17 ms·

Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech

90 points by MoSattler 4y ago

mcv 4y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20221219220738/https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/12/19/elon-musks-44bn-education-on-free-speech https://web.archive.org/web/20221219220738/https://www.econo...
- defrost 4y ago
  https://archive.ph/rRRoX https://archive.ph/rRRoX
recuter 4y ago
Economist opening line: "Elon musk’s two months running Twitter has been an unhappy experiment". Latest publicly available usage report from twitter (as you all remember widely and frantically predicted to crash and disappear from the internet): Conversation impressions surpassed all previous quadrennial events. There were a whopping 147B impressions of the #WC2022 conversation globally, easily surpassing #WC2018 and more than doubling the number of impressions of the #Tokyo2020 Olympics. Whether the crowd was reacting to a big goal, watching highlights, predicting the outcome of the next match, or celebrating the star players, fans came to Twitter to discuss all aspects of the game. "24,400 tweets per second for France’s goal, highest ever for World Cup!" -- https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/events/2022/2022-World-Cup-Insights https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/events/2022/2022-World... Edit: Brave down voters, use your words ;)
- Sebb767 4y ago
  On the other hand, advertisers have been turning away (at least for some time) and Twitter now has to pay a lot of interest. It will really be interesting to see how this turns out.
- oblio 4y ago
  The internet is still growing :-) For a while, the fact that Major Event in YEAR + 4 has more views than Major Event in YEAR is not impressive on its own. For all we know Twitter could be sitting still and be carried away by the current. The trick question is: how are their financials, and especially what's their growth rate compared to their competitors? (Google, Facebook/WhatsApp/Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Telegram etc).
- Lyngbakr 4y ago
  The numbers that really matter, though, are given later in the opening paragraph: > Twitter, which lost $221m in 2021, is now on track to lose $4bn a year, by one estimate. The challenge is turning those new engagement statistics into dollars.
  - defrost 4y ago
    Those "new engagements" are gone already .. they were the watering hole chatter of the World Cup, and they happened on Twitter as Twitter hasn't yet cratered. The question of interest here is what will be the global water cooler come the next World Cup?
    - pocketarc 4y ago
      Twitter. I'd bet on that. I imagine that someone else will be running the show, and it will possibly still be owned by Elon Musk, but it 100% will still be Twitter. There is no real replacement. It's not gonna be some alternative that calls retweets "retruths", nor will it be a decentralised alternative, no matter how much we want it to be, the UX is simply not there (yet?). Even if an alternative pops up, it will take more than 4 years for it to dethrone Twitter. Put your faith in inertia. It is a powerful (lack of) force.
      - orwin 4y ago
        Idk. In the last week, half the infosec blogs i followed stopped posting on twitter (or writing about stuff they saw on twitter) so at least for me, i only went on twitter thrice last week? compared to probably an average of ten times a week in the last two month. I'm not even actively boycotting (i don't believe in boycott, it's just a nice story to make you believe you have power)
  - willcipriano 4y ago
    They have a run rate > 4 billion a year even after all those layoffs? What will it look like after they are done paying out severance packages?
- pjc50 4y ago
  It's notable that there haven't been technical difficulties as a result of the world cup traffic. The worst I've seen reported is that 2FA codes on certain mobile carriers no longer work. But Twitter can't claim its policies on content have been a success because the World Cup was popular, the two are unrelated.
  - recuter 4y ago
    Since we can now concede that no notable technical difficulties have occurred (despite predictions) and the World Cup was the most popular heretofore (despite predictions) nobody can reasonably claim that twitter policies about staffing, content, or otherwise have as of yet materially hampered anything other than the moods of the doomsayers. Aforementioned doomsayers, here, and in the press like the posted opinion piece, are really the only ones making substantial claims. And when those prognostications don't manifest they seem to seethe and double down. Curios behavior.
- jasonlotito 4y ago
  I down vote anyone that whines about down voting. It’s worthless and makes the comment worthless and deserving of no respect. Zero tolerance. You whined about down votes. Your comment is worthless and deserves no respect. That I’m telling you this is more than it deserves. There, used my words
  - recuter 4y ago
    I actually welcome these particular downvotes. Not whining about anything, I simply would like people to additionally use their words (if they are capable of doing so).
    - jasonlotito 4y ago
      No. Any comment or series of comments that includes whining about down votes (which is what you did) deserves down votes and deserves little to no additional explanation. I include my own comment in this. I debated even writing it. Maybe you should try to use your adult voice and try and engage people in a way that they would want to have a worthwhile conversation. Instead, your attitude is pretty insulting at best. You want people to engage in civil conversation? Check yourself first.
      - recuter 4y ago
        Under normal circumstances I would agree with this sentiment but in this instance we will have to agree to disagree. It is of course your right to feel insulted but I will simply point out that my post had no content other than directly relevant quotes from the posted article and the twitter blog. Least I risk sounding as if I am speaking to toddlers, quoting does not even necessarily imply agreement. Relevant information, however many conniptions it might trigger, is still relevant information. Hence, downvotes are fine, brigading is not. Be well. :)
- gadders 4y ago
  Since Elon bought twitter, you can't say anything even mildly positive about him or his companies now without immediate downvotes.
  - recuter 4y ago
    Strangely enough, I have not actually said anything positive about him or his companies.
- shapefrog 4y ago
  > Latest publicly available usage report from twitter My mum says I am super smart.
trabant00 4y ago
Change means instability, friction, problems. He bought Twitter to change it. So you can't point to the problems right now and call it a failure. Not yet. If the instability continues for too long at some point this might be the case. Only time will tell.
- jack_pp 4y ago
  Well he did put up a poll saying he would step down based on the results so I assume he'll be honoring it. Though I would rather he didn't as it would have been more fun with him in charge.
- qolop 4y ago
  If and when the friction stops, it will not be because Elon Musk's ideas were successfully implemented. It will be when things go back to the way they were. It's fair to say that all of Musk's free speech experiments have failed to have the intended impact on twitter. If that's not failure then what is?
- tyleo 4y ago
  I’ve had plenty of bosses/organization leaders in my life change without the amount of chaos that Twitter seems to be experiencing. What’s happening at Twitter doesn’t seem normal or desired.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
> Mr Musk, a self-described “free-speech absolutist”, had grown concerned (with some justification) that Twitter had been captured by censorious left-wing scolds. I don't think they're intentionally being ironic here, but "scold" means to speak out about something, and is often implied as feminine. So they're trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, but after starting the sentence with free speech absolutism, his noble aim is apparently silencing criticism from women. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/scold https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/scold edit to add: also notable that censorious doesn't mean censoring, it means judging: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/censure https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/censure
- spoiler 4y ago
  > and is often implied as feminine > his noble aim is apparently silencing criticism from women. Lol as someone living in the UK, the term "scold" as a verb or noun has never in my life managed to imply "woman". Ever. You're just looking for things that aren't there
  - dools 4y ago
    Wrong https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scold%27s_bridle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scold%27s_bridle
    - Semaphor 4y ago
      That’s not the greatest of links, a better link is wiktionary, which still supports the claim > A person who habitually scolds, in particular a troublesome and angry woman. -- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scold#English https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scold#English edit: Please leave me out of your mud-slinging fight. I simply wanted to provide a better link about the assertion, I make no other claims about what hole of Elon you use for what else.
      - LightG 4y ago
        Wiktionary ... or actual lived experience in the UK. Which one are you going to choose? 'Scold', in the UK, is 99.9999% NEVER used in that context. The 0.001% use case is probably your comment.
hadnayeer 4y ago
Wow sounds amazing
threatofrain 4y ago
When things were easy Elon Musk said that his concept of free speech means anything that's legal, and that all else was censorship. But when billions were at stake, Elon's concept of free speech transformed: no shitting on Coke or Nestle because that makes Twitter risky to brands, no swastika by Kanye even though it's technically legal, no offhand mention of Mastodon because that's where some users are exiting to. And when reporters shit on Elon during a live voice chat, Elon swiftly removed the feature from the entire site. This coming from a guy who thinks it's fair play to repeatedly accuse a rescue worker of pedophilia during a deadly rescue mission, even going as far to clarify that he specifically means sex with underaged Thai boys.
- user_named 4y ago
  He doesn't care about anything or anybody other than himself, and will do and say whatever benefits himself in each situation. He has no morals and no principles.
  - bartread 4y ago
    I don't know about that. I think he just approached Twitter like he approached building electric cars or rockets. The latter are both a series of (admittedly very hard) engineering and technical challenges to solve with few, if any, gnarly social or political issues to navigate other than those which inevitably arise in any growing or large company. The hard problems are all engineering and technical (probably regulatory too, in fairness). There will be a lot of failures along the way but, most of the time (barring things that are physically impossible, or orders of magnitude beyond current cutting edge manufacturing techniques), you can brute force your way through - or find an alternative approach - with enough R&D effort/money and enough smart people. But Twitter is nothing like this: it's all about the people, the politics, the social aspects, and simply having an end goal in sight and pushing hard towards it isn't going to get you to where you want to go - in fact, where you want to go may not even be possible due to different cultural and legal constraints around the globe. No disrespect to any engineers at Twitter but the code and infrastructure aren't the hard parts of that business at all. I don't know that I'd describe him as unprincipled, but he is perhaps quite naive along certain axes. I think this is actually relatively common amongst very successful people who haven't experienced that much in the way of substantial failure: they can be really bad at dealing with choppy waters when they arise (I've seen this from quite close quarters, as it happens) because it sort of deconstructs who they think they are. And you really only learn who you are when the going is tough.
veryverysad 4y ago
Many seem adamant on publishing any idea that can damage Musk, no matter how flawed it is.
- peterashford 4y ago
  Many seem adamant on protecting someone who does not need their protection and is deserving of most of the criticism he receives
  - tluyben2 4y ago
    I find that one of the biggest riddles since this Twitter thing; why do so many people feel they need to protect (well... they aren't doing much but should online, so better say ; take sides) with one of the richest men in the world who really doesn't need their help at all. He also will not ever reciprocate, in any way, shape or form. So why are so many people trying to defend everything he does?
    - igorkraw 4y ago
      PhilosophyTube aka Abigail Thorne has a take on this in her "what's wrong with royalty" video: If people associate prestige with something they can identify with, then the prestige can "rub off" on them in their perception, they can claim to be part of it. E.g. Britishness being tied to the royal family and that being inherently more refined than more base communities. For Musk, he's a white, rich tech bro who explicitly announces his "alpha" status https://nypost.com/2022/05/23/elon-musk-told-first-wife-at-their-wedding-im-the-alpha/ https://nypost.com/2022/05/23/elon-musk-told-first-wife-at-t... (which I'll let you read between the lines yourself on) - a lot of white wanna be rich tech bros will identify with him. And that's not even going into the whole "If I lick his boots enough senpai might notice me" dynamic
    - Sebb767 4y ago
      Maybe what you take for protecting Elon is really just having a different opinion? I've personally 'defended' Musk a lot on HN already, not because I particularly like him or think he needs it, but because I honestly think that he is smart and archieved some impressive successes. He's still flawed, obviously, but that doesn't mean that I won't disagree with someone arguing that he is just to dumb to manage anything. Now, of course there are fanboys agreeing with everything and haters disagreeing with everything, but in these Elon threats I saw a lot of accusations of fanboyism/blind hate when the actual commenter simply disagreed about the situation.
poszlem 4y ago
If mainstream media spent as much time writing about the Twitter Files as they do about Elon, I could maybe take it seriously. So far they pretty much ignored it, and even if you think it's a nothing-burger - I can guarantee that if the political options were reversed we would be absolutely seeing articles about them.
- jasonlotito 4y ago
  That’s a good point. But it’s clear that a Republican government working to suppress “free speech” on Twitter isn’t something they are going to write. Or how everyone was wrong about the suppression of the Hunter stuff. Yeah, Republicans getting the kid gloves one again.
- shapefrog 4y ago
  There really doesnt seem much point in smearing the Tump administration for their free speech hypocrisy.
hsn915 4y ago
Stock prices fluctuate. It's dumb to measure a company's success by a temporary change in stock price. You should be measuring actual things. For Tesla, this means car sales and operational costs. For Twitter, it's still too early to see if Elon can make it profitable. Now, for sure, some moves were really dumb mistakes, like suspending people for advertising their Mastodon profiles. But remember, Musk said early that in the coming months Twitter will do a lot of stupid things. He knew ahead of time that he's screw up on some decisions. This should be familiar to anyone who remotely has any interest in the startup/entrepreneurship world. Try many things, correct the mistakes, double down on the good things. If you see any highly skilled programmer doing live programming, they will do some obvious mistakes on stream. If you conclude from this that they are stupid, it's only because you have no idea how programming is done.
- MoSattler 4y ago
  > You should be measuring actual things. From the article: > Twitter, which lost $221m in 2021, is now on track to lose $4bn a year, by one estimate.
  - hsn915 4y ago
    This is pure bullshit. "By one estimate". I could also claim: Twitter is now on track to become massively profitable, by one estimate. Can you dispute it? Is it not an absolute fact that by some estimate Twitter will be massively profitable? Depends on who's estimating doesn't it? This is why legacy media is not trust worthy. How can such obvious bullshit fly right over your head?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - gizmo 4y ago
      Musk says Twitter "has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy since May". That's an actual quote[1]. [1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1604626103326253056 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1604626103326253056
LatteLazy 4y ago
The sad thing is that no one else seems to be learning anything from this. Plenty of people still seem to think they can have their cake and eat it over the various levels of freedom on social media...
- pjc50 4y ago
  Elaborate?
  - ls15 4y ago
    Everyone hopes that another, better, entrepeneur will come and save them, when they only can save themselves.
  - LatteLazy 4y ago
    Sorry, this is a bit rambling. People want more of one thing, but will not accept less of another. For instance: * some people complain platforms over-moderate but then cry when moderation does NOT prevent things they don't like. * some people want platforms held responsible for material users post, but then bulk at the idea of paying for an account and refuse to accept no one will host content for pennies in advertising then pay millions in damages when that content is found damaging. * people object to misleading content but then object to fact checking (especially if they don't like the facts) * people want platforms to be child-safe (which no one agrees on the definition of) but again won't pay I actually think Twitters "minimalist" approach to moderation was both economically and socially the least-bad compromise. I think there is a constant trade off both between and within 3 core variables: * freedom of expression * cost/revenue * "bad" things (from porn to scams to copyright infringement to seeing other peoples' opinions) I fear Musk fell for the "everyone is like me and will like things I like" fallacy and has tried to make Twitter more what he wanted. Now people whose preferred point on that 3D surface he has moved away from are upset he moved away and people he got closer to are upset he did not move enough. And plenty of other people are not prepared to admit there is a trade off: they want a platform where they can say whatever they like, but an army of moderators with 100% accuracy remove anything they don't like and it costs 0USD per year.
  - 4y ago
shanebellone 4y ago
I see two potential outcomes: 1.) Twitter becomes an echo chamber for the alt-right. 2.) Twitter dies.
- mhoad 4y ago
  You just described the same thing twice.
  - shanebellone 4y ago
    That's a matter of perspective.
    - mhoad 4y ago
      It’s a matter of historical record that there are no profitable or successful social media companies that could be described as alt-right echo chambers. The only brands that want to advertise on those sites are scams.
      - shanebellone 4y ago
        Fox does alright.
        mhoad 4y ago
        I did say social media companies for the record which is what we are actually talking about here.
        shanebellone 4y ago
        Fair. It's worth pointing out we have about 20 years of "historical record", and none have attempted to niche down. I would argue both crypto and gold could drive revenue for an alt-right social media platform.
        4y ago
seydor 4y ago
Well, OTOH Elon cannot run for POTUS , so this is kind of a second best. But he can really have some political influcence if he (a) clones substack into twitter and (b) hires a bunch of journalists from Nytimes & Wapo to make twitter his own publication.
- simonebrunozzi 4y ago
  I'd say that owning Twitter might give you more power than being POTUS. But also, being a multi-billionaire gives you more power than the "average" POTUS.
  - seydor 4y ago
    Twitter is a medium but it doesn't control any narrative. He needs the writers to create it. It is wild exaggeration to compare it with being President
    - the_cramer 4y ago
      Is it? Presidency is a position. You need a heap of advisers and legal executives to handle this. I'd argue that the president themself is not as powerful in making people believe something as digital media in general is.
      - seydor 4y ago
        A president can imprison a billionaire / media owner, not the reverse
        Volundr 4y ago
        I think you are vastly overestimating POTUS' powers. They can't simply issue an edict to send someone to prison.
        LightG 4y ago
gadders 4y ago
[flagged]
- LightG 4y ago
  Mate, no one (with a brain) gives a s about Hunter Biden and his laptop.
  - gadders 4y ago
    As long as your guy wins, right?
    - LightG 4y ago
      I don't have "a guy".
    - HDThoreaun 4y ago
      Hunter certainly isn't my guy. I think having to deal with asshole family members makes biden a better politician.
  - WaterSupreme 4y ago
    Why is that irrelevant ? The images/info from there would in any normal society have serious implications for the person involved
    - spoiler 4y ago
      I agree. I think what happened with the laptop thing during the electrical is a huge embarrassment to the US, lol. Like... I've got no horse in this race since I'm from Europe, and I'm generally more left leaning. But here's what this looks to (most) Europeans: it honestly seems like the election got "rigged" in Bidens favour by a coordinated campaign to paint Trump as an idiot (although, I think he does a great job himself of that already). But all that effor for what? They can set up a senile President that can't even remember he's on stage half the time. Someone more inclined to conspiracy theories might say he's just a puppet. Although, I think he's probably not viable for that either due to his declining mental health
LightG 4y ago
To me, it sounds like Musk is miffed that The Ronald McDonald hasn't returned yet to stir up activity, so he's trying to do it himself. What a total doorknob that man is.
cookieswumchorr 4y ago
Musk ruining Twitter may be bad for his wallet, but actually good for the Freedom of speech in a way he didn't expect. The world doesn't need a platform ruled by people who know better. It needs decentralized means of communication where censorship is just technically not possible. as for Musk, let's hope he will not ruin his other projects, i still want to see some people on Mars
- mhoad 4y ago
  Tesla is potentially in meaningful trouble at this point. Basically the entire market of everyone who realistically might consider an electric vehicle in the next five years overwhelmingly wants nothing to do with him moving forward. Sounds like it’s already starting to bite as well https://www.cnet.com/tech/tesla-buyers-are-bailing-because-of-elon-musk-the-worst-troll/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/tesla-buyers-are-bailing-because-o...
  - survirtual 4y ago
    There is still no real general contenders for Tesla realistically speaking, and I would really like it if there was. There just isn’t. No one else is putting out EVs at the volume and quality (functional quality, not finishes / luxury) that Teslas have and it isn’t even close. The Tesla battery is stupidly reliable. The car in general is the most reliable vehicle I’ve owned and it isn’t even close. I have ~200k miles on my 2019 Model 3, and I taken it to ungodly places off roads, through deserts, tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, beach coasts, every terrain imaginable — some even jeeps would have issues with. I had to replace the bottom a least twice because I ripped up the covers, but not once did the vehicle ever stop running or being reliable. When I set in other vehicles, it is like I’m in the past, or some invisible super powers have left me. I don’t have high opinions of Musk and wish he didn’t get involved with Twitter at all. It would have been better for him to be focused on acquiring more funds for the mission towards sustainable energy and multi-planet species. Stop taking credit for the work of others and do everything possible to enable them instead of managing them; his companies do well because the people believe in the mission, not because of him. After this situation boils down, Tesla will still be producing the best EVs on the market, because the mission is a good one. Long story short, I don’t want to do with Musk but in the foreseeable future I don’t see me getting any EV besides a Tesla. There are just too many variables to consider when managing a battery and battery life, and even if another company comes out with something that looks better, I’m willing to bet reliability won’t even be close & the battery pack will be significantly degraded after a year — not to mention the lack of a nation-scale charging network.
paulus_magnus2 4y ago
Clearly it's impossible to be a Twitter participant & moderator & objective as PG explained recently in a comment. The real question is what should Twitter 2.1 (3.0?) look like? From both a social-media user and business perspective. So far all social media follow advertising business model and inevitably skew the platofm towards what advertisers will consider a safe space for their brand. There are studies indicating a somewhat left-wing bias of large companies and social-media but is it really a problem? I read somewhere that views morerately centre-left more accuratly fit with reality. On top of that being optimistic about the future also correlates with all (or most) left wing policies evntually coming true. But somehow we fell into a culture war or are made to believe there is a culture war ongoing because this maximises clicks. Majority of people are centrist / neutral and are not really catered to by the media - perhaps getting more neutral content in fron of the reader is the way forward - but neutral content does badly on click metrics. Is advertising model of the web the root of all evil ??
MarkMc 4y ago
I must be the only person who thinks Twitter is still worth at least $44 billion. Yes, Elon has made a few dumb mistakes. But they have been reversed pretty quickly without much long-term damage. It's the rate and scale of successful changes that count. Advertisers will come back and Twitter will be hugely profitable.
- mhoad 4y ago
  They aren’t coming back. I’m going to assume marketing and advertising are not your background but they are mine. I need you to understand that even before Elon, brands were already extremely on the fence about allocating budget towards Twitter. They are in no way shape or form clamouring to get back there since leaving. The reality is they have fatally wounded their only meaningful hope at profitability and the mechanics of the business no longer make sense. The only thing left to debate is how long until it’s over.
  - mcv 4y ago
    If I understand correctly, Twitter was already under some sort of federal supervision because of earlier mistakes, and dramatic changes to Twitter require careful consideration and approval. Not doing that and even sabotaging their ability to follow those rules might open Twitter up to some pretty harsh fines. In which case it might be over as soon as the government acts on it (which admittedly might take a while). I forgot the details, but it's been mentioned here before.
  - somedude895 4y ago
    > I need you to understand that even before Elon, brands were already extremely on the fence about allocating budget towards Twitter. I work in digital advertising and this claim seems weird. Twitter is expensive compared to other channels, but it's an integral part of many media plans going for reach in b2b / tech / high-income.
    - mhoad 4y ago
      Right. It’s been long known that it only works for a tiny fraction of products that meet a very specific criteria. It’s unprofitable for everyone else which is why most companies are totally ok walking away already. It’s also typically used at a very hard time quantify stage of any sales cycle since nobody actually buys anything directly after seeing an ad on Twitter. Brands were paying for eyeballs from a very specific kind of audience who are also rapidly moving elsewhere at the same time.

90 points by MoSattler 4y ago

mcv 4y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20221219220738/https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/12/19/elon-musks-44bn-education-on-free-speech https://web.archive.org/web/20221219220738/https://www.econo...

defrost 4y ago
https://archive.ph/rRRoX https://archive.ph/rRRoX

recuter 4y ago

Economist opening line: "Elon musk’s two months running Twitter has been an unhappy experiment". Latest publicly available usage report from twitter (as you all remember widely and frantically predicted to crash and disappear from the internet): Conversation impressions surpassed all previous quadrennial events. There were a whopping 147B impressions of the #WC2022 conversation globally, easily surpassing #WC2018 and more than doubling the number of impressions of the #Tokyo2020 Olympics. Whether the crowd was reacting to a big goal, watching highlights, predicting the outcome of the next match, or celebrating the star players, fans came to Twitter to discuss all aspects of the game. "24,400 tweets per second for France’s goal, highest ever for World Cup!" -- https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/events/2022/2022-World-Cup-Insights https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/events/2022/2022-World... Edit: Brave down voters, use your words ;)

Sebb767 4y ago
On the other hand, advertisers have been turning away (at least for some time) and Twitter now has to pay a lot of interest. It will really be interesting to see how this turns out.
oblio 4y ago
The internet is still growing :-) For a while, the fact that Major Event in YEAR + 4 has more views than Major Event in YEAR is not impressive on its own. For all we know Twitter could be sitting still and be carried away by the current. The trick question is: how are their financials, and especially what's their growth rate compared to their competitors? (Google, Facebook/WhatsApp/Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Telegram etc).
Lyngbakr 4y ago
The numbers that really matter, though, are given later in the opening paragraph: > Twitter, which lost $221m in 2021, is now on track to lose $4bn a year, by one estimate. The challenge is turning those new engagement statistics into dollars.
- defrost 4y ago
  Those "new engagements" are gone already .. they were the watering hole chatter of the World Cup, and they happened on Twitter as Twitter hasn't yet cratered. The question of interest here is what will be the global water cooler come the next World Cup?
  - pocketarc 4y ago
    Twitter. I'd bet on that. I imagine that someone else will be running the show, and it will possibly still be owned by Elon Musk, but it 100% will still be Twitter. There is no real replacement. It's not gonna be some alternative that calls retweets "retruths", nor will it be a decentralised alternative, no matter how much we want it to be, the UX is simply not there (yet?). Even if an alternative pops up, it will take more than 4 years for it to dethrone Twitter. Put your faith in inertia. It is a powerful (lack of) force.
    - orwin 4y ago
      Idk. In the last week, half the infosec blogs i followed stopped posting on twitter (or writing about stuff they saw on twitter) so at least for me, i only went on twitter thrice last week? compared to probably an average of ten times a week in the last two month. I'm not even actively boycotting (i don't believe in boycott, it's just a nice story to make you believe you have power)
- willcipriano 4y ago
  They have a run rate > 4 billion a year even after all those layoffs? What will it look like after they are done paying out severance packages?
pjc50 4y ago
It's notable that there haven't been technical difficulties as a result of the world cup traffic. The worst I've seen reported is that 2FA codes on certain mobile carriers no longer work. But Twitter can't claim its policies on content have been a success because the World Cup was popular, the two are unrelated.
- recuter 4y ago
  Since we can now concede that no notable technical difficulties have occurred (despite predictions) and the World Cup was the most popular heretofore (despite predictions) nobody can reasonably claim that twitter policies about staffing, content, or otherwise have as of yet materially hampered anything other than the moods of the doomsayers. Aforementioned doomsayers, here, and in the press like the posted opinion piece, are really the only ones making substantial claims. And when those prognostications don't manifest they seem to seethe and double down. Curios behavior.
jasonlotito 4y ago
I down vote anyone that whines about down voting. It’s worthless and makes the comment worthless and deserving of no respect. Zero tolerance. You whined about down votes. Your comment is worthless and deserves no respect. That I’m telling you this is more than it deserves. There, used my words
- recuter 4y ago
  I actually welcome these particular downvotes. Not whining about anything, I simply would like people to additionally use their words (if they are capable of doing so).
  - jasonlotito 4y ago
    No. Any comment or series of comments that includes whining about down votes (which is what you did) deserves down votes and deserves little to no additional explanation. I include my own comment in this. I debated even writing it. Maybe you should try to use your adult voice and try and engage people in a way that they would want to have a worthwhile conversation. Instead, your attitude is pretty insulting at best. You want people to engage in civil conversation? Check yourself first.
    - recuter 4y ago
      Under normal circumstances I would agree with this sentiment but in this instance we will have to agree to disagree. It is of course your right to feel insulted but I will simply point out that my post had no content other than directly relevant quotes from the posted article and the twitter blog. Least I risk sounding as if I am speaking to toddlers, quoting does not even necessarily imply agreement. Relevant information, however many conniptions it might trigger, is still relevant information. Hence, downvotes are fine, brigading is not. Be well. :)
gadders 4y ago
Since Elon bought twitter, you can't say anything even mildly positive about him or his companies now without immediate downvotes.
- recuter 4y ago
  Strangely enough, I have not actually said anything positive about him or his companies.
shapefrog 4y ago
> Latest publicly available usage report from twitter My mum says I am super smart.

trabant00 4y ago

Change means instability, friction, problems. He bought Twitter to change it. So you can't point to the problems right now and call it a failure. Not yet. If the instability continues for too long at some point this might be the case. Only time will tell.

jack_pp 4y ago
Well he did put up a poll saying he would step down based on the results so I assume he'll be honoring it. Though I would rather he didn't as it would have been more fun with him in charge.
qolop 4y ago
If and when the friction stops, it will not be because Elon Musk's ideas were successfully implemented. It will be when things go back to the way they were. It's fair to say that all of Musk's free speech experiments have failed to have the intended impact on twitter. If that's not failure then what is?
tyleo 4y ago
I’ve had plenty of bosses/organization leaders in my life change without the amount of chaos that Twitter seems to be experiencing. What’s happening at Twitter doesn’t seem normal or desired.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

> Mr Musk, a self-described “free-speech absolutist”, had grown concerned (with some justification) that Twitter had been captured by censorious left-wing scolds. I don't think they're intentionally being ironic here, but "scold" means to speak out about something, and is often implied as feminine. So they're trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, but after starting the sentence with free speech absolutism, his noble aim is apparently silencing criticism from women. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/scold https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/scold edit to add: also notable that censorious doesn't mean censoring, it means judging: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/censure https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/censure

spoiler 4y ago
> and is often implied as feminine > his noble aim is apparently silencing criticism from women. Lol as someone living in the UK, the term "scold" as a verb or noun has never in my life managed to imply "woman". Ever. You're just looking for things that aren't there
- dools 4y ago
  Wrong https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scold%27s_bridle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scold%27s_bridle
  - Semaphor 4y ago
    That’s not the greatest of links, a better link is wiktionary, which still supports the claim > A person who habitually scolds, in particular a troublesome and angry woman. -- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scold#English https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scold#English edit: Please leave me out of your mud-slinging fight. I simply wanted to provide a better link about the assertion, I make no other claims about what hole of Elon you use for what else.
    - LightG 4y ago
      Wiktionary ... or actual lived experience in the UK. Which one are you going to choose? 'Scold', in the UK, is 99.9999% NEVER used in that context. The 0.001% use case is probably your comment.

hadnayeer 4y ago

Wow sounds amazing

threatofrain 4y ago

When things were easy Elon Musk said that his concept of free speech means anything that's legal, and that all else was censorship. But when billions were at stake, Elon's concept of free speech transformed: no shitting on Coke or Nestle because that makes Twitter risky to brands, no swastika by Kanye even though it's technically legal, no offhand mention of Mastodon because that's where some users are exiting to. And when reporters shit on Elon during a live voice chat, Elon swiftly removed the feature from the entire site. This coming from a guy who thinks it's fair play to repeatedly accuse a rescue worker of pedophilia during a deadly rescue mission, even going as far to clarify that he specifically means sex with underaged Thai boys.

user_named 4y ago
He doesn't care about anything or anybody other than himself, and will do and say whatever benefits himself in each situation. He has no morals and no principles.
- bartread 4y ago
  I don't know about that. I think he just approached Twitter like he approached building electric cars or rockets. The latter are both a series of (admittedly very hard) engineering and technical challenges to solve with few, if any, gnarly social or political issues to navigate other than those which inevitably arise in any growing or large company. The hard problems are all engineering and technical (probably regulatory too, in fairness). There will be a lot of failures along the way but, most of the time (barring things that are physically impossible, or orders of magnitude beyond current cutting edge manufacturing techniques), you can brute force your way through - or find an alternative approach - with enough R&D effort/money and enough smart people. But Twitter is nothing like this: it's all about the people, the politics, the social aspects, and simply having an end goal in sight and pushing hard towards it isn't going to get you to where you want to go - in fact, where you want to go may not even be possible due to different cultural and legal constraints around the globe. No disrespect to any engineers at Twitter but the code and infrastructure aren't the hard parts of that business at all. I don't know that I'd describe him as unprincipled, but he is perhaps quite naive along certain axes. I think this is actually relatively common amongst very successful people who haven't experienced that much in the way of substantial failure: they can be really bad at dealing with choppy waters when they arise (I've seen this from quite close quarters, as it happens) because it sort of deconstructs who they think they are. And you really only learn who you are when the going is tough.

veryverysad 4y ago

Many seem adamant on publishing any idea that can damage Musk, no matter how flawed it is.

peterashford 4y ago
Many seem adamant on protecting someone who does not need their protection and is deserving of most of the criticism he receives
- tluyben2 4y ago
  I find that one of the biggest riddles since this Twitter thing; why do so many people feel they need to protect (well... they aren't doing much but should online, so better say ; take sides) with one of the richest men in the world who really doesn't need their help at all. He also will not ever reciprocate, in any way, shape or form. So why are so many people trying to defend everything he does?
  - igorkraw 4y ago
    PhilosophyTube aka Abigail Thorne has a take on this in her "what's wrong with royalty" video: If people associate prestige with something they can identify with, then the prestige can "rub off" on them in their perception, they can claim to be part of it. E.g. Britishness being tied to the royal family and that being inherently more refined than more base communities. For Musk, he's a white, rich tech bro who explicitly announces his "alpha" status https://nypost.com/2022/05/23/elon-musk-told-first-wife-at-their-wedding-im-the-alpha/ https://nypost.com/2022/05/23/elon-musk-told-first-wife-at-t... (which I'll let you read between the lines yourself on) - a lot of white wanna be rich tech bros will identify with him. And that's not even going into the whole "If I lick his boots enough senpai might notice me" dynamic
  - Sebb767 4y ago
    Maybe what you take for protecting Elon is really just having a different opinion? I've personally 'defended' Musk a lot on HN already, not because I particularly like him or think he needs it, but because I honestly think that he is smart and archieved some impressive successes. He's still flawed, obviously, but that doesn't mean that I won't disagree with someone arguing that he is just to dumb to manage anything. Now, of course there are fanboys agreeing with everything and haters disagreeing with everything, but in these Elon threats I saw a lot of accusations of fanboyism/blind hate when the actual commenter simply disagreed about the situation.

poszlem 4y ago

If mainstream media spent as much time writing about the Twitter Files as they do about Elon, I could maybe take it seriously. So far they pretty much ignored it, and even if you think it's a nothing-burger - I can guarantee that if the political options were reversed we would be absolutely seeing articles about them.

jasonlotito 4y ago
That’s a good point. But it’s clear that a Republican government working to suppress “free speech” on Twitter isn’t something they are going to write. Or how everyone was wrong about the suppression of the Hunter stuff. Yeah, Republicans getting the kid gloves one again.
shapefrog 4y ago
There really doesnt seem much point in smearing the Tump administration for their free speech hypocrisy.

hsn915 4y ago

Stock prices fluctuate. It's dumb to measure a company's success by a temporary change in stock price. You should be measuring actual things. For Tesla, this means car sales and operational costs. For Twitter, it's still too early to see if Elon can make it profitable. Now, for sure, some moves were really dumb mistakes, like suspending people for advertising their Mastodon profiles. But remember, Musk said early that in the coming months Twitter will do a lot of stupid things. He knew ahead of time that he's screw up on some decisions. This should be familiar to anyone who remotely has any interest in the startup/entrepreneurship world. Try many things, correct the mistakes, double down on the good things. If you see any highly skilled programmer doing live programming, they will do some obvious mistakes on stream. If you conclude from this that they are stupid, it's only because you have no idea how programming is done.

MoSattler 4y ago
> You should be measuring actual things. From the article: > Twitter, which lost $221m in 2021, is now on track to lose $4bn a year, by one estimate.
- hsn915 4y ago
  This is pure bullshit. "By one estimate". I could also claim: Twitter is now on track to become massively profitable, by one estimate. Can you dispute it? Is it not an absolute fact that by some estimate Twitter will be massively profitable? Depends on who's estimating doesn't it? This is why legacy media is not trust worthy. How can such obvious bullshit fly right over your head?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - gizmo 4y ago
    Musk says Twitter "has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy since May". That's an actual quote[1]. [1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1604626103326253056 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1604626103326253056

LatteLazy 4y ago

The sad thing is that no one else seems to be learning anything from this. Plenty of people still seem to think they can have their cake and eat it over the various levels of freedom on social media...

pjc50 4y ago
Elaborate?
- ls15 4y ago
  Everyone hopes that another, better, entrepeneur will come and save them, when they only can save themselves.
- LatteLazy 4y ago
  Sorry, this is a bit rambling. People want more of one thing, but will not accept less of another. For instance: * some people complain platforms over-moderate but then cry when moderation does NOT prevent things they don't like. * some people want platforms held responsible for material users post, but then bulk at the idea of paying for an account and refuse to accept no one will host content for pennies in advertising then pay millions in damages when that content is found damaging. * people object to misleading content but then object to fact checking (especially if they don't like the facts) * people want platforms to be child-safe (which no one agrees on the definition of) but again won't pay I actually think Twitters "minimalist" approach to moderation was both economically and socially the least-bad compromise. I think there is a constant trade off both between and within 3 core variables: * freedom of expression * cost/revenue * "bad" things (from porn to scams to copyright infringement to seeing other peoples' opinions) I fear Musk fell for the "everyone is like me and will like things I like" fallacy and has tried to make Twitter more what he wanted. Now people whose preferred point on that 3D surface he has moved away from are upset he moved away and people he got closer to are upset he did not move enough. And plenty of other people are not prepared to admit there is a trade off: they want a platform where they can say whatever they like, but an army of moderators with 100% accuracy remove anything they don't like and it costs 0USD per year.
- 4y ago

shanebellone 4y ago

I see two potential outcomes: 1.) Twitter becomes an echo chamber for the alt-right. 2.) Twitter dies.

mhoad 4y ago
You just described the same thing twice.
- shanebellone 4y ago
  That's a matter of perspective.
  - mhoad 4y ago
    It’s a matter of historical record that there are no profitable or successful social media companies that could be described as alt-right echo chambers. The only brands that want to advertise on those sites are scams.
    - shanebellone 4y ago
      Fox does alright.
      - mhoad 4y ago
        I did say social media companies for the record which is what we are actually talking about here.
        shanebellone 4y ago
        Fair. It's worth pointing out we have about 20 years of "historical record", and none have attempted to niche down. I would argue both crypto and gold could drive revenue for an alt-right social media platform.
        4y ago

seydor 4y ago

Well, OTOH Elon cannot run for POTUS , so this is kind of a second best. But he can really have some political influcence if he (a) clones substack into twitter and (b) hires a bunch of journalists from Nytimes & Wapo to make twitter his own publication.

simonebrunozzi 4y ago
I'd say that owning Twitter might give you more power than being POTUS. But also, being a multi-billionaire gives you more power than the "average" POTUS.
- seydor 4y ago
  Twitter is a medium but it doesn't control any narrative. He needs the writers to create it. It is wild exaggeration to compare it with being President
  - the_cramer 4y ago
    Is it? Presidency is a position. You need a heap of advisers and legal executives to handle this. I'd argue that the president themself is not as powerful in making people believe something as digital media in general is.
    - seydor 4y ago
      A president can imprison a billionaire / media owner, not the reverse
      - Volundr 4y ago
        I think you are vastly overestimating POTUS' powers. They can't simply issue an edict to send someone to prison.
        LightG 4y ago

gadders 4y ago

[flagged]

LightG 4y ago
Mate, no one (with a brain) gives a s about Hunter Biden and his laptop.
- gadders 4y ago
  As long as your guy wins, right?
  - LightG 4y ago
    I don't have "a guy".
  - HDThoreaun 4y ago
    Hunter certainly isn't my guy. I think having to deal with asshole family members makes biden a better politician.
- WaterSupreme 4y ago
  Why is that irrelevant ? The images/info from there would in any normal society have serious implications for the person involved
  - spoiler 4y ago
    I agree. I think what happened with the laptop thing during the electrical is a huge embarrassment to the US, lol. Like... I've got no horse in this race since I'm from Europe, and I'm generally more left leaning. But here's what this looks to (most) Europeans: it honestly seems like the election got "rigged" in Bidens favour by a coordinated campaign to paint Trump as an idiot (although, I think he does a great job himself of that already). But all that effor for what? They can set up a senile President that can't even remember he's on stage half the time. Someone more inclined to conspiracy theories might say he's just a puppet. Although, I think he's probably not viable for that either due to his declining mental health

LightG 4y ago

To me, it sounds like Musk is miffed that The Ronald McDonald hasn't returned yet to stir up activity, so he's trying to do it himself. What a total doorknob that man is.

cookieswumchorr 4y ago

Musk ruining Twitter may be bad for his wallet, but actually good for the Freedom of speech in a way he didn't expect. The world doesn't need a platform ruled by people who know better. It needs decentralized means of communication where censorship is just technically not possible. as for Musk, let's hope he will not ruin his other projects, i still want to see some people on Mars

mhoad 4y ago
Tesla is potentially in meaningful trouble at this point. Basically the entire market of everyone who realistically might consider an electric vehicle in the next five years overwhelmingly wants nothing to do with him moving forward. Sounds like it’s already starting to bite as well https://www.cnet.com/tech/tesla-buyers-are-bailing-because-of-elon-musk-the-worst-troll/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/tesla-buyers-are-bailing-because-o...
- survirtual 4y ago
  There is still no real general contenders for Tesla realistically speaking, and I would really like it if there was. There just isn’t. No one else is putting out EVs at the volume and quality (functional quality, not finishes / luxury) that Teslas have and it isn’t even close. The Tesla battery is stupidly reliable. The car in general is the most reliable vehicle I’ve owned and it isn’t even close. I have ~200k miles on my 2019 Model 3, and I taken it to ungodly places off roads, through deserts, tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, beach coasts, every terrain imaginable — some even jeeps would have issues with. I had to replace the bottom a least twice because I ripped up the covers, but not once did the vehicle ever stop running or being reliable. When I set in other vehicles, it is like I’m in the past, or some invisible super powers have left me. I don’t have high opinions of Musk and wish he didn’t get involved with Twitter at all. It would have been better for him to be focused on acquiring more funds for the mission towards sustainable energy and multi-planet species. Stop taking credit for the work of others and do everything possible to enable them instead of managing them; his companies do well because the people believe in the mission, not because of him. After this situation boils down, Tesla will still be producing the best EVs on the market, because the mission is a good one. Long story short, I don’t want to do with Musk but in the foreseeable future I don’t see me getting any EV besides a Tesla. There are just too many variables to consider when managing a battery and battery life, and even if another company comes out with something that looks better, I’m willing to bet reliability won’t even be close & the battery pack will be significantly degraded after a year — not to mention the lack of a nation-scale charging network.

paulus_magnus2 4y ago

Clearly it's impossible to be a Twitter participant & moderator & objective as PG explained recently in a comment. The real question is what should Twitter 2.1 (3.0?) look like? From both a social-media user and business perspective. So far all social media follow advertising business model and inevitably skew the platofm towards what advertisers will consider a safe space for their brand. There are studies indicating a somewhat left-wing bias of large companies and social-media but is it really a problem? I read somewhere that views morerately centre-left more accuratly fit with reality. On top of that being optimistic about the future also correlates with all (or most) left wing policies evntually coming true. But somehow we fell into a culture war or are made to believe there is a culture war ongoing because this maximises clicks. Majority of people are centrist / neutral and are not really catered to by the media - perhaps getting more neutral content in fron of the reader is the way forward - but neutral content does badly on click metrics. Is advertising model of the web the root of all evil ??

MarkMc 4y ago

I must be the only person who thinks Twitter is still worth at least $44 billion. Yes, Elon has made a few dumb mistakes. But they have been reversed pretty quickly without much long-term damage. It's the rate and scale of successful changes that count. Advertisers will come back and Twitter will be hugely profitable.

mhoad 4y ago
They aren’t coming back. I’m going to assume marketing and advertising are not your background but they are mine. I need you to understand that even before Elon, brands were already extremely on the fence about allocating budget towards Twitter. They are in no way shape or form clamouring to get back there since leaving. The reality is they have fatally wounded their only meaningful hope at profitability and the mechanics of the business no longer make sense. The only thing left to debate is how long until it’s over.
- mcv 4y ago
  If I understand correctly, Twitter was already under some sort of federal supervision because of earlier mistakes, and dramatic changes to Twitter require careful consideration and approval. Not doing that and even sabotaging their ability to follow those rules might open Twitter up to some pretty harsh fines. In which case it might be over as soon as the government acts on it (which admittedly might take a while). I forgot the details, but it's been mentioned here before.
- somedude895 4y ago
  > I need you to understand that even before Elon, brands were already extremely on the fence about allocating budget towards Twitter. I work in digital advertising and this claim seems weird. Twitter is expensive compared to other channels, but it's an integral part of many media plans going for reach in b2b / tech / high-income.
  - mhoad 4y ago
    Right. It’s been long known that it only works for a tiny fraction of products that meet a very specific criteria. It’s unprofitable for everyone else which is why most companies are totally ok walking away already. It’s also typically used at a very hard time quantify stage of any sales cycle since nobody actually buys anything directly after seeing an ad on Twitter. Brands were paying for eyeballs from a very specific kind of audience who are also rapidly moving elsewhere at the same time.