[ben_w]

He does get shit done.

Sometimes it's good shit, other times it's just shit.

That cost-cutting approach worked with turning Tesla from the butt of (quite reasonable at the time) jokes about "Death Watch" because they kept needing more and more investment money, into the success they are today.

It utterly failed with Twitter, which has lost most of its revenue and is constantly running into legal issues.

[bigstrat2003]

By your own statement, people said the same things about Tesla in the past which they do about Twitter today. That alone should be pretty strong evidence that it's too soon to tell if his approach with Twitter has failed. Maybe it will fail, maybe not, but either way I think it's too soon to call.

[pyth0]

It's not comparable, and it is certainly not too early to make that judgement about Twitter. I can say that confidently as a longtime read-only user of the platform who has largely been driven off by the incessant bots, boosted bluecheck replies and rampant racism and other toxic content. You can also make this same judgement based on the fact that advertisers and users alike are fleeing the platform.

[ben_w]

Not really comparable:

People were negative about Tesla owing to a long history of making negligible sales before Musk took over as the third CEO.

Twitter was occasionally profitable, and now it has so little income it can't cover the loan he saddled with it even if literally every other cost was entirely eliminated.

Now, that doesn't mean that Musk can't change course on Twitter, nor does it mean that he can't just burn money with Twitter for as long as he wants to, but it's still a thing where if I were somehow a shareholder, I'd be trying to sell.

[Cumpiler69]

I don't see the failure in Twitter. It's a platform capable of influencing elections, that's definitely worth more than people think.

It lost revenue since advertisers don't like the platform's freedom of speech, and Elon won't give them control of what's allowed on the platform. Advertisers want control, they don't want free speech. Why do you think You tube removed the downvote counter? Advertisers pay not just to how their stuff but to also be able to control the narrative. If crowds of people are allowed to freely light a brand on fire on Twitter, why would they pay to advertise there?

Meta paid like 22 Billion for WhatsApp which is hardly bringing in revenue.

[adamredwoods]

Yes advertisers want control, wouldn't you? But it has nothing to do with "free speech". Try "good speech". Elon reduced the amount of subjective "good speech" and increased "bad speech". Advertisers have the freedom to do what they want. Elon, on the other hand, has absolute control of the words on his platform.

[Cumpiler69]

>Yes advertisers want control, wouldn't you?

If they would have control, people would stop going to Twitter and it would die. Similar fate to the TV mainstream media where they only parrot the opinions of their money overlords, and people are tired of that. That's why they go on to Twitter instead, to look for comments conforming to their own world views rather than what some trillion dollar corporations and out of touch celebrities tell them. Same thing that makes Joe Rogan popular.

>Elon reduced the amount of subjective "good speech" and increased "bad speech".

What is "good speech" and what is "bad speech" for you? Let me guess, "good speech" is the opinions you agree with and "bad speech" is the opinions you disagree with?

Elon didn't reduce or increase anything. He just disable the "nanny" moderations, so now on Twitter you're seeing exactly what the people really think (probably what you consider "bad speech"), instead of what advertisers and the mainstream media would like them to think (probably what you consider "good speech").

That's why people come to Twitter, because it's one the few places left with relatively unmoderated free speech. It's what makes it valuable.

[ben_w]

> What is "good speech" and what is "bad speech" for you? Let me guess, "good speech" is the opinions you agree with and "bad speech" is the opinions you disagree with?

What happens if this pseudocode is run, targeting your account?

  while True:
    requests.post(api_url, json={"username": "@Cumpiler69", "message": "hello"})

Answer: you can't see any other content because you're jammed with someone else's absolute freedom to speak to you.

Signal, noise.

Signal keeps you engaged, noise doesn't. What counts as which depends on the person, but you can't function in an environment that allows anything.

Thing is, the exact thing that makes social networks useful, that it's the edges not the nodes, means it is very easy to be jammed by actual humans and not just stupid scripts like the one above.

Ironically, very simple things like I've just shown you, are also how propaganda works: jam people's perception by overloading them with The Message. And any attempt to be "absolutist" about free speech, if he really was (which he isn't really despite what he says), is just a power vacuum into which those that seek power can project their propaganda.

There's no fancy good way out with this, for anyone, much as I'd like there to be. There's no "your side or my side" distinction here, nor would there be if the world were really so parochial as US politics.

[Cumpiler69]

And who gets to decide what is is noise/propaganda and what is not? You? Morally and ethically bankrupt mainstream media and advertisers like MSNBC, Amazon, Nike, Apple, Chevron, Nestle, Disney and WB who are gladly using slave labor, destroying the environment and people's lives on the other side of the planet for the sake of profit? These are who you want to be your judges for free speech on online platforms?

What if what you're seeing as noise/propaganda is just other people's opinions who outnumber you? You being outnumbered by different opinions is NOT noise/propaganda, but a natural function of democracy. You can either deal with it and accept you're the minority opinion, or you can keep being ignorant about it and call it propaganda while the emperor obviously has no clothes. Your choice.

Here's another hint: Trump won the elections despite the majority of the mainstream media being against him and pro Kamala (propaganda or not). He won because that's what the majority of people wanted.

[ben_w]

That sounds like you seriously do not understand the point?

I specifically said:

> There's no fancy good way out with this, for anyone, much as I'd like there to be. There's no "your side or my side" distinction here, nor would there be if the world were really so parochial as US politics.

Even if you gave me personal control over everything, even to my own standards I wouldn't be able to get this right. I know what buttons push me, but I cannot rewrite my mind to be free of them — do you know what buttons push you, or do you think yourself immune?

Thinking yourself immune is the easiest way to get fooled.

> These are who you want to be your judges for free speech on online platforms?

If I wanted an example of a straw man, what you wrote would be a strong candidate.

Hint: one of my previous partners was literally a communist, and proud of it. I'm not myself, because I think communism makes the same fundamental error as free market capitalism about the human condition and how the powerful exploit basically anything, not because I think any particular corporations are aligned with my interests.

> You being outnumbered by different opinions is NOT noise/propaganda, but a natural function of democracy.

1) I didn't say "outnumbered" I said "jammed".

2) Jamming can be many things, but it's by definition noise.

That noise can be many things.

Mere disagreement isn't sufficient — I find disagreement quite engaging, hence the fact that I'm replying to you at all.

For other categories, of noise: spam jammed the unbounded free speech of usenet and is a big part of why it fell out of use, and constantly threatens to do the same to email despite increasingly capable filtering;

Also consider the algorithm behind YouTube: 75% of what it recommends is stuff I actively get annoyed by, and last I checked all bar one of the remaining items that I was interested in were literally already on my "watch later" list. That is "noise" which is neither spam (because I was not counting the adverts on YouTube) nor was it political.

There is also "noise" in the sense of being constantly insulted: some thrive in this, others do not, and those who do not will leave places which allow this. Musk is free to do whatever he wants (within the law) regarding the rules of conduct on Twitter, that doesn't mean the people who don't like it will bother putting up with it — and indeed, they don't put up with it, they leave.

This is why 4chan, for example, never became what Twitter was before Musk bought it.

Nevertheless, my specific example was you getting spammed (in the non-commercial sense of the word) by someone saying "hello" on a tight loop, which ought to be clearly non-political, non-commercial, and as far as possible from an insult.

If someone did that to you, on any unfiltered stream, you literally would not be able to use that stream. Doesn't matter the service or the context, if it was someone in real life saying that constantly in your ear then your brain would eventually filter it out for you… or you'd snap.

Furthermore, "being outnumbered by different opinions" is not special to democracy, but also commonplace in dictatorships where the opinions are manufactured — in exactly the same way you complain about prior to Musk having bought the site. The exact claims you make work against you, the exact arguments you make can be used in reverse to claim that it is Musk not Disney et al who are judging you, e.g. with: https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/x-cisgender-slur-cis-elon...

If "majority" really meant "free from bias", it would mean the exact claims you just made about being outnumbered prior to Musk's takeover would force you to acknowledge that you were in fact the minority before hand — but unlike your argument I do not think (or rely on) the idea that "free from bias" is even possible.

> or you can keep being ignorant about it and call it propaganda while the emperor obviously has no clothes

Bonus irony: in that story, the population (and the emperor) was cowed into silence by shame, the majority claimed to see clothes that were not there.

> Trump won the elections despite the majority of the mainstream media being against him and pro Kamala (propaganda or not). He won because that's what the majority of people wanted.

If either of the claims "propaganda or not" and "because that's what the majority of people wanted" were correct, then your other claim that twitter is "a platform capable of influencing elections" would be false.

To the extent that Twitter is capable of influencing elections, it is one of many tools of dictators — and those outside your country who want to influence your politics.

[adamredwoods]

>> exactly what the people really think (probably what you consider "bad speech")

That is a large, opinionated assumption you are making, but be aware we're not discussing "me" but rather advertisers.

As for "me" I consider "bad speech" to be enabled by "unmoderated free speech", which Elon freely chose to allow on Twitter. So yes, he chose to increase it. "Free speech" is NOT synonymous with truth or facts. I will stay away from people and places that I consider to use "bad speech". Yes, it's subjective, and that's the point.

[ben_w]

> I don't see the failure in Twitter. It's a platform capable of influencing elections, that's definitely worth more than people think.

In a functioning democracy, every platform influences elections. Twitter isn't special in this regard.

> Advertisers want control

They want things that don't actively damage their brands. That's not the same thing.

> Why do you think You tube removed the downvote counter?

My guess is "seeing downvotes lead to less engagement". But as I've not seen the discussion, that's a guess.

> If crowds of people are allowed to freely light a brand on fire on Twitter, why would they pay to advertise there?

They could do that before he bought it.

> Meta paid like 22 Billion for WhatsApp which is hardly bringing in revenue.

The actual revenue is not published, but is claimed to be at least $1 billion/year based on the preceeding quarter:

"""Alice Newton-Rex, WhatsApp's vice president of product, told the Financial Times in late September 2024, that "paid messaging is a bit earlier in the journey, but it's also doing well, and we've passed a $1 billion run rate."""" - https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/04091...

That said, nobody's going around saying "gosh what a great investment decision by Zuckerberg, he nailed this one", if they're saying anything at all it's usually along the lines of "huh, is this a monopoly issue?"