From the article:
Yeah, I want me some of that !
Stranger
You know it’s bad when even CNN is running a headline story about a “mass exodus” …
It was pretty obvious that Musk was going to burn Twitter to the ground. He was likely just trying to manipulate the markets via Twitter as he had done before and drive the price to $54.20 when he would then sell his stake, and then pay a fine that would be vastly less than any profit. I don’t think he expected Twitter to say “Ummm … sure.”
But I am absolutely stunned that he’s managed to burn it to the ground so fast. If there wasn’t so much money at stake, then I could almost believe he was doing it on purpose for the “lulz.”
It’s been exactly half a Truss if that helps.
I’m becoming worried about people who actually depend on Twitter for serious business or personal endeavours. It’s really vulnerable right now to any random glitch in any of its systems, and there’s no sign that it’s going to get any better any time soon.
I’ll admit that I originally thought this was his plan, but I was wrong. He had the chance to sell and walk away, but he didn’t.
I think he sincerely likes the idea of harnessing his wealth to make a huge bet on a prominent service like Twitter. I bet he found the idea of personally owning Twitter irresistible. He relishes making fast, bold, aggressive decisions and cleaning up the mess later. He has bought into the moonshot mindset – the fail fast mindset.
This isn’t an endorsement of his actions. The most generous interpretation of his management of Twitter is that he vastly, vastly overpaid for it.
Twitter’s entire tax department is gone? I wonder if I should tell my boss I’m thinking of joining them to lead their tax department.
Remember that no matter how attractive the opportunity may seem, you’d be working for Elno!
The scroll goes on to call him a “dictator’s asskisser, lawless oligarch, insecure colonizer, cruel hoarder,” and my favorite, “space Karen.”
This whole delicious trainwreck is like an Ayn Rand novel rewritten by Philip K. Dick. Any moment now Elon is going to drop some acid and fall through a portal into a new alternate reality into a post-apocalyptic world where billionaires are hunted for sport by eight foot tall women riding zebra-striped hippopotamuses and worship a giant orbital platform housing one node of a panpsychic consciousness known as “Billy Wayfarer”.
If you hitched your professional wagon to Twitter then you bet on a bad pony. Twitter has been a raging dumpster fire long before Musk got it into his head that he should start fucking around with it for yucks, and as far as I can tell it is pretty much good for spreading lies, innuendo, stupid memes, and filling up the pages of CNN.com stories where they post the tweet and then repeat it exactly word for word to take up space so it doesn’t look like their ‘news’ site is just a dashboard of scammy ads. The sooner Twitter is roasted the better, although I dread what will follow that may be even worse. The singular thing I will miss is the meme page to check every time Matlab crashes, and really that just illustrates why you should stop using Matlab and build a better toolkit of data analysis and visualization tools.
Stranger
Elon’s biggest talent has always been lying and getting away with crimes.
In addition to being a decent news aggregator it is particularly useful for minute by minute breaking news, like for example during the election or more seriously during some fast-moving recent events like some of the California wildfires. One could certainly argue that its drawbacks outweighs its utility, but it certainly isn’t entirely negative.
Let ‘em tweet cake.
Yeah, the #TwitterFire community was a lifeline as the Thomas Fire approached and we had to evacuate.
“Information” is not necessarily news, particularly when it is disinformation, or meaningless nonsense pushed to the top of the pool like whipped cream on a Mocha Frappuccino. Twitter has been shown to be more effective as a means for transmitting violent rhetoric, conspiranoia, and general shit-stirring than it has for any truthful purpose. And while it is certainly not the only social media platform to do so, the ‘short form’ format with videos or meme images makes it literally neurologically addictive, like a slot machine that you keep updated to get another hit of recreational outrage. It is impossible to moderate or effectively fact-check because of the speed of ‘retweets’, which makes it perfect for people like Elon Musk who don’t truck with anyone correcting him with truth.
Stranger
Agree. It’s not the first time I’ve said this, but I would argue that, without Twitter, Derek Chauvin doesn’t get arrested for murdering George Floyd, let alone charged and convicted.
When Twitter goes dark in a few days or weeks, we’ll be without any realistic channel for attracting media coverage to video-captured incidents of police misconduct, and the corporate news will breathe a sigh of relief that they won’t be forced to talk about things they’d rather ignore because they’re complicated and hard and controversial.
This is not a defense of Twitter. In the balance sheet of bullshit to actual value, I think it’s tipped far to the bullshit side. But the other side is not a vacuum.
I don’t buy that it being short form is the issue. It just feels like any other comment section. No, the addictive nature comes from its “For You” feed which pops up by default (and you can’t even switch out of if you’re not on mobile). It deliberately finds what stuff you engage with most.
My solution was to force it not to do that with a script. It now directs me to the Entertainment category, rather than telling me about every conservative who says something stupid.
Though it does often have Elmo in the list, meaning I see some of the drama that gets mentioned in this thread. But that’s pretty easy not to engage with.
Damnit, I just use it to keep abreast of musical events in my area. Not for anything political.