Elon Musk $41B offer for Twitter

[grumbledoak]

Jack's viewpoint -


https://twitter.com/jack/status/160280029087658803...

https://www.getrevue.co/profile/jackjack/issues/a-...
tl;dr - Wants social media as an open protocol with transparency and no government or corporate control.

Not sure if Twitter can get there from here.

[grumbledoak]

768 said:

What happened to it being a private company which could carry whatever content it wanted to, or not?

It turns out the people saying that only meant it when they controlled the content.

[grumbledoak]

Today's instalment. Less Trump, more Constitution -


https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/160385753473707...

tl;dr - the FBI didn't have enough real crime to attend to. Or it has some unexpected priorities.

[grumbledoak]

It still looks like doing what he said he would do to me.


https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/16039828911798...


At massive expense, obviously.

[grumbledoak]

The latest Twitter Files report is number 7, on the FBI censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story
https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604871...

tl;dr - the laptop was real, Hunter Biden was paid large sums of money by Ukrainian energy firm for no plausible work, and arranged for them to meet then Vice President Joe Biden back in 2014. The FBI knew all about it and mounted a large operation to keep it quiet, across legacy media and social media. Evidence of Yoel Roth pushing back.

Elon is not just peeing off some Telsa fans here. I am not surprised he doesn't want his real time location published.

[grumbledoak]

dukeboy749r said:

You spout some absolute tosh at times.

And there isn't enough thread or event disk space for the number of ROLFs I would love to post, but here, have a few:

Do you not know what "tl;dr" means?

It is short for "too long, didn't read" and is used to indicate that there follows a brief summary of something long and boring so you don't have to read it yourself. You're welcome.

Not for the first time - I'm not here for the US politics. I've no interest there at all. I am interested in Elon's attempt to transform Twitter into an open discussion forum. It is increasingly clear who doesn't want that to happen, not really to anyone's surprise I imagine.

Edited by grumbledoak on Wednesday 21st December 08:26

[grumbledoak]

Part 8 is not on censorship, it's the opposite. US CENTCOM running covert propaganda accounts and getting Twitter to blue check them and enhance their reach, despite testifying to US Congress that they identified and shut down all state backed propaganda -

https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1605292454261182...

Well, they told us Twitter was a cesspool.

[grumbledoak]

durbster said:

Blimey, I've pretty much given up visiting Twitter because it's become a total mess, and I'm surprised to see they are still trying to flog this poor dead horse.

They've got up to part 8 and afaik, still haven't found anything surprising or interesting. Maybe it's time to accept defeat.

I do find the Home page includes people I follow who were previously not appearing, but I have been using my own lists for ages because they are less affected by all the reach manipulation.

The "Trending" crap on the right is still best ignored.

[grumbledoak]

The Christmas release of Twitter internal info was 1 of 2 on rigging the COVID debate -

https://twitter.com/davidzweig/status/160738663567...
(10 mins)

Too long, didn't read it? The White House pressured Twitter and others to censor and deplatform anyone posting views that conflicted with the official government position. This included credentialed experts posting published studies or the CDC's own data. The decision process began with bots and non-medically qualified overseas contractors, directed by a senior team with clear political bias.

Many of these experts are back on Twitter now. Far too late for all those impacted or killed by the government response to COVID-19 that the administration imposed and enforced by controlling what everyone heard.

[grumbledoak]

Driller said:

Here’s the the thing: he doesn’t give a fk. People seem to imply he must be devastated and in a state of shock (not saying you’re one of them) but 1) He doesn’t do it for the money 2) After banking your first billion (10s of millions?) of your own protected personal money somewhere in Switzerland or the Cayman Islands I don’t think you worry about money or shares too much

I would think he is pretty sanguine about the paper billions. Tesla was overvalued, and he has already realized unimaginable sums of it.

Anyway, he never said he was doing this for the money. He and Jack both (said they) wanted to deal with the issues of corporate control and censorship that Twitter had stumbled into. Now it is pretty clear what is driving this - the US government, the FBI, the CIA - I wonder what he can do. The US has a revolutionary Constitution that bans the government from doing this, but that's just an old piece of paper. Or is it?

[grumbledoak]

dundarach said:

I use twitter a few times a day to read about the things that interest me, occasionally clicking on things in the trending list.

If it wasn't for this thread, which I've been dipping in and out of, I'd have not noticed anything different about twitter, it's performance, the mix of tweets, adverts or anything.

Behind the scenes it might be falling apart, but I've not seen it.

Same here. I use lists and Brave. The only changes I have noticed is some banned posters returning and the Views counter.

[grumbledoak]

Byker28i said:

There was a report yesterday the Taliban were buying up blue check marks.

The Taliban were never banned on Twitter.

Taliban will be allowed to STAY on Twitter - as long as they don't 'glorify violence' - while ex-president Trump is still banned (2021)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9902587/T...

[grumbledoak]

JagLover said:

Like them or loath them (and I am in the latter camp) they are the government of their country now so you would think they would have a Twitter account.

I agree. I think anyone who wants an account should be allowed one.

I was only pointing out that implying the Taliban check mark is some sort of recklessness by Elon isn't actually something Elon has done. Those in charge of the censorship never did have a problem with free speech for the Taliban. Only their political opponents, it seems.

[grumbledoak]

Bug hunting CEO