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Is the point really to be profitable? Or could perhaps its owners be willing to risk losing money for more power over the information landscape?

snarfy 19d ago
Yep precisely it. Worth it to control the narrative, even if it's for his own vanity. When you have that much money what else do you spend it on. X is a toy.
benrutter 19d ago
Yeah, that's a really good point that I hadn't really considered. Although, maybe the same argument stands? If X's lockdown leads to less users, then doesn't that translate to less control over the information landscape too?
- tovej 19d ago
  Well, if one of the big social media platforms is now a far-right playground, that changes the political landscape. Elon Musk is using twitter to create a global far-right platform that right-wing politicians can use to experiment with talking points before watering them down and bringing them to the public.
  - b112 19d ago
    All media orgs have X accounts, and see such things. And posts on X are in the news regularly. So I don't think experimentation is an angle.
    - tovej 18d ago
      Then you are not thinking very much. Media does report on far-right output on twitter sometimes, but not often. And when they do, it often boosts the message instead. It's the same mechanism as how Donald Trump originally got elected. ...and at the same time, they are focus-testing extremist messaging.
      - b112 18d ago
        Stop with the personal attacks. You can disagree with my assessments, without claiming I "dont think much". https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
        tovej 18d ago
        I'm sorry. The purpose was to underline that catering to the far-right and providing them with a space try out messaging is not a very hidden aspect of X. I didn't mean to imply that you don't think in general.
        b112 17d ago
        Thank you.
arrowsmith 19d ago
Thank God there aren't any other media companies like that

snarfy 19d ago

Yep precisely it. Worth it to control the narrative, even if it's for his own vanity. When you have that much money what else do you spend it on. X is a toy.

benrutter 19d ago

Yeah, that's a really good point that I hadn't really considered. Although, maybe the same argument stands? If X's lockdown leads to less users, then doesn't that translate to less control over the information landscape too?

tovej 19d ago
Well, if one of the big social media platforms is now a far-right playground, that changes the political landscape. Elon Musk is using twitter to create a global far-right platform that right-wing politicians can use to experiment with talking points before watering them down and bringing them to the public.
- b112 19d ago
  All media orgs have X accounts, and see such things. And posts on X are in the news regularly. So I don't think experimentation is an angle.
  - tovej 18d ago
    Then you are not thinking very much. Media does report on far-right output on twitter sometimes, but not often. And when they do, it often boosts the message instead. It's the same mechanism as how Donald Trump originally got elected. ...and at the same time, they are focus-testing extremist messaging.
    - b112 18d ago
      Stop with the personal attacks. You can disagree with my assessments, without claiming I "dont think much". https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
      - tovej 18d ago
        I'm sorry. The purpose was to underline that catering to the far-right and providing them with a space try out messaging is not a very hidden aspect of X. I didn't mean to imply that you don't think in general.
        b112 17d ago
        Thank you.

arrowsmith 19d ago

Thank God there aren't any other media companies like that