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Looking at the problems Twitter has, why does anyone think Musk can even solve one? If one believes Twitter has a free speech problem: Musk shouts about free s

by V__ 5y ago

Looking at the problems Twitter has, why does anyone think Musk can even solve one? If one believes Twitter has a free speech problem: Musk shouts about free speech but shut down Teslas PR department, lashes out against any criticism against him, canceled a preorder because he didn't like a journalists' article etc. Musk is great at self-promotion and this often helps his companies in some sense, but what else does he bring to the table?

nova22033 5y ago
Looking at the problems Twitter has, why does anyone think Musk can even solve one? He's solved the full self driving problem. He has more time on has hands...
- ttttttthu66ttt 5y ago
  /s ?
  - qgin 5y ago
    Has to be
- cosmic_quanta 5y ago
  The Tesla engineers have solved 95% of the self-driving problems, perhaps. The remaining 5% is, of course, much harder to solve
  - JacobThreeThree 5y ago
    If the remaining 5% is much harder, wouldn't that mean they haven't really solved 95% of the problem?
    - cosmic_quanta 5y ago
      Good point, I was thinking about 95% of the problem in terms of time spent on the road
    - pdpi 5y ago
      Pareto principle sort of thing.
  - KMnO4 5y ago
    The infamous 90/90 rule: > The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety%E2%80%93ninety_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety%E2%80%93ninety_rule
  - imtringued 5y ago
    He said "full self driving" which is a Tesla marketing term that could mean absolutely anything.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    They don’t have a self driving product at all. They have a couple variations of a level-2 driver assist product.
- OgAstorga 5y ago
  Yeah, sure. He also solved "traffic"[^1]. [^1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZaRfNjTPx8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZaRfNjTPx8
  - imtringued 5y ago
    Singapore solved traffic with congestion pricing. Turns out, people have an endless desire to wastefully use free stuff.
- thinkxl 5y ago
  by solved you mean rushed out a prototype out to production.
- hacker_newz 5y ago
  Have you seen the FSD test videos?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
loceng 5y ago
Managing or controlling a private organization is a very different thing than a public square.
- xadhominemx 5y ago
  It’s bad for multinational conglomerate owners to run Twitter for obvious reasons. Will the Chinese government force Musk to turn over DMs of dissidents as a condition of approving Shanghai Gigafactory Phase II? Will President DeSantis coerce him to censor “left wing misinformation” in exchange for an extension of EV tax credits or a SpaceX contract? Unlike Bezos and WaPo, Elon has already said he’s purchasing Twitter for the express purpose of exerting editorial control.
  - syshum 5y ago
    >Unlike Bezos and WaPo, So Musk is honest? because intentional or not it clear Bezo's ownership of WaPo has impacted editorial positions
    - xadhominemx 5y ago
      Nah
    - hef19898 5y ago
      I was afraid of that, too. All I've seen so far are disclaimers about Bezo's ownership of the WP. Plenty of negative articles about Amazon is published by WP.
      - xadhominemx 5y ago
        Ya and also it’s clear Elon cares a lot more about Twitter than Bezos does about WaPo. He’s paying 100x more and publicly obsesses about content moderation policies daily. If some government regulating Amazon tried seriously to coerce Bezos into doing something at WaPo, he probably just would have sold it to someone else
jchw 5y ago
The only thing I can think of is that unlike I would assume most executives, he seems to use Twitter much more like the average user. That said, I think Yishan Wong just about hit the nail on the head as to why Musks approach is likely flawed.
- V__ 5y ago
  Yishans take on it was fascinating. For anyone else, I highly recommend reading it: https://nitter.net/yishan/status/1514938507407421440?s=21&t=uIEgO4Gmdmtq4PdqJk1HRA https://nitter.net/yishan/status/1514938507407421440?s=21&t=...
  - objektif 5y ago
    Which part was fascinating? The part he says social media platforms do not care about politics? That is a load of bull crap. They do care and they have a preference. Not because of their political beliefs but because of money.
    - jchw 5y ago
      No, they really don’t care. The difference is that if they did care, they’d care about where the money came from. They do not. That does mean that it’s biased to what advertisers think is OK, but it’s always going to be biased. It’s just not really a bias based on a deep agenda or underlying conspiracy. I actually believe that. There may be some controversy but nobody has really demonstrated much consistent bias, less anything more sinister.
  - talove 5y ago
    Here's the REAL twitter link to that take: https://twitter.com/yishan/status/1514938507407421440#m https://twitter.com/yishan/status/1514938507407421440#m
  - FourthProtocol 5y ago
    The caveat, I think, is that what he describes is quintessentially American. I'm pretty well travelled and have only seen such overt and absolute polarisation in the US. I'm sure there are others but I haven't seen it in Europe, Africa or the far East. It's quite the source of amusement in my circles. I say this knowing Elon is (was?) South African.
cjbgkagh 5y ago
One problem he can solve is Twitter being worth less than $43B, at least temporary.
cslarson 5y ago
I don't think these anti free speech "examples" have the effect that people who cite them expect. Yet they are used a lot which points to a striking disconnect in communication.
- V__ 5y ago
  May I ask why do you think that? If someone touts that free speech is important, but tries to suppress or penalize it, if it is directed against them. One natural conclusion would be, that their commitment is at least questionable.
vasco 5y ago
He doesn't have to solve any problems, if he buys it, it's his to do whatever he wants with, together with the rest of the up to 2000 private investors. And users are free to leave if they wish as well.
mywaifuismeta 5y ago
Twitter is just another social media fad that will go away and be replaced by the next one, Musk or not. I don't think anyone can "solve" that.
- fortran77 5y ago
  They all fall! It used to be quicker, but they all do. It's clear Facebook is fading. And it's a separate issue from anything "wrong" the platform does. The userbase simply ages, and kids don't want to be where their parents are. I have a facebook account that I only use for high school reuinons. My classmates post photos of their grandchildren, etc.
- objektif 5y ago
  Although I generally agree that most social media platforms are fads. I am not sure about Twitter. At least I know that it will stay around for a long time. It did so despite all it's problems so far.
- CydeWeys 5y ago
  The timelines here are pretty long. Facebook has been around for 18 years, Twitter for 16. That's more than a "fad". These companies are lasting as long or longer than other tech companies, certainly longer than your average start-up.
  - mywaifuismeta 5y ago
    Except that Facebook is nearly irrelevant these days. Facebook is relevant only because of its acquisitions of apps like Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus, etc. Twitter doesn't have that.
fortran77 5y ago
> Looking at the problems Twitter has, why does anyone think Musk can even solve one? And twitter knows they're getting a great deal! I like twitter -- I can get in and out fast. In 15 minutes I can see a lot of new, interesting things, or just see what everyhing thinks is cool today. And many of the things people complain about I don't see. I follow people around my specific interests: tech, electronics, jazz, and classical music -- and rarely see anything else. Judicious use of "block" and filters makes it rare that I see anything I don't want to see. But I recently tried another social media plaltform: TikTok. I was surprised as a 59-year-old that I'd even understand it, but I followed people in the same categories I follow on Twitter, limit viewing to those I follow (I don't try the suggested feed) and it's nice and I'm having fun. Haven't posted yet, because I can't just type a few words or post a link and hit "send", but I'll figure that out, too.
smnrchrds 5y ago
> Looking at the problems Twitter has, why does anyone think Musk can even solve one? Twitter's biggest problem is profitability and Musk doesn't seem to care about the economics of Twitter.
- objektif 5y ago
  He said similar things about Tesla. It is naive to take his word on it. He is just not very good at articulating things.
- DarkCrusader2 5y ago
  Everyone spending $43 billion cares about the economics of their investments.
jlmorton 5y ago
> Musk shouts about free speech but shut down Teslas PR department Kind of a weird example. Musk shutdown Tesla's PR department because Musk believes Tesla can get better organic press. It's unrelated, but if anything, getting rid of a dissembling PR department can only serve to promote better discussion, not suppress it.
- V__ 5y ago
  Musk has a plausible sounding reason for everything. But when dismantling a PR department leads to the press not being able to ask Tesla any uncomfortable questions, then "organic press is better" is just as much bullshit as "self-driving is coming next year".
  - jlmorton 5y ago
    I'm not sure I understand this. Corporate PR departments are not the White House Press Office. They don't stand up in the briefing room and take questions from the press, or hold a press gaggle. The entire point of these departments is to deflect uncomfortable questions. It's exactly the opposite.
    - V__ 5y ago
      That's a good point. However, they are the go-to point for anyone wanting to ask a company a question. What does it say if a publicly traded company (or Musk) doesn't even want to do that minimum amount of work to at least pretend to be transparent?
- bombcar 5y ago
  Apparently journalists were pissed because they like PR departments giving them the nice treatment and also writing their articles for them.
codaphiliac 5y ago
It might be just a money move: make the company private, make it more efficient, monetize better. Then re-introduce in public market later.
nojito 5y ago
The only problem twitter has is with monetization. It's absolutely ridiculous that they still can't make money.
- hef19898 5y ago
  Easy solution: Buy CaTcOiN, get bot push cAtciOn, have Musk retweet it, sell caTCoIn -> platform monetized
Chris2048 5y ago
> Musk shouts about free speech but shut down Teslas PR department What has Tesla PR got to do with free speech? Or cancelling a pre-order? Journalists and "the media" have little to do with free speech in general, and maybe even a negative effect on free speech if it is though that media representation is an alternative. It's also notable that freedom to express an opinion, and freedom to express something as factual as somewhat different. Twitter generally deals with opinion (and does a poor job of dealing with facts/fact-checking).
- V__ 5y ago
  If someone touts that free speech is important, but tries to suppress or penalize it, if it is directed against them. One natural conclusion would be, that their commitment is at least questionable.
  - Chris2048 5y ago
    The point is that your examples are clearly of "suppressing free speech". For example, what does not having a PR dept supress? And the right to not send a luxury good to a journalist/blogger is hardly a free-speech chilling penalty; refusing service is not censorship.
    - V__ 5y ago
      > The point is that your examples are clearly of "suppressing free speech". But that's what Musk wants to fix on Twitter, so I think it's applicable. > For example, what does not having a PR dept supress? On the face of it nothing, but if the PR dept is closed to make it harder for the press to ask questions, then it's indicative. > And the right to not send a luxury good to a journalist/blogger is hardly a free-speech chilling penalty Of course it is. The next reviewer (if he wants to buy one) will either not review the car or try not to upset Musk with his review. > refusing service is not censorship. Well, then how is refusing service to right-wing users on Twitter censorship?
      - Chris2048 5y ago
xwowsersx 5y ago
I'm not defending Musk's shutting down of Tesla's PR department or cancelling a preorder because he didn't like a journalist's article — and point well taken that those events might indicate his behavior/orientation — but these are hardly comparable in the sense that Twitter is fundamentally a speech platform - that's what it enables its users to do - whereas Tesla is not. To extrapolate from his behavior re Tesla to the way he views Twitter or would operate it seems like a stretch to me. It's possible for a person to bifurcate.
- airza 5y ago
  It seems extremely comparable. If Elon purports to believe that free, unmoderated speech is intrinsically valuable in society, why would he suddenly do an about face for his own companies? Isn't the point of being an absolutist that your belief in free speech is, well, absolute?
  - halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
    No and Elon clarified in his latest TED interview that laws of the US would still apply to Twitter in regard to hate speech and the like.
    - V__ 5y ago
      Until Musk changes his mind, or China says, ban all mentions off Taiwan or say goodbye to your factory.
- SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
  I'd argue that journalism relies on freedom of speech and Elon punished someone for expressing their opinion. If journalism doesn't require freedom of speech why would twitter?
gwn7 5y ago
> If one believes Twitter has a free speech problem Twitter HAS a free speech problem. This is not controversial. Now you may not agree that Twitter SHOULD allow free speech, but you can not deny that censorship exists on Twitter and it is serving the political agenda of some people.
- cycrutchfield 5y ago
  Which political agenda is that? The one that is against hate speech, misinformation, and threats of violence?
  - ecshafer 5y ago
    Define misinformation. Tech misinformation is interesting because a Chinese government account gets a flag and an American government account doesn't. A company pr account doesn't get a bias flag, but it is wholly designed around spreading misinformation. Misinformation seems to be used as an argument against not only free speech, but only leaning towards very specific directions politically.
  - gwn7 5y ago
    What makes you think that all the censored stuff is about hate speech, misinformation and threats of violence? To think that you must be either very naive or benefiting from that political agenda yourself. There are hundreds of records of censored content which doesn't have anything to do with all that. This is a fact whether you agree with it or not.
  - leadingthenet 5y ago
    Yes, that one. Some people (me included) have strong reservations about whether that’s an achievable and / or desirable goal.
  - JohnWhigham 5y ago
    Suspending the New York Post's account for posting the Hunter Biden laptop story.
- staz 5y ago
frebord 5y ago
Will only really matter what problems Musk thinks twitter has, and seems weird to doubt musk can fix them at this point.
ui4jd73bdj 5y ago
Very easy to solve the only problems I've had with twitter. Stop hiding content behind login prompts. Serverside render direct links to tweets (no infinite loaders/generic errors).
pclmulqdq 5y ago
I don't think you should be looking at this as a "solution" to any problems other than this: Elon Musk has built his net worth of $250 billion by saying things to people, and his primary bullhorn has been Twitter. Spending $43 billion to secure his access to the engine that got him to $250 billion is reasonable. Combine that with the fact that he can now put his thumb on the scale and get his tweets in front of more eyeballs, and that may increase TSLA enough to offset the cost of buying Twitter. As usual for Musk, this is a business decision that is meant to benefit him that he is trying to sell as benefitting other people. Edit - Musk's other companies, SpaceX, Boring, and Tesla, rely heavily on government subsidies and contracts. The access he gets to politicians by controlling their newsfeeds on the social network they pay attention to is also very valuable. Not valuable for Twitter, valuable for Musk.
- V__ 5y ago
  "Do you want your campaign to get more reach in your district? Let's talk about that tax-cut.." It wouldn't surprise me...
LightG 5y ago
Agreed. He cannot even solve moderation of racism in his own factory, let alone online. I'll be ditching twitter completely. The whole thing rubs me up the wrong way in terms of what I want to associate myself with. Facebook vibes. Just another facebook run by another egotistic billionaire. Not my cup of tea.
rklaehn 5y ago
Not sure what is so hard about this. The mission of Tesla is not free speech, but to accelerate the transition to sustainable energy. Tesla seems to be doing just fine without a PR department, so it seems he was right to shut it down. The mission of SpaceX is to make life multi-planetary. So of course there is no right to free speech for the employees. But the mission of twitter should be free speech within the bounds of the law, at least according to Elon. Currently it seems to be to move the Overton window so much to the left that you can be banned for giving the definition of what a woman is that was commonly accepted by everybody in 2010.
- V__ 5y ago
  > But the mission of twitter should be free speech within the bounds of the law, at least according to Elon. The problem is, his past actions don't inspire any confidence in that being the truth. > Currently it seems to be to move the Overton window so much to the left that you can be banned for giving the definition of what a woman is that was commonly accepted by everybody in 2010. That's the right-wing view and there are countless examples of the left-wing getting banned, and they are angry as well. I don't thing it's cut and dry.
  - tomschlick 5y ago
    > there are countless examples of the left-wing getting banned Can you name some that weren't due to the poster threatening someone, doxing or otherwise something illegal? I honestly can't think of any off the top of my head where a left wing post/user was banned for something legal but I can think of tons from the other side.
    - V__ 5y ago
      I tried to find a few more or less reputable sources for you: * https://www.wired.co.uk/article/twitter-political-account-ban-us-mid-term-elections https://www.wired.co.uk/article/twitter-political-account-ba... * https://www.forbes.com/sites/fruzsinaeordogh/2018/07/31/why-republicans-werent-the-only-ones-shadow-banned-on-twitter/?sh=4844278434ba https://www.forbes.com/sites/fruzsinaeordogh/2018/07/31/why-... * https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/22/twitter-admits-bias-in-algorithm-for-rightwing-politicians-and-news-outlets https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/22/twitter-a... Don't get me wrong: I'm sure more right-wing/conservatives users are getting blocked than their counterparts, but only because they are more extreme (right now) on those platforms.
mikewarot 5y ago
>Looking at the problems Twitter has, why does anyone think Musk can even solve one? Transparency about moderation is the easiest to fix. All everyone wants out of Twitter is to know why posts are moderated, promoted, shadow-banned, etc. It doesn't have to be super specific, in terms of moderation, but giving everyone an overall sense of how and why things are moderated the way they are, would help to restore a sense of fairness. If he does well with Twitter in that regard, all the other platforms aren't hard to replicate if you've got the servers and money. OR He loses most of his wealth selling off stock to try to do this, and we learn the difference between paper and real wealth.
- madeofpalk 5y ago
  Twitter seems to be the most transparent about this already? If you get banned or suspended, they tell you why. They communicate their efforts like this pretty transparently. https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2022/our-ongoing-approach-to-the-war-in-ukraine https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2022/our-ongoi...

by V__ 5y ago

nova22033 5y ago

Looking at the problems Twitter has, why does anyone think Musk can even solve one? He's solved the full self driving problem. He has more time on has hands...

ttttttthu66ttt 5y ago
/s ?
- qgin 5y ago
  Has to be
cosmic_quanta 5y ago
The Tesla engineers have solved 95% of the self-driving problems, perhaps. The remaining 5% is, of course, much harder to solve
- JacobThreeThree 5y ago
  If the remaining 5% is much harder, wouldn't that mean they haven't really solved 95% of the problem?
  - cosmic_quanta 5y ago
    Good point, I was thinking about 95% of the problem in terms of time spent on the road
  - pdpi 5y ago
    Pareto principle sort of thing.
- KMnO4 5y ago
  The infamous 90/90 rule: > The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety%E2%80%93ninety_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety%E2%80%93ninety_rule
- imtringued 5y ago
  He said "full self driving" which is a Tesla marketing term that could mean absolutely anything.
- kube-system 5y ago
  They don’t have a self driving product at all. They have a couple variations of a level-2 driver assist product.
OgAstorga 5y ago
Yeah, sure. He also solved "traffic"[^1]. [^1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZaRfNjTPx8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZaRfNjTPx8
- imtringued 5y ago
  Singapore solved traffic with congestion pricing. Turns out, people have an endless desire to wastefully use free stuff.
thinkxl 5y ago
by solved you mean rushed out a prototype out to production.
hacker_newz 5y ago
Have you seen the FSD test videos?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

loceng 5y ago

Managing or controlling a private organization is a very different thing than a public square.

xadhominemx 5y ago
It’s bad for multinational conglomerate owners to run Twitter for obvious reasons. Will the Chinese government force Musk to turn over DMs of dissidents as a condition of approving Shanghai Gigafactory Phase II? Will President DeSantis coerce him to censor “left wing misinformation” in exchange for an extension of EV tax credits or a SpaceX contract? Unlike Bezos and WaPo, Elon has already said he’s purchasing Twitter for the express purpose of exerting editorial control.
- syshum 5y ago
  >Unlike Bezos and WaPo, So Musk is honest? because intentional or not it clear Bezo's ownership of WaPo has impacted editorial positions
  - xadhominemx 5y ago
    Nah
  - hef19898 5y ago
    I was afraid of that, too. All I've seen so far are disclaimers about Bezo's ownership of the WP. Plenty of negative articles about Amazon is published by WP.
    - xadhominemx 5y ago
      Ya and also it’s clear Elon cares a lot more about Twitter than Bezos does about WaPo. He’s paying 100x more and publicly obsesses about content moderation policies daily. If some government regulating Amazon tried seriously to coerce Bezos into doing something at WaPo, he probably just would have sold it to someone else

jchw 5y ago

The only thing I can think of is that unlike I would assume most executives, he seems to use Twitter much more like the average user. That said, I think Yishan Wong just about hit the nail on the head as to why Musks approach is likely flawed.

V__ 5y ago
Yishans take on it was fascinating. For anyone else, I highly recommend reading it: https://nitter.net/yishan/status/1514938507407421440?s=21&t=uIEgO4Gmdmtq4PdqJk1HRA https://nitter.net/yishan/status/1514938507407421440?s=21&t=...
- objektif 5y ago
  Which part was fascinating? The part he says social media platforms do not care about politics? That is a load of bull crap. They do care and they have a preference. Not because of their political beliefs but because of money.
  - jchw 5y ago
    No, they really don’t care. The difference is that if they did care, they’d care about where the money came from. They do not. That does mean that it’s biased to what advertisers think is OK, but it’s always going to be biased. It’s just not really a bias based on a deep agenda or underlying conspiracy. I actually believe that. There may be some controversy but nobody has really demonstrated much consistent bias, less anything more sinister.
- talove 5y ago
  Here's the REAL twitter link to that take: https://twitter.com/yishan/status/1514938507407421440#m https://twitter.com/yishan/status/1514938507407421440#m
- FourthProtocol 5y ago
  The caveat, I think, is that what he describes is quintessentially American. I'm pretty well travelled and have only seen such overt and absolute polarisation in the US. I'm sure there are others but I haven't seen it in Europe, Africa or the far East. It's quite the source of amusement in my circles. I say this knowing Elon is (was?) South African.

cjbgkagh 5y ago

One problem he can solve is Twitter being worth less than $43B, at least temporary.

cslarson 5y ago

I don't think these anti free speech "examples" have the effect that people who cite them expect. Yet they are used a lot which points to a striking disconnect in communication.

V__ 5y ago
May I ask why do you think that? If someone touts that free speech is important, but tries to suppress or penalize it, if it is directed against them. One natural conclusion would be, that their commitment is at least questionable.

vasco 5y ago

He doesn't have to solve any problems, if he buys it, it's his to do whatever he wants with, together with the rest of the up to 2000 private investors. And users are free to leave if they wish as well.

mywaifuismeta 5y ago

Twitter is just another social media fad that will go away and be replaced by the next one, Musk or not. I don't think anyone can "solve" that.

fortran77 5y ago
They all fall! It used to be quicker, but they all do. It's clear Facebook is fading. And it's a separate issue from anything "wrong" the platform does. The userbase simply ages, and kids don't want to be where their parents are. I have a facebook account that I only use for high school reuinons. My classmates post photos of their grandchildren, etc.
objektif 5y ago
Although I generally agree that most social media platforms are fads. I am not sure about Twitter. At least I know that it will stay around for a long time. It did so despite all it's problems so far.
CydeWeys 5y ago
The timelines here are pretty long. Facebook has been around for 18 years, Twitter for 16. That's more than a "fad". These companies are lasting as long or longer than other tech companies, certainly longer than your average start-up.
- mywaifuismeta 5y ago
  Except that Facebook is nearly irrelevant these days. Facebook is relevant only because of its acquisitions of apps like Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus, etc. Twitter doesn't have that.

fortran77 5y ago

> Looking at the problems Twitter has, why does anyone think Musk can even solve one? And twitter knows they're getting a great deal! I like twitter -- I can get in and out fast. In 15 minutes I can see a lot of new, interesting things, or just see what everyhing thinks is cool today. And many of the things people complain about I don't see. I follow people around my specific interests: tech, electronics, jazz, and classical music -- and rarely see anything else. Judicious use of "block" and filters makes it rare that I see anything I don't want to see. But I recently tried another social media plaltform: TikTok. I was surprised as a 59-year-old that I'd even understand it, but I followed people in the same categories I follow on Twitter, limit viewing to those I follow (I don't try the suggested feed) and it's nice and I'm having fun. Haven't posted yet, because I can't just type a few words or post a link and hit "send", but I'll figure that out, too.

smnrchrds 5y ago

> Looking at the problems Twitter has, why does anyone think Musk can even solve one? Twitter's biggest problem is profitability and Musk doesn't seem to care about the economics of Twitter.

objektif 5y ago
He said similar things about Tesla. It is naive to take his word on it. He is just not very good at articulating things.
DarkCrusader2 5y ago
Everyone spending $43 billion cares about the economics of their investments.

jlmorton 5y ago

> Musk shouts about free speech but shut down Teslas PR department Kind of a weird example. Musk shutdown Tesla's PR department because Musk believes Tesla can get better organic press. It's unrelated, but if anything, getting rid of a dissembling PR department can only serve to promote better discussion, not suppress it.

V__ 5y ago
Musk has a plausible sounding reason for everything. But when dismantling a PR department leads to the press not being able to ask Tesla any uncomfortable questions, then "organic press is better" is just as much bullshit as "self-driving is coming next year".
- jlmorton 5y ago
  I'm not sure I understand this. Corporate PR departments are not the White House Press Office. They don't stand up in the briefing room and take questions from the press, or hold a press gaggle. The entire point of these departments is to deflect uncomfortable questions. It's exactly the opposite.
  - V__ 5y ago
    That's a good point. However, they are the go-to point for anyone wanting to ask a company a question. What does it say if a publicly traded company (or Musk) doesn't even want to do that minimum amount of work to at least pretend to be transparent?
bombcar 5y ago
Apparently journalists were pissed because they like PR departments giving them the nice treatment and also writing their articles for them.

codaphiliac 5y ago

It might be just a money move: make the company private, make it more efficient, monetize better. Then re-introduce in public market later.

nojito 5y ago

The only problem twitter has is with monetization. It's absolutely ridiculous that they still can't make money.

hef19898 5y ago
Easy solution: Buy CaTcOiN, get bot push cAtciOn, have Musk retweet it, sell caTCoIn -> platform monetized

Chris2048 5y ago

> Musk shouts about free speech but shut down Teslas PR department What has Tesla PR got to do with free speech? Or cancelling a pre-order? Journalists and "the media" have little to do with free speech in general, and maybe even a negative effect on free speech if it is though that media representation is an alternative. It's also notable that freedom to express an opinion, and freedom to express something as factual as somewhat different. Twitter generally deals with opinion (and does a poor job of dealing with facts/fact-checking).

V__ 5y ago
If someone touts that free speech is important, but tries to suppress or penalize it, if it is directed against them. One natural conclusion would be, that their commitment is at least questionable.
- Chris2048 5y ago
  The point is that your examples are clearly of "suppressing free speech". For example, what does not having a PR dept supress? And the right to not send a luxury good to a journalist/blogger is hardly a free-speech chilling penalty; refusing service is not censorship.
  - V__ 5y ago
    > The point is that your examples are clearly of "suppressing free speech". But that's what Musk wants to fix on Twitter, so I think it's applicable. > For example, what does not having a PR dept supress? On the face of it nothing, but if the PR dept is closed to make it harder for the press to ask questions, then it's indicative. > And the right to not send a luxury good to a journalist/blogger is hardly a free-speech chilling penalty Of course it is. The next reviewer (if he wants to buy one) will either not review the car or try not to upset Musk with his review. > refusing service is not censorship. Well, then how is refusing service to right-wing users on Twitter censorship?
    - Chris2048 5y ago

xwowsersx 5y ago

I'm not defending Musk's shutting down of Tesla's PR department or cancelling a preorder because he didn't like a journalist's article — and point well taken that those events might indicate his behavior/orientation — but these are hardly comparable in the sense that Twitter is fundamentally a speech platform - that's what it enables its users to do - whereas Tesla is not. To extrapolate from his behavior re Tesla to the way he views Twitter or would operate it seems like a stretch to me. It's possible for a person to bifurcate.

airza 5y ago
It seems extremely comparable. If Elon purports to believe that free, unmoderated speech is intrinsically valuable in society, why would he suddenly do an about face for his own companies? Isn't the point of being an absolutist that your belief in free speech is, well, absolute?
- halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
  No and Elon clarified in his latest TED interview that laws of the US would still apply to Twitter in regard to hate speech and the like.
  - V__ 5y ago
    Until Musk changes his mind, or China says, ban all mentions off Taiwan or say goodbye to your factory.
SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
I'd argue that journalism relies on freedom of speech and Elon punished someone for expressing their opinion. If journalism doesn't require freedom of speech why would twitter?

gwn7 5y ago

> If one believes Twitter has a free speech problem Twitter HAS a free speech problem. This is not controversial. Now you may not agree that Twitter SHOULD allow free speech, but you can not deny that censorship exists on Twitter and it is serving the political agenda of some people.

cycrutchfield 5y ago
Which political agenda is that? The one that is against hate speech, misinformation, and threats of violence?
- ecshafer 5y ago
  Define misinformation. Tech misinformation is interesting because a Chinese government account gets a flag and an American government account doesn't. A company pr account doesn't get a bias flag, but it is wholly designed around spreading misinformation. Misinformation seems to be used as an argument against not only free speech, but only leaning towards very specific directions politically.
- gwn7 5y ago
  What makes you think that all the censored stuff is about hate speech, misinformation and threats of violence? To think that you must be either very naive or benefiting from that political agenda yourself. There are hundreds of records of censored content which doesn't have anything to do with all that. This is a fact whether you agree with it or not.
- leadingthenet 5y ago
  Yes, that one. Some people (me included) have strong reservations about whether that’s an achievable and / or desirable goal.
- JohnWhigham 5y ago
  Suspending the New York Post's account for posting the Hunter Biden laptop story.
staz 5y ago

frebord 5y ago

Will only really matter what problems Musk thinks twitter has, and seems weird to doubt musk can fix them at this point.

ui4jd73bdj 5y ago

Very easy to solve the only problems I've had with twitter. Stop hiding content behind login prompts. Serverside render direct links to tweets (no infinite loaders/generic errors).

pclmulqdq 5y ago

I don't think you should be looking at this as a "solution" to any problems other than this: Elon Musk has built his net worth of $250 billion by saying things to people, and his primary bullhorn has been Twitter. Spending $43 billion to secure his access to the engine that got him to $250 billion is reasonable. Combine that with the fact that he can now put his thumb on the scale and get his tweets in front of more eyeballs, and that may increase TSLA enough to offset the cost of buying Twitter. As usual for Musk, this is a business decision that is meant to benefit him that he is trying to sell as benefitting other people. Edit - Musk's other companies, SpaceX, Boring, and Tesla, rely heavily on government subsidies and contracts. The access he gets to politicians by controlling their newsfeeds on the social network they pay attention to is also very valuable. Not valuable for Twitter, valuable for Musk.

V__ 5y ago
"Do you want your campaign to get more reach in your district? Let's talk about that tax-cut.." It wouldn't surprise me...

LightG 5y ago

Agreed. He cannot even solve moderation of racism in his own factory, let alone online. I'll be ditching twitter completely. The whole thing rubs me up the wrong way in terms of what I want to associate myself with. Facebook vibes. Just another facebook run by another egotistic billionaire. Not my cup of tea.

rklaehn 5y ago

Not sure what is so hard about this. The mission of Tesla is not free speech, but to accelerate the transition to sustainable energy. Tesla seems to be doing just fine without a PR department, so it seems he was right to shut it down. The mission of SpaceX is to make life multi-planetary. So of course there is no right to free speech for the employees. But the mission of twitter should be free speech within the bounds of the law, at least according to Elon. Currently it seems to be to move the Overton window so much to the left that you can be banned for giving the definition of what a woman is that was commonly accepted by everybody in 2010.

V__ 5y ago
> But the mission of twitter should be free speech within the bounds of the law, at least according to Elon. The problem is, his past actions don't inspire any confidence in that being the truth. > Currently it seems to be to move the Overton window so much to the left that you can be banned for giving the definition of what a woman is that was commonly accepted by everybody in 2010. That's the right-wing view and there are countless examples of the left-wing getting banned, and they are angry as well. I don't thing it's cut and dry.
- tomschlick 5y ago
  > there are countless examples of the left-wing getting banned Can you name some that weren't due to the poster threatening someone, doxing or otherwise something illegal? I honestly can't think of any off the top of my head where a left wing post/user was banned for something legal but I can think of tons from the other side.
  - V__ 5y ago
    I tried to find a few more or less reputable sources for you: * https://www.wired.co.uk/article/twitter-political-account-ban-us-mid-term-elections https://www.wired.co.uk/article/twitter-political-account-ba... * https://www.forbes.com/sites/fruzsinaeordogh/2018/07/31/why-republicans-werent-the-only-ones-shadow-banned-on-twitter/?sh=4844278434ba https://www.forbes.com/sites/fruzsinaeordogh/2018/07/31/why-... * https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/22/twitter-admits-bias-in-algorithm-for-rightwing-politicians-and-news-outlets https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/22/twitter-a... Don't get me wrong: I'm sure more right-wing/conservatives users are getting blocked than their counterparts, but only because they are more extreme (right now) on those platforms.

mikewarot 5y ago

>Looking at the problems Twitter has, why does anyone think Musk can even solve one? Transparency about moderation is the easiest to fix. All everyone wants out of Twitter is to know why posts are moderated, promoted, shadow-banned, etc. It doesn't have to be super specific, in terms of moderation, but giving everyone an overall sense of how and why things are moderated the way they are, would help to restore a sense of fairness. If he does well with Twitter in that regard, all the other platforms aren't hard to replicate if you've got the servers and money. OR He loses most of his wealth selling off stock to try to do this, and we learn the difference between paper and real wealth.

madeofpalk 5y ago
Twitter seems to be the most transparent about this already? If you get banned or suspended, they tell you why. They communicate their efforts like this pretty transparently. https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2022/our-ongoing-approach-to-the-war-in-ukraine https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2022/our-ongoi...