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There are four goals. #1 make twitter efficient. firing 80-90% of the employees and replacing them with effective workers and management saves a ton of money.

There are four goals. #1 make twitter efficient. firing 80-90% of the employees and replacing them with effective workers and management saves a ton of money. #2. Mitigate the bots and trolls by requiring payment and identification. #3. Open the feed algorithm and give people more control #4. Reduce the silencing of users. The last one is probably going to turn out to be harder than Elon expects. If Elon owned Youtube this week he would be sued for enabling the NYC subway terrorist. Same thing will happen on Twitter once he owns it.

themitigating 5y ago
Elon Musk doesn't seem to be a promoter of free speech when it affects him https://www.wired.com/2012/02/tesla-vs-top-gear/ https://www.wired.com/2012/02/tesla-vs-top-gear/
- gitfan86 5y ago
  Did you read the lawsuit? He isn't saying that Top Gear has no right to say negative things about Tesla. He is saying that when those negative things are lies and damage the business Top Gear should pay for damages. But you're overall point is correct, Elon's definition of Free Speech is not universally agreed upon by everyone. However, it is impossible to draw a line between acceptable and unacceptable speech that everyone will agree with.
  - fbakrg 5y ago
    He does not care about damage in reputation: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50695593 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50695593 Twitter's current cancellation policies are an abomination, but we'll see whether it gets worse with a private Musk company.
    - gitfan86 5y ago
      He won the lawsuit. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/06/business/elon-musk-defamation-verdict.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/06/business/elon-musk-defama... According to the court no damages were done. Are you suggesting he wouldn't have paid if the court awarded the pedo guy damages?
  - themitigating 5y ago
    If I thought I could be sued for damages I would be less likely to talk about some subject than if the threat was I could lose my twitter account.
- swalls 5y ago
  Tesla also fired a union organizer (while tweeting about how they are free to join a union) [0], banned a journalist from buying a Tesla[1], threatened to sue another journalist[2], and tried to destroy the life of a whistleblower[3]. [0]https://labortribune.com/tesla-found-guilty-of-union-busting/ https://labortribune.com/tesla-found-guilty-of-union-busting... [1]https://medium.com/@salsop/banned-by-tesla-8d1f3249b9fb https://medium.com/@salsop/banned-by-tesla-8d1f3249b9fb [2]https://www.fastcompany.com/90208132/elon-musk-allegedly-silenced-an-online-critic-with-peter-thiels-playbook https://www.fastcompany.com/90208132/elon-musk-allegedly-sil... [3]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon-musk-tried-to-destroy-tesla-whistleblower-martin-tripp https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon...
lorenzfx 5y ago
You are implying, that current staff of twitter is not effective. How do you get to that assessment?
- yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
  I think that was made clear in the news fairly recently. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/12/03/twitter-agrawal-restructuring/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/12/03/twitter...
- blairbeckwith 5y ago
  If the engineers and product team were effective, there would be more product development. If the marketing team was effective, there would be more user growth. If the sales team was effective, there would be more revenue. If everyone was more effective, Twitter would be worth more. It’s probably an over-simplification, but Twitter being stagnant is not exactly a minority opinion.
  - AlexandrB 5y ago
    There's also the other possibility that Twitter, as a product, is limited to a more niche audience than something like Facebook. More revenue, growth, or stock price is not a given regardless of who's working there.
    - mehrdada 5y ago
      > There's also the other possibility that Twitter, as a product, is limited to a more niche audience than something like Facebook. You state that as if what twitter is as a product is set in stone and delivered as a commandment. It is defined by the product people, engineers, and the executives of the company who have been doing a terrible job at that. If they were competent and the way out was to be Facebook, they should’ve been Facebook by now. FWIW, Facebook was not Facebook either. It didn’t have news feed before it copied twitter. Ironic.
    - MichaelBurge 5y ago
bena 5y ago
The last one? Let's go over the list: #1. Efficient at what? And how do you know the amount of chaff is 80-90%? And exactly how do you find "effective" workers. Like this bullet point alone is just so hand-wavy and vague. Might as well have just said "Make twitter more gooder". #2. This kills the twitter. First of all, no one is going to pay to read Elon Musk's tweets. Not for more than a month or two. #3. What would "open[ing] the feed algorithm" accomplish here? I assume you mean publish the source of the algorithm so we can see how it works. Why? So I can run my own twitter? And what do you mean by "more control"? Control of what? #4. I assume you mean fewer bans and removal of tweets. And I assume by "reduce" you don't mean eliminate. And I assume you don't want elimination because you recognize that some bans and deletions are necessary. That's a sticky wicket. You don't disagree with the action so much as the degree and/or the conditions of the action. This comes down to the question of why should your standards be preferable to twitter's? And ironically, it's actually probably one of the easier ones to do. As I don't think you have well-defined definitions for efficiency, effectiveness, or control. Which isn't an uncommon phenomenon. It's like having a really good idea for a story/movie/series/book/whatever. As long as you never actually have to make it, the idea gets to be as awesome as it could be. But execution is the bitch.

themitigating 5y ago

Elon Musk doesn't seem to be a promoter of free speech when it affects him https://www.wired.com/2012/02/tesla-vs-top-gear/ https://www.wired.com/2012/02/tesla-vs-top-gear/

gitfan86 5y ago
Did you read the lawsuit? He isn't saying that Top Gear has no right to say negative things about Tesla. He is saying that when those negative things are lies and damage the business Top Gear should pay for damages. But you're overall point is correct, Elon's definition of Free Speech is not universally agreed upon by everyone. However, it is impossible to draw a line between acceptable and unacceptable speech that everyone will agree with.
- fbakrg 5y ago
  He does not care about damage in reputation: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50695593 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50695593 Twitter's current cancellation policies are an abomination, but we'll see whether it gets worse with a private Musk company.
  - gitfan86 5y ago
    He won the lawsuit. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/06/business/elon-musk-defamation-verdict.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/06/business/elon-musk-defama... According to the court no damages were done. Are you suggesting he wouldn't have paid if the court awarded the pedo guy damages?
- themitigating 5y ago
  If I thought I could be sued for damages I would be less likely to talk about some subject than if the threat was I could lose my twitter account.
swalls 5y ago
Tesla also fired a union organizer (while tweeting about how they are free to join a union) [0], banned a journalist from buying a Tesla[1], threatened to sue another journalist[2], and tried to destroy the life of a whistleblower[3]. [0]https://labortribune.com/tesla-found-guilty-of-union-busting/ https://labortribune.com/tesla-found-guilty-of-union-busting... [1]https://medium.com/@salsop/banned-by-tesla-8d1f3249b9fb https://medium.com/@salsop/banned-by-tesla-8d1f3249b9fb [2]https://www.fastcompany.com/90208132/elon-musk-allegedly-silenced-an-online-critic-with-peter-thiels-playbook https://www.fastcompany.com/90208132/elon-musk-allegedly-sil... [3]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon-musk-tried-to-destroy-tesla-whistleblower-martin-tripp https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon...

lorenzfx 5y ago

You are implying, that current staff of twitter is not effective. How do you get to that assessment?

yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
I think that was made clear in the news fairly recently. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/12/03/twitter-agrawal-restructuring/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/12/03/twitter...
blairbeckwith 5y ago
If the engineers and product team were effective, there would be more product development. If the marketing team was effective, there would be more user growth. If the sales team was effective, there would be more revenue. If everyone was more effective, Twitter would be worth more. It’s probably an over-simplification, but Twitter being stagnant is not exactly a minority opinion.
- AlexandrB 5y ago
  There's also the other possibility that Twitter, as a product, is limited to a more niche audience than something like Facebook. More revenue, growth, or stock price is not a given regardless of who's working there.
  - mehrdada 5y ago
    > There's also the other possibility that Twitter, as a product, is limited to a more niche audience than something like Facebook. You state that as if what twitter is as a product is set in stone and delivered as a commandment. It is defined by the product people, engineers, and the executives of the company who have been doing a terrible job at that. If they were competent and the way out was to be Facebook, they should’ve been Facebook by now. FWIW, Facebook was not Facebook either. It didn’t have news feed before it copied twitter. Ironic.
  - MichaelBurge 5y ago

bena 5y ago

The last one? Let's go over the list: #1. Efficient at what? And how do you know the amount of chaff is 80-90%? And exactly how do you find "effective" workers. Like this bullet point alone is just so hand-wavy and vague. Might as well have just said "Make twitter more gooder". #2. This kills the twitter. First of all, no one is going to pay to read Elon Musk's tweets. Not for more than a month or two. #3. What would "open[ing] the feed algorithm" accomplish here? I assume you mean publish the source of the algorithm so we can see how it works. Why? So I can run my own twitter? And what do you mean by "more control"? Control of what? #4. I assume you mean fewer bans and removal of tweets. And I assume by "reduce" you don't mean eliminate. And I assume you don't want elimination because you recognize that some bans and deletions are necessary. That's a sticky wicket. You don't disagree with the action so much as the degree and/or the conditions of the action. This comes down to the question of why should your standards be preferable to twitter's? And ironically, it's actually probably one of the easier ones to do. As I don't think you have well-defined definitions for efficiency, effectiveness, or control. Which isn't an uncommon phenomenon. It's like having a really good idea for a story/movie/series/book/whatever. As long as you never actually have to make it, the idea gets to be as awesome as it could be. But execution is the bitch.