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

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Caporegime
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So Elon Musk has offered to buy Twitter for $43 billion in what he says is an attempt to open the platform up to free speech and reduce the influence of censorship and cancel culture on the platform, as a significant shareholder he thinks that it is heading a bad direction and wants to steer it in a different direction, threatening to dump his stock otherwise as a bad investment which would tank their share value, and I have to say I agree with him here.

https://www.theguardian.com/technol...-absolutist-elon-musk-would-transform-twitter

How ‘free speech absolutist’ Elon Musk would transform Twitter
Analysis: Musk’s past musings about Twitter show desire to reshape essence of its business model

Last week Elon Musk, in his characteristically antic manner, tweeted a series of suggestions for improving Twitter after he was revealed to have become its largest individual shareholder. They ranged from asking if the site’s HQ should be turned into a homeless shelter to whether advertising should be removed from the platform’s premium service.

Many of these tweets were subsequently deleted, including one sharing a meme depicting the attorney Saul Goodman from the series Breaking Bad with the words: “In all fairness your honor, my client was in ‘goblin mode.’”

Whether Musk was being mischievous or not at the time – it’s hard to tell with the world’s richest person – we have to take those tweets very seriously now that he has offered $43bn (£33bn) to buy the microblogging site.

Given Twitter’s pivotal role in shaping the news and political agenda on both sides of the Atlantic, its ownership is a sensitive issue, particularly if it is about to be placed in the hands of an entrepreneur with a $260bn fortune. Not only is Musk one of the site’s most popular accounts with 81.6 million followers, he is the CEO of two companies – the electric carmaker Tesla and the rocket firm SpaceX – that intersect with the regulatory and political spheres.

“The Beltway and EU will have a field day with this,” said Dan Ives of the US investment firm Wedbush Securities. “Musk owning Twitter is a nightmare for many and this will go through regulatory scrutiny on both sides of the pond.” Nonetheless, Ives doesn’t see rival bidders trumping Musk’s $54.20-a-share bid. Musk has a lot of money and a 9.2% stake, giving him a strong position as the Twitter board – which he declined to join at the weekend – ponders its next move.

Change is on the cards if he succeeds. Musk said in a letter to the board on Thursday that Twitter is “the platform for free speech around the world” but cannot achieve this “societal imperative” in its current form and “needs to be transformed as a private company”.

His main concern appears to be with Twitter’s moderation policies. In March he tweeted a poll asking users whether the site adhered to the principle of free speech. “Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy,” he said. “What should be done?” He has declared himself a “free speech absolutist” and, in that context, the Twitter-banned former US president Donald Trump must be hoping Musk’s bid succeeds.
 
Commissario
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Are "left wing media" in a melt down about it?

As I understand it he's probably going to be rather constrained by the deal he made with the SEC when he broke the law on insider trading or whatever it was he did a few years back (the main reason he couldn't be a member of Twitters board IIRC).
 
Caporegime
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Are "left wing media" in a melt down about it?

As I understand it he's probably going to be rather constrained by the deal he made with the SEC when he broke the law on insider trading or whatever it was he did a few years back (the main reason he couldn't be a member of Twitters board IIRC).

Yeah, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, etc. ranting about how "frightened" they were, and how all the money should go feeding the homeless etc.

https://edition.cnn.com/videos/busi...-business/video/playlists/business-elon-musk/


Centrist media covered how absurd some of the analogies were likening Musk to Putin.


Right wing media tended to be ok with it as well, with Fox News mocking some of the doomsday claims.


Twitter executives are in a frantic attempt to stop it.

https://news.sky.com/story/twitter-...efend-against-elon-musk-takeover-bid-12591122

Twitter adopts 'poison pill' strategy to defend against Elon Musk takeover bid
 
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The poison pill approach means it won't happen. There could be a shareholder law suit though as he offered a significant premium over the current share price - if I was a twitter shareholder I probably would have taken it, or at least started a bidding war.
 
Soldato
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pretty much the whole internet is becoming like it, I remember when it was the wild west and people posted real opinions and thoughts. good times...

I have always preferred forums and chat rooms to social media platforms because of better rules and moderation. When facebook came out and people asked me to join, I loathed at the idea of sharing with my friends personal details about my life each day. The whole thing never appealed to me and still doesn't. Twitter I joined really late, only really to follow a few people I was interested in. I am totally uninterested in gaining followers, tweeting and retweeting and engaging in any political debates. The twitter space in my opinon is just everyone gaslighting each other and baiting each other from both political sides. It really has increasingly become a very toxic environment.
 
Soldato
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pretty much the whole internet is becoming like it, I remember when it was the wild west and people posted real opinions and thoughts. good times...

Man, the early 2000's was amazing on the internet, it was wild and crazy and people were creative and people weren't scared of saying what they thought. It's the other way round now! Now I could share opinions in real life that I wouldn't dream of sharing on social media
 
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