The ongoing Elon Twitter saga: "insert demographic" melts down

[Sankari]

Meanwhile, let's see how Musk is coming along with his plans to make Twitter profitable.

Elon Musk is asking Twitter investors to dig deeper into their pockets, as he seeks to make the social media company financially viable.

Driving the news: Musk, via his family office, this week privately offered to sell additional equity at the same $44 billion valuation that he's essentially admitted was an overpay.

• The news was first reported by Semafor and confirmed to Axios by an investor who received the letter.
• Musk has not said how much new capital he's seeking to raise, nor provided investors with financial updates on the company.
• His original takeover was partially funded by outside investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Fidelity, and Oracle founder Larry Ellison. Several large Twitter investors also rolled over their equity stakes, including company co-founder Jack Dorsey and Saudi Arabia's Kingdom Holding Company.
• Twitter no longer has a communications team or other spokespeople for Axios to contact for comment.

Flashback: Earlier this week, Musk sold around $3.58 billion of Tesla stock, despite having repeatedly pledged earlier this year not to do so.

• Musk hasn't said why he sold the shares, or if it was to help refinance some of the high-interest loans that Twitter carries because of Musk's buyout.

Oh.

 

[Begbie]

So much for Absolute Free Speech huh?

So I guess only when it suits him?

So not Absolute then?

Who would have thought that?! Lol

When did musk say he wanted absolute free speech?

Not searched but it was definitely free speech inside the rules of twitter?

I. E not being banned for having an opinion but banned for threat to life etc. Basically the same rules as real life?

https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519036983137509376?lang=en

Funny how twitter before was banning for this same reason, but Elon does it and the left collapses. Hypocrites.

Edit - did search, took two seconds.

He has also lifted those bans, so he made the rules more obvious (which were the same as before) and banned because they broke the rules. The same rules as 2021. I really don't see the issue here?

 

[JRS]

@Begbie - Elon said "I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law" in that tweet you linked. Which law would you like to talk about?

How about Europe's new Digital Services Act?

The United Nations has joined the European Union in condemning Twitter's decision to suspend some journalists who cover the social media firm.

Reporters for the New York Times, CNN and the Washington Post were among those locked out of their accounts.

The UN tweeted that media freedom is "not a toy" while the EU has threatened Twitter with sanctions.

Melissa Fleming, the UN's under secretary general for global communications, said she was "deeply disturbed" by reports that journalists were being "arbitrarily" suspended from Twitter.

"Media freedom is not a toy," she said. "A free press is the cornerstone of democratic societies and a key tool in the fight against harmful disinformation."

Earlier on Friday, EU commissioner Vera Jourova threatened Twitter with sanctions under Europe's new Digital Services Act which she said requires "the respect of media freedom and fundament rights".

"Elon Musk should be aware of that. There are red lines. And sanctions, soon," she added.

Oh, and while we're at it - which law had anything to do with putting Mastodon links in your Twitter bio?

Twitter also suspended the official account of Mastodon, which has emerged as an alternative to Twitter since Mr Musk's takeover.

Links to individual Mastodon accounts also appeared to be banned. An error message notified users that links to Mastodon had been "identified" as "potentially harmful" by Twitter or its partners.

I mean, sure. Much like OcUK with their rule over mentions of competitors Twitter can make a rule that says 'no Mastodon links at all, ever' and that would be perfectly legal. They're not a Government entity, they're not threatening your liberty over it, they just don't want to carry a competitor name on their platform. But don't claim you're "against censorship that goes far beyond the law"...and then censor far beyond the law

 

[Begbie]

]

@Begbie - Elon said "I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law" in that tweet you linked. Which law would you like to talk about?

How about Europe's new Digital Services Act?





Oh, and while we're at it - which law had anything to do with putting Mastodon links in your Twitter bio?



I mean, sure. Much like OcUK with their rule over mentions of competitors Twitter can make a rule that says 'no Mastodon links at all, ever' and that would be perfectly legal. They're not a Government entity, they're not threatening your liberty over it, they just don't want to carry a competitor name on their platform. But don't claim you're "against censorship that goes far beyond the law"...and then censor far beyond the law

How about the current rule of doxxing? The one that's been in place from previous?

 

[JRS]

How about the current rule of doxxing? The one that's been in place from previous?

Now please go ahead and explain to a simple country fella how that squares with "I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law", given that flight data is publicly available

Despite his threats of litigation, it’s unclear what sort of legal action Musk could bring against Sweeney for an account that automatically posted publicly available flight information.

From here.

 

[wesimmo]

And he's backed down on the journalist ban.

Twitter reinstates banned journalists' accounts

Elon Musk suspended some journalists' accounts after accusing them of sharing location data about him.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[dowie]

Yes you wanted to churn out posts that in a vacuum the rule was fine. Yet at the same time you were happy to speculate on how Twitter would apply the rule in reality.

No, I was asking a question of another poster who appeared to call the rule ridiculous thus my question was about the rule itself, I've already told you that.

Some other poster then asked me a question about whether the rule would apply to Hunter Biden's laptop and that's what sparked a discussion about the applications of the rule.

I'd already stated that Elon had gone about it in a cake-and-arse manner so your desperation to continually want to throw in little rants about that didn't seem relevant to either my question to the initial poster or indeed to my reply to another.

 

[dowie]

Musk leaning heavily into that 'I'm in constant danger of assassination' conspiracy theory to justify his arbitrary banning of anyone he doesn't particularly like at any given moment.

Some bits of info pose a bigger security risk than others, Twitter HQ is a safe location with security, no one knows what time or day he'll leave. Secondly, that's something he chose to share rather than something someone shared about him without his consent.

A celeb turning up at say the Oscars when everyone knows they're going to turn up there and it's full of security etc.. is a bit different to say it being revealed they're at X supermarket, doing their shopping alone right now etc.. OR indeed that their jet is due to land in say Las Vegas at likely X time.

I think one issue here is people's inability to decouple their feelings about Musk personally and being able to discuss the merits of this rule or indeed the merits of some security claim. Even if he were being hypocritical there and responsible for his own security lapses it doesn't in itself undermine any claim that there is a security issue and/or that such a security issue would be amplified by others sharing his location, though I think the apparent hypocrisy is a bit iffy as not all info like that carries the same level of risk.

 

[StriderX]

Nobody shared the location of his car...

 

[unwashed potato!]

It's depressing to see this thread keep going. Some people with over 600 posts in it alone...
We get it, you hate/love Elon Musk. Maybe step back a little.

I get your point, but let's do a reality check.

What forum are you on? A tech forum that for the most part, has a user base primarily into tech, having gone to university, bought tech magazines, work in the field, study it just for kicks.

Why wouldn't those users find something like this interesting? On top of it, why wouldn't seeing a billionaire make a tit of himself, and his defenders, be something that you'd laugh at? Many many users in this thread are laughing and chuckling at the latest Elon news.

Add to that, BBC even find twitter/Elon worthy of top news, so obviously it is relevant.

Add to that, Elon paid 44 billion for this company. If Elon felt the company was that valuable, why can't we find it valuable enough to talk about? Especially when there's so many mistakes that are obvious to everyone but the daddy elon fan boys.

And finally, you have 13,400 posts on a forum about tech you nerd! You question how other users have 600 posts in a thread, while you have over 13 thousand post on this forum.

Let users enjoy the thread and if you don't enjoy it, don't pop in. You see how many posts I've made in the brexit thread? I don't enjoy it so don't. You see how that works?

And very finally, there's only one sad thing in this thread, and that is 'try hard' users defending the billionaire at every step. We have users talking about how big their arms are, and how small others must be. And why? So they can defend a billionaire fr critism. Now that is bloody sad.

 

[Jono8]

Some bits of info pose a bigger security risk than others, Twitter HQ is a safe location with security, no one knows what time or day he'll leave. Secondly, that's something he chose to share rather than something someone shared about him without his consent.

A celeb turning up at say the Oscars when everyone knows they're going to turn up there and it's full of security etc.. is a bit different to say it being revealed they're at X supermarket, doing their shopping alone right now etc.. OR indeed that their jet is due to land in say Las Vegas at likely X time.

I think one issue here is people's inability to decouple their feelings about Musk personally and being able to discuss the merits of this rule or indeed the merits of some security claim. Even if he were being hypocritical there and responsible for his own security lapses it doesn't in itself undermine any claim that there is a security issue and/or that such a security issue would be amplified by others sharing his location, though I think the apparent hypocrisy is a bit iffy as not all info like that carries the same level of risk.

What?

This is hilariously bad logic. How is knowing his plane is in the sky and knowing he is in Twitter HQ any different?

If you want to get at him, both would require waiting for him to leave and enter a public place (unless the would be assassins want to pull off some Dark Knight Rises level plane heist or something...). If he is in Twitter HQ, the same logic would apply. You would have to wait for him to leave the building, the same way you would have to wait for him to leave the airport.

 

[Colonel_Klinck]

Anyone else finding Twitter slow this morning in a browser?

 

[Deleted User 298457]

Anyone else finding Twitter slow this morning in a browser?

Just do what everyone else does and wait for Dowie to give us the daily embedded tweet summary.

 

[Deleted User 298457]

What?

This is hilariously bad logic. How is knowing his plane is in the sky and knowing he is in Twitter HQ any different?

If you want to get at him, both would require waiting for him to leave and enter a public place (unless the would be assassins want to pull off some Dark Knight Rises level plane heist or something...). If he is in Twitter HQ, the same logic would apply. You would have to wait for him to leave the building, the same way you would have to wait for him to leave the airport.

Well ya know the word doxxing can also mean green goblin air attack right?

 

[dowie]

Nobody shared the location of his car...

Did anyone claim they did?

@Begbie - Elon said "I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law" in that tweet you linked. Which law would you like to talk about?

I think far beyond is key, there is some censorship that goes beyond that law that he'd still want to crack down on. The 2nd amendment allows for some quite extreme speech, that's not going to wash on a major social media app.

Now please go ahead and explain to a simple country fella how that squares with "I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law", given that flight data is publicly available

Technically it isn't, the identity needs to be deduced from the footprint/behaviour of the plane etc. before you can track it. But the "publicly available" argument is guff anyway; someone's phone number and address can be publicly available it doesn't negate that there is a risk of harassment or to security if you were to tweet them.

This is hilariously bad logic. How is knowing his plane is in the sky and knowing he is in Twitter HQ any different?

I already addressed that in the post, see the first sentence for two brief points on that, see the second sentence for an additional example to help understand the point being made in the first one...

If you want to get at him, both would require waiting for him to leave and enter a public place (unless the would be assassins want to pull off some Dark Knight Rises level plane heist or something...). If he is in Twitter HQ, the same logic would apply. You would have to wait for him to leave the building, the same way you would have to wait for him to leave the airport.

If you think all locations are the same and can't see a difference between someone choosing to share something and a third party doing it without their consent then I'm not sure I can explain further.

Try not imagining Elon if that helps, a famous actress is at the Oscars, people know she's there, she's posted about it on Instagram etc..... a week later a famous actress is spotted out shopping and a big celeb Instagram account posts it immediately. Do you really not understand the difference in risk re: potential harassment, safety etc. between different locations, choosing to share vs others sharing without your consent etc..?

 

[Jono8]

If you think all locations are the same and can't see a difference between someone choosing to share something and a third party doing it without their consent then I'm not sure I can explain further.

Try not imagining Elon if that helps, a famous actress is at the Oscars, people know she's there, she's posted about it on Instagram etc..... a week later a famous actress is spotted out shopping and a big celeb Instagram account posts it immediately. Do you really not understand the difference in risk re: potential harassment, safety etc. between different locations, choosing to share vs others sharing without your consent etc..?

Yes, obviously, but I thought this was about Elon kicking off about his plane's location?

You seem to be making an argument of your own.

 

[dowie]

Yes, obviously, but I thought this was about Elon kicking off about his plane's location?

You seem to be making an argument of your own.

I guess you skimmed over the entire post you chose to quote.

I think one issue here is people's inability to decouple their feelings about Musk personally and being able to discuss the merits of this rule or indeed the merits of some security claim.

 

[Jono8]

I guess you skimmed over the entire post you chose to quote.

But why are you changing the argument?

Based on the premise of your last post, do you therefore agree that Elon's plane location is not that great a security risk then?

 

[dowie]

But why are you changing the argument?

You responded to me, perhaps you could be specific about which argument of mine you're referring to?

Based on the premise of your last post, do you therefore agree that Elon's plane location is not that great a security risk then?

Compared to what? Him posting that he's at Twitter HQ?

I've already addressed that, he chose to share that bit of info, Twitter HQ is private, no one knows what time or even what day he's going to leave.

The plane's location is supposed to be private, it's been deduced by some third party and tracked, he's not chosen to share that publicly and he's going to be shortly leaving the location it lands at... which of course can involve being mobbed by press, fans, stalkers etc.

 

[Emlyn_Dewar]

And finally, you have 13,400 posts on a forum about tech you nerd! You question how other users have 600 posts in a thread, while you have over 13 thousand post on this forum.

Let users enjoy the thread and if you don't enjoy it, don't pop in. You see how many posts I've made in the brexit thread? I don't enjoy it so don't. You see how that works?

And very finally, there's only one sad thing in this thread, and that is 'try hard' users defending the billionaire at every step. We have users talking about how big their arms are, and how small others must be. And why? So they can defend a billionaire fr critism. Now that is bloody sad.

Nearly 700 posts in a single thread about a guy and social media, that's a few months old, compared to 13400 over the last 19 years. Of course I can question it.
There aren't many in the thread with hundreds of replies to it.
You say let people enjoy it, but I don't see people enjoying it really. It just seems.like back-and-forth bickering between a few.

You're calling people on one side sad, but feel like your side seems about equal in that regard.