7 ms·

Twitter adopts poison pill in bid to thwart Elon Musk takeover

36 points by ChainReaktion 4y ago

jollybean 4y ago
Murdoch has used this to maintain control over Fox for some time. "Rupert Murdoch plans to 'poison' News Corp takeover bids" [1] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/may/24/news-corp-rupert-murdoch-poison-pill https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/may/24/news-corp-rupe...
- tatrajim 4y ago
  "Twitter emulates Fox News and channels the spirit of Rupert Murdoch"! -- A headline for the current age of media.
  - jollybean 4y ago
    'Poison Pill' strategy is something that happens. It's a quixotic artifact of power that plays some stakeholders against others, but it's not new. I don't think it's a headline, but it's definitely relevant. It kind of bothers me that this would receive down-votes.
mountainriver 4y ago
Elon taking over Twitter would be a good thing for Twitter and probably a bad thing for him. Twitter is dying, and could probably use a fundamental revamp which Elon would provide. However Elon really has more important things to worry about.
- hooande 4y ago
  every suggestion he's floated so far is bad. edit button, open source algorithm, "time outs" instead of bans, "free speech". all of these ideas have obvious flaws that he does not address and none of them would be sufficient to drastically change twitter's stagnant share price. If Musk, or anyone, has solutions to the problems with freedom of speech that have existed since civilization, let's hear them. If the ideas are good and he's the best person to implement them, then there's a good chance that people will want to do it.
  - kyleplum 4y ago
    He did mention changing the monetization scheme used by twitter from being ad-based to being subscription based. I've heard this idea floated around for awhile and my favourite version is something along the lines of requiring a monthly payment once you reach a specific size of followers/audience. The idea being that today, twitter is being used by corporations/individuals as essentially free marketing. Although not guaranteed to solve the issue of "free speech", I would be interested to see the results of a social media service that is not designed to maximize engagement to drive the most ad dollars.
    - mountainriver 4y ago
      yup me too, my biggest complaint with twitter is all the ads, oh and jerks
  - KennyBlanken 4y ago
    I love how he's all for open-sourcing the algorithms for twitter because of supposed harm...but not for the algorithms causing his cars to steer toward telephone poles and cyclists
  - moralestapia 4y ago
    >open source algorithm Huh? What's wrong about this?
    - hooande 4y ago
      people will immediately reverse engineer it to find what criteria give tweets the most engagement. if it's something like "joke tweet at 7 am" then millions of people will do whatever that is. Not to mention it will open it up to spammers, scammers and software hackers. There may be common sense solutions to mitigate those problems. but I haven't heard them from Musk
- mlindner 4y ago
  As a fan of Elon I completely agree on your second point. Tesla and SpaceX are WAAAY more important for the future than Twitter.
aluminum96 4y ago
Elon is a self-professed "free-speech absolutist." I don't think it's good for absolutists of any stripe to run our social media companies. There's no quick fix for the problems twitter faces.
- edmcnulty101 4y ago
  I don't think free speech is being absolutist. The goal in the constitution is to have free speech be the norm.
  - Centigonal 4y ago
    "free-speech absolutism" is an absolute view toward free speech. GP isn't saying supporting free speech itself is absolutism. The goal in the US Constitution is to prevent the government from abridging people's right to free speech. Twitter is not the government.
    - anamax 4y ago
      > The goal in the US Constitution is to prevent the government from abridging people's right to free speech. Twitter is not the government. How about when the US Govt asks Twitter to "lean" on certain viewpoints? Does the answer depend on which viewpoints and who's president?
    - edmcnulty101 4y ago
      It's definitely private but biased propaganda platform. That's why Elons attempting to buy it. To provide a more fair less propaganda filled platform to the world. The founding fathers believed a free and private press was essential to a healthy democracy.
    - rufus_foreman 4y ago
      >> The goal in the US Constitution is to prevent the government from abridging people's right to free speech Preventing the government from abridging people's right to free speech is the strategy, not the goal. Preventing large corporations from dictating what political views can effectively be expressed is another strategy towards the same goal.
pablok2 4y ago
So Twitter changes the rules after a move from Musk?
- aaroninsf 4y ago
  This is standard de rigeur defense against the prospect of an hostile takeover.
axg11 4y ago
Elon’s views are extreme in the sense that no current and popular social media is being run with a light touch approach to moderation. I’m not sure how he plans to combat scams and bots, two issues which go against an absolutist free speech approach. I do think Elon being closely involved with running Twitter is a net good. We’ve tried a lot of different approaches to social media, now perhaps it’s time to try laissez faire. The unfortunate side effect of experimentation is that if Elon succeeds in a Twitter takeover, Twitter is both more likely to become much more successful, _and_ more likely to die. Right now Twitter is floating in between, a solid offering with few prospects for growth and unlikely to be superseded in the near future.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- mlindner 4y ago
  > Elon’s views are extreme in the sense that no current and popular social media is being run with a light touch approach to moderation. I’m not sure how he plans to combat scams and bots, two issues which go against an absolutist free speech approach. Bots can be shut off in a pretty easy way. Detect and prevent any kind of automation (something that randomly mangles the javascript/html to prevent scraping for example) and also completely delete the Twitter API that allows automated tweeting. Tweeting should only be done by humans. Also auto IP bans of any "rapid" tweeting coming from any IP.
  - hansvm 4y ago
    I dunno. I've never met an unscrapable website, IP addresses are cheap, and any bot trying to sway real people's opinions would do well to rate limit itself per account anyway. I wouldn't want to have try to design a website that I personally wouldn't be able to bot.
gloriana 4y ago
Ideas on what Musk could do? Maybe he could control much more twitter stock through friendly shareholders. e.g. I buy $1B of Twitter stock with money I borrow from Elon and pledge those shares to elect Elon's board members and what not. He'd just need 4 friendlies, and they don't even have to be billionaires. What can we collectively do to help Musk take control of twitter? Are there are any GameStop short-squeeze strategies here?
- hooande 4y ago
  It's a poison pill. My short version understanding is that if anyone tries to control 51%, they can issue more shares to make it too expensive. There may be some kind of WallStreetBets technical maneuver around it. But it doesn't sound like it will be easy
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
Centigonal 4y ago
This means Twitter's board probably isn't interested in accepting a buy-out at a significant price premium. Very curious to see how this develops, and I'd love to know what's going through twitter's boards' heads.
- CryptoBanker 4y ago
  The board explicitly stated they’re not opposed to legitimate and beneficial acquisition offers.

36 points by ChainReaktion 4y ago

Murdoch has used this to maintain control over Fox for some time. "Rupert Murdoch plans to 'poison' News Corp takeover bids" [1] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/may/24/news-corp-rupert-murdoch-poison-pill https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/may/24/news-corp-rupe...

tatrajim 4y ago
"Twitter emulates Fox News and channels the spirit of Rupert Murdoch"! -- A headline for the current age of media.
- jollybean 4y ago
  'Poison Pill' strategy is something that happens. It's a quixotic artifact of power that plays some stakeholders against others, but it's not new. I don't think it's a headline, but it's definitely relevant. It kind of bothers me that this would receive down-votes.

mountainriver 4y ago

Elon taking over Twitter would be a good thing for Twitter and probably a bad thing for him. Twitter is dying, and could probably use a fundamental revamp which Elon would provide. However Elon really has more important things to worry about.

hooande 4y ago
every suggestion he's floated so far is bad. edit button, open source algorithm, "time outs" instead of bans, "free speech". all of these ideas have obvious flaws that he does not address and none of them would be sufficient to drastically change twitter's stagnant share price. If Musk, or anyone, has solutions to the problems with freedom of speech that have existed since civilization, let's hear them. If the ideas are good and he's the best person to implement them, then there's a good chance that people will want to do it.
- kyleplum 4y ago
  He did mention changing the monetization scheme used by twitter from being ad-based to being subscription based. I've heard this idea floated around for awhile and my favourite version is something along the lines of requiring a monthly payment once you reach a specific size of followers/audience. The idea being that today, twitter is being used by corporations/individuals as essentially free marketing. Although not guaranteed to solve the issue of "free speech", I would be interested to see the results of a social media service that is not designed to maximize engagement to drive the most ad dollars.
  - mountainriver 4y ago
    yup me too, my biggest complaint with twitter is all the ads, oh and jerks
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
  I love how he's all for open-sourcing the algorithms for twitter because of supposed harm...but not for the algorithms causing his cars to steer toward telephone poles and cyclists
- moralestapia 4y ago
  >open source algorithm Huh? What's wrong about this?
  - hooande 4y ago
    people will immediately reverse engineer it to find what criteria give tweets the most engagement. if it's something like "joke tweet at 7 am" then millions of people will do whatever that is. Not to mention it will open it up to spammers, scammers and software hackers. There may be common sense solutions to mitigate those problems. but I haven't heard them from Musk
mlindner 4y ago
As a fan of Elon I completely agree on your second point. Tesla and SpaceX are WAAAY more important for the future than Twitter.

aluminum96 4y ago

Elon is a self-professed "free-speech absolutist." I don't think it's good for absolutists of any stripe to run our social media companies. There's no quick fix for the problems twitter faces.

edmcnulty101 4y ago
I don't think free speech is being absolutist. The goal in the constitution is to have free speech be the norm.
- Centigonal 4y ago
  "free-speech absolutism" is an absolute view toward free speech. GP isn't saying supporting free speech itself is absolutism. The goal in the US Constitution is to prevent the government from abridging people's right to free speech. Twitter is not the government.
  - anamax 4y ago
    > The goal in the US Constitution is to prevent the government from abridging people's right to free speech. Twitter is not the government. How about when the US Govt asks Twitter to "lean" on certain viewpoints? Does the answer depend on which viewpoints and who's president?
  - edmcnulty101 4y ago
    It's definitely private but biased propaganda platform. That's why Elons attempting to buy it. To provide a more fair less propaganda filled platform to the world. The founding fathers believed a free and private press was essential to a healthy democracy.
  - rufus_foreman 4y ago
    >> The goal in the US Constitution is to prevent the government from abridging people's right to free speech Preventing the government from abridging people's right to free speech is the strategy, not the goal. Preventing large corporations from dictating what political views can effectively be expressed is another strategy towards the same goal.

pablok2 4y ago

So Twitter changes the rules after a move from Musk?

aaroninsf 4y ago
This is standard de rigeur defense against the prospect of an hostile takeover.

axg11 4y ago

Elon’s views are extreme in the sense that no current and popular social media is being run with a light touch approach to moderation. I’m not sure how he plans to combat scams and bots, two issues which go against an absolutist free speech approach. I do think Elon being closely involved with running Twitter is a net good. We’ve tried a lot of different approaches to social media, now perhaps it’s time to try laissez faire. The unfortunate side effect of experimentation is that if Elon succeeds in a Twitter takeover, Twitter is both more likely to become much more successful, _and_ more likely to die. Right now Twitter is floating in between, a solid offering with few prospects for growth and unlikely to be superseded in the near future.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mlindner 4y ago
> Elon’s views are extreme in the sense that no current and popular social media is being run with a light touch approach to moderation. I’m not sure how he plans to combat scams and bots, two issues which go against an absolutist free speech approach. Bots can be shut off in a pretty easy way. Detect and prevent any kind of automation (something that randomly mangles the javascript/html to prevent scraping for example) and also completely delete the Twitter API that allows automated tweeting. Tweeting should only be done by humans. Also auto IP bans of any "rapid" tweeting coming from any IP.
- hansvm 4y ago
  I dunno. I've never met an unscrapable website, IP addresses are cheap, and any bot trying to sway real people's opinions would do well to rate limit itself per account anyway. I wouldn't want to have try to design a website that I personally wouldn't be able to bot.

gloriana 4y ago

Ideas on what Musk could do? Maybe he could control much more twitter stock through friendly shareholders. e.g. I buy $1B of Twitter stock with money I borrow from Elon and pledge those shares to elect Elon's board members and what not. He'd just need 4 friendlies, and they don't even have to be billionaires. What can we collectively do to help Musk take control of twitter? Are there are any GameStop short-squeeze strategies here?

hooande 4y ago
It's a poison pill. My short version understanding is that if anyone tries to control 51%, they can issue more shares to make it too expensive. There may be some kind of WallStreetBets technical maneuver around it. But it doesn't sound like it will be easy
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Centigonal 4y ago

This means Twitter's board probably isn't interested in accepting a buy-out at a significant price premium. Very curious to see how this develops, and I'd love to know what's going through twitter's boards' heads.

CryptoBanker 4y ago
The board explicitly stated they’re not opposed to legitimate and beneficial acquisition offers.