Elon Musk now owns 9.2% of twitter...update.. will soon be the sole owner as Board of Directors accepts his purchase offer

[Zorba]

If the platform becomes an unusable cesspool most will simply stop using it. This has been the fate of the numerous right wing attempts to duplicate it.

I got rid of Facebook and Insta. Twitter can easily meet the same fate and is ultimately more easily replaced if a certain thin skinned billionaire decides to piss away his rather large investment.

The problem is Twitter already has a lot of interia. I don't think it'll just quickly die on the vine. I mean Facebook is a cesspool and Insta has driven a massive increase in teen suicide, yet neither are hurting for customers.

 

[Heartbreaker]

I asked you a pretty simple question - was I more popular in the election I got 52% of the vote in or the one I got 2% of the vote in? You seem to be claiming the latter and I just want to make sure I understand your position because that sounds crazy to me.

Your confusion seems to be based on the fact that Trump's divisiveness made turnout super high, but higher turnout does not equal increased popularity. This is actually the same mistake Trump made - he bet that by mobilizing his base he would win but he didn't understand that actions you take to mobilize your base also mobilize the other guy's.

Popular is a word with multiple meanings. You are narrowing it, to only include an election win.

He got 10 million (17%) more votes than last time. That doesn't indicate Twitter drove people away from him.

Even if he actually did get less votes, it would have been hard to to credit Twitter with the loss, as his performance in office was abysmal.

There is ZERO evidence being on twitter cost him anything.

Allowing GQP misinformation free reign on Twitter is going to be a net harm to the Democrats, not the GQP.

 

[Zorba]

He got even more votes on his attempt at re-election. Probably only massive bungling of COVID that cost him a second term, not the crazy tweets on Twitter.

It's NOT just Trump, it opens the door, for concerted GQP misinformation campaigns on Twitter.

Trump may or may not run, but having Twitter as another misinformation tool only benefits the GQP.

Twitter didn't just do high profile bans, there were 70000 QANON accounts banned and misinformation dropped by 73%:

Election misinformation dropped 73 percent following Trump’s suspension from Twitter: research

Misinformation surrounding the topic of election fraud dropped by 73 percent after President Trump and several others were suspended from mainstream social media accounts, according to researc…

thehill.com

Probably, but what is he likely to block? I doubt it will be GQP misinformation campaigns. He will call that a competition of ideas on the public square.

I'm sure he'll stop banning bots too.

 

[K1052]

The problem is Twitter already has a lot of interia. I don't think it'll just quickly die on the vine. I mean Facebook is a cesspool and Insta has driven a massive increase in teen suicide, yet neither are hurting for customers.

A lot depends on exactly what kind of changes are made I think and if competition emerges.

 

[Zorba]

Hard to believe that he could only obtain limited bank financing off Twitter due to not really having a plan. Wait no its not.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1518568196512563201

But all the cult members will cheer this, even though it puts their Tesla investments at higher risk and distracts Musk from running Tesla.

 

[JWade]

I cant believe all the racist people who are against an African-American buying twitter! He is indeed from Africa, he was born in South Africa as was his father, grand father, etc. Being born in the USA makes you American regardless of skin color, he is indeed African-American, you all a bunch of racists!

edit: it is sarcasm before anyone flames me, but he is African-American by the way

 

[K1052]

But all the cult members will cheer this, even though it puts their Tesla investments at higher risk and distracts Musk from running Tesla.

Maybe he'll can everybody and move it to Austin. So easy to hire decent software engineers right now lol.

 

[fskimospy]

Popular is a word with multiple meanings. You are narrowing it, to only include an election win.

He got 10 million (17%) more votes than last time. That doesn't indicate Twitter drove people away from him.

I'm not narrowing it at all - I think you are confusing intensity of feeling with popularity. Trump is someone people feel strongly about, especially in 2020 after four years of his presidency. That drives turnout, but just because the people who liked him before now REALLY like him and the people that hated him before REALLY hate him doesn't mean he became more popular. Again, he lost by the widest margin of any incumbent since Herbert Hoover. That is not a sign to me that he became more popular.

I think his twitter ramblings definitely served to intensify dislike of Trump on the left and meaningfully contributed to their sky high turnout and his subsequent defeat.

Even if he actually did get less votes, it would have been hard to to credit Twitter with the loss, as his performance in office was abysmal.

There is ZERO evidence being on twitter cost him anything.

Allowing GQP misinformation free reign on Twitter is going to be a net harm to the Democrats, not the GQP.

1) Trump is more popular now than he was when he was on Twitter.
2) Polling frequently showed the public strongly disliked his antics on Twitter.

To me that is evidence his being on Twitter made him less popular.

 

[Heartbreaker]

The problem is Twitter already has a lot of interia. I don't think it'll just quickly die on the vine. I mean Facebook is a cesspool and Insta has driven a massive increase in teen suicide, yet neither are hurting for customers.

That's an understatement.

Massive inertia. Users stay for the Celebrities that they follow. Celebrities stay because they have massive follower counts. It's a self reinforcing system that is extremely difficult to break through.

That's why claims that the Right Wing platforms failing to compete has anything to do with their policies are specious reasoning.

You could start a perfect Twitter Clone, better or equal to twitter in every way, and it would still fail utterly, because all the chickens and eggs (Celebrities and followers) are already locked into twitter.

Musk opening the floodgates won't kill twitter, in fact he will probably gain from it, as more arguments will increase engagements/retweets.

 

[Brovane]

I think the answer is yes and the vast majority of states agree with me. To a limited extent California does not though, yes.

Regardless that case has no application here because what you want is for the government to force Twitter to speak, not for it to permit others to speak and that's obviously a huge constitutional violation that no court would ever permit.

Essentially what you're arguing is that Ralph's should have to broadcast their solicitation using its PA system.

I would disagree that the government has seized property by forcing a "shopping center" to allow "free speech" in open gathering communal areas.

I would argue that Twitter has become a digital "Town Square".

However I can understand we disagree on that.
It looks like based on what I am seeing on the WSJ that this deal might go through. We will see if Musk is overall a negative for Twitter.

 

[fskimospy]

That's an understatement.

Massive inertia. Users stay for the Celebrities that they follow. Celebrities stay because they have massive follower counts. It's a self reinforcing system that is extremely difficult to break through.

That's why claims that the Right Wing platforms failing to compete has anything to do with their policies are specious reasoning.

You could start a perfect Twitter Clone, better or equal to twitter in every way, and it would still fail utterly, because all the chickens and eggs (Celebrities and followers) are already locked into twitter.

Musk opening the floodgates won't kill twitter, in fact he will probably gain from it, as more arguments will increase engagements/retweets.

Again, have you considered the idea that another reason is that Twitter's user base is content with its moderation policies?

 

[Heartbreaker]

To me that is evidence his being on Twitter made him less popular.

When he was on Twitter, he was also president and actively destroying the country/world. So you really can't separate the Twitter effect.

Personally, I was much more against his country/world destroying than his tweeting.

 

[K1052]

That's an understatement.

Massive inertia. Users stay for the Celebrities that they follow. Celebrities stay because they have massive follower counts. It's a self reinforcing system that is extremely difficult to break through.

That's why claims that the Right Wing platforms failing to compete has anything to do with their policies are specious reasoning.

You could start a perfect Twitter Clone, better or equal to twitter in every way, and it would still fail utterly, because all the chickens and eggs (Celebrities and followers) are already locked into twitter.

Musk opening the floodgates won't kill twitter, in fact he will probably gain from it, as more arguments will increase engagements/retweets.

New platforms can't successfully emerge because of inertia. This is simply an obvious unbreakable universal rule.

Also what is this TikTok thing I keep hearing about?

 

[fskimospy]

I would disagree that the government has seized property by forcing a "shopping center" to allow "free speech" in open gathering communal areas.

I would argue that Twitter has become a digital "Town Square".

However I can understand we disagree on that.
It looks like based on what I am seeing on the WSJ that this deal might go through. We will see if Musk is overall a negative for Twitter.

Again, it does not matter if Twitter is considered a digital town square.

You are saying the government can and should FORCE TWITTER TO SPEAK. That is unconstitutional, period.

 

[fskimospy]

New platforms can't successfully emerge because of inertia. This is simply an obvious unbreakable universal rule.

Also what is this TikTok thing I keep hearing about?

I just posted this question on MySpace to get the pulse of America on it. I'll let you know what I hear back.

 

[Brovane]

Again, it does not matter if Twitter is considered a digital town square.

You are saying the government can and should FORCE TWITTER TO SPEAK. That is unconstitutional, period.

I would say it matters a lot that Twitter is considering a digital town square, period.

 

[fskimospy]

I would say it matters a lot that Twitter is considering a digital town square, period.

Not for this purpose it doesn't. You are attempting to have the government force Twitter to speak in ways it doesn't want to.

Government.
Compelled.
Speech.
Is.
Unconstitutional.

 

[Zorba]

New platforms can't successfully emerge because of inertia. This is simply an obvious unbreakable universal rule.

Also what is this TikTok thing I keep hearing about?

All of the break throughs I know of brought something new to the marketplace. They weren't clones. Probably the closest was FB taking over from MySpace, but it was substantially better.

I'm not aware of any major social media company failing from lack of moderation. Facebook has literally allowed people to organize genocide and yet people still go.

 

[Heartbreaker]

New platforms can't successfully emerge because of inertia. This is simply an obvious unbreakable universal rule.

Also what is this TikTok thing I keep hearing about?

Last time I checked TikTok wasn't a Twitter competitor. When a network has critical mass for it's service, they have extremely strong lock in. That doesn't prevent a different type of service from gaining users because they aren't competing for the same type of service, where the first has critical mass.

Again, have you considered the idea that another reason is that Twitter's user base is content with its moderation policies?

Yes, and I rejected it.

The network effect of critical mass drives social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. Once they have the most users, it becomes extremely self reinforcing. Everyone is there for everyone else, not because they like the moderation policies. On social media people are there for the other users, first and foremost.

Cloning Twitters moderation policy isn't going allow you steal twitters user base, because you don't have Twitters users, which is why they are there.

Social Media sites are really Social Network sites and the network effect reigns supreme.

 

[MrSquished]

When he was on Twitter, he was also president and actively destroying the country/world. So you really can't separate the Twitter effect.

Personally, I was much more against his country/world destroying than his tweeting.

How do you think leaders destroy things? With words. Language is power, especially in the hands of the powerful. So being concerned about Trump's negative side would mean by default you have to be concerned about his tweeting

 

[K1052]

All of the break throughs I know of brought something new to the marketplace. They weren't clones. Probably the closest was FB taking over from MySpace, but it was substantially better.

I'm not aware of any major social media company failing from lack of moderation. Facebook has literally allowed people to organize genocide and yet people still go.

An improved Twitter variant doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility.

I'm not sure there is a precedent for a social media company abruptly withdrawing most moderation. FB's slide took years.

 

[K1052]

Last time I checked TikTok wasn't a Twitter competitor. When a network has critical mass for it's service, they have extremely strong lock in. That doesn't prevent a different type of service from gaining users because they aren't competing for the same type of service, where the first has critical mass.

Well I guess Twitter doesn't agree having launched products aimed at the TikTok user base.

FB isn't in the TikTok competition business either *nosily shoves Reels into drawer*.

The competition is just for attention and everybody is in the game.

 

[fskimospy]

Last time I checked TikTok wasn't a Twitter competitor. When a network has critical mass for it's service, they have extremely strong lock in. That doesn't prevent a different type of service from gaining users because they aren't competing for the same type of service, where the first has critical mass.

Yes, and I rejected it.

You rejected it based on what?

The network effect of critical mass drives social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. Once they have the most users, it becomes extremely self reinforcing. Everyone is there for everyone else, not because they like the moderation policies. On social media people are there for the other users, first and foremost.

Cloning Twitters moderation policy isn't going allow you steal twitters user base, because you don't have Twitters users, which is why they are there.

Social Media sites are really Social Network sites and the network effect reigns supreme.

MySpace says hi.

 

[Heartbreaker]

You rejected it based on what?

The rest of my post.

 

[fskimospy]

The rest of my post.

Yeah but that wasn't evidence, you just declared some things to be true based on nothing.