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Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

• zzzeek 4y ago
  This should cause a significant degree of cognitive dissonance for quite a lot of Hacker News users. fascinating to see two members of the billionaire tech class disagree publicly like this.
  • brainphreeze 4y ago
    This website is heavily left leaning, like most of the internet these days.
    • 082349872349872 4y ago
      what do you consider a centrist website? (I am centre-right by my country's standards, yet my perception of HN is that it leans even more right)
    • vdnkh 4y ago
      Do you live under a rock? This place has always been libertarian, and since Trump has turned into an echo chamber of alt-right grievances in tech. The initial burst of cheering from this forum over Elon initially buying twitter to "destroy wokeness" was deafening.
    • tauntz 4y ago
      ..like most of the world, really. I'm not sure where some people got the impression that people are anywhere close to being 50/50 between left vs right.
      • elboru 4y ago
        Elections?
      • elforce002 4y ago
        Not the world, just the West.
  • weaksauce 4y ago
    only if people haven't been paying attention to the absolute shitshow that musk was doing with twitter. elon is not a smart man even if he cosplays one.
  • coffeebeqn 4y ago
    I mean my reaction is: ok I don’t care about this billionaire spat
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • thepasswordis 4y ago
    I have seen 0 people who support Elon in this.
  • photochemsyn 4y ago
    As an HN user who is mostly interested in open source projects of various sorts, I don't really care that much about 'billionaire tech class' conflicts. I do appreciate Elon Musk's successful effort with electric vehicles and reusable rockets, though I expect others to eventually catch up, as is normal with tech innovation (VW electric vehicles are looking good). As far as social media, if it all goes away I wouldn't be that concerned. Net neutrality and access to basic Internet services for all is a much more important issue, IMO. Blocking servers from the Internet (unless they're actually hosting criminal content and taken down by legal prosecution) would be the more serious free speech violation.
• wnevets 4y ago
  Do people on HN still believe Elon isn't destroying Twitter?
  • bmelton 4y ago
    I'll take the hit here. I thought electric vehicles were a really dumb idea. Too many problems to be solved for. Range. Charging. Depreciation. Getting people to switch. All of the other infrastructure. Now it's what everyone does, and Tesla is (last I checked) one of the very few EV makers that is able to make a profit on EVs, while upstarts in the space (including Ford) are losing money on every EV sale. I thought self-landing rockets was a dumb idea. I thought Starlink was a dumb idea. I think a lot of what Elon is doing now is a very dumb idea, but as a Twitter user with friends across the political spectrum, I have seen what has appeared to be a suppression of speech that largely affected my right leaning friends, while my left leaning friends gloated about it. I've watched journalists like Taylor Lorenz break the rules with impunity while journalists on the right were deplatformed for doing less. This is clearly a departure, and I would argue that many right leaning friends were hoping that Elon would stop the pendulum swing, I don't think any were expecting the pendulum to swing back the other way so hard. Elon's actions have seemed arbitrary, but a) Every change looks bad when you don't know their motivations, and b) I've been wrong about Elon's entire life to this point. It's possible that he's done surveys or polls or gotten data indicating that fear of doxxing is a thing that is meaningfully suppressing Twitter engagement. It is possible that he knows what he's doing, but it isn't what he's said he's doing and it definitely isn't what we expected him to be doing. I don't know the answer to those questions, and so I don't know if he's ruining Twitter or just transforming it into something that it hasn't been, and I'm mindful of the fact that practically every single change that Twitter has ever made has been received as "the end of Twitter," from verified accounts, to changing their API ToS, to blocking apps, to suing users with any vague reference to 'tweet' in their apps, to bookmarks, analytics, 280 characters, etc., etc.
    • Nomentatus 4y ago
      Agreed, well said. Elon's had a busy productive life, and my take on my University friends who've had busy productive lives is that they now have the self-insight of a baked potato, roughly. No doubt because they haven't had spare time to reflect on their actions or motivations. But that doesn't mean they can't self-correct, it just means they usually have to run into a brick wall or two before they do. I'm guessing he'll correct this latest boner.
• gnicholas 4y ago
  I don't use Twitter much and never followed pg there. I do read his pieces that get posted here. What would someone like me gain from having followed him on Twitter, or following him on some other platform now?
• halfmatthalfcat 4y ago
  It's interesting to see these tech influencers and their lag time on giving Elon the benefit of the doubt before they've had enough. Will Elon ever have a "coming to jesus moment" and realize that he's alienated so many of his peers that he is, in fact, in the wrong? Or is he so delusional that he really does believe he has the answers?
  • thinking4real 4y ago
    • adalacelove 4y ago
      Terence Tao is on mastodon. Beat that!
    • shadowgovt 4y ago
      Flip the script: what evidence do we have that he's smarter than eight billion people?
      • andreygrehov 4y ago
        Well, when it comes to Elon vs 8B people, money could be one metric.
        • kasey_junk 4y ago
          That metric is taking a real beating lately.
          • andreygrehov 4y ago
            I disagree, because it's not only Elon who is losing money these days. The economy is doing a nosedive. Everyone is affected, including Elon. It would've been a different conversation had everyone was making money, but Elon.
• ipsum2 4y ago
  It's news to me that that users are not allowed to mention other social networks' accounts on Twitter anymore. Seems short sighted, how many users is Twitter losing to Instagram/Discord/Mastodon?
  • K7PJP 4y ago
    It's a brand new policy, and it was enforced before it was even declared. I just deleted my Twitter account after 14 years. It's over.
  • input_sh 4y ago
    The policy change was on the frontpage of HN just a couple of hours ago, but you can imagine how comments went and why it's no longer there.
    • duskwuff 4y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34040165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34040165 is on the front page at #19 right now. There were a couple of other duplicate discussions, but that's the main one.
    • permalac 4y ago
      Self censoring? Or cease and desist?
      • txru 4y ago
        HN relatively deweights posts that get a lot of argument without a lot of insight. Things about politics, or tech involved culture war, or continuous divisive news stories disappear from the front page quickly. I would classify that as ‘generic moderation policy’ rather than censorship
  • r721 4y ago
    Here is the HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34040165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34040165
  • 4y ago
• smcn 4y ago
  Understandable, and I'm hoping we see more and more people make the switch. Has been hilarious watching this car crash.
• phoe-krk 4y ago
  Direct Fediverse link: https://mas.to/@paulg https://mas.to/@paulg
• kristiandupont 4y ago
  How does one find a good Mastodon server? On his website it says "Follow me at @paulg@mas.to" -- does that mean that he is on mas.to? What if I want to follow him but also someone on another server? Or do I not understand how it works?
  • ceejayoz 4y ago
    Yes, he's on mas.to, but you can follow him from an account elsewhere.
  • xenodium 4y ago
    You can follow on any server. For example, I'm on indieweb.social but follow folks in all kinds of instances: ruby.social, fostodon.org, emacs.ch, aus.social, mstdn.jp... ps. You can also follow hashtags if interested in a specific topic.
    • cesarb 4y ago
      > ps. You can also follow hashtags if interested in a specific topic. AFAIK, only if your server is on Mastodon 4.0.0 or newer, as Mastodon 3.x didn't have that feature yet.
  • navanchauhan 4y ago
    You can join any mastodon server and follow someone from any other server.
    • ceejayoz 4y ago
      (with some complexities about defederation; Gab is on a Mastodon fork, but most of the Mastodon world has blocked interchange with it.
      • rglullis 4y ago
        It goes both ways. Gab has also closed federation. Same for Truth Social.
• TekMol 4y ago
  This is his Mastodon account: https://mas.to/@paulg/with_replies https://mas.to/@paulg/with_replies His first toots remind me of his first tweets: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/22300310058 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/22300310058 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/22307238459 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/22307238459
  • yunohn 4y ago
    First time I’m using Mastodon, and it’s incredibly slow. Is the app any faster than the web app?
    • bennyp101 4y ago
      There’s another exodus of twitter users, and most servers are run by individuals, give them time or run your own instance and federate
      • rvz 4y ago
        > There’s another exodus of twitter users, and most servers are run by individuals Again, Expecting non-techies to self-host their own instances after several of them falling over due to light usage and signups is quite wishful thinking and reiterates the need for users to heavily rely on more centralized instances to on board users. Well all know what happened to mastodon.technology which was run by an individual. It doesn't look smart to sit on an instance that can barely handle hundreds of thousands of users signing up at once and ends up folding up. > give them time or run your own instance and federate Yeah, the journalists at journa.host has never been more alive for journalists and is going just great with a much better reach than Twitter [1] /s. [0] https://ashfurrow.com/blog/mastodon-technology-shutdown/ https://ashfurrow.com/blog/mastodon-technology-shutdown/ [1] https://twitter.com/ajaromano/status/1594432548222152705 https://twitter.com/ajaromano/status/1594432548222152705
        • ssnistfajen 4y ago
          Decentrialized network doesn't mean every node is equal in size. Natural user behaviour will still aggregate onto a few larger servers. That's completely normal. Mastodon wasn't meant to be a 100% replica of Twitter nor has it ever attempted to be. The only reason it's getting such a rapid influx of users is because of Elon's sabotage.
• hakanderyal 4y ago
  Relevant discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34040165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34040165
• eastendguy 4y ago
  Wow, Twitter is collapsing much faster than I expected. With PG and some other high-profile accounts gone, many will loose interest in their Twitter feed fast. Rinse and repeat.
  • ceejayoz 4y ago
    I thought it'd collapse on the tech side before the policy side. Rather shocked the mask has come off this quickly on what "free speech" actually meant.
    • pclmulqdq 4y ago
      Large distributed systems that have already been built can often limp along for a very long time before falling over. I would give Twitter at least another 3-6 months for stuff to start breaking.
      • mmastrac 4y ago
        Yep. Distributed systems, like any complex systems, follow "slowly at first, then all at once."
      • ceejayoz 4y ago
        Agreed entirely, but I thought the "free speech" stuff would last longer than that 3-6 months, if for no other reason than to avoid the embarassment of it.
      • runevault 4y ago
        On what level do you mean? 2fa already broke at one point (no clue if they fixed it I don't use two-factor as my twitter account is not terribly important)
        • pclmulqdq 4y ago
          You'll know the level when it happens - I am referring to multi-day outages. 2fa being broken doesn't surprise me at all. I bet the didn't want to pay the bill. To be clear, it could take years.
• belligeront 4y ago
  Amazing that just a month ago he tweeted[1]: "It's remarkable how many people who've never run any kind of company think they know how to run a tech company better than someone who's run Tesla and SpaceX.". It's been fascinating watching so many VC types ignore so many red flags just because some of Elon's early actions validated their priors (e.g. tech companies are bloated and need to layoff staff). [1] https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1592852796185128961 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1592852796185128961
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • ALittleLight 4y ago
    Why is that amazing? When people do what you think is right, or what you think might be right, you agree with them or willing to see where things go. When people do what you think is wrong you disagree or break with them. That seems perfectly reasonable.
    • MattGaiser 4y ago
      > Why is that amazing? PG mocked those who thought we would end up here.
      • dnissley 4y ago
        Where is "here" exactly?
        • pavlov 4y ago
          Every promise Musk made about Twitter broken in less than two months?
          • wpietri 4y ago
            And the demolition of Elon's image as a tech/business genius. If I'd set out to wreck his reputation, I could not have done half the job Musk has done since he bid for Twitter.
• CrimpCity 4y ago
  He’ll be back.
  • steve_adams_86 4y ago
    I’m not so sure. I left a month ago and apart from the current tire fire, I’m just glad not to be using it. Or anything else. It was almost strictly a waste of my time, and I’d really lost sight of how rarely it wasn’t wasteful. At this point it genuinely seems as though doing nothing would be better than using Twitter. It produces a convincing illusion of being entertaining or even useful at times, but for me it truly and wholly lacked any significant utility or fulfilling elements. Apart from HN, I’m totally off the social media train and fairly content with it being that way. I suppose PG has more use for social media than I do, so the case may be a little different. Even so, I doubt very much that him returning to Twitter (or anyone for that matter) is inevitable.
    • CrimpCity 4y ago
      That’s great it sounds like Twitter and social media in general isn’t a big value add for you. I think for Paul Graham it’s a different story since he talks to other influencers and occasionally goes viral. That sort of feedback loop well that’s quite addictive. There’s a reason why there’s no obvious Twitter competitor.
  • TigeriusKirk 4y ago
    It's my feeling that most will be back. But the frothy frenzy will have to burn itself out first.
  • dredmorbius 4y ago
    He's ... somewhat said as much: <https://mas.to/@paulg/109536542792559441 https://mas.to/@paulg/109536542792559441>
    • CrimpCity 4y ago
      Didn’t see that but just saw the top voted comment here and yeah def feel like I called it haha :)
• DiNovi 4y ago
  Paul is an out of touch reactionary billionaire. when you’ve lost your own, maybe it’s time to acknowledge you don’t know what you’re doing
  • zzzeek 4y ago
    > Paul is an out of touch reactionary billionaire. Elon Musk is billionaire reactionary distilled into its purest form. I mean the guy is literally spending 100% of his time reacting to things he doesn't personally like.
    • DiNovi 4y ago
      i know the brain poison social media gives us all… it’s wild to see
      • m_fayer 4y ago
        Yep. Along with Musk and Kanye. Those are cases where the poison has fully penetrated. How many of our elites are less noticeably but still significantly impaired though? It's a frightening thought.
        • theGnuMe 4y ago
          Well I mean Trump was the scariest.
        • JamesSwift 4y ago
          Ehh, I mean Kanye has been on this journey for a long time. Talking about how "George Bush doesnt care about black people" in 2005 and grabbing mics to announce that "Beyonce had the best video of all time" in 2009. I was a fan and apologist of his for sometime after these incidents, but he lost me somewhere around his 2011 album with Jayz.
  • ALittleLight 4y ago
    I really wish I could see Twitter's internal dashboards. One thing I have a hard time estimating is, outside of my bubble, how is Twitter doing? Are these things hurting Twitter? Is the controversy helping it? I can't imagine what would motivate the decision to ban Mastodon links. Were they really losing users to Mastodon? That would be a huge problem, but not one that banning links would solve.
• 323 4y ago
  Maybe Elon is playing 15D chess, and crashing Twitter into the ground is part of a bigger plan.
  • elforce002 4y ago
    Hehe, that's 44b crash so I'd assume he's posed to get at least double than that on this bigger plan.
• threeseed 4y ago
  There’s an old adage about never meeting your heroes that applies well to PG. Some of his daily takes were so embarrassing and insipid that it was hard to maintain respect. It’s funny because his long form posts which are often insightful were likely reviewed/edited by a third person. A concept he has actually said only exists in the modern commercial publishing era.
  • notatoad 4y ago
    >were likely reviewed/edited by a third person or else just had the benefit of more time to think about them. i certainly know i say some dumb stuff, but if i write it down and think about it for a week before saying it to anybody else, i'm going to censor like 90% of the stuff that comes out of my head.
    • bigmattystyles 4y ago
      That was always the dumbest criticism of Obama - that he took frequent pauses when speaking (the uuuuhs) and chose his words carefully - his critics used it against him where anyone with half of brain understood why. That being said, Trump essentially DDoS the art of the inartful / wrong / dumb, so maybe that was a better way to go. Who knows....
      • beambot 4y ago
        Very off topic, but... Most presidential speeches are written by a speech writer & displayed on the teleprompter, not ad libbed on the spot. The "uuuuhs" were an intentional mannerism.
  • coffeebeqn 4y ago
    There’s another one: the medium is the message
  • zug_zug 4y ago
    So I notice a trend for people to take seem to take stabs at PG whenever he's brought up, and sometimes not seemingly even relevant to the article at hand. I suppose you can only speak for yourself, but I find the words "insipid" and "embarrassing" particularly emotional / unscientific. Out of curiosity, what is there a connection to the article at hand or alternatively why do you feel it's important to spread awareness of his incompetence?
• mrtksn 4y ago
  You know how Musk promises one thing and delivers something else? I'm not the biggest Musk fan but I believe he has a very effective process and he is a product person - that is understands what is a good product. He will never deliver a free speech platform, he is a free-speech NIMBY and has an agenda os something that drives him but he can still turn Twitter into something valuable. Then people will come back for whatever Twitter will become. But because he claimed free-speech absolutism he will be held accountable for it and his persona will degrade and people won't cut him a slack and that's the risk for him to fail completely. Until very recently he was able to get thousands of dollars of payment for a product that don't exists and he even jacked up the price over the years, many people are called frauds for less than this but Musk has huge social credit among the techies and He can continue selling that product and continue claiming that it will deliver next year - indefinitely. He needs to figure out Twitter before his personality loses credit completely and losing the support of Paul Graham, a prominent persona from the scene, is not a good sign.
  • vdnkh 4y ago
    > I'm not the biggest Musk fan but I believe he has a very effective process and he is a product person What a weird thing to say after he killed twitter with his "process". Perhaps this dumpster fire is the best view yet into what he really believes, and how he really runs his companies. Elon is a modern day Kissinger
    • mrtksn 4y ago
      His process as, I understand it, is to re-discover the wheel and see how else it could have been done. It is messy and might not yield good results if his predecessors already did a good job but I think he has a chance and will look like a dumpster fire until he learns and finds a new path. If he fails, it will look like extinguished dumpster fire :)
      • vdnkh 4y ago
        It's not a dumpster fire, its 5d chess!
• anticristi 4y ago
  > Twitter will no longer allow free promotion of specific social media platforms I can foresee that Twitter Orange will be launched next week, which for 8$/month allows you to link to other social media platforms. On a more serious tone, does anyone know if this is legal in the EU, given the recent Digital Services Act?
  • input_sh 4y ago
    It's absolutely not compatible with Digital Services Act: https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/digital-markets-act-ensuring-fair-and-open-digital-markets_en https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-... > Example of the “don'ts” - Gatekeeper platforms may no longer: > treat services and products offered by the gatekeeper itself more favourably in ranking than similar services or products offered by third parties on the gatekeeper's platform > prevent consumers from linking up to businesses outside their platforms
• vdnkh 4y ago
  The post that killed HN
• tester756 4y ago
  >You’ll be back >It's not impossible. Elon is a smart guy. He doesn't currently understand how different social media is from cars and rockets, but he could well figure it out before it's too late.
• kethinov 4y ago
  They're literally banning mentioning your Mastodon handle. Unbelievable. Like Paul, I will not be adhering to this absurd new rule. If they ban me for that, then I guess that's that.
  • UncleOxidant 4y ago
    Twitter is dead as dead as MySpace now. Time to move on.
    • MrRiddle 4y ago
• thepasswordis 4y ago
  Okay so I tried to join his new mastadon server and it says I can't. So...what?
  • ceejayoz 4y ago
    Pick any other one, sign up there, then click the "follow" button on his profile for instructions.
    • thepasswordis 4y ago
      How do I pick one?
      • ceejayoz 4y ago
        Pick at random, or find one with a theme you enjoy. You can always move off it; a few clicks and your followers migrate over to the new one.
      • smcn 4y ago
        I picked for you, it's https://hachyderm.io https://hachyderm.io
        • thepasswordis 4y ago
          That looks to have some pretty radical politics at its core. No thanks.
          • smcn 4y ago
            What is it you were looking to partake in? Racism, violence, fascism, colonialism, white supremacy, religious extremism, nationalism, homophobia, or transphobia?
  • cesarb 4y ago
    You can join any other Mastodon server, and still follow him even though you're on a different server. Just put his handle (the one you can find on his site) on the search bar of your Mastodon server after logging in.
• BashiBazouk 4y ago
  It's fine for my use case. I only go to twitter through links, mostly from here and Reddit. IMO Mastodon has a slightly better interface for linked to reading but it's six of one, one half dozen of the other at the end of the day. Occasionally I read replies on tweets and always regret it...
• JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  Is there a HN Mastodon server?
  • mmastrac 4y ago
    Lots of us are on hachyderm, but there's no official HN one.
• barathr 4y ago
  For those wondering about how to sign up to mastodon and what server to pick: It's like picking an email server. They all have their differences, but generally they are interoperable. You can read users from anywhere, and follow from anywhere. Better yet, it's fairly easy to move your account from one server to another if you don't like it. Your best bet is some of the bigger second-tier servers (ones that have thousands but not hundreds of thousands of users) because they aren't as heavily loaded. https://instances.social/ https://instances.social/ https://github.com/McKael/mastodon-documentation/blob/master/Using-Mastodon/List-of-Mastodon-instances.md https://github.com/McKael/mastodon-documentation/blob/master...
  • haunter 4y ago
    > It's like picking an email server. They all have their differences, but generally they are interoperable. Disagree. Mastodon servers can be all over the place from politics to hobbies to tech. It’s not like an email handle at all your choice _matters_ because others moderate the server and who you can connect with. Self hosting is the only way to go with Mastodon (costs the same as Twitter Blue btw if you don’t want to do your own)
    • barathr 4y ago
      Yes that's true in terms of the local feeds, but in terms of getting one's feet wet it's fine. For HN users, this is one among many reasonable tech-oriented choices: https://techhub.social https://techhub.social Here are a couple that are infosec oriented: https://infosec.exchange https://infosec.exchange https://ioc.exchange/ https://ioc.exchange/
  • rglullis 4y ago
    > Your best bet is some of the bigger second-tier servers. Until they get overloaded, and face the same issues as the "first tier" ones... I know that what I am about to say is out of personal interest, but I really wish people took the analogy to email servers more seriously and started looking at commercial providers. I'm offering Mastodon services for about $0.50/user/month [0], and I have the infra to host 20-30k users efficiently. For this type of case, there is nothing more sustainable, fair and efficient than letting the market figure things out. But if we keep thinking that accounts should be offered for free, there will be always market distortions. [0] https://communick.com/packages https://communick.com/packages
• haunter 4y ago
  I wonder when, if ever, mainstream migration will happen. For example most TV channels were posting World Cup goals on Twitter asap. Same if you follow for example NFL. Easy to follow the games with instant highlights. When will these leave or simply stop posting?
  • bluedino 4y ago
    Why would they?
  • smcn 4y ago
    Social media is a massive advertising platform for these companies. They'll go where the people are. Most likely it'll begin with posts being mirrored between the two places, and then switching over when/if Twitter becomes less and less relevant.
• emadabdulrahim 4y ago
  Related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34040165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34040165
  • dredmorbius 4y ago
    Title: "Promotion of alternative social platforms policy" Context: This is specifically linked in pg's tweet. (Which should be reasonably obvious, though several comments to this thread suggest otherwise.)
• fortran77 4y ago
  I can't read this tweet because he's blocked me. Can someone tell me what it says?
  • lapcat 4y ago
    Just open it in a private/incognito window.
  • lies_really 4y ago
    It says "HN user fortran77 upset me so much that I blocked him here and am leaving Twitter forevermore. I just can't deal with these emotions, it's too much."
  • dredmorbius 4y ago
    Nitter is your friend: <https://nitter.kavin.rocks/paulg/status/1604556563338887168 https://nitter.kavin.rocks/paulg/status/1604556563338887168>
• norwalkbear 4y ago
  He'll be back. If you hate Twitter you will despise Mastodon.
  • mmastrac 4y ago
    That's easily disprovable, as I hate Twitter and like Mastodon. Some small growing pains, but it's been the best experience I've had on social media since Google+.
  • azangru 4y ago
    What's wrong with Mastodon? I thought that because it isn't serving you ads, it has much less incentive for keeping you constantly engaged and outraged.
    • jansan 4y ago
      Following Paul Graham's link to his profile was my first visit to Mastodon. This was hugely underwhelming. It looks and feels just slow and sad, not sure how this should attract the average user.
      • justsomehnguy 4y ago
        > It looks and feels just slow and sad Honestly, this is the same feel I get when I visit Twitter. Thing is - I don't have an app, so it's always slow.
  • bsaul 4y ago
    Never understood how people would leave twitter for mastodon (which is federated) as a way to protest against nonregulated free speech (not the case for pg, but that’s what’s started the trend).
• teddyh 4y ago
  So, when is @HNStatus leaving Twitter?
• nedsma 4y ago
  Can't say about pg, but I left Twitter (I'm a regular, non-blue user) because the ads lately got out of control. Every other post is a promoted ad from a totally unrelated category, which I can't relate to. Ads targeting either stopped working, or Twitter allowed large numbers of low quality advertisers to push their ads.
  • starik36 4y ago
    I experienced a similar phenomenon. I have 2 accounts, the latter following very few people. So it’s showing almost exclusively ads and promoted tweets since there is nothing else to show.
  • optionalsquid 4y ago
    I turned my ad-blocker off a while ago, out of curiosity, and my ads have been a mix of (mostly) no ads at all or (occasionally) a bunch of ads at once for really strange things. One time I got six ads in a row for locations in China. Not tourist spots, mind, but stuff like a dig site in a Chinese city. Another time I got amateurish Christian evangelism and a guy promoting a article in Nature about cats recognizing their names. I'm not even sure why the second guy was promoting that article, as they were neither a co-author nor affiliated. Very rarely do I get ads that are even remotely related to the kind of accounts I follow on Twitter.
• lettergram 4y ago
  Seems relevant https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1604069050220519424 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1604069050220519424
  • Nomentatus 4y ago
    Worth pointing to but in this case it's not a disagreement over X, it's Elon breaking the law.
• softwaredoug 4y ago
  I have for years posted to Twitter via LinkedIn. Presumably this is some kind of official relationship between the platforms or a sanctioned use of Twitters API. I wonder what risk my Twitter account would have for closure? LinkenIn originated posts refer to LinkedIn if the post exceeds Twitters character limits. (In case you’re wondering I do this to keep my Twitter active but avoid having to actually login and see Twitter :) )
• andrewstuart 4y ago
  If you Qwit then they win.
  • shadowgovt 4y ago
    But what is the game and what is the prize. Personally, I quit years ago when old ownership responded to a major nation electing a known troll President by modifying their TOS to make a "newsworthiness" carve-out. Their game and their rules and none of us have to play it.
• ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago
  My recent impression of pg is that he is raising his family and is wealthy beyond measure. He doesn't need to influence anyone, and aside from his small quips on startups, seems to be checked out. He's not irrelevant but not being on twitter has zero impact on his life, because he doesnt need a mouth piece anymore
  • benjaminwootton 4y ago
    Most people are on there for a sense of validation. And I imagine 1 million followers is pretty validating.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• bluedino 4y ago
  What's the point of announcing that you're leaving a social media platform?
  • dredmorbius 4y ago
    Brief reflection might suggest a few self-evident reasons: 1. Letting people know where and how you can be found, followed, and contacted. 2. To voice dissatisfaction with practices and/or policies of the old platform. 3. To encourage others to do similarly. I'm surprised the question is necessary, but appreciate the opportunity to clarify.
• juliushuijnk 4y ago
  I'm not famous, but it was the last straw for me too.
• newobj 4y ago
  Nice to see. The last week of dingdongery was my final straw too.
• rhaway84773 4y ago
  Twitter - the global town square, but you dare not mention the address of that little park down the road, because Elon’s feelings might get hurt.
• andreygrehov 4y ago
  Unless there is a massive domino effect, there won't be even a blip on Twitter's MAU dashboard. With all respect to Paul, he only has 1.5M followers, which is not _that_ much. Let's be honest, how many people know Paul Graham outside of the tech industry? Justin Bieber has 113.6M followers. Rihanna has 107M followers. Heck, even Snoop Dogg has 20.8M followers. These are 20-100 times bigger accounts that are not going anywhere (yet).
  • qaq 4y ago
    He has a certain type of followers though, and he is not the only person making this move.
• dpweb 4y ago
  I think the preferred approach if you’re outraged about Twitter management, is speak out about it on Twitter, as opposed to quit in protest. Fight the fight if it’s worth it.
  • omginternets 4y ago
    So, if you’re pissed at twitter, you should do the very thing that keeps the money flowing in? I don’t follow.
  • russdill 4y ago
    Your solution is to try and convince Elon?
  • UncleOxidant 4y ago
    Nope. The only way to win here is not to play. The more you try to "stay and fight" the more that gives twitter traffic and attention. Best to realize that Twitter is now as dead as MySpace and move on. Federation is the way so the fediverse it is.
  • _fizz_buzz_ 4y ago
    Why? It's a free market, easiest thing to do is vote with your feet.
  • dredmorbius 4y ago
    Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty>
• blackoil 4y ago
  Maybe it is time for Google to fan their Social Network ambitions. They have enough brainpower to get a functional/scalable Mastodon server by Christmas. They may get the traction and later EEE it.
  • tonightstoast 4y ago
    Honestly Circles was a great idea with poor UI/UX. It would be interesting to see a rebrand. However, I have doubts about people wanting to use another Alphabet product considering they seem to kill everything that isn’t a massive success.
  • lcnmrn 4y ago
    Call it Google Social. Get the usernames from Gmail. Contribute to Mastodon like their are doing on Chromium or do a fork. Get the same policy and terms from YouTube. What can be that hard?
• posharma 4y ago
  So? Why so much discussion about this? Are we going to discuss this again when he's back on Twitter?
  • bowsamic 4y ago
    He owns Hacker News
    • posharma 4y ago
      Yes, I’m aware of that. I still don’t feel it is worth so much discussion.
      • qaq 4y ago
        Well you are discussing it
• HellDunkel 4y ago
  This guy is full of himself an d you guys know this. Stop adoring him.
• mazurnification 4y ago
  Honest question. What is probability that Elon will run poll and revert policy change? (My pick 80%)
  • ssnistfajen 4y ago
    The trick can only be played so many times before it gets old. Abrupt announcement of policy changes followed by strawpoll repeal is not going to undo 100% of the damage.
• ericzawo 4y ago
  imagine still unironically saying stuff like “i support Elon's vision but this is a singular bad decision” — you either lack the capacity to understand there’s no vision here other than off the cuff decision making or wildly intellectually dishonest and are playing both sides.
• LarsDu88 4y ago
  Remember how George Lucas made Star Wars and became the genius billionaire who could do no wrong. Then he got a divorce and made Howard the Duck (quite possibly the worst movie of all time). I think the same thing is happening here. As a startup founder you have guardrails, spouses, investors. You have Brian De Palma rewriting the opening trailer crawl, you have Marcia Lucas helping the edit, and you have your old professor at USC Irvin Kershner guiding your hand. Now, Elon is the wealthiest man in the world and he has turned into Jar Jar Musk. It's time to see how this bird themed turd pans out.
  • jacquesm 4y ago
    I'll have to go watch that now.
    • layer8 4y ago
      Maybe watch the pitch meeting first: https://youtube.com/watch?v=3JGmGR9meNc https://youtube.com/watch?v=3JGmGR9meNc
      • jacquesm 4y ago
        That's just weird...
  • ericzawo 4y ago
    This is a phenomenal metaphor that I concur wholeheartedly with and will be stealing. My Star Wars fan friends will understand the point immediately :)
    • hyperhopper 4y ago
      This comment really adds nothing that an upvote wouldn't. (Yes, ironic since this comment is just a vocalized downvote, but I figured I'd tell you why)
  • malteof 4y ago
    > Elon is the wealthiest man in the world Second wealthiest now…
• BiteCode_dev 4y ago
  There are a lot of things that happened where I could see both sides of the debate. As usual, a lot of outrage on Tweeter was more about the reflex of it than something really meaningful, the Tweeter files were underwhelming and I didn't find anything in the new Twitter that I thought was completely bonkers. But this ban on link is, indeed, in my book, a bad move. And it will also make me reevaluate the past Tweeter drama in the light of this decision. I always was of the opinion that eventually things would settle down and Twitter would go on its merry way. But I'm not so sure anymore. I don't think I'll leave right now, but I'm not giving the benefit of the doubt to any of this anymore.
  • red_trumpet 4y ago
    Are you talking about Paul Graham or Elon Musk?
    • BiteCode_dev 4y ago
      Edited for clarity.
• tonkawonka321 4y ago
  Twitter will be part of the entertainment center of every self driving/electric car and new mobility device. That is where Daddy Musk is taking us. Either you get on board or you lose out and play with your VR toys from daddy Zuckerberg. Either way, you can't escape it. We are going ahead ladies and gents. I would get in early if I was you. Just like Daddy Jobs did for most of us. RIP. Those that shared the vision went far.
• petilon 4y ago
  Elon Musk has done a lot of nasty things after taking over Twitter. He has acted basically like a conquerer taking over an evil country, then publicizing all the evil things that have been happening in the country: publicly deriding engineers and their work, deriding management decisions with his "Twitter files" exposés, public firings, followed by abusing remaining employees, refusing to pay bills, letting nazis and vaccine deniers back in, and so on. Of all those things that Musk has done, the one that paulg chose to highlight is Twitter banning links to competitors? That doesn't even seem like an unreasonable restriction!
• ogogmad 4y ago
  What triggered this?
  • gnicholas 4y ago
    Probably the policy change forbidding posts that promote competitor platforms, currently being discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34040165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34040165
  • dredmorbius 4y ago
    There's a remote possibility it's the Twitter policy he's linked in his tweet: <https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/social-platforms-policy https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/social-platfo...> Archive: <https://web.archive.org/web/20221218173806/https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/social-platforms-policy https://web.archive.org/web/20221218173806/https://help.twit...>
• teekert 4y ago
  So, what was the last straw?
• Julesman 4y ago
  Dude's website is a sin against the future. heh.
• cryptonector 4y ago
  Twitter has done a lot of things worthy of boycotts. This seems like the least of them, though it does strike me as rather petty and telling (that the moves off Twitter are hurting). The whole thing is fascinating. Is he destroying Twitter or saving it? More time is needed to find out.
• bachmeier 4y ago
  I'll admit that I didn't care much when Elon took over. I assumed it wouldn't have much impact on me. Now that he's compiling an ever-growing list of unacceptable speech, I've stopped using Twitter, and may very well not return.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• nemo44x 4y ago
  Lol Paul Graham is drunk after that WC match. Clearly his business interests were stunted if he’s at all near sober.
• Nomentatus 4y ago
  I'm in the same position as Paul Graham. Happy to support Elon... until he flagrantly broke the law. My twitter tabs are closed, when Twitter reverses I'll open them again. I was having fun. IANAL but: You can't use market power to extend or preserve market power (monopoly isn't necessary nor the term in law.) The courts could and should enforce interoperability; never mind mentions of other services being censored. Restraint of trade. There are lots of dumb criticisms of the transition - nothing is more difficult than changing a corporate culture, hence capitalism that allows the death of companies no matter how large. Changing software and systems is also difficult. Elon should be given time and considerable leeway. But the law is a bright red line. Elon fired his main inhouse lawyer recently, he needs another fast. He'll figure out that this plow won't scour, and reverse himself, and I'll be back. If not, Congress or Biden will rectify the situation, probably with clear and close regulation of the sector.
• cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  BTW, he's already backtracking and stating he has not "left twitter": https://indieweb.social/@paulg@mas.to/109536543079310226 https://indieweb.social/@paulg@mas.to/109536543079310226 "I haven't "left Twitter." I just don't want to keep using it while it's banning links to other sites. Plus given the way things are going, it seemed like a good time to learn more about Mastodon." Expect Musk to reverse this policy, and all the people who were fine with all the even more terrible things to just hush down and return.
  • fairity 4y ago
    There's nothing to backtrack on. Go re-read the original tweet - he never said he was leaving Twitter. If that was his intention, he probably would've explicitly said so. The OP's post title is based on an incorrect assumption.
    • cmrdporcupine 4y ago
      Fair enough, it's left ambiguous. He's applying pressure/lobbying in a passive-aggressive way. Even less principled.
• jonnycomputer 4y ago
  His pearl clutching at moderation decisions made by the old Twitter contrasts badly with his series of arbitrary, self-interested moderation decisions under his leadership. But hypocrisy is one other luxury of the perversely rich.
• andreyk 4y ago
  Related to this - what's the deal with the HN new pages having a bunch of "[dupe] Twitter bans promotion of other social networks"? Shouldn't posting the same link add to its upvote count? Paul Graham is specifically leaving because of this, feels like a pretty major topic of interest to HN...
• slowhadoken 4y ago
  “I’m going to Mastodon!” Three weeks later “Mastodon Is awful!”
• qaq 4y ago
  Would be cool if there was low resource mastodon server to run for a single user.
• Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
  I think Musk is intentionally creating controversies, as he can roll them back anytime after a poll. These antics get a lot of press coverage, and no longer impact the price of Twitter shares, so he can play around as much as he wants.
• firstSpeaker 4y ago
  It might be that I am too biased now, but when I visited twitter today the only feed that I saw (default ordering, whatever that is) was the blue mark tweets. Anyone else experiencing something similar?
• tptacek 4y ago
  He hasn't left Twitter. He's just using (and learning) Mastodon while Twitter pretends to have this ludicrous linking policy.
• zzleeper 4y ago
  Sorry but what's his mastodon account? I can only see this stupid blocked message: > Promotion of alternative social platforms policy
  • davidbarker 4y ago
    https://mas.to/@paulg https://mas.to/@paulg
    • qwertox 4y ago
      I only see a spinning circle. What a future.
      • davidbarker 4y ago
        The server is probably overloaded right now — which, I agree, is frustrating. Even the biggest instances are struggling tonight. You may be able to load it via one of the bigger instances, though. Try going to https://mastodon.online/@paulg@mas.to https://mastodon.online/@paulg@mas.to.
        • qwertox 4y ago
          Thank you for pointing out the possibility of loading it via other instances, that is interesting. Is this always possible or is there a certain requirement, for example that this other instance has pre-fetched the posts beforehand?
• thepasswordis 4y ago
  Here's the problem: https://mas.to/@paulg/109536476979036192 https://mas.to/@paulg/109536476979036192 I can see that he's replying to somebody, but can't actually see the conversation (presumably because there is some problem with the servers all trying to talk to each other to reassemble it?) This is terrible.
  • mef 4y ago
    entire conversation shows up fine for me. i have no mastodon account nor am i logged in.
    • thepasswordis 4y ago
      Hmm, maybe it's failing silently then? Seems like if it fails to load something upstream that it should say that?
  • pat2man 4y ago
    These services have hyper growth right now but that will die down and become stable. Email is similar, things can get queued up and no way to see what’s going on. But most of the time it just works.
• Flatcircle 4y ago
  What’s the best general server to join? I noticed the one Paul joined isn’t avaible to join anymore?
• pg 4y ago
  I'm not leaving Twitter. It seems more likely than not that Elon will reverse the ban on links to other social media sites. I just don't want to hang out there in the meantime. Plus given the way things are going, it seemed like a good time to learn about alternatives. I still think Elon is a smart guy. His work on cars and rockets speaks for itself. Nor do I think he's the villain a lot of people try to make him out to be. He's eccentric, definitely, but that should be news to no one. Plus I don't think he realizes that the techniques that work for cars and rockets don't work in social media. Those two facts are sufficient to explain most of his behavior. He could still salvage the situation. He's the sort of person it would be a big mistake to write off. And I hope he does. I would be delighted to go back to using Twitter regularly.
  • quantified 4y ago
    Twitter is incidentally a tech company. Fundamentally, it's a "people communicating with each other in people-configurable groups" and that is quite unlike building vehicles.
  • HellDunkel 4y ago
  • rihegher 4y ago
    I think adding support for ActivityPub to twitter would be a smart move but that would require a complete U-turn
    • zimpenfish 4y ago
      I think Twitter would find itself de-federated from a lot of the Fediverse pretty quickly as long as Ol' Muskie is in charge.
  • LastTrain 4y ago
    He can be good at rockets and cars and still be a villain. Being eccentric on its own doesn’t involve victimizing innocents, which he does on the regular…
  • deleted 4y ago
• brightball 4y ago
  It’s pretty common for platforms to combat promotion of competitor platforms on their sites. I’m a member on the Clemson Rivals.com site and they regularly combat promoting competing sites. Have for years. 10 years ago I work for an audio equipment trading site and competitor sites constantly tried to use our own systems to promote their sites to our users. IMO this behavior is fairly common and expected.
• alfiedotwtf 4y ago
  Elon is speed running on how to make $44B disappear
• 88 4y ago
  This is beginning to feel like the Freenode takeover drama
  • tolciho 4y ago
    Beginning? There have been parallels for weeks now allowing for variations of detail and scale: a rich so-and-so with not exactly leftward tendencies and an interest in Dutch Tulips who, being a heavy user of such-and-such, buys such-and-such. Employees of such-and-such depart in droves, both sides hold their peace concerning differences of opinions over said departures, distressing details of the so-and-so are dredged up, and much popcorn is had by the ever-industrious Little People. Oh, and yes, so-and-so banning anyone who mentioned going elsewhere. Other parallels could doubtless be found, but that would require doing some actual research. "Debacle" could well apply to both. There are major differences; a notable one is that the Libera switch was mostly a quick host:port change for users; Twitter and such appear to be a tad complicated, but that's the modern web moderning. Thus, Twitter users may not have ready and viable alternatives to switch to, and probably specific differences could be found between "folks who IRC" and the general population. Also Twitter is a tad larger than Freenode, so will doubtless take longer to break up in the water, or may have better salvage value if, somehow, things can be set aright.
• Octokiddie 4y ago
  He didn't exactly say he's leaving Twitter. He said he disagrees with the moderation policy and gives a link to his Mastodon account. That part about this being "the last straw" implies some change of view. Read in a certain way it could be a goodbye. Kind of ambiguous and non-committal.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• paul7986 4y ago
  Totally agree and deleted all my excitement (Tweets) for Musk buying Twitter. He's just another Trump/slick then unslick showman who says one thing then and promises one thing then goes back on that promise. Telsa's self driving tech is lol Another rich megolmaniac's mouth moron destroys years of public goodwill like Will Smith did in a second with that slap!
• twayt 4y ago
  How much of the recent tomfoolery in world leadership is due to COVID / Vaccine related brain damage?
• wintorez 4y ago
  He'll be back
• neilv 4y ago
  Regarding behavior of Twitter's current leadership, the personality of recent years... When people who seem intelligent and sensible achieve success, and then start to have a kind of jerk-y metamorphosis, I wonder whether it's not just that their voice is amplified or no longer suppressed, nor that "power corrupts", but... whether and how much drugs are involved. Imagine a stereotypical young Wall Street bro of decades past, who starts doing cocaine. If their personality changes, I might wonder how much it was the money, and how much it was the echo chamber in their new social scene, but one really can't ignore the coke (where at least temporary personality change is basically on the label as an effect). With some people, I also wonder about the awful effects of sleep deprivation. But usually first about drugs.
• theGnuMe 4y ago
  It takes about 2 weeks to detox from social media if you go cold turkey.
• yalogin 4y ago
  I am not on twitter and the link doesn't clearly tell my what happened. Can someone tell me what the last straw was for him?
• hmate9 4y ago
  This twitter policy change is the greatest thing that could have happened for Mastodon. They couldn't buy better advertisement than this.
• tibbydudeza 4y ago
  He is a dog whistler but not surprised since he grew up in South Africa during the same time as I. Roelof Botha shows it is possible to outgrow a toxic upbringing.
  • tibbydudeza 4y ago
    https://mastodon.social/@mmasnick/109536569876597972 https://mastodon.social/@mmasnick/109536569876597972 LOL.
• mritun 4y ago
  pg is definitely not leaving Twitter. It’s impossible for two billionaires to quit each other. It’s a small close knit community and everyone is on first name terms with the other and their family. Not happening!
• donkeyd 4y ago
  As a European, I'm surprised about the silence from Brussels around this. They're always really good at calling things anti-competitive, but this is just about the most anti-competitive thing I've ever seen and I've not heard anything about this yet. Maybe they're just slow, but it's kinda disappointing.
• deleted 4y ago
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• deleted 4y ago
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• duxup 4y ago
  Elon seems to try so hard to show people how he is, people just don’t want to take him at his actions…
• commandersaki 4y ago
  Watching Elon handle Twitter reminds me of how Andrew Lee handled Freenode.
• santopol 4y ago
  "I haven't "left Twitter." I just don't want to keep using it while it's banning links to other sites. Plus given the way things are going, it seemed like a good time to learn more about Mastodon." https://mas.to/@paulg/109536542792559441 https://mas.to/@paulg/109536542792559441
• BonoboIO 4y ago
  Prohibited platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Post and Nostr So onlyfans is save. We have to change to that …
  • ssnistfajen 4y ago
    3rd party link aggregators are banned too and tons of SFW/NSFW content creators use them in their Twitter bios.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• JohnTHaller 4y ago
  If Paul Graham does leave Twitter and leaves a link to HN, it'll likely get shadow banned for being a link to another social network.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• andrewstuart 4y ago
  Seem crazy to leave Twitter to me. Elon's takeover of Twitter is one of the most significant periods in Internet history. It's a great show. It's an education in how not to do things. It's a thrill ride. You get a front row seat for the show if you're on the platform. I would have thought Paul Graham would want to be there because of all this.
  • paxys 4y ago
    Just because he won't post on Twitter doesn't mean he won't go on Twitter at all.
    • andrewstuart 4y ago
      That's not leaving.
• lamontcg 4y ago
  A really large use of social media is for corporate interests and "influencers" to cross promote themselves around different social media to increase their reach. Banning Instagram and Facebook just pissed off a whole new group of people who previously didn't give any fucks about this at all. It'll get real weird if he decides to be "consistent" and go after YouTube as well.
• quickthrower2 4y ago
  There are a few types of people on twitter. 1. People building their business/brand. They are not going to like this, since the reason they are on Twitter is to build an audience. The idea that you share your handle from Twitter to Facebook .... and vice versa is good for everyone. 2. People who want to speak freely. Well you are telling them they can't offer another way to contact them. What if they are the last refuge for someone under oppression? Twitter is blocked in their country but nostr isn't (it would be hard to block)? There are probably other groups as well. This move just makes Twitter a bit useless, which is much much worse than controversial for the site's popularity.
• MasTwit 4y ago
  While trying to create an account on https://mas.to https://mas.to, I realized that Google disabled my newly created gmail address ... for violating Google policies or using a bot for creating the account (not of which are true I think). Why does Mastodon require an email for signup?
• rpgbr 4y ago
  I'm glad I jump Twitter's sinking ship last week[1]. There's no way for Twitter to have a good outcome as long as Musk in on charge. [1] https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2022/leaving-twitter/ https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2022/leaving-twitter/
• nla 4y ago
  Paul, Why was it ok for you to be on Twitter when the platform was loaded with child porn? And it seems a little hypocritical that this is the red line that cannot be crossed when you seem to have had no problem with other news outlets and journalists getting deplatformed. Maybe get out of that glass house every now and again?
• 0xFEEDC0DE 4y ago
  People dramatically exiting twitter is childish to me. Why do you need validation for using social media? Also people having fake outrage over twitter drama and smear merchant journalists who push terms of service boundaries on purpose is equally childish. Grow up.
• top_post 4y ago
  The best thing to come out of all of this is people questioning their continued use of social media. Switching to Mastodon, it being different, not liking it and just dropping it all entirely. It's the BEST outcome. Social media is a fucking cancer on society and it's fantastic to see it being questioned. It's like soda and candy - empty calories that does absolutely nothing for you.
  • dusing 4y ago
    Twitter makes a great news reader. Never read replies. Facebook is cancer. I agree it does seem folks are reevaluating their social life, lucky that was happening before Elon.
• wturner 4y ago
  I think it’s beautiful that more and more people are being forced to confront what U.S plutocracy looks like in real-time. It’s usually caked in legalese and unspoken cultural assumptions that finance and tech people exploit while the rest of us just watch. Musk, Trump and a handful of these other cranks are turning this sociopathic toxic mess into real-time online cartoon that even a 13 year old can understand. The result can either be a new healthy awareness of how public policy is leveraged to make society more healthy and fair , or the Elon Musks of the world can continue living in a bubble, being flaming arrogant narcissist perpetually in fear of ending up like Paul Pelosi - in our real-time geo located world.
• labrador 4y ago
  What happened to the early idea that the internet views censorship as damage and routes around it? If Musk keeps this up he's might as well buy Gab, Parlor and Truth Social and merge them with Twitter because that's the audience he'll have left.
• vadym909 4y ago
  It won't shock me if Elon is going alt-right to get the only remaining segment of the US population that is currently global warming deniers and ICE car pushers to start supporting Tesla/electric cars. If he gets conservatives and governments in Texas, Florida and other Red states to move to EVs, he'll really have done more for the environment than any other human alive.
• idlewords 4y ago
  There should be a UI shortcut for bluechecks who want to post a dramatic tweet that they're leaving Twitter and then stay. Making the most common actions on the site easier would boost usability.
  • runjake 4y ago
    Alternatively, grayed text on their profile page with the datetime of the last time they were active on Twitter. My assumption is that it'd never be >1 hour for most people who claim they're leaving Twitter.
• pgl 4y ago
  Suspended. That was quick.
• mebassett 4y ago
  twitter has just suspended pg's account.
• jasmer 4y ago
  There's a bit of Putin invading Ukraine effect - Putin and frankly probably most Russians and frankly everyone else realizes it's a mistake. But it would be the end of him if were perceived to 'fail' on such a grand scale. The Ukrainian invasion continues (aka ending untrained soldiers as fodder) in order to salvage his status, and indirectly, the reputation of Russia. Elon might be perceived to be too 'damaged' to fix anything now - his credibility on Twitter shot, but, were he to do a giant 'mea culpa' right now and put some other person in charge, he might win a few points frankly but it's going to be really hard for him. Perhaps Elon could make a 'Freedom of Expression Constitution' and then put someone in place to 'Enact the Constitution' - maybe he could head the 'Constitutional Board' and then walk away saying: 'I've done what I've come to do, Mars needs me more than Twitter, it's in good hands, I'm on the Constitutional Board to make sure they follow the right path!'. That would give him public cover for his motivations and maybe save just enough face for him to get out his own way. I suggest most people would agree Twitter could have used some reforms anyhow and so even if the market didn't buy the 'narrative' they would see the reality of the situation and some upside.
• Gatsky 4y ago
  Sigh these ‘What is Elon Musk thinking?’ discussions are so tiresome, devoid of any useful content. Do we really need 600+ comments about this issue? Is everyone really so upset about some guy they don’t know?
• reducesuffering 4y ago
  PG is now banned from Twitter over that comment? The death spiral continues
• Khoth 4y ago
  For anyone who didn't see this tweet before it got pg suspended: > This is the last straw. I give up. You can find a link to my new Mastodon profile on my site.
• archb 4y ago
  Paul is now suspended on Twitter: https://twitter.com/paulg https://twitter.com/paulg
  • whitepaint 4y ago
    What the fuck?!
    • aeharding 4y ago
      Can be found at @paulg@mas.to
  • madelyn 4y ago
    Wow, incredible. You can't make this stuff up.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• lol768 4y ago
  Archived tweet/mirror: https://web.archive.org/web/20221218204403/https://twitter.com/paulg/statusAr/1604556563338887168 https://web.archive.org/web/20221218204403/https://twitter.c...
• icodestuff 4y ago
  Did anyone get a screenshot before the account was suspended?
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• SamvitJ 4y ago
  And pg's Twitter account has been suspended. Crazy times.
• Chinjut 4y ago
  Paul Graham has now been banned from Twitter: https://twitter.com/paulg https://twitter.com/paulg
• golemiprague 4y ago
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• belligeront 4y ago
  paulg has now been banned from twitter (presumably for noting that he was making a mastadon account) https://twitter.com/paulg https://twitter.com/paulg
• 0x737368 4y ago
  When it's our side o propaganda getting promoted and the other side censored it's "start your own platform, private companies don't owe you anything". When it's our side of propaganda getting censored it's "death of free speech".
• DogOfTheGaps 4y ago
  Paul Graham was suspended from twitter now.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• mempko 4y ago
  And he's ... suspended from Twitter. Didn't take long!
• jolmg 4y ago
  The tweet before ban: https://web.archive.org/web/20221218204403/https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1604556563338887168 https://web.archive.org/web/20221218204403/https://twitter.c...
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• dang 4y ago
  Related ongoing thread: Twitter Suspends PG's Account - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34044047 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34044047 I'm moving the current thread (the earlier one) off the front page, partly because these are more or less the same story, but mostly because the traffic on this is boiling our poor server and I need to resort to tricks. Sorry all! In case you're not aware: you need to click on the "more comments" links at the bottom of the pages to get to the rest of the thread; also, you can make HN faster by logging out when it's keeling over. Also, genuine performance improvements shouldn't be too far off now.
• mvkel 4y ago
  It's baffling to me that Elon seems to be taking the opposite of a first-principles view on Twitter. He fails to realize _why_ Twitter uniquely has the reach that it does. It's because it's platform-agnostic in a lot of ways. It's the base-level social protocol that all other platforms are adjacent to. By removing that connection, it completely nerfs that influence and Twitter becomes just another social network. I also fail to see how users could think this is reasonable considering Twitter has no way to upload long-form video. So how could YouTube be a competitor? And the policy doesn't talk about Tiktok whatsoever, which is arguably an actual threat to Twitter, since it replaced Vine. Overall, something's fishy.
• omgomgomgomg 4y ago
  And right now, he has been banned on twitter. Does not Musk realize that this makes him look really bad?
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• kennedywm 4y ago
  Looks like pg's account has been suspended. :/
• ctvo 4y ago
  Paul, how do you reconcile your previous statements about how long (easy) it'd take to create something like Twitter with the reality of the challenges facing Elon with an already built Twitter?
• dpatrick86 4y ago
  Getting big "on a bender" vibes from Elon right now...
• indus 4y ago
  Free speech is the horcrux of silicon valley. No one date touch this.
• Decabytes 4y ago
  I've been on this site for years and I just found out that dang is not Paul Graham