[ozzythecat]

> The other striking news of the week is Elon Musk's epic flaming death spiral at the helm of Twitter.

I am old, and admittedly, my oldest grandchild cares more about Twitter than I do.

Maybe one of you here can enlighten me. Why does Musk get so much attention? Why is Twitter so important? Perhaps this is incredibly ignorant to say, but why not let people who want to use Twitter use it, and those that don’t, don’t use it?

I keep hearing about freedom of speech, toxicity on social media. Is it unreasonable for people who don’t like Twitter to just not use it anymore?

I feel the loudest voices are anti Twitter. Or they hate Musk. And Elon Musk seems to rather enjoy trolling these people.

Mainly, it feels like Twitter and FB have somehow become the defining issues of our time. Maybe I’m just stupid, but I don’t understand why. Why this obsession with Musk?

I’ve gone through layoffs several times in my career. As has my older son, as has my sister, my wife. So Musk bought a company, took it private, and fired a ton of folks. Has corporate America never had layoffs? Have we never had layoffs where honest, hard working people were needlessly fired, because of market conditions, short sightedness and greed on part of their business execs, or some combination of both?

I worry that this country is hyper addicted to needless drama, and it’s self imposed and obfuscating bigger challenges we have as a society.

I saw a Twitter conversation between Democrat and Republican House members. Absolutely shameful how these people hurl insults at each other, try to respond with sly, “witty” insults. Maybe I’m the one being the drama queen, but it feels like Rome is starting to burn and we have no one to blame this time but ourselves.

End of rant from this old goat.

[aardvark179]

Musk is getting attention because unlike many people who take over a company he doesn’t seem to have a good plan for what to do, or rather he had plans (charging for the verified tick etc.) which people told him would backfire, and they did so he has had to reverse them with extraordinary speed.

So now he needs to work out what to do with a vastly reduced engineering team, and loss in confidence from some advertisers because of the fall out from his first plan, and his communication style isn’t really helping him through all this.

Whether Twitter is a good thing overall I can’t say. It has many interesting groups of people on it in both my professional life and in my hobbies outside of that, and if it goes down I think it will be the first time we’ve seen a social network fail while still large and active.

[anon7725]

> Why is Twitter so important?

Despite all of the drama and toxicity, there is still no place like it. It's the first place to turn for realtime analysis and updates for unfolding events. It's the only credible global town square where you can see your favourite sci-fi author interact with an infectious disease specialist, a machine learning expert and an independent journalist.

I have a complicated relationship with it - often leaving for months to years at a time, but usually coming back in some capacity. It's messy and reflective of the full breadth of human discourse, positive and negative.

[muricula]

> Has corporate America never had layoffs?

Anyone who entered the tech industry in past decade+ has never experienced layoffs at this scale before. Young techies have experienced good times and high salaries. And the transition was quick -- just two quarters ago big companies were hiring techies by the hundred, now they're laying them off by the thousands. A lot of posters here assumed that in the worst case if their current gig failed they could go work on boring software for a year or so before finding something new, but now there's a lot more competition for that plan B job. And heaven help you if you're on a visa, have a health problem, or have a family -- could you be laid off next, and if so where do you go?

[EFreethought]

Given Musk's actions WRT buying and owning Twitter over the past few months, I think this is one set of layoffs that are solely due to the actions of one person. He agreed to buy Twitter for a high price (because he thought it would be funny to buy it for a price with a weed reference), and now other people are having their lives turned upside down because this guy is not as smart as everyone thought.

[dkokelley]

> Why does Musk get so much attention? Why is Twitter so important?

I see it as an established group who mostly benefited from Twitter (think journalists and traditional media who had great reach and influence through the platform) fearing that their power will erode under the new regime.

This is already playing out. Anyone who pays a small fee can be “verified” (a privilege previously reserved for the elect few), opposition/critical voices are returning from banishment, and Twitter is reconsidering which people/tweets/views are amplified or suppressed.

The reason why Musk/Twitter are “so important” is because those who stand to lose want us to believe so.

> I worry that this country is hyper addicted to needless drama, and it’s self imposed and obfuscating bigger challenges we have as a society.

Agreed. There are players and fans. The players (Musk, media) have stakes that matter. The fans (you, me, anyone who roots for one side or the other) may have ideological stakes, but it’s mostly tabloids for nerds.

[Yoric]

Interesting point of view.

I'd venture an alternative answer.

> Why does Musk get so much attention?

Musk is considered the wealthiest person in the world. Watching someone wealthy fail or perhaps pull it off against all odds is a pastime usually reserved to TV dramas.

He's also an eccentric, with a considerable ego and a well-known internet troll. He's easy to make fun of. Given how freely he distributes insults and snipish takedowns, he's someone many people want to make fun of, for better or for worse. Oh, and his communication style, which could be described as straight to the point or impressively naive, has as many fans as haters.

> Why is Twitter so important?

Because a non-negligible fraction of the world gets their news from Twitter, directly or indirectly. Also, because Twitter has become a vector for propagandists of all sides and that this propaganda, by all signs, works very well.

> Perhaps this is incredibly ignorant to say, but why not let people who want to use Twitter use it, and those that don’t, don’t use it?

I don't think anybody disagrees with that.

> I feel the loudest voices are anti Twitter. Or they hate Musk. And Elon Musk seems to rather enjoy trolling these people. > [...] > I saw a Twitter conversation between Democrat and Republican House members. Absolutely shameful how these people hurl insults at each other, try to respond with sly, “witty” insults. Maybe I’m the one being the drama queen, but it feels like Rome is starting to burn and we have no one to blame this time but ourselves.

I don't know about other people. The reason I loathe Twitter is exactly because of that. The medium itself is not the problem but the algorithms employed by the former direction of Twitter increased engagement by encouraging flamewars and access to addictive content.

Could Musk do something good about that? Anything is possible, but none of the signs are encouraging at this early stage.

[jrumbut]

Musk rightly draws attention because he's in control of a lot of money and companies that are significant players in important industries (including defense). Some of the interest is prurient, and he plays games with it, but he is a legitimate subject of inquiry.

As far as the members of Congress go, sly insults is an upgrade from a lot of what has happened the last few years.

And we have a tendency to remember politics as being gentler than it was. Check out this absolutely childish exchange from the 1980s: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1985/03/06/...

It's easy to dig up any number of these, which used to be buried in the back pages of a newspaper rather than playing out and being memorialized on the web.

[ncr100]

Twitter is closer to being The Internet than it is Just Some Company.

It is a directory of important people.

And a discussion forum where minority perspectives can be identified and boosted.

Nothing else on the Internet has such a concentration of utility, yet.