[stillkicking]

Twitter hired tons of employees since 2020 so the apparent massive layoffs simply weren't. And there is a lot of dead weight at tech companies regardless.

Political pundits had a direct interest in sabotaging the perception of Twitter as an authoritative source of new information, and the coordinated attempts to get advertisers to pull out early on also point in this direction.

The reason they aren't talking about it anymore is because, by and large, this plan failed, and those predictions weren't predictions but wishes. Some groups slinked off to Mastodon, which works for niche communities, but doesn't work for the site at large.

[qup]

It's amazing to me how a couple hundred million people can be so compellingly influenced by such a small group of people, often with totally misaligned goals.

And the people just follow along.

Musk went from a golden boy to a global villain overnight without doing something wrong. He bought a company! God forbid, the new owner made a few changes! It's wild to me how fast it happened. Nobody really needed convinced, they're just predisposed to hate rich people.

[BoorishBears]

It's more amazing to me someone could write this comment in ernest.

Banning users for mentioning a competitor, banning ElonJet after specifically saying he wouldn't, banning journalists for covering it, not paying rent and custodial staff, rushed layoffs and ended up having to rehire people, firing people if they wouldn't agree to unpaid overtime in 24 hours notice, firing people for speaking poorly of the aforementioned mess, starting a half-baked verified program that allowed people to successfully impersonate multi billion dollar corporations, violating labor laws during the firings, purging Twitter's compliance team causing them to fall afoul of FTC regulations

That's the tip of the iceberg that you're labeling as "a few changes", and it is utterly hilarious that people's reaction to Elon is what you're saying is wild in terms of how quickly it happened... and not the bedlam Elon unleashed upon Twitter in the exact same amount of time

[jerojero]

I think you've missed the flurry of political opinions he's been giving in the past few months?

I think it's really these that have made him unpopular, he stopped just being a tech guy that's a little funny and so on and went "mask off". People did not like what he had to say, now, you might agree with most of his opinions or you might not be aware of them. But I would say largely the reason he's put a target on his back is not just because he bought twitter but why he bought twitter.

People weren't really predisposed to hate rich people, Elon Musk has been rich for decades. But the public opinion towards wealth concentration is changing, you're right in that. Is that a bad thing? I think what people saw is Elon Musk buying one of the largest public social media companies for vanity to the tune of a very, very, public trial. I mean he was forced to do it, he joked about it and then he had to pay; it was ridiculous! Right in the middle of an economic crisis as well.

I don't know, I am not surprised at all opinion on Musk has shifted. I don't think it has much to do with people "hating on rich people" as much as people just hating on Musk specifically because he's the naked king and everyone can see it.

[qup]

> I think you've missed the flurry of political opinions

I doubt I've seen all his political opinions, I don't judge people on their political opinions, nor do I represent myself with my own. I prefer the world of my grandmother, where she says some married couples didn't know how the other voted. FWIW I think I disagree with probably ~half of his public political positions that I've heard about.

The only reason I think political alignment might be important in this case is because you may be right--it may have had an impact on the opinion of him. I actually imagine it did, because the media all shifted at the same moment, and they are really why politics matter. When you're as big as Twitter, the media can actually affect your business.

> People weren't really predisposed to hate rich people, Elon Musk has been rich for decades

Yes but nobody heard of him until SpaceX/Tesla. I think his step into the national consciousness happened at about the same time he started voicing political opinions. I think it's almost certainly a combination of both. I just know all kinds of people who hate every rich person, regardless of politics. They hate Elon Musk and they think Bill Gates is trying to secretly collapse America.

I'm trying to imagine a time I've seen a discussion about a rich person that didn't have some hate in the comments. Who's the most wholesome widely-known billionaire? Assign me a task, I will find people hating them in the comments somewhere, everywhere.

[spoils19]

Overnight? Sentiment has been largely changing, for my own circle around the pedo comments, but for others much sooner.

It's amazing to me that people seem to be influenced by such a small group of people, and people just follow along!

[qup]

The shift happened in November 2022, at least here on Hacker News. This discussion isn't really about your own small group/circle.

I think it's great to hate Musk if he's a pedophile (I have no idea what you're talking about, sorry, I don't watch the news except here, and that kind of news doesn't cut it here)

I don't think it's great to hate him because he's rich and he bought Twitter and you want to predict his failure. Most of all I think it's incredibly stupid to claim he's stupid.

[spoils19]

> that kind of news doesn't cut it here

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17537018

> you want to predict his failure

I never predicted anything - please make sure you source your claims.

> incredibly stupid to claim he's stupid

Again, please source your claims. I haven't seen others claim he's stupid (sorry, I don't watch the news except here, and that kind of news doesn't cut it here)

Additionally, I don't think it's following the HN guidelines by discouraging others to share their unique viewpoints. Remember, the site is for _curious_ discussion!

[qup]

Sorry, you've mistaken me on all counts.

I often use "you" when I should probably say "one", as in:

"I don't think it's great to hate him because he's rich and he bought Twitter and one wants to predict his failure."

Also, that sentence says "if." I didn't say you predicted anything or called anyone stupid, and I didn't discourage your viewpoint--my point rather was that your small group was not a counterpoint in this thread about Hacker News. I'm sorry you felt singled out.

Additionally you can see people all throughout this very thread calling Elon Musk stupid, so I don't feel the need to source the one claim I did make.

[spoils19]

I still feel my discussion being stifled and I'm unable to now contribute curious discussion to this site for the short term. I encourage you to think about your actions here, and ensure that you don't negatively affect the space around you in the future. There's hundreds of eccentric personalities on this site, and watching your conversation in the future will only bring positive results.

[gus_massa]

> Political pundits had a direct interest in sabotaging the perception of Twitter as an authoritative source of new information,

It's weird that someone think that Twitter is an authoritative source of new information, but it's quite common. Politician fight using tweets. Journalist just dump tweeter threads into paper.

I think that this will save Tweeter. A distributed version like Mastodon can't be an authoritative source of new information. Which of the instance is the real one? I guess the only way to kill Tweeter is if one of the Mastodon instance get so big that becomes the "official" one and ever betray all the other instances disconnecting them.