah, thanks, the Google Analytics view apparently does try to filter out bots. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2024, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9023 "2024-02-18T05:20:47Z")
Elmo is spouting replacement theory nonsense again. [![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GGl0JMZWkAA0HOI?format=jpg&name=medium) ](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GGl0JMZWkAA0HOI?format=jpg&name=medium) ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2024, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9024 "2024-02-18T05:23:17Z")
Jeebus, he has no idea how voting works, huh? ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2024, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9025 "2024-02-18T05:23:47Z")
C’mon, there’s multiple spouts of nonsense in those four sentences, give him the credit he’s due! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442.md?page=450) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442.md?page=452)