Elon Musk Buys Twitter

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Hmm! Musk plagiarized Trump's tweet?

There's probably a form letter that all these guys use

___________ has had a massive dump in __________, due to __________ etc etc.

[Shadowferal]

Regarding the 8 dollar scheme, it's absolutely brilliant for him to do it, because for everyone that relies to Twitter for exposure in their work...

Exposure to who? Right-wing zealots?

[Edge-]

Hmm! Musk plagiarized Trump's tweet?

I do hope some don't miss the joke.

[Elenos]

Exposure to who? Right-wing zealots?

Exposure to clients. Twitter is available world wide and involves a great deal more then politics. A freelancer looking for clients or a small business looking to promote itself uses twitter.

This whole episode about hate speech and all that? A lot of people don't give a damn one way or another and they use twitter daily. What are you going to say now exactly: That people will quit twitter on masse? Fat chance of that. I consider that kind of statement as ridiculous as when conservatives tried saying the same thing, guess what however: Alternatives are hard to find.

"But facebook, youtube etc." they aren't the same. Different purposes.

Oh and apparently they're going to roll out some services to help the onlyfans crowd. When in doubt turn to porn, it sells.

[Shadowferal]

Exposure to clients. Twitter is available world wide and involves a great deal more then politics. A freelancer looking for clients or a small business looking to promote itself uses twitter.

I'm sure a small "business" would enjoy the notoriety...

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Man, playing "spot the Musk-rat" is easy.

[Elegiac]

Exposure to clients. Twitter is available world wide and involves a great deal more then politics. A freelancer looking for clients or a small business looking to promote itself uses twitter.

This whole episode about hate speech and all that? A lot of people don't give a damn one way or another and they use twitter daily. What are you going to say now exactly: That people will quit twitter on masse? Fat chance of that. I consider that kind of statement as ridiculous as when conservatives tried saying the same thing, guess what however: Alternatives are hard to find.

Yeah, no.

Twitter being a good platform for 'exposure' is contingent on there being a wide audience to promote to; an audience that exists because the service is both free and relatively easy to access. Being rife to the brim with toxicity and hate speech undermines this because it makes the service unattractive to major advertisers (i.e. the people actually willing to fork out cash) as well as unattractive for Apple to host on the App store for legal and optical reasons. This isn't a hypothetical, either; we've already seen how being taken off the App Store can tank a service's popularity to the point that even the threat of it forces changes (i.e. Tumblr, Parler, etc.), and a drought in advertising being problematic in the form of Reddit in the pre-2016 era.

There not being a viable alternative at the present moment doesn't mean the aforementioned things won't help accelerate the growth of a competitor, especially in a highly fluid sector like social media. Discounting the emergence of the new hot thing is where Facebook ran into problems with Snapchat and now TikTok.

Oh and apparently they're going to roll out some services to help the onlyfans crowd. When in doubt turn to porn, it sells.

Fun fact: It doesn't. For two reasons, one of which I've already touched on.

One: Credit card companies. The increasing consolidation of payment processing services over the past decade means that even one major credit card company refusing to do business with you can basically tank said business. And increasingly, credit card companies are not willing to deal with services that traffic in adult content because of a high rate of chargebacks (i.e. why PornHub and OnlyFans have had trouble with credit card payments) or for legal and moral reasons (difficulty with vetting content for things like child porn). "Just cater to porn" is no more viable for Twitter to make up for lost advertising revenue than it is for Tumblr.

Two: Apple. Similar to credit card companies, Apple isn't willing to host explicitly porn related apps on the store because of problems surrounding things like child porn, revenge porn, etc. It's, again, why Tumblr got rid of its NSFW content back in 2018 and why services like Tinder or Grindr still have to call themselves "dating apps" and have increasingly strict rules about what sort of images can be featured on your profile. So again, it's not a viable strategy.

But whatever, keep huffing that copium I guess.

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Man, playing "spot the Musk-rat" is easy.

<Insert that "weird nerds defending Elon Musk" meme where Apu is diving in front of a bullet here>

[Combatbutler]

He won't have the money for that.

Would be amazing, if he overreaches and ultimately crashes and burns. He is quite dangerous with the current influence and money he has.

[Orange Joe]

Exposure to clients. Twitter is available world wide and involves a great deal more then politics. A freelancer looking for clients or a small business looking to promote itself uses twitter.

This whole episode about hate speech and all that? A lot of people don't give a damn one way or another and they use twitter daily. What are you going to say now exactly: That people will quit twitter on masse? Fat chance of that. I consider that kind of statement as ridiculous as when conservatives tried saying the same thing, guess what however: Alternatives are hard to find.

"But facebook, youtube etc." they aren't the same. Different purposes.

Oh and apparently they're going to roll out some services to help the onlyfans crowd. When in doubt turn to porn, it sells.

I live in a small town with small businesses. No they don't They use facebook.

[Poopymonster]

Well, he had to find $44B somewhere without liquidating all the assets himself. That means banks and investment funds, and the Saudi's are happy to invest in just about anything since they have way too much money and nothing to do with it. Hell, they own freakin SNK nowadays.

That might be what he saw, I just hope he doesn't fall to pieces over it.

[Forogil]

I live in a small town with small businesses. No they don't They use facebook.

Agreed, I checked the local small businesses and similarly they use facebook and/or instagram - except for the one that it isn't on the internet at all. (And, of course, most are part of some chain of businesses.)

I simply don't understand why Twitter would provide any advantage for a small business compared to those alternatives. The only reason would be tweets linking back to other options.

[Draco-Onis]

Exposure to clients. Twitter is available world wide and involves a great deal more then politics.

You've pretty much countered your own argument, that's right Twitter is known for being political and unless you are large company you would not benefit from jumping into that dumpster fire. Under Musk Twitter will become a right wing circle jerk we only have to look at parler, truth social and others like it to see how well that goes.

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Would be amazing, if he overreaches and ultimately crashes and burns. He is quite dangerous with the current influence and money he has.

Nah Elon is too big to fail, the US Government for example would probably bail or buyout SpaceX.

[ringpriest]

Hmm! Musk plagiarized Trump's tweet?

Normally I have a less critical view of Musk than the typical left-leaning netizen, but he's is flat-out lying here.

Twitter's revenue is down because a good chunk of its revenue comes from advertising sold in advance. Advertisers have been doing due diligence and asking Musk for reassurance, or even an outline of his plan for Twitter, since May. And he has failed to do so. So they didn't front Twitter advertising money for 2023 (and maybe for 2022 Q4, not sure), instead adopting a wait and see approach. And so far, I doubt they're liking what they see, because it involves taking actions that are already getting him sued, and firing or driving out all the people they had good working relationships with.

Big business doesn't care about free speech or politic ideals. It cares about money. And what the right doesn't get is that their way of doing things is bad for business. Not just because it drives away moderates and liberals (who, very broadly speaking, have more disposable income), but because modern Republicanism in the United States isn't reliable, and business likes reliability. "I'm going to take over this advertising platform and make a lot of changes. Why? What's my business plan? Not gonna tell you, but it'll be awesome and I'm totally not making it up as I go. Honest. Now, give me money."

Musk knows all this. So when he goes on his platform and posts about activists causing loss of revenue, he's lying (or just maybe dangerously self-deluded). And the definition of "free speech" he's pushing is one that involves billionaires having a right to profit from bad decisions.

[Pannonian]

So what do you think? Will Musk become 47th, 48th, 49th or 50th president of the US?

[Endus]

So what do you think? Will Musk become 47th, 48th, 49th or 50th president of the US?

You realize he was born in South Africa, right?

[SAY HER NAME]

If this all falls apart and he ends up owing money to the Saudi's I would absolutely encourage him to never get within eyesight of a Saudi embassy. Which I don't think will be a problem for him but...you know...just in case.

The Saudis are signed up as investors. Musk rolled their stocks. Musk owns money to banks who uuuh not sure what they would do with a failing social media company

[Pannonian]

You realize he was born in South Africa, right?

You realize the US has a party that stops at nothing to remain in power? Changing the rules on that is way less radical than.. mhm ... a "tourist visit to the capitol"?

Also... lets be honest, after accusing Obama for decades, this would be the most republican thing to do...

I' d die a happy person being wrong on that don't get me wrong, but i get similar vibes from Musk. He is just too rich to face any consequences (see the lay offs - they break the law knowing they will just pay the fine - so rich enough to break the law) - and if this happens over a long period of time - well you get Trump.

[Ivanstone]

Would be amazing, if he overreaches and ultimately crashes and burns. He is quite dangerous with the current influence and money he has.

I’m less worried about loudmouths like Elon Musk and more worried about people like Barre Seid.

Seid I never even heard about till he was 90 and had already spent decades donating 100s of millions of dollars to making more conservative judges.

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You realize the US has a party that stops at nothing to remain in power? Changing the rules on that is way less radical than.. mhm ... a "tourist visit to the capitol"?

Also... lets be honest, after accusing Obama for decades, this would be the most republican thing to do...

I' d die a happy person being wrong on that don't get me wrong, but i get similar vibes from Musk. He is just too rich to face any consequences (see the lay offs - they break the law knowing they will just pay the fine - so rich enough to break the law) - and if this happens over a long period of time - well you get Trump.

It would require a constitutional amendment and Musk is only marginally useful to begin with.

[Forogil]

Nobody here is contesting Musk's right to open the floodgates for bigoted abuse on Twitter.

We're saying he's a jackass for doing so.

Returning to this, as it isn't just a case of him being a jackass.

Twitter, as most large companies, operate in a number of countries and have to abide by the national rules - or leave the countries. So, the EU, India (that has already been a shit-show), and the UK and other countries will ensure that the floodgates for bigoted abuse aren't open, or there will be penalties (for the EU up to about 300 million $ per year).

So, anyone agreeing with those government rules are contesting Musk's ability to open the floodgates.

The more interesting case is China.

Twitter isn't currently operating in China, but Musk's other companies are - and if Musk is seen as allowing China-bashing there might be consequences for Tesla in China, and if he instead specifically limits the China-bashing people might see him as the big twatting censor causing backlash outside of China.

[Paranoid Android]

Nobody here is contesting Musk's right to open the floodgates for bigoted abuse on Twitter.

We're saying he's a jackass for doing so.

Elon being a jackass? No!

Trash me all day, but it’ll cost $8

First this doesn't make sense. $8 is about some verification mark.

More importantly this really is an asshole flaunting that he is trying to make money and doesn't give a shit about you.

I just had my first glance of Twitter today and sadly not even following Elon, but my timeline is spammed with his tweets. He truly is being the spoiled, asshole kid who bought the only PS5 and bragging about how much an asshole he can be and everyone has to live with it if the want to play. This is not hyperbole. Check out his timeline.