7 ms·

Trump Will Be Reinstated

49 points by Victerius 4y ago

djaouen 4y ago
Well this surely will end well lol
- bfrog 4y ago
  A trove a comedic source material awaits at least.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
churchill 4y ago
He's probably guessing, "if I'm taking heat for buying Twitter, I might as well lump it all together." I'm not endorsing his move to reinstate Trump, just taking a guess as to why.
- user_named 4y ago
  Wrong. He likes Trump, simple as that.
  - Waterluvian 4y ago
    And not even necessarily on an ideological level. I think these kinds of people find validation in each other’s existence and success.
  - dougmwne 4y ago
    Trump is for sale. Musk has money. What’s not to like?
    - api 4y ago
      Spending money on Trump would be far dumber than spending money on Twitter.
  - randomsearch 4y ago
    Why didn’t he vote for him at the last election?
daVe23hu 4y ago
systemvoltage 4y ago
Original ban thread — Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25691912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25691912
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
daVe23hu 4y ago
BrentOzar 4y ago
I don’t like it, but I’m guessing it serves two purposes for Elon: it gives Twitter more press, and it gives the public a new villain to take the heat off Elon for a while.
rvz 4y ago
Time to run for your lives then, the scary orange creature has been unleashed on the blue site. Absolutely hilarious to see the reaction to all of this. Only when he got banned, it made it to the front-page. [0] But not when the account got reinstated. Looks like flagging is a coping mechanism as an attempt to avoid both Elon and Trump living in the heads of commenters in [0] rent free as HNers continue to flag the news of an account of a former president being unbanned. As always, I'm laughing at the Twitter chaos and everyone in [0]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25691912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25691912
Imnimo 4y ago
Does he know Trump isn't going to pay him $8?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
dehrmann 4y ago
It'll be interesting to see if he's more interested in promoting his Truth Social business or getting mass attention on Twitter.
justin66 4y ago
It looks like this was decided via an online poll. Has he abandoned the idea of a "content moderation council" or is he just reserving it for unimportant decisions?
- wildrhythms 4y ago
  I recall Elon saying he wanted to unban Trump as far back as May, so I see the poll as just another example of his fake 'power to the people' rhetoric.
  - P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
    I would be more inclined to believe this was Musk pointing out that the vast majority of people were ok with Trump being on twitter and he has the backing of the users of the site.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - epakai 4y ago
      The "vast majority" being people who spend their weekend on twitter and follow Elon Musk. The poll didn't matter one iota. Elon would've made a big shitpost if it failed then he would've gone ahead in a few days/weeks.
      - P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
        Did you take my post to be including ethiopians who have no internet and are starving? I don't think many people are going to be shocked by the idea that I meant the vast majority of people on twitter, you know, those people twitter is catering to?
        epakai 4y ago
        No, I'm criticizing the polling technique. A short window on a weekend, and directed at people who follow Musk. It has the same faults as letting legislators pick their constituents (districting).
dougmwne 4y ago
This was very obviously Musk’s plan from the start. Everyone who spent 2 seconds thinking about it knew it. It gives Musk enormous power over US politics and greatly increases the overall user engagement on the platform. Win-win for him. The whole political spectrum in the US cannot and will not stop clicking on everything Trump.
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  It’s an interesting hypothesis. I still think Elon never meant to buy Twitter. He was just swinging it around and smacked into Delaware Chancery Court.
FrontierPsych 4y ago
Elon: "Mr. Trump, I reinstated you on twitter and you won because of all the free media expose you get from it. Now please award me multibillion dollar contracts for Space X, my solar company, my satellite company, and Tesla." Trump: "OK" . And now you know the real reason for why Musk purchased twitter. To get those fine juicy government contract when Trump becomes king."
- randomsearch 4y ago
  And in the meantime, whilst Biden is definitely president? And if trump fails to become candidate or loses like he did last time? Doesn’t make sense. Simplest reason most obvious one: trump brings publicity and engagement for his business.
Waterluvian 4y ago
I’m curious what others think: will this have a positive, negative, or inconsequential effect on employee retention? I have a feeling most employees will be thinking, “oh here we go again…”
jacooper 4y ago
That will only matter if trump wants to be back. I doubt it really, he has Truth social, and he wants it to succeed
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- rurp 4y ago
  Well, until Truth Social fails, which could be pretty soon. Then he'll want to be back on Twitter.
rdtwo 4y ago
Twitter needs trump, he should be paying him to rebuild twitter into a conservative ecosystem of radicalization.
davesque 4y ago
It feels like a pointless exercise to call this out, but Musk himself has admitted that bots on Twitter are a problem. Wouldn't that mean that the results of this poll are bogus? Furthermore, the pool of voters is surely composed primarily of people who follow Musk's Twitter account, so pretty heavily biased. Of course, I don't actually believe Musk was trying to come at this decision logically. Update: To clarify, I'm making a couple of points here: 1) Based on Musk's own statements, it feels hard to believe that he actually thinks this is a reasonable way to come to a decision on this issue and 2) it's reasonable to view the results of this poll as heavily biased, apart from the bot question. In Trump's case, I think there's actually a real debate as to whether or not his ban was justified. This does not feel like a sound way to reverse Twitter's decision. That should matter to both Trump's supporters and his detractors. I'll put it another way. Musk could have claimed that he didn't want to ban political speech that was not directly calling for violence because slippery slope and all that. I still wouldn't have agreed with him, but at least I would have felt better about that. That would have at least indicated that he was interested in determining what was right. Instead, he justified his actions with a poll that seems patently unreliable, shirked responsibility for his decision, and threw in some poorly deployed Latin as a heady sounding justification. I'm not at all convinced that he would have maintained Trump's ban if the results would have come out the other way.
- rinze 4y ago
  Bots are only a problem if they do something you don't like.
  - daVe23hu 4y ago
    so bots exist? gee bubba i would have never imagined
- cscurmudgeon 4y ago
  But didn't the outgoing Twitter team hold the position that bots aren't a problem?
  - bamboozled 4y ago
daVe23hu 4y ago
- daVe23hu 4y ago
  down voted of course
dibt 4y ago
Why do these threads keep getting flagged? There should be a clear explanation.
- awithrow 4y ago
  They get flagged because people flag them. I'm guessing given all the news on Twitter that has dominated the site recently that plenty of HNers are tied of it.
  - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
    It's not just that we're tired of Twitter. We're tired of Trump, too. It's a political topic rather than a technical one.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    I think it is interesting news, unfortunately the discussion around Twitter and almost always around Trump is not interesting. There are few insightful comments and mostly people wildly speculating with high confidence on whatever confirms their priors
  - dibt 4y ago
    how many people need to flag it to have it not appear in rankings? Is there a way for users to 'unflag' it?
    - crazygringo 4y ago
      Sadly no. If a few users flag it, it's done. Apparently there used to be a "vouch" link that would appear to counteract flags, but it seems like they got rid of it at some point in the past few years.
- epakai 4y ago
  There isn't much interesting or curious to discuss. We can all play guessing games about Musk's motivations or speculate on what will happen to Twitter/Elon/Truth/Trump. Elon unbanned in a opaque way. He tried to offload responsibility onto twitter users even though it contradicts and confirms his past statements on lifting bans. We already knew he wanted to do it, but he also recently claimed some council would be involved. You can probably pick plenty of other reasons from the guidelines as to why this gets flagged though. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

49 points by Victerius 4y ago

djaouen 4y ago

Well this surely will end well lol

bfrog 4y ago
A trove a comedic source material awaits at least.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

churchill 4y ago

He's probably guessing, "if I'm taking heat for buying Twitter, I might as well lump it all together." I'm not endorsing his move to reinstate Trump, just taking a guess as to why.

user_named 4y ago
Wrong. He likes Trump, simple as that.
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  And not even necessarily on an ideological level. I think these kinds of people find validation in each other’s existence and success.
- dougmwne 4y ago
  Trump is for sale. Musk has money. What’s not to like?
  - api 4y ago
    Spending money on Trump would be far dumber than spending money on Twitter.
- randomsearch 4y ago
  Why didn’t he vote for him at the last election?

daVe23hu 4y ago

systemvoltage 4y ago

Original ban thread — Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25691912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25691912

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

daVe23hu 4y ago

BrentOzar 4y ago

I don’t like it, but I’m guessing it serves two purposes for Elon: it gives Twitter more press, and it gives the public a new villain to take the heat off Elon for a while.

rvz 4y ago

Time to run for your lives then, the scary orange creature has been unleashed on the blue site. Absolutely hilarious to see the reaction to all of this. Only when he got banned, it made it to the front-page. [0] But not when the account got reinstated. Looks like flagging is a coping mechanism as an attempt to avoid both Elon and Trump living in the heads of commenters in [0] rent free as HNers continue to flag the news of an account of a former president being unbanned. As always, I'm laughing at the Twitter chaos and everyone in [0]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25691912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25691912

Imnimo 4y ago

Does he know Trump isn't going to pay him $8?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

dehrmann 4y ago

It'll be interesting to see if he's more interested in promoting his Truth Social business or getting mass attention on Twitter.

justin66 4y ago

It looks like this was decided via an online poll. Has he abandoned the idea of a "content moderation council" or is he just reserving it for unimportant decisions?

wildrhythms 4y ago
I recall Elon saying he wanted to unban Trump as far back as May, so I see the poll as just another example of his fake 'power to the people' rhetoric.
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
  I would be more inclined to believe this was Musk pointing out that the vast majority of people were ok with Trump being on twitter and he has the backing of the users of the site.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - epakai 4y ago
    The "vast majority" being people who spend their weekend on twitter and follow Elon Musk. The poll didn't matter one iota. Elon would've made a big shitpost if it failed then he would've gone ahead in a few days/weeks.
    - P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
      Did you take my post to be including ethiopians who have no internet and are starving? I don't think many people are going to be shocked by the idea that I meant the vast majority of people on twitter, you know, those people twitter is catering to?
      - epakai 4y ago
        No, I'm criticizing the polling technique. A short window on a weekend, and directed at people who follow Musk. It has the same faults as letting legislators pick their constituents (districting).

dougmwne 4y ago

This was very obviously Musk’s plan from the start. Everyone who spent 2 seconds thinking about it knew it. It gives Musk enormous power over US politics and greatly increases the overall user engagement on the platform. Win-win for him. The whole political spectrum in the US cannot and will not stop clicking on everything Trump.

Waterluvian 4y ago
It’s an interesting hypothesis. I still think Elon never meant to buy Twitter. He was just swinging it around and smacked into Delaware Chancery Court.

FrontierPsych 4y ago

Elon: "Mr. Trump, I reinstated you on twitter and you won because of all the free media expose you get from it. Now please award me multibillion dollar contracts for Space X, my solar company, my satellite company, and Tesla." Trump: "OK" . And now you know the real reason for why Musk purchased twitter. To get those fine juicy government contract when Trump becomes king."

randomsearch 4y ago
And in the meantime, whilst Biden is definitely president? And if trump fails to become candidate or loses like he did last time? Doesn’t make sense. Simplest reason most obvious one: trump brings publicity and engagement for his business.

Waterluvian 4y ago

I’m curious what others think: will this have a positive, negative, or inconsequential effect on employee retention? I have a feeling most employees will be thinking, “oh here we go again…”

jacooper 4y ago

That will only matter if trump wants to be back. I doubt it really, he has Truth social, and he wants it to succeed

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rurp 4y ago
Well, until Truth Social fails, which could be pretty soon. Then he'll want to be back on Twitter.

rdtwo 4y ago

Twitter needs trump, he should be paying him to rebuild twitter into a conservative ecosystem of radicalization.

davesque 4y ago

It feels like a pointless exercise to call this out, but Musk himself has admitted that bots on Twitter are a problem. Wouldn't that mean that the results of this poll are bogus? Furthermore, the pool of voters is surely composed primarily of people who follow Musk's Twitter account, so pretty heavily biased. Of course, I don't actually believe Musk was trying to come at this decision logically. Update: To clarify, I'm making a couple of points here: 1) Based on Musk's own statements, it feels hard to believe that he actually thinks this is a reasonable way to come to a decision on this issue and 2) it's reasonable to view the results of this poll as heavily biased, apart from the bot question. In Trump's case, I think there's actually a real debate as to whether or not his ban was justified. This does not feel like a sound way to reverse Twitter's decision. That should matter to both Trump's supporters and his detractors. I'll put it another way. Musk could have claimed that he didn't want to ban political speech that was not directly calling for violence because slippery slope and all that. I still wouldn't have agreed with him, but at least I would have felt better about that. That would have at least indicated that he was interested in determining what was right. Instead, he justified his actions with a poll that seems patently unreliable, shirked responsibility for his decision, and threw in some poorly deployed Latin as a heady sounding justification. I'm not at all convinced that he would have maintained Trump's ban if the results would have come out the other way.

rinze 4y ago
Bots are only a problem if they do something you don't like.
- daVe23hu 4y ago
  so bots exist? gee bubba i would have never imagined
cscurmudgeon 4y ago
But didn't the outgoing Twitter team hold the position that bots aren't a problem?
- bamboozled 4y ago

daVe23hu 4y ago

daVe23hu 4y ago
down voted of course

dibt 4y ago

Why do these threads keep getting flagged? There should be a clear explanation.

awithrow 4y ago
They get flagged because people flag them. I'm guessing given all the news on Twitter that has dominated the site recently that plenty of HNers are tied of it.
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  It's not just that we're tired of Twitter. We're tired of Trump, too. It's a political topic rather than a technical one.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  I think it is interesting news, unfortunately the discussion around Twitter and almost always around Trump is not interesting. There are few insightful comments and mostly people wildly speculating with high confidence on whatever confirms their priors
- dibt 4y ago
  how many people need to flag it to have it not appear in rankings? Is there a way for users to 'unflag' it?
  - crazygringo 4y ago
    Sadly no. If a few users flag it, it's done. Apparently there used to be a "vouch" link that would appear to counteract flags, but it seems like they got rid of it at some point in the past few years.
epakai 4y ago
There isn't much interesting or curious to discuss. We can all play guessing games about Musk's motivations or speculate on what will happen to Twitter/Elon/Truth/Trump. Elon unbanned in a opaque way. He tried to offload responsibility onto twitter users even though it contradicts and confirms his past statements on lifting bans. We already knew he wanted to do it, but he also recently claimed some council would be involved. You can probably pick plenty of other reasons from the guidelines as to why this gets flagged though. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html