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Yeah, I agree. I could imagine ways out of this, but none that I think Musk is capable of sustaining. He can certainly try to hire a CEO, but is there anyone wh

Yeah, I agree. I could imagine ways out of this, but none that I think Musk is capable of sustaining. He can certainly try to hire a CEO, but is there anyone who would take it that wouldn't just be a toady to him? And if he does place a minion as CEO, then I think he'll keep getting drawn back into the drama. Maybe the Saudis could keep him in line here? They take on more of the cost and insist that he stay away? His behavior with regards to China suggests that Musk is capable of shutting up when he has to. But more Saudi involvement would invite all sorts of public and regulatory scrutiny, given their behavior: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/15/politics/ahmad-abouammo-sentencing-saudi-spy-case-twitter/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/15/politics/ahmad-abouammo-sente...

jacquesm 4y ago
It would be a very sad day in history indeed if the West ended up being dependent on a bunch of authoritarians and misogynists to keep Twitter up and running. Personally I'm all for absolutely forbidding that kind of money from funding anything related to press, politics, media and communications.
- krapp 4y ago
  > It would be a very sad day in history indeed if the West ended up being dependent on a bunch of authoritarians and misogynists to keep Twitter up and running. ... as opposed to the authoritarians and misogynists already running everything else? Twitter's just a microblogging platform. Now that Orangemanbad is gone we can stop pretending it matters. Who cares if the Saudis run Twitter? What's the actual threat, there? Trolls? Anti-semitism? Homophobia? Rampant misinformation? State sponsored surveillance? That's already just another Tuesday.
  - wpietri 4y ago
    Death. The actual threat is death for people who oppose the Saudi regime. Just as Jamal Khashoggi. I get that things are bad, but they've always been bad, and the past was often worse than now. The old Twitter, for all its flaws, used to care about their responsibility to users and improved dramatically over the years in terms of preventing harm. (That's part of why Musk and his sycophants are so mad at it.) Twitter may not matter to you, and that's fine. But it mattered to a lot of people, and you dismissing that for all of humanity is of a piece with how the authoritarians and misogynists treat people.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    There is bad and then there is bad. If you think that the Saudi's and Trump are equivalent then I'm going to have to disagree, they're both bad but - and it is difficult to write this - I would prefer Trump by a very large margin.

jacquesm 4y ago

It would be a very sad day in history indeed if the West ended up being dependent on a bunch of authoritarians and misogynists to keep Twitter up and running. Personally I'm all for absolutely forbidding that kind of money from funding anything related to press, politics, media and communications.

krapp 4y ago
> It would be a very sad day in history indeed if the West ended up being dependent on a bunch of authoritarians and misogynists to keep Twitter up and running. ... as opposed to the authoritarians and misogynists already running everything else? Twitter's just a microblogging platform. Now that Orangemanbad is gone we can stop pretending it matters. Who cares if the Saudis run Twitter? What's the actual threat, there? Trolls? Anti-semitism? Homophobia? Rampant misinformation? State sponsored surveillance? That's already just another Tuesday.
- wpietri 4y ago
  Death. The actual threat is death for people who oppose the Saudi regime. Just as Jamal Khashoggi. I get that things are bad, but they've always been bad, and the past was often worse than now. The old Twitter, for all its flaws, used to care about their responsibility to users and improved dramatically over the years in terms of preventing harm. (That's part of why Musk and his sycophants are so mad at it.) Twitter may not matter to you, and that's fine. But it mattered to a lot of people, and you dismissing that for all of humanity is of a piece with how the authoritarians and misogynists treat people.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  There is bad and then there is bad. If you think that the Saudi's and Trump are equivalent then I'm going to have to disagree, they're both bad but - and it is difficult to write this - I would prefer Trump by a very large margin.