Twitter reportedly set to accept Musk's offer [Twitter accepts deal]

[Taf the Ghost]

14 minutes ago, poochyena said:

When has a large internet company ever gone from "coasting" to "maximize profits" ever resulted in the prolonged survival of the company? It almost always results in more ads and more paywalls that drive people away.

Musk wants at least one of these two things with the purchase: Short term gains and/or power. Thinking he made this purchase simply as a long term investment with the company's integrity in mind is just foolish.

Musk (and his investment group) have several  front-facing reasons for the Twitter purchase. The obviously primary one is that Twitter is a strategic resource to Musk's entire empire, and thus a strategic move to secure the company & its resource to him. It's basically like a feudal lord capturing a border town. (And that's really how we should look at this.)  But this is still a Business Man buying a Business. And he would expect the company to not be a blackhole of money. It's not primarily about maximizing profitability, but there will be an emphasis on generating more revenue. Considering Twitter has the lowest RoI from ad spending on any of the major platforms (this is really why their revenue is so low compared to their traffic/user engagement levels), I would fully expect Twitter to now focus on delivering Ads in a way people might actually want to interact with.

 

The secondary benefits do start to pile up for Musk, however. Like Bezos buying the WaPo, Musk now has structural information power, along with an even bigger platform for his own marketing. It transitions his personal influence into another stratosphere, even beyond being one of the richest people alive. Then, Twitter can be used to acquire other Internet Companies and managed under that banner. But Twitter as a company will still be expected to remain a going concern. It'll be really interesting to see who gets put into what positions at Twitter.

 

Now, Elon just needs to convince the NFL to force Dan Snyder to sell him the Football team. That would be even more goodwill for about 1/10th the price.

 

On what I find very funny historical point, while CEO of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer offered to buy Yahoo! for $44.6 Billion USD. In 2008. Yahoo split and was sold off for less than 5 billion a decade later. Will be interesting to see how Twitter fares.

[Quackers101]

I mean, it will be sad to see platform competition die, which it might.

like others say, the huge amount of money, and where the value will be after that.

if they will add new ways to make money (if they own everything), also due to how this can actually impact politics around the world? (maybe?)

[Lurick]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

 

How long before unions and other dissenters of Musk's other companies are kicked off and people start screaming "IT'S HIS PLATFORM HE CAN DO WHAT HE WANTS!!!" when people ask about it. I give it about 6 to 12 months tops.

[wanderingfool2]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

Well I mean in fairness both of those have more of a backstory to them.

 

The driver-less tech review AI Addict literally posted a crash video and did an analysis where he mentions he's a Tesla employee who works with FSD.  In the analysis video he mentions about how he was driving correctly, despite the fact that it took 0.5 seconds from his reaction time to grab the wheel.  I don't care what people think about NDA's and all that kind of stuff...claiming you come from a place of authority on a personal youtube channel while showing you misusing the product against the safety guidelines and claiming that you were driving safely is fireable grounds.

 

The cancelling the order, while it's bad...it really seems as though there was more than what was mentioned...given the guy literally called Elon Musk and had a phone conversation with him.  So I think there was more stuff that went down, or that there was more slagging that occurred behind the scenes to the point they no longer wished to has him as a customer.

[wanderingfool2]

30 minutes ago, Quackers101 said:

I mean, it will be sad to see platform competition die, which it might.

like others say, the huge amount of money, and where the value will be after that.

if they will add new ways to make money (if they own everything), also due to how this can actually impact politics around the world? (maybe?)

My assumption is that they will have the free accounts like what everyone currently have.

 

Then there will be an introduction of more featured paid accounts (like they do have some now, but I mean more indepth features).  Such as being able to target your timeline to show more catered content (so that way there can still be the haters, but you are able to keep your community away from that).  Just a guess though.  Doing that could generate a decent share of money (and removing the annoying ads might drive more new users).

[Arika]

This can only be good for twitter. can't get worse than the cesspool it already is.

[TetraSky]

4 hours ago, Eaglerino said:

(as should be required in a nation with free speech as a fundamental human right)

Except it's not...
This is something a lot of Americans misunderstand about their right to Free speech given to them by the 1st amendment.
Free speech is only something that protects you from the government. This doesn't extent to private companies or other individuals, nor protects you from the consequences of you exercising that "free speech" when it comes to private companies (if you call someone the n word and get beat up, you can't claim they infringed your right to free speech).
The "fundamental human right" part isn't a law and is more of a guideline, countries don't have to care about that and it still doesn't protect from consequences. 

 

Tweeting on twitter is like setting up a soap box in the middle of a Target and using a megaphone to yell out whatever bad opinion you have.
If you get kicked out because they didn't like your opinion, you can't claim they are infringing your rights to free speech, because they are a private company kicking you off their property. They are allowed to do that. Just like how a bakery was allowed to refuse to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. They are a private company, they are allowed to not do business with whomever they want no matter how bigoted they are. If you get kicked off Twitter, it's them decided they don't want your business.

Plus, free speech doesn't completely protects you from the gov either, because some things are not allowed regardless and you can have quite the grave consequences for them (mainly get sued or go to jail if it's a death threat and the likes)
https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/about/faq/which-types-of-speech-are-not-protected-by-the-first-amendment/

https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/about/faq/category/freedom-of-speech/

 

That site has more info on this, like this 

 

 

It's a bit more complicated than that, but basically Twitter never once infringed the "free speech" of anyone, because they aren't a government entity. They can kick you out of their store (website) if they want and for whatever reason they want. As such, everyone complaining about freedom of speech on twitter and complain about censorship... Well they have no idea what the 1st Amendment or freedom of speed, really is.

[Paul Thexton]

As ever, the satire websites do a great job articulating what I think of things

 

https://newsthump.com/2022/04/25/madman-to-buy-toilet-wall-for-44bn/

[Error 52]

25 minutes ago, Caroline said:

Everything's politics in social media, blue vs red, black vs white, round vs square... I don't like that, I don't actively go on social media to have an internet fight with a hundred users saying A is better than B, exactly what happens in Twitter, I've never signed up for it because tbh I wasn't interested, the only social media I had was a MySpace account and never posted anything in it, I just... didn't liked it, and I didn't knew anything at all about privacy, netsec, infosec and all the secs you want. Whenever I went to the internet café I browsed information for school, some sites about electronics and repairs, lurked forums and sent some e-mails to family members living in different countries, other kids only went there to use facebook, play games and the boys mostly for you know what... 

 

Mastodon instances are... to put it in simple words, circlejerks. Very specific communities that you can only be part of if you 100% believe what everyone else is saying there, and depending on where you land the community could be entirely dead or have 1-2 posts a day. The idea behind the fediverse is really cool and everything but it simply doesn't work if you want a "twitter alternative" or a "facebook alternative". And the same happens with sites like Odysee or Gettr.

 

And if you want to create your own instance there's a set of very restrictive rules to follow that are basically a copy-paste of those from mainstream social networks, also... daily backups? come on.

The way I see it there isn't a place where you can simply chill and stay in contact with friends and family and also find new people to chat and interact with without the Big Bro watching, there's discord servers sure but... your grandma wouldn't use discord, same with Signal or encrypted chat servers.

Everything I've seen and heard from Mastodon really does make it feel like it's this hybrid of old school forums/IRC and modern social media just brings out the worst of both worlds. All the toxicity, cut-throat discourse, and general brain worms of Twitter with the elitism and moderator drama of forums! What could go wrong?

[Mark Kaine]

4 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Guess it should still be noted, it will still likely have to come to a shareholder vote.  So even if it's approved the purchase could still fail.

i read most shareholders are banks. Banks like money. This is a nobrainer for them. 

 

24 minutes ago, Error 52 said:

Everything I've seen and heard from Mastodon really does make it feel like it's this hybrid of old school forums/IRC and modern social media just brings out the worst of both worlds. All the toxicity, cut-throat discourse, and general brain worms of Twitter with the elitism and moderator drama of forums! What could go wrong?

I dont get that feeling its like irc at all , that was some really cool shit (not that i used it, but i used old chatroom style stuff so i kinda know how that probably went) mastodon,  is not only an incredible stupid name its also one of the worst concepts ever.

 

i agree on the drama thing, thats what its all about apparently,  basically like twitter just worse in every way lol.

 

i get what your saying,  i guess i just disagree on the "oldschool" stuff... which was very open generally,  this seems like the complete opposite (really the same as twitter will be soon just purple)

[Mark Kaine]

3 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

On the strategic side of things, Twitter's problem is that it's really two different platforms in one: niche microblogging and mass PR.

Also better and wayyy faster news site than any actual news site. Inside stuff that you simply dont get anywhere else and even governments use as "official source" because its simply the most accurate. Very, very good "parody accounts" found nowhere else... 

and also yes p0rn (probably the biggest part)

 

But otherwise,  yeah, you really fully understood what twitter is, just *two* different platforms. 

 

 

3 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

Musk (and his investment group) have several  front-facing reasons for the Twitter purchase. The obviously primary one is that Twitter is a strategic resource to Musk's entire empire, and thus a strategic move to secure the company & its resource to him. It's basically like a feudal lord capturing a border town. (And that's really how we should look at this.)  But this is still a Business Man buying a Business. And he would expect the company to not be a blackhole of money. It's not primarily about maximizing profitability, but there will be an emphasis on generating more revenue. Considering Twitter has the lowest RoI from ad spending on any of the major platforms (this is really why their revenue is so low compared to their traffic/user engagement levels), I would fully expect Twitter to now focus on delivering Ads in a way people might actually want to interact with.

 

The secondary benefits do start to pile up for Musk, however. Like Bezos buying the WaPo, Musk now has structural information power, along with an even bigger platform for his own marketing. It transitions his personal influence into another stratosphere, even beyond being one of the richest people alive. Then, Twitter can be used to acquire other Internet Companies and managed under that banner. But Twitter as a company will still be expected to remain a going concern. It'll be really interesting to see who gets put into what positions at Twitter.

This is actually a sensible analysis... i just think it wont work out like that due to the whole "free speech" thing... but i have to agree, in a weird way its going to be interesting to see how it will tank like yahoo, myspace, etc (hopefully) 

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

6 minutes ago, GhostRoadieBL said:

A person tweeting is authoring a tweet, it's Twitter sending that tweet to the rest of the platform users which constitutes the company as being the publisher since they package it, find an audience for it and distribute it, 

yeah, but somehow thats not how it works for "social media" and why its the mess that it currently is. And its unlikely to change?  

 

 

2 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Well I mean in fairness both of those have more of a backstory to them.

spam bots = "people i dont like"

 

if he was after actual bots, half his followers would be gone = )

[Salv8 (sam)]

this'll go well, everyone grab some popcorn since its gonna be more of a shitshow then the 2017 tumblr exodus.

[Error 52]

22 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

i read most shareholders are banks. Banks like money. This is a nobrainer for them. 

 

I dont get that feeling its like irc at all , that was some really cool shit (not that i used it, but i used old chatroom style stuff so i kinda know how that probably went) mastodon,  is not only an incredible stupid name its also one of the worst concepts ever.

 

i agree on the drama thing, thats what its all about apparently,  basically like twitter just worse in every way lol.

 

i get what your saying,  i guess i just disagree on the "oldschool" stuff... which was very open generally,  this seems like the complete opposite (really the same as twitter will be soon just purple)

Mastodon isn't necessarily too much like IRC in the end user experience, but it does have that same "you can spin up your own independent server" concept to it. And much like Mastodon, that shit had a real tendancy to erupt into drama out of nowhere.

[Mark Kaine]

1 minute ago, Error 52 said:

Mastodon isn't necessarily too much like IRC in the end user experience, but it does have that same "you can spin up your own independent server" concept to it. And much like Mastodon, that shit had a real tendancy to erupt into drama out of nowhere.

Ah, ok, well thats kinda like discord...

 

i think discord would be really good, but its missing something... like posterity,  like a forum part... there is no "history" (actually there is one but its useless) 

 

I know its by design,  but if it had that... (a timeline) and better visibility,  it could be a real alternative,  to any "social media". Not gonna happen,  but as a concept it's what should happen.

[Mark Kaine]

4 minutes ago, Caroline said:

Mastodon't

lol

 

4 minutes ago, Caroline said:

You can spin up your own server as long as you follow their guidelines in order to be part of the network, otherwise it's all up to you to create your very own social media platform outside that environment.

but then i can just use discord... 

 

as i said, its not the same thing, but similar enough in a way (and as far i can tell they dont moderate you, on your own server)

[idkwhat]

5 hours ago, Sauron said:

Free speech in the US applies to public forums and other situations where your ability to speak depends on the US government. Even then there are limits and the US government is not required to signal boost your speech, only not to prevent it.

This is such a trite argument. People in the U.S. advocating for "free speech rights" on social media platforms are largely aware that they do not have a constitutional right to free speech on private social media platforms. Certainly, some people don't know this, but when arguing for or against a position it is necessary to engage both the bad and good arguments, not just pick the low hanging fruit and claim victory. Privacy rights advocates are justifiably disturbed by the latest developments with Anomaly Six's tracking software, and while Anomaly Six is not bound by the right to privacy established in the U.S. Constitution, you can still believe that they *should* have to honor the right to privacy more than they do. So it is with free speech.

 

Sigh indeed. 

[Arika]

1 minute ago, Mark Kaine said:

as i said, its not the same thing, but similar enough in a way (and as far i can tell they dont moderate you, on your own server)

i wouldn't be so sure.

Discord is much more scummy than you might think.

 

[Mark Kaine]

8 minutes ago, Arika S said:

wouldn't be so sure.

tbf i havent really used it since a while, but 2 years ago or so it was really cool imo. i was really more talking about the concept than the actual  practice (since i don't know much about that)

[Arika]

13 minutes ago, poochyena said:

lots of options

????

there's not actually anything in there about who your tweets get pushed to.

 

the ONLY limitation you can set is to only allow people who follow you to see it, that's hardly "lots of options"

unless you also mean you can mark your tweets as sensitive? but that's not really what you were referring to.

[poochyena]

8 minutes ago, Arika S said:

there's not actually anything in there about who your tweets get pushed to.

8 minutes ago, Arika S said:

the ONLY limitation you can set is to only allow people who follow you to see it

You seem to answer your own question here

[Arika]

Just now, poochyena said:

You seem to answer your own question here

but the options are "everyone" or 'the people who follow me".

that's got nothing to do with the algorithm. your screenshot was in response to:

Quote

I never get a pop-up options pane which asks what audience I want the algorithm to push my tweets to, it always just does everything in the background and I don't get to decide who specifically gets to view it or not.

 

whereas your reply makes it out that you do have control over who gets to see the tweet, and while that is correct, it's not correct in the spirit of the original statement. You can't tell the algorithm. to do anything.

[Mark Kaine]

Nah, as i said, its clear "social media" are publishers (you could make a case about the specific content but not really) its just they convinced / bribed lawmakers into not being publishers because no way they could handle it while still being profitable. 

 

OT: I still think this is a pump and dump lol... on the other hand dude is really obsessed with twitter... i can understand it, rich, bored, obsessed isnt too far out from that starting point. (i dont think he actually handles his businesses outside PR, can clearly see this with spacex**, he doesn't know much about the tech, but has engineers that do... Of course, twitter seems different at first, but there's still technical stuff, plus "free speech" isnt really* a thing in Europe and probably elsewhere so i wonder how thats going to work)

 

*it is but only as long it doesn't actually harm anyone

 

**i would say the same about tesla, but thats just a terrible concept with no long term value, and i dont mean EVs, I mean tesla specifically... of course the big car manufacturers are to blame, they're still making gasoline cars mostly, which makes no sense 

[WolframaticAlpha]

8 hours ago, SolarNova said:

Should Musk push forward with the concept of a 'town square' approach, one would hope he would officially treat Twitter as a platform by only moderating in line with the actual Law (like a town square), and not moral ,social, religious, or political opinions/beliefs.

What is stopping twitter from becoming another 4chan? And within the laws of which country? Setting which tweets can go to which country based on their content (accurately) would be enormously difficult and resource intensive and would still have mistakes. I mean twitter was bad, but I don't see how musk acquiring it and moving forward with his 'free speech absolutism' would make it better?

[Arika]

1 minute ago, poochyena said:

That has everything to do with the algorithm.

no it doesn't, and you know it. excluding a tweet from the algorithm and only allowing your followers to see it is not "telling the algorithm what to do" There is no computation to decide which groups of people get to see your tweet when you restrict it to only your followers, it's either a 1 or a 0.