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>Anyone want to make predictions about the state of Twitter in a few years? I'll bite on this one. For reference, I personally believe Elon Musk is a degenerat

>Anyone want to make predictions about the state of Twitter in a few years? I'll bite on this one. For reference, I personally believe Elon Musk is a degenerate blowhard who has literally zero concept of what life actually is like for billions of people on the planet, nor does he care. I believe he belongs to the class of people known as 'parasites'. Here's my take: 1 year: Initially, we'll see improvements. Dead weight is cut, along with some live branches, but we see improvements. More free and open speech, I believe he will follow through on that. Fringe groups have a louder voice and can find people to join their causes, leading to further polarization of politics across the globe, and especially in the US. 3 Years: Quality and use is declining as celebrities and politicians have begun to move away from Twitter due to constant abuse from toxic individuals, up to and including "vague" threats of violence. A minor celebrity blames Twitter for their recent issue with a fan stalking them. 5 Years: Twitter is dead. There was a political assassination that was formed, planned, and tweeted/broadcast from Twitter live. This may be a state level politician or federal, but it will be someone many people know the name of. Elon Musk blames the engineers for not properly implementing his AI software intended to prevent this sort of thing from happening. Edit: If you disagree, could you tell me why?

flanked-evergl 4y ago
> up to and including "vague" threats of violence. I'm no expert in Twitter, but I have heard many people of note complain about receiving death threats on Twitter. One example: https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-death-threats-video-twitter https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-dea... > Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has revealed that some mornings she starts her day by reading the death threats she has received from men on Twitter. Making a death threat, or a threat of violence, is not protected speech, it is a crime. Can you clarify why you think the new owners will look the other way at crimes being committed on their platform? Also, if it was already happening (up to and including "minor celebrity blames Twitter for their recent issue with a fan stalking them"), is this the trajectory you see regardless of ownership? And if not how will new ownership contribute to it?
- notatoad 4y ago
  The new owners have quite loudly and explicitly promised that there will be less content moderation than their was before. And specifically less moderation of conservatives. If Twitter, under the previous leadership was full of death threats to leftists, and the new leadership is promising less moderation actions taken against the sort of people who make those threats, it seems reasonable to assume that those threats will continue or get worse
  - flanked-evergl 4y ago
    > The new owners have quite loudly and explicitly promised that there will be less content moderation than their was before. Less moderation to the point of not taking actions against content which is criminal, i.e. threatening violence? > new leadership is promising less moderation actions taken against the sort of people who make those threats I think there is some leap in logic here, which is that conservatives are more likely to be criminals, but if that holds then banning them from the platform for non criminal offences will reduce the amount of criminals on the platform, however you will also be banning people who are not criminals in the process, and this does not really seem like a terribly morally sound thing to be doing. How many steps from banning people from twitter for conservative views to reduce crime to jailing people who frequent bars because they are more likely to be criminals? If your only value is to reduce crime, then I'm not sure I see where the breaks are.
    - UncleMeat 4y ago
      > Less moderation to the point of not taking actions against content which is criminal, i.e. threatening violence? Yes, obviously. Because Musk sure isn't pushing for more of this oversight.
    - pjc50 4y ago
      > conservatives are more likely to be criminals The correlation runs the other way. Mass shooters and people who carry out acts of political violence in the US are overwhelmingly driven by conspiracy "logic" that has recently been embraced by the right; Qanon, pizza parlor conspiracies, racism, etc.
Icathian 4y ago
I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted. I think you're probably off the mark, but these are very reasonable and falsifiable predictions and this is what most of this comment chain should be.
wesapien 4y ago
There has always been Fringe groups on Twitter but it's more on the left or the regressives.
skeeter2020 4y ago
I'm not sure why the downvotes. Your predictions don't seem any wilder than a higher post that's all sunshine and unicorns, and in 3-5 years yours can be definitively answered.
yanderekko 4y ago
>5 Years: Twitter is dead. There was a political assassination that was formed, planned, and tweeted/broadcast from Twitter live. The internet has existed for decades with laxer moderation and nothing like this has happened - seems like you're making some hidden assumptions about how the political climate will evolve that are pretty questionable.
delfinom 4y ago
>1 year: Initially, we'll see improvements. Dead weight is cut, along with some live branches, but we see improvements. More free and open speech, I believe he will follow through on that. Fringe groups have a louder voice and can find people to join their causes, leading to further polarization of politics across the globe, and especially in the US. Twitter has no real impact on polarization on politics especially in the US. The problems of the US are first past the post elections, the broken 19th century style primaries, people literally not having enough money to take a day off to vote and/or being too burnt out daily to give a shit about politics. The result is the extremes get a very very loud voice since they are the only ones with nothing better to do. Twitter suddenly being more "free and open" means the extremes get an even louder voice. Your average person making up most of the population just wants to kick back and relax from the daily grind. Not go argue on twitter.
nullc 4y ago
Twitter has already done essentially nothing about overt threats, much less vague ones, against anyone who wasn't a twitter-staff legible good-guy celebrity. The toxic threats even sometimes come from twitter staff and insiders, for example when Coinbase announced their no-politics-at-work policy, Twitter's former CEO Dick Costolo tweeted in reply that that Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong would be "lined up against the wall and shot in the revolution. I’ll happily provide video commentary". The fish rots from the head.

flanked-evergl 4y ago

> up to and including "vague" threats of violence. I'm no expert in Twitter, but I have heard many people of note complain about receiving death threats on Twitter. One example: https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-death-threats-video-twitter https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-dea... > Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has revealed that some mornings she starts her day by reading the death threats she has received from men on Twitter. Making a death threat, or a threat of violence, is not protected speech, it is a crime. Can you clarify why you think the new owners will look the other way at crimes being committed on their platform? Also, if it was already happening (up to and including "minor celebrity blames Twitter for their recent issue with a fan stalking them"), is this the trajectory you see regardless of ownership? And if not how will new ownership contribute to it?

notatoad 4y ago
The new owners have quite loudly and explicitly promised that there will be less content moderation than their was before. And specifically less moderation of conservatives. If Twitter, under the previous leadership was full of death threats to leftists, and the new leadership is promising less moderation actions taken against the sort of people who make those threats, it seems reasonable to assume that those threats will continue or get worse
- flanked-evergl 4y ago
  > The new owners have quite loudly and explicitly promised that there will be less content moderation than their was before. Less moderation to the point of not taking actions against content which is criminal, i.e. threatening violence? > new leadership is promising less moderation actions taken against the sort of people who make those threats I think there is some leap in logic here, which is that conservatives are more likely to be criminals, but if that holds then banning them from the platform for non criminal offences will reduce the amount of criminals on the platform, however you will also be banning people who are not criminals in the process, and this does not really seem like a terribly morally sound thing to be doing. How many steps from banning people from twitter for conservative views to reduce crime to jailing people who frequent bars because they are more likely to be criminals? If your only value is to reduce crime, then I'm not sure I see where the breaks are.
  - UncleMeat 4y ago
    > Less moderation to the point of not taking actions against content which is criminal, i.e. threatening violence? Yes, obviously. Because Musk sure isn't pushing for more of this oversight.
  - pjc50 4y ago
    > conservatives are more likely to be criminals The correlation runs the other way. Mass shooters and people who carry out acts of political violence in the US are overwhelmingly driven by conspiracy "logic" that has recently been embraced by the right; Qanon, pizza parlor conspiracies, racism, etc.

Icathian 4y ago

I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted. I think you're probably off the mark, but these are very reasonable and falsifiable predictions and this is what most of this comment chain should be.

wesapien 4y ago

There has always been Fringe groups on Twitter but it's more on the left or the regressives.

skeeter2020 4y ago

I'm not sure why the downvotes. Your predictions don't seem any wilder than a higher post that's all sunshine and unicorns, and in 3-5 years yours can be definitively answered.

yanderekko 4y ago

>5 Years: Twitter is dead. There was a political assassination that was formed, planned, and tweeted/broadcast from Twitter live. The internet has existed for decades with laxer moderation and nothing like this has happened - seems like you're making some hidden assumptions about how the political climate will evolve that are pretty questionable.

delfinom 4y ago

>1 year: Initially, we'll see improvements. Dead weight is cut, along with some live branches, but we see improvements. More free and open speech, I believe he will follow through on that. Fringe groups have a louder voice and can find people to join their causes, leading to further polarization of politics across the globe, and especially in the US. Twitter has no real impact on polarization on politics especially in the US. The problems of the US are first past the post elections, the broken 19th century style primaries, people literally not having enough money to take a day off to vote and/or being too burnt out daily to give a shit about politics. The result is the extremes get a very very loud voice since they are the only ones with nothing better to do. Twitter suddenly being more "free and open" means the extremes get an even louder voice. Your average person making up most of the population just wants to kick back and relax from the daily grind. Not go argue on twitter.

nullc 4y ago

Twitter has already done essentially nothing about overt threats, much less vague ones, against anyone who wasn't a twitter-staff legible good-guy celebrity. The toxic threats even sometimes come from twitter staff and insiders, for example when Coinbase announced their no-politics-at-work policy, Twitter's former CEO Dick Costolo tweeted in reply that that Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong would be "lined up against the wall and shot in the revolution. I’ll happily provide video commentary". The fish rots from the head.