The ongoing Elon Twitter saga: "insert demographic" melts down
- Thread starter Energize
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Caporegime
Has he fired 75% of the workforce yet, like he promised?
I have an account with a lifetime ban. Let's see if it comes back.
I have an account with a lifetime ban. Let's see if it comes back.
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Come up with the idea of targeted advertising?
A major reason for sites farming as much data off you as possible is to target you and everything you are connected with and have been in contact with and read recently.
Twitter has the same restrictions as everyone else in farming data off their users so what's actually new?
Caporegime
It's clear that after overpaying for Twitter by an absolutely gigantic amount, Musk is desperate to boost monetisation.
Permabanned
Not like he needs more money......
Commissario
I was seeing an American lawyer commenting about him firing that many staff, basically "lol enjoy the legal issues"
If he fires that many staff the already poor moderation on twitter is going to go down the pan completely and end up with Twitter running into all sorts of legal issues due to the unchecked behaviour of it's users*, and if he gets rid of a lot of the network/IT people people they're going to fall foul of things like data breaches (GDPR says "hi") and simple things like the system falling over more and more often. None of which is good for the bottom line of the company as the people paying for it (the advertisers) want it to be reliable and not seen as something that's actively bad, so you end up with the advertisers either not paying the sort of premium musk thinks they will to be on the site, or completely pulling out of it to avoid any chance of their brand being displayed next to really toxic stuff.
The likes of Twitter don't employ large numbers of people for fun, they normally employ the bare minimum needed to ensure the service sort of runs and doesn't get into too many legal issues in the various different jurisdictions it works in.
I've also seen people pointing out that if you fire a large number of people in too short a time frame you tend to lose enough of the knowledge of how things work that things tend to just start falling apart, as no matter how well you might document stuff there is always a vast amount that isn't documented at all, isn't documented well or that requires knowing where to start looking to find how you deal with it and whilst your reduced/inexperienced remaining staff are trying to deal with that, other things are starting to go wrong because you've not got enough people to do the preventative work.
This could go down in businesses courses for the future, just not how Musk thought it would (i'm kind of reminded of the old joke about how to become a millionaire book seller "well first you start off as a multimillionaire").
Having said all that, I have seen comments by people who have dealt with deals where the banks have put up a lot of the money in the past, where they're saying that there is a very good chance the banks will have their own people involved just to protect their investment in it (in the same way your mortgage company usually insists as a condition of your mortgage that you have buildings insurance on your new house or the value of it in other assets in case it burns down).
*for example death threats, especially against politicians, or in Germany the nazi stuff, let alone the whole host of other legal requirements to operate in various different countries (and if you don't officially operate in them, good luck getting any form of even the most loosely "targeted" advertising in those countries).
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Better for profits and the loss of privacy, I'm sure.
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Commissario
Although as facebook found out relying on "targeting" adverts is very tricky as all it takes is one of your major areas of operation to pass a law that say restricts how you use that data, or forces you to allow your users to easily control how it's used and you can't do it anymore so your income drops.
IIRC facebook lost a lot of value when they had to bring in easier privacy/data control options, and when I believe apple made changes to how much data the app could slurp up.
Soldato
I scribble poetry in a clumsy way and follow a lot of "arty" and farming/countryside related accounts, and I get rid of people who whinge pointlessly about politics pretty quickly, so it's a fairly calm and supportive feed.
I have 700+ followers, but very little engagement from the vast majority, which tells you all you need to know about my writing or the way people follow looking simply for a follow back to boost their stats. I have to cull bot accounts regularly (they're usually pretty obvious with a picture of a glamourous young thing) so I do think Musk was probably right about there being a lot of dead wood on the service. But I like it for things like live TV, and Twitter's been a great resource (to me) after the Ukraine invasion. I probably follow more Ukraine related accounts than anything else at the moment.
Twitter's my only social media apart from here though, so I may be putting a lot more effort into curating my feed than most. I may also have more to lose if Elon messes this up. Originally I thought this takeover might be a good thing. But after his position on Ukraine became clearer, after watching the recently repeated documentaries, and now after there's suspicion there may be some Russian money in the takeover, I'm rather unsettled.
But being rather unsettled is any sane person's natural status these days. We live in "interesting" times!
Soldato
More info please, I've not seen this. If there is any Russian money involved I would have hoped the US gov would have been all over this.
Soldato
More money then sense... What a paediatrician!
Suspended
It appears to me and any reasonable observer that Twitter has been full of intolerance and borderline hate all through its existence. Any change should be for the better.
Soldato
I may be guilty of doing the Twitter thing and repeating rumours that can't be proven, but the timing for the finalising of the complicated (it seems) Twitter funding and Musk's "sudden" talk about compromise in Ukraine is unsettling, especially so close to the US Midterms.
I may be in danger of becoming one of the conspiracy theorists I usually have little time for!
It is my belief that Twitter merely reveals us for what we really are... nowhere near as civilised as we pretend to be. The sanitised version we see and hear on mainstream, legally moderated media for decades lulled us into a false sense of security. Of course the great thing about Twitter is we can block, mute and tailor our feeds to pretend life's nicer. Bit harder in reality.
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Caporegime
I haven’t been keeping up with this, so could anyone possibly tell me, as easy as possible, why so many people are freaking out over this?
Whats so awful about Musk owning Twitter?
Whats so awful about Musk owning Twitter?
Because they think he's alt right and is enabling a platform for alt right hate speech.
Permabanned
Not seen anyone freaking out but then I dont really use Twitter.
Some are worried Twitter will turn into(more of) a cesspit like the alt right fringe social media sites are, and they are so so bad.
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Like Parler, Bitchute or Gab? Haven't been myself but I have one alt right friend and he's a total fruit loop. Anti vaxx, anti immigration, thinks Putin is amazing, the Ukranians are all Nazis and the Queen is an undead lizard.
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