Elon Musk Buys Twitter

[Flarelaine]

https://x.com/consciousphilos/status...39305807429838



Why won't advertisers come back? We should sue them all!

... "a apology"? Really?

[Belize]

https://x.com/consciousphilos/status...39305807429838

[IMG]https://i.ibb.co/RvrccQL/Screenshot-2024-08-15-07-27-06-358-edit-com-twitter-android.jpg[/

Why won't advertisers come back? We should sue them all!

I imagine Reader Context is the next thing on the chopping block

- - - Updated - - -

... "a apology"? Really?

No one has ever accused Nazis of being very literate.

[Flarelaine]

No one has ever accused Nazis of being very literate.

Explain Grammar Nazis, then.

[Belize]

Explain Grammar Nazis, then.

... Alright, you got me there...

[Venarik]

It's comments like this that make me wish MMO-C had a Like button.

I just send people extremely awkward PM's letting them know I liked their posts

[DarkTZeratul]

It's comments like this that make me wish MMO-C had a Like button.

I can't really take credit for it, I saw it elsewhere, but the rules prevented me from simply posting the original image and nothing else.

[Edge-]

https://www.npr.org/2024/08/13/nx-s1...it-advertisers

A U.S. District Judge in Texas has recused himself from a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk’s X days after NPR drew scrutiny to the judge’s investment in Tesla and questions about Musk using the court to engage in “forum-shopping.”

But O’Connor, according to his most recent publicly available financial disclosure, also invests in Unilever, one of the defendants in Musk’s suit against a coalition of brands. The judge reported receiving a dividend from the company in 2022 of $15,000 or less.

In O’Connor’s two-sentence order stepping aside from the Musk case, he did not offer an explanation.

...

According to O’Connor’s most recent publicly available financial disclosures, he owns up to $50,000 in stock in Tesla, Musk’s electric vehicle company. He also invests in and has profited from Unilever, raising questions about the judge’s ability to preside over the advertiser case impartially.

It is the second lawsuit Musk filed against a critic in O’Connor’s court based in Fort Worth, even though none of the parties are based in Texas.

In November, Musk’s X sued watchdog group Media Matters over reports the group released highlighting white nationalist content appearing next to brands that advertised on the platform.

In that case, O’Connor has issued sweeping rulings in favor of Musk, including granting Musk’s lawyers wide latitude to request hundreds of pages of documents from the nonprofit, a process known as legal discovery.

This was approved before O’Connor even ruled on whether the Musk case against Media Matters even had any merit.

For five months, Media Matters has been waiting for O’Connor to rule on a motion to dismiss, typically the first legal hurdle a lawsuit must clear before it proceeds. It has not yet been considered. Meanwhile, the nonprofit has spent millions of dollars complying with document requests its lawyers have compared to “harassment.”

O’Connor stepping down from the advertiser case follows news that Musk’s suit is already squeezing one of the lawsuit’s central players.

There really needs to be penalties for dishonest judge shopping like this, but alas there aren't.

Either way I hope the Media Matters case gets reassigned as well, dude sounds like a fuckin simp and like he's got some significant conflicts of interest.

[Rustedsaint]

Mating press is trending on Twitter, everyday this platform gets more weird.

[Easo]

Mating press is trending on Twitter, everyday this platform gets more weird.

Nice... But, erm, why would it be weird? Sexy stuff has always been everywhere on Twitter, no one had managed to fight it off. Internet is for porn and all that.

[Edge-]

Mating press is trending on Twitter, everyday this platform gets more weird.

And in today's episode of, "Extremely great reasons why advertisers who care about their brands have largely abandoned the platform."

[Valdhammer]

Why is anyone who is not a right wing lunatic still on Musk’s platform? I stopped using Facebook entirely after 2016 and was never on Twitter even when it wasn’t owned by a super villain. Why are progressives who are advocating for democracy and decency helping to prop up one of the biggest threats to both? I find it really hard to take any activist seriously as soon as I see they have a Twitter account.

[Elegiac]

Why is anyone who is not a right wing lunatic still on Musk’s platform? I stopped using Facebook entirely after 2016 and was never on Twitter even when it wasn’t owned by a super villain. Why are progressives who are advocating for democracy and decency helping to prop up one of the biggest threats to both? I find it really hard to take any activist seriously as soon as I see they have a Twitter account.

Two reasons.

1) Regardless of Twitter's present state it is, technically speaking, a functional platform capable of hosting the digital communities which sprang up in the pre-Musk days and a lot of people rely on those communities for networking or even making a living. Which brings me to...

2) Twitter's rampant hate speech runs up against the opposite problem on every other alternative: actual censorship, largely because every payment major processor is owned by sauceless geriatric bigots. And that's not even a matter of actual NSFW material, but also NSFW policies being used as tools of erasure against minority demographics either through biased enforcement or just outright declaring entire groups of people to be inherently pornographic.

You're asking why people prefer or at least feel the need to live in a wilderness full of bandits rather than a police state run by christofascists. The motivation should be pretty obvious.

[Valdhammer]

Two reasons.

1) Regardless of Twitter's present state it is, technically speaking, a functional platform capable of hosting the digital communities which sprang up in the pre-Musk days and a lot of people rely on those communities for networking or even making a living. Which brings me to...

2) Twitter's rampant hate speech runs up against the opposite problem on every other alternative: actual censorship, largely because every payment major processor is owned by sauceless geriatric bigots. And that's not even a matter of actual NSFW material, but also NSFW policies being used as tools of erasure against minority demographics either through biased enforcement or just outright declaring entire groups of people to be inherently pornographic.

You're asking why people prefer or at least feel the need to live in a wilderness full of bandits rather than a police state run by christofascists. The motivation should be pretty obvious.

You seem to be talking about Twitter the product. I am talking about its owner and the incompatibility of putting money in his pocket with preaching against all the things he stands for. My mind cannot abide that level of cognitive dissonance, and I am struggling to understand why that is so rare.

[Elegiac]

You seem to be talking about Twitter the product. I am talking about its owner and the incompatibility of putting money in his pocket with preaching against all the things he stands for. My mind cannot abide that level of cognitive dissonance, and I am struggling to understand why that is so rare.

And? Pretty much every CEO is a cunt these days, and as long as they aren’t paying for a checkmark, their not using Twitter wouldn’t make Musk less of a nuisance since he can still derive advertising dollars from bots.

The problem is the system which allows Musk to exist, among other things.

[DarkTZeratul]

You seem to be talking about Twitter the product. I am talking about its owner and the incompatibility of putting money in his pocket with preaching against all the things he stands for. My mind cannot abide that level of cognitive dissonance, and I am struggling to understand why that is so rare.

I mean, the vast majority of users aren't putting money in his pocket. That's actually the biggest problem for Twitter right now. Musk wanted to switch to a model where users paid for the service instead of funding it via advertisers, and it's proven disastrous to their finances because for the most part only the most hardcore assholes are paying for it.

[tehdang]

Why is anyone who is not a right wing lunatic still on Musk’s platform? I stopped using Facebook entirely after 2016 and was never on Twitter even when it wasn’t owned by a super villain. Why are progressives who are advocating for democracy and decency helping to prop up one of the biggest threats to both? I find it really hard to take any activist seriously as soon as I see they have a Twitter account.

Biden just announced his abandonment of his campaign on the platform less than a month ago.

It's still the fastest way to disseminate breaking news. Biden recognized that.

The other more meta explanation is that these other platforms spend so much time talking about what's happening on X.

[Sorshen]

Why is anyone who is not a right wing lunatic still on Musk’s platform? I stopped using Facebook entirely after 2016 and was never on Twitter even when it wasn’t owned by a super villain. Why are progressives who are advocating for democracy and decency helping to prop up one of the biggest threats to both? I find it really hard to take any activist seriously as soon as I see they have a Twitter account.

Eh, I never posted or commented on anything, I just used to follow some people/publications in tech/sci, they've been around less and less after 2022 (or less informative) but alas.

Second reason was to save memes/follow some informative/funny/gimmick accounts (stuff like dieworkwear). But the landscape is pretty hellish now... feels like every few weeks the 'for you' suggestions get wild even after blocking/muting hundreds of accounts that post the insane stuff (consider that twitter has a hidden rating for political leaning now based on your blocks/likes etc.), so the ownership is definitely promoting it for engagement.

[diller]

You seem to be talking about Twitter the product. I am talking about its owner and the incompatibility of putting money in his pocket with preaching against all the things he stands for. My mind cannot abide that level of cognitive dissonance, and I am struggling to understand why that is so rare.

For many things it's the de facto standard social media platform - I absolutely hate Musk but I'm using twitter daily despite that.

[Milchshake]

Remember when boomer was bragging about all of the Unicorns in silicon valley...
When it was banks and VC just investing gambling huge piles of money and yelling snake-eyes! While drunk on $40-a-can wine.

Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover is now the worst buyout for banks since the financial crisis. https://archive.is/jSzWN
Loans of around $13 billion have remained ‘hung’ for nearly two years, bringing in interest payments but weighing on banks’ balance sheets.

The seven banks involved in the deal, including Morgan Stanley and Bank of America, lent the money to the billionaire’s holding company to take the social-media platform, now named X, private in October 2022. Banks that provide loans for takeovers generally sell the debt quickly to other investors to get it off their balance sheets, making money on fees.
The banks haven’t been able to offload the debt without incurring major losses—largely because of X’s weak financial performance—leaving the loans stuck on their balance sheets, or “hung” in industry jargon. The resulting write-downs have hobbled the banks’ loan books and, in one case, was a factor that crimped compensation for a bank’s merger department, according to people involved with the deal.

• Are you horribly stupid and guilible?
• Did your family send you to the correct schools?
• Well there's a seven-figure job in banking waiting for you.

[Edge-]

Interesting. If this was like...a normal person with a normal loan, by this time I imagine they'd have sent collections?

The way rich people get away with things that regular folks could never dream of is hilarious to me.

Also, we can mock all the big dump stupid overpaid idiots who approved these loans. I swear they know these things will go south but do it for the "clout" anyways and just rely on squeezing regular folks harder to make up for losses.

Everyone with a functional brain called this a bad bet. When do I get my big, overpaid job being a high-powered loan-approver at a major bank?