Elon Musk / Twitter

I wouldn't mind having to verify my ID in principle, I just don't trust Twitter with that info.

Interesting to see he stopped Twitter techs being able to make changes. I've long suspected thats been a problem (and I've had similar issues with Gmail as well.)

I'm surprised at the Twitter employees slagging off their new boss. It seems very self defeating. I suspect a lot of Twitter mods will leave if they can no longer push their views and ban people for wrong think anyway.
I'm on Twitter a bit but find it hard to get overly worked up about this. You can't have proper discussions on it anyway. It's mainly broadcasting your views.
I hope it will be less misogynistic than before. Less policing of speech that isn't actually threatening harm to anyone is a good thing.

I'll be interested to see how many feminists are allowed back now. Venice Allan seems to be tweeting again. There's a list here of women banned from Twitter for expressing feminist views - let's see how many return: grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/silence-woman?r=992jq&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy&s=r

This is what I'm worried about. I have good reasons for remaining anonymous.

To be fair I think a lot of companies would take a dim view of their staff publicly slagging off their products.

"And I am for the removal of threats, child abuse, violence promoting content, most the worst examples of abusive language (including blatantly racist, homophobic and transphobic language).

I’m also pro free speech, which means I don’t believe in policing ‘disinformation’ or ‘hate speech’ (unless clearly in the above categories) on a public platform."

Sending mixed messages here. Child abuse and threats are in their own category of illegality but being racist, transphobic and homophobic most definitely come under the umbrella of free speech, especially when people use accusations of all those to silence others unjustly.

I am feeling very encouraged, the outrage seems to be coming from the woke brigade so I am assuming this is a great moment for those of us that champion free speech. I am wary about the child abuse etc - so until we know where he stands on that, I will sit on the fence (and enjoy the handbags at dawn reaction)

The meltdown continues:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10756831/Elon-Musk-slams-Twitters-lawyer-sobbed-bought-social-media-network.html

Not sure how a charge of "misogyny" stacks up in this particular case.

"I do think that direct threats of violence which are against the law if they are said in person should be removed from social media."

I think they're illegal in print on in any other form.

The issue that every site is is finding the line between free speech and hate speech / cyber bullying / censorship when content is deemed harmful and those boundaries tend to be drawn by political position. Moderation is a difficult job and no social media platform has mastered a balanced approach yet allows free speech but limits harm. The issue is ensuring that speech that is offensive is not immediately deemed harmful. And accepting that free speech still has consequences - people don't have to like what you say and can act accordingly. Take the Family Sex Show - they have a right to free speech to say what they want - and people found it acceptable, offensive, or harmful depending on their viewpoint. People responded and the show has been temporarily cancelled. That is how free speech works.

So I'm cautiously optimistic about the effect on twitter!

Apparently EM supported Babylon Bee (Christian right wing satire website) when they put this on twitter (in reaction to Rachel levine who is a trans women being nominated for woman of the year)

babylonbee.com/news/the-babylon-bees-man-of-the-year-is-rachel-levine

BB refused to back down and apologise and EM went on their podcast where Bb editor asked EM whether he'd buy twitter... Eh voila...

I agree nepeta, it makes me think of the saying that people get the government they deserve. I used to find it a meaningless or at least a frustrating saying in a flawed FPTP voting system. However all the power of Amazon, Google, Facebook/Meta, other social media and mega corporations was given to them by the people. Every time we use their services or make a purchase from them we enrich them with our data and/or our money. We give them power through the attention we bestow on them too. Every time we check in on them throughout the day they grow. Many of them will have more wealth and power in the world than some nation states. We, the people, made them what they are, it is on us.

Hopefully people like Graham Linehan and Meghan Murphy will be replatformed. Also hope that Twitter doesn't turn into another Reddit, where there's a Wild West of misogyny and porn culture but anyone who points out a man's a man gets banned. Perhaps Elon should recruit his moderation strategists on this board.

This is my principal fear, too. Reddit is unbearable, and Twitter could easily follow suit. Or not. No way to predict what Musk might do, but it really is sad that a small number of men now own most of social media.

Actually, it's true in many areas of life that capitalism of the wrong kind is taking over. Amazon is a behemoth, swallowing up all small book stores etc. The small group of super-rich people now have enormous power in most countries and there are few countervailing powers.

I think he's a bit of a knob, and there have been concerning issues about his factory conditions in China recently, but Jameela Jamil has said she's going to give up tweeting now, so silver linings and all that.

Hopefully people like Graham Linehan and Meghan Murphy will be replatformed. Also hope that Twitter doesn't turn into another Reddit, where there's a Wild West of misogyny and porn culture but anyone who points out a man's a man gets banned. Perhaps Elon should recruit his moderation strategists on this board.

Swayingpalmtrees

Verification would be good but given the thuggish cancel culture mentality especially around gender criticism one should be able to use a pseudonym

Does anyone know the difference between disinformation and misinformation?

Musk is GC, he publicly argued with Grimes over posting 'pronouns suck'. And I'm sure her relationship with Manning hasn't helped that.

However I'm a little more cynical over what his intentions are. After all making money is what he is very good at. I think its a data grab, making sure everyone on the site is a real person so all that amazing data on what people are really interested in can be monetised. Like facebook, but anon so people express their views unfettered. There must be huge potential in it which has not been tapped yet.

The Mail has a very long article on this. Including strops, Twitter staff blocked from making changes, shadow bans, suppression of stories by Twitter (Hunter Biden's laptop and the Wuhan lab leak theory for example) and Musk keen on ridding the platform of bots:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10754055/Elon-Musks-Twitter-revolution-Rebellious-staff-claim-new-boss-dangerous-democracy.html

So many companies banging on about inclusion and ‘love being love’, then you do a quick Google and they’re stripping out gay or Black people from their content in China, or running their business with a male-only board in the Middle East. Hypocrites.

Politicians love doing stuff which looks good and costs them nothing.
^^
Fees aside, this is basically the SW diversity champions scheme! Posing with flags and posting tweets.

‘Gestures like the ones you describe cost almost nothing, but actually doing something about housing, crime, traffic etc. would be very expensive. Politicians love doing stuff which looks good and costs them nothing.’

Yes, that’s true.

Not giving him a pass, but one reason for the popularity of publicly supporting transactivism is that it is very cheap for employers and for the governments, whereas addressing sex discrimination would not be cheap at all.

Gestures like the ones you describe cost almost nothing, but actually doing something about housing, crime, traffic etc. would be very expensive. Politicians love doing stuff which looks good and costs them nothing.

I fully expect that a Must-owned Twtitter will be the end of hammerbans for posters observing that female is a material biological reality.