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

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Irish_Tom said:
Unless there’s a clause in the contract that says you can’t criticise the boss, why shouldn’t they raise valid concerns? And if there is a clause that they’ve broken, it’s the same as a ban for breaching Twitter’s ToS.
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I guess lots of people don't read employment contracts but it's actually quite common to have clauses re: disparaging the company etc. it's not something particularly unusual.

AFAIK in this case though the issue wasn't so much the criticism/feedback but rather that they were badgering other employees to sign a letter, fill out surveys etc.

I get it makes for a neat/simplistic argument along the lines of "Ha Elon, you say you value freedom of speech but didn't you just fire employees for exercising their freedom of speech" but it's got little to do with the ability to publicly air views on a new "public square" like Twitter and treating people fairly there.
 
dowie said:
I guess lots of people don't read employment contracts but it's actually quite common to have clauses re: disparaging the company etc. it's not something particularly unusual.

AFAIK in this case though the issue wasn't so much the criticism/feedback but rather that they were badgering other employees to sign a letter, fill out surveys etc.

I get it makes for a neat/simplistic argument along the lines of "Ha Elon, you say you value freedom of speech but didn't you just fire employees for exercising their freedom of speech" but it's got little to do with the ability to publicly air views on a new "public square" like Twitter and treating people fairly there.
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Yes, yes, we covered all of this on Saturday, keep up. :D
 
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dowie said:
Your post on Saturday indicated you were unaware "depends what they were fired for" the statements from Space X refers to the stuff I mentioned.
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No, I was playing devils advocate.

My first post on the subject clearly acknowledges that I was aware of the content of the statement:

Irish_Tom said:
It’s perfectly possible to be consistent here — agree with NDAs / not sharing trade secrets etc. AND accept that Twitter is in its rights to ban whoever it sees fit if they break its Ts&Cs.

The employees pressuring others into signing the letter may well deserve to be fired. The likes of Alex Jones and Trump deserve to be suspended form Twitter.

*change my mind.gif*
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But all we have to go on is the statement from SpaceX. That might just be a convenient cover or it might be entirely genuine.

It… depends. ;)
 
@Irish_Tom I think you're misunderstanding or misrepresenting the issue people like Elon have with Twitter if you think it's just about the right to enforce T&Cs rather than issues of fairness, consistency, bias etc..
 
dowie said:
@Irish_Tom I think you're misunderstanding or misrepresenting the issue people like Elon have with Twitter if you think it's just about the right to enforce T&Cs rather than issues of fairness, consistency, bias etc..
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I understand the arguments for/against freedom of speech on Twitter just fine. Of course it’s not just about the right to enforce Ts&Cs.

But Twitter being within its rights to enforce its Terms of Service when it bans the likes of Trump and Alex Jones is one of the key talking points in the debate.

It’s a reasonable parallel to draw to a company enforcing terms within its employment contract.
 
Irish_Tom said:
I understand the arguments for/against freedom of speech on Twitter just fine. Of course it’s not just about the right to enforce Ts&Cs.

But Twitter being within its rights to enforce its Terms of Service when it bans the likes of Trump and Alex Jones is one of the key talking points in the debate.

It’s a reasonable parallel to draw to a company enforcing terms within its employment contract.
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The concerns about Twitter fairness and bias in how it manages to balance allowing different viewpoints while enforcing its rules consistently has got little to do with dealing with some employees apparently hassling other employees to sign some sort of open letter or fill out surveys etc.

It's again just some simplistic gotcha thing that has been repeated mindlessly online along the lines of; "oh so Elon believe in freedom of speech but what about [some internal employee issues]" that misunderstands or misrepresents the issues he's concerned with.
 
dowie said:
^^^ most of this stuff is likely just jealousy of Musk's success tbh...
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Come on, you can do better than that.

It's again just some simplistic gotcha thing that has been repeated mindlessly online along the lines of; "oh so Elon made billions, you must be jealous"

Don't take that lame simple route

dowie said:
makes for a neat/simplistic argument along the lines of "Ha Elon, you say you value freedom of speech but didn't you just fire employees for exercising their freedom of speech" but it's got little to do with the ability to publicly air views on a new "public square" like Twitter and treating people fairly there
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Agreed for the most part.
 
dowie said:
The concerns about Twitter fairness and bias in how it manages to balance allowing different viewpoints while enforcing its rules consistently has got little to do with dealing with some employees apparently hassling other employees to sign some sort of open letter or fill out surveys etc.
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Agreed, hence my very first post on the subject.

But if (and I appreciate it’s a big if) the reason they were fired isn’t that they were pressuring other staff members, but simply that they spoke out against Musk, then it raises some interesting avenues for discussion.

It’s entirely possible that Musk wasn’t even involved in the decision to fire them (I can’t find confirmation online either way) so attributing blame and accusing him of hypocrisy in that regard could be completely unfounded.

As I said, I was playing devils advocate. I’m not really interested in a “gotcha” or in Musk himself for that matter, I’m certainly not jealous of his success.
 
I can actually see that as potentially being a way to force Musk to put up, or shut up give them the penalty fee and go away:)

If the board approve the sale then Musk basically has no choice but to either pay the agreed amount, or break the deal at his end.
 
2 sides to this potential story.

1. Twitter know the number of bots are more than 5% and having given Musk access to the firehose, he will find out and likely withdraw his initial offer or make a new lower offer after exposing the number of bots are significant.
2. Twitter know the number of bots are below 5% and just want it over so the investers can move along with their new found wealth.
 
MadMossy said:
2. Twitter know the number of bots are below 5% and just want it over so the investers can move along with their new found wealth
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3. Twitter know the number of bots are below 5 percent and want Elon to make a decision, even if he pulls out, they can move on and not have him drag them down, as will happen as soon as he says he's not purchasing any more
 
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