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Assuming Musk did take over Twitter, he wouldn't need to be much of a distraction. He could dictate a few rules (don't moderate Twitter, don't ban anyone, etc.)

Assuming Musk did take over Twitter, he wouldn't need to be much of a distraction. He could dictate a few rules (don't moderate Twitter, don't ban anyone, etc.) and then leave the company to function as it did before. Not really. One of the hard things about changing the course of a company is that you actually need people to do the things you want them to do. That means actually being hands on and checking things are getting done. Otherwise people will nod and agree in meetings and then just carry on as they were before. This is especially hard if people are resistant to the changes you want to make. Taking over and issuing commands doesn't work unless people have nowhere else to go. If Elon tried that at Twitter there would probably be an exodus of engineering and ops people.

PixyMisa 5y ago
Small loss.
- nebula8804 5y ago
  Bigger than you think. Every right wing "free speech" platform has collapsed in flames partially because it seems like the majority of their people do not have the experience to build and run such a platform. I am reminded of the elementary mistakes made in the design of Parler.
smt88 5y ago
> One of the hard things about changing the course of a company is that you actually need people to do the things you want them to do. Dorsey chose not to ban Trump, and then he did. That was a huge change for Twitter, and it didn't seem to rock the boat at the company at all. Twitter also didn't ban politicians at all for a long time. That was another major policy change that Musk could simply revert back.
- onion2k 5y ago
  Dorsey chose not to ban Trump, and then he did. That was a huge change for Twitter, and it didn't seem to rock the boat at the company at all. This is (probably) a good example of why it's hard. Dorsey understood that banning Trump would have been problematic, so he didn't. He, and probably others, worked to change the company internally to be somewhere where they could do that. Rather than do it and then deal with the fallout he worked to steer the company to be more open to being to be somewhere without Trump. Then he could ban Trump without the fallout. That's how you change a company. Buying a big chunk of it and then issuing decrees about how it works now is much less likely to work. No doubt Elon understands that completely, and has no intention of doing it. He'll work to move Twitter in the direction he wants, maybe with the help of others, until he can then claim to have changed it overnight or something. He's not silly.
  - root_axis 5y ago
    The company didn't really change at all, it's simply that Jan 6th made it easy to justify the ban.
arlcode 5y ago
Then you need to deal with the outcome. If Twitter started doing no (or very little) moderation it would suddenly be in conflict with many laws around the globe including the EU and the US. That did fly a few years ago but I doubt it does today. Other shareholders might not be to thrilled about them being banned
- antattack 5y ago
  If you read what Musk says now or years ago he actually is very much for moderation, but not censorship or banning people of the platform. In a way Musk is for something similar to HN point system.
  - arlcode 5y ago
    I get that, but the line between moderation and censorship is very culture and topic dependent. That's obviously true for authoritarian countries like China but even in "the West" there are competing definitions of what constitutes free speech. If you want to operate in those countries (at scale) you need to localize your moderation policies and therefore "take a stance". Cost of doing business globally.
  - smt88 5y ago
    HN is a bad analogy because it has a lot of invisible moderation tools used by the all-powerful moderators, including: - banning - shadow-banning - deleting offensive messages - detaching off-topic threads The only difference with HN is that their rules are different. Everything else is very similar to Twitter.
    - MrMan 5y ago
      Hn is like Gab though, the users feel aligned with the management ideologically so they don't mind being censored by them.
- smt88 5y ago
  The US does not have laws requiring moderation except for illegal content (like child porn) and DMCA takedowns. Most platforms fail miserably at removing the former and just automate the latter. Twitter could spend a small fraction of their current moderation budget and still be in compliance with US law.

PixyMisa 5y ago

Small loss.

nebula8804 5y ago
Bigger than you think. Every right wing "free speech" platform has collapsed in flames partially because it seems like the majority of their people do not have the experience to build and run such a platform. I am reminded of the elementary mistakes made in the design of Parler.

smt88 5y ago

> One of the hard things about changing the course of a company is that you actually need people to do the things you want them to do. Dorsey chose not to ban Trump, and then he did. That was a huge change for Twitter, and it didn't seem to rock the boat at the company at all. Twitter also didn't ban politicians at all for a long time. That was another major policy change that Musk could simply revert back.

onion2k 5y ago
Dorsey chose not to ban Trump, and then he did. That was a huge change for Twitter, and it didn't seem to rock the boat at the company at all. This is (probably) a good example of why it's hard. Dorsey understood that banning Trump would have been problematic, so he didn't. He, and probably others, worked to change the company internally to be somewhere where they could do that. Rather than do it and then deal with the fallout he worked to steer the company to be more open to being to be somewhere without Trump. Then he could ban Trump without the fallout. That's how you change a company. Buying a big chunk of it and then issuing decrees about how it works now is much less likely to work. No doubt Elon understands that completely, and has no intention of doing it. He'll work to move Twitter in the direction he wants, maybe with the help of others, until he can then claim to have changed it overnight or something. He's not silly.
- root_axis 5y ago
  The company didn't really change at all, it's simply that Jan 6th made it easy to justify the ban.

arlcode 5y ago

Then you need to deal with the outcome. If Twitter started doing no (or very little) moderation it would suddenly be in conflict with many laws around the globe including the EU and the US. That did fly a few years ago but I doubt it does today. Other shareholders might not be to thrilled about them being banned

antattack 5y ago
If you read what Musk says now or years ago he actually is very much for moderation, but not censorship or banning people of the platform. In a way Musk is for something similar to HN point system.
- arlcode 5y ago
  I get that, but the line between moderation and censorship is very culture and topic dependent. That's obviously true for authoritarian countries like China but even in "the West" there are competing definitions of what constitutes free speech. If you want to operate in those countries (at scale) you need to localize your moderation policies and therefore "take a stance". Cost of doing business globally.
- smt88 5y ago
  HN is a bad analogy because it has a lot of invisible moderation tools used by the all-powerful moderators, including: - banning - shadow-banning - deleting offensive messages - detaching off-topic threads The only difference with HN is that their rules are different. Everything else is very similar to Twitter.
  - MrMan 5y ago
    Hn is like Gab though, the users feel aligned with the management ideologically so they don't mind being censored by them.
smt88 5y ago
The US does not have laws requiring moderation except for illegal content (like child porn) and DMCA takedowns. Most platforms fail miserably at removing the former and just automate the latter. Twitter could spend a small fraction of their current moderation budget and still be in compliance with US law.