Twitter

[elisi]

For anyone worried about Elon Musk buying Twitter, a couple of things to put it in perspective:

Article in The Verge: Welcome to hell, Elon
You break it, you buy it.

~

Thread saying a lot of the same things:

Now that block bot has had time to do its thing, here's a dispassionate look at the Twitter deal.

The purchase price was north of $44b. That amount was raised w/a combination of $12.5b in financing, $21b in equity, & the remainder from a loan secured against his Tesla stock.

— Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ (@padresj) October 29, 2022

In short, you don't need to flee just yet. Dear Mr Musk might just have bought himself Pandora's box...

Comments

[sea_thoughts]

Everyone is determined to make Twitter as bad as Tumblr for profit-making. *lol*

[promethia_tenk]

I don't credit Musk for much anymore, but I don't believe he bought Twitter to make a profit.

Which is good because nobody's ever figured out how to do that.

That said, he definitely needs it to be at least solvent, which is gonna be mighty difficult, as the article points out.

[sea_thoughts]

he definitely needs it to be at least solvent, which is gonna be mighty difficult, as the article points out.

Indeed. *rubs hands*

[elisi]

I've got my popcorn ready...

[promethia_tenk]

Somehow I am surprised that you're not planning to flee, despite having witnessed first hand your commitment to LJ. I've never been on Twitter, but would certainly be leaving now. Musk may have bought himself Pandora's Box, but that sure doesn't sound like a nice place to hang.

That said, The Verge's Elon Musk coverage has been one of my most reliable sources of serotonin for the last year. Somehow reminds me of the good old days of chaos when their podcast was literally the staff getting drunk every Friday and dunking on the tech news together.

[elisi]

Somehow I am surprised that you're not planning to flee, despite having witnessed first hand your commitment to LJ. I've never been on Twitter, but would certainly be leaving now.
Hm, it's... sort of the opposite? I have zero investment/commitment to Twitter. I have an account simply because otherwise the platform is unusable, and to follow people/issues I am interested in. I could delete it tomorrow and not particularly care, it'd just make finding stuff more difficult. ETA: I say that. I follow a ton of Trans people and I'd need to find a way to make sure they were okay.

That said, The Verge's Elon Musk coverage has been one of my most reliable sources of serotonin for the last year. Somehow reminds me of the good old days of chaos when their podcast was literally the staff getting drunk every Friday and dunking on the tech news together.
That sounds great, they should bring that back!

[promethia_tenk]

Hm, it's... sort of the opposite? I have zero investment/commitment to Twitter.
Fair. I guess I would just not want the association with Musk. He's being punished here; I will happily help it along by abandoning ship (again, hypothetically, feeling good about never getting involved with it to begin with.)

Though I love the irony of the perfect punishment for Elon trying to buy Twitter was to force him to buy Twitter.

I say that. I follow a ton of Trans people and I'd need to find a way to make sure they were okay.
Of course.

That sounds great, they should bring that back!
Alas, they are respectable now. Which they absolutely deserve; their coverage is really good. But I do miss the drunken meme-ing. At least we'll always have This Week in Elon for that chaos muppet energy. Back when it really looked like this whole mess was going to trial, they were just riffing on jokes about the Delaware Court of Chancery (all US companies are incorporated in Delaware because of the state's business laws), and their reporter who always covers Musk was like 'heck yeah, I'm going to Delaware and I am gonna Tweet the heck out of this trial; it's gonna be amazing.' Bit disappointed that isn't going to happen now.

[elisi]

Fair. I guess I would just not want the association with Musk. He's being punished here; I will happily help it along by abandoning ship (again, hypothetically, feeling good about never getting involved with it to begin with.)
Rather delightfully, a lot of people seem to have decided to simply stay and make everything difficult for him.

Though I love the irony of the perfect punishment for Elon trying to buy Twitter was to force him to buy Twitter.
Living in Interesting Times sometimes has its upsides.

Bit disappointed that isn't going to happen now.
You was robbed.

[owlboy]

it was nasty before musk bought it. pretty much nothing has changed so far.

[elisi]

This. Everyone knows Twitter is a cesspit.

Plus this:

Over the last 48 hours, we’ve seen a small number of accounts post a ton of Tweets that include slurs and other derogatory terms. To give you a sense of scale: More than 50,000 Tweets repeatedly using a particular slur came from just 300 accounts.

— Yoel Roth (@yoyoel) October 30, 2022

[promethia_tenk]

True enough, good riddance.

It was a particularly apocalyptic-feeling weekend in the US: news of the Twitter deal basically hit simultaneously with new of the attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband (the speaker of the house--some loony broke into her home while she wasn't there out to kill her and took a hammer to her husband instead--not sure how much that penetrated non-US media). Anyway, I just looked at the headlines and went 'well, that about wraps it up for Democracy.'

[owlboy]

yeah that was all over twitter bc muskrat was spreading conspiracy theories about it. i'm too tired to care a whole lot at this point :/

[promethia_tenk]

See, every time I find myself feeling that way, something else manages to break through and shock me. Please enjoy the view from the other side of the world.

ETA: then of course the crowd thing happened in Seoul, but at least that wasn't a consequence of active malevolence.

[elisi]

On the good news front, Brazil might have saved the planet.

[promethia_tenk]

Well that's encouraging.

I seem to have missed it, though. What happened?

[elisi]

They had an election and they didn't re-elect Bolsonaro:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-63451470

[promethia_tenk]

Ah, okay. Yes, I saw that. Or rather I saw the Bolsonaro seems poised to refuse to accept the results. But yes, that is very nice.

[elisi]

Or rather I saw the Bolsonaro seems poised to refuse to accept the results.
Of course he is. Let's hope they don't have a January 6th...

[kazzy_cee]

I must admit I stopped following Twitter a couple of years ago but watching all this from the sidelines is very entertaining!

*munches popcorn*

[elisi]

I'm a professional lurker on Twitter, so I have a seat right at front. Let's see what happens! Hopefully it'll just end up costing Elon Musk money, and not destroy democracy...