discussion Reuters: Twitter to sell itself to Elon Musk

[Mr. Blue_Shirt]

9 hours ago, QueenBLadyG said:

What's a SJW? Or being WOKE? And how are they bad, exactly? 

SJW or WOKE is just a term for people who criticize other people who are sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic etc and some people in here HATE when their bigotry being called out on display by so called "SJWs" and "WOKE" people

 

That's all

 

[Chemist]

 

The overreactions by the media are hilarious though

[Vermillion]

1 hour ago, Chemist said:

The overreactions by the media are hilarious though

The piece actually raise salient points though. Imho.  

[Domination]

4 hours ago, Chemist said:

It doesn't matter who are the current shareholders because the current censorship policies are clear. Elon has been pro 'free speech' even if it means hate speech, so this particular policy WILL change meaning that alt right figures like Trump, Alex Jones, Milo Yiannpoulous, etc will comeback to the platform. That will be the biggest impact

That’s quite a slippery slope. Obviously free speech as a concept is completely inconsistent across mediums, but in the US, legally, free speech is actually distinct from hate speech. Also, as far as we can tell, Patagonia Agrawal will remain CEO and likely most of the board will remain as well:

 

 

My biggest issue with the overreactions is that ultimately we have literally no clue what changes will be made and what these changes will look like in practice.

[Bloo]

7 minutes ago, Domination said:

My biggest issue with the overreactions is that ultimately we have literally no clue what changes will be made and what these changes will look like in practice.

This isn't true. First, Elon Musk didn't purchase Twitter for $44 billion (which is already insane enough) to change nothing. Change is coming. Change inspired by the richest man alive who has cancelled Tesla purchases from people who criticize him, attack the validity of gender minorities, began crying about free speech after someone was banned for inciting an insurrection, etc. is probably not going to be good change. 

 

But, let's start by stepping back and look at a single change Elon Musk has proposed: removing anonymity from the Twitter platform. This patently harms the LGBTQ community across the world. While this change is not inherently bad, per se. LGBTQ+ youth that use the platform to find community will immediately be made at risk. This also opens up a can of worms to where people can "cancel" people in real life more by sharing the "radical left" ideas someone discusses with others on Twitter. For some, Twitter is the public square for political debate. For the majority, it's a place where they interact with people of similar interests they otherwise wouldn't. 

 

Massive change is coming and people are right to be concerned given the controversial (and thuggish) behavior of the man that just purchased Twitter. Of course we can't say for sure what's going to happen. But treating this as something with little to no repercussions is silly. Quoting Jack Dorsey's comment on this is irrelevant given that he has no reason to say something that could harm Twitter's stocks. Until we see what happens, people are free to express that concern. I'd argue it's better to get that out now rather than us putting our heads in the sand and then be caught off guard.

[Domination]

21 minutes ago, Bloo said:

This isn't true. First, Elon Musk didn't purchase Twitter for $44 billion (which is already insane enough) to change nothing. Change is coming. Change inspired by the richest man alive who has cancelled Tesla purchases from people who criticize him, attack the validity of gender minorities, began crying about free speech after someone was banned for inciting an insurrection, etc. is probably not going to be good change. 

 

But, let's start by stepping back and look at a single change Elon Musk has proposed: removing anonymity from the Twitter platform. This patently harms the LGBTQ community across the world. While this change is not inherently bad, per se. LGBTQ+ youth that use the platform to find community will immediately be made at risk. This also opens up a can of worms to where people can "cancel" people in real life more by sharing the "radical left" ideas someone discusses with others on Twitter. For some, Twitter is the public square for political debate. For the majority, it's a place where they interact with people of similar interests they otherwise wouldn't. 

 

Massive change is coming and people are right to be concerned given the controversial (and thuggish) behavior of the man that just purchased Twitter. Of course we can't say for sure what's going to happen. But treating this as something with little to no repercussions is silly. Quoting Jack Dorsey's comment on this is irrelevant given that he has no reason to say something that could harm Twitter's stocks. Until we see what happens, people are free to express that concern. I'd argue it's better to get that out now rather than us putting our heads in the sand and then be caught off guard.

Yea, changes are coming but so far Musk has only explicitly alluded to some “free speech1!1!” virtue signaling (maybe we can finally post about Israel without being shadow banned  ), making algorithms open source (mind you, this is a legitimate problem that Facebook deals with on the regular and literally created the propaganda machine that resulted in the 2016 election based on their shareholder driven model), and the authentication feature.

 

I don’t think authenticating users means quite literally no anonymity. Again, speculating what this will look like in practice is a bit difficult because it could be executed a million different ways. I understand your concerns about people of non-visible marginalized identities not wanting to be forced to share private information that could get them harmed but ultimately we don’t even know if that will be the case.

 

Ultimately Twitter is a company, not a country. And we as users are not citizens. If the new changes have a detrimental effect, people can and will leave and something else will take Twitter’s place. Concern is understandable, but the dramatics are not needed. Not until we know the actual parameters of these changes and how they will impact users.

[Bloo]

2 minutes ago, Domination said:

Yea, changes are coming but so far Musk has only explicitly alluded to some “free speech1!1!” virtue signaling (maybe we can finally post about Israel without being shadow banned  ), making algorithms open source (mind you, this is a legitimate problem that Facebook deals with on the regular and literally created the propaganda machine that resulted in the 2016 election based on their shareholder driven model), and the authentication feature.

 

I don’t think authenticating users means quite literally no anonymity. Again, speculating what this will look like in practice is a bit difficult because it could be executed a million different ways. I understand your concerns about people of non-visible marginalized identities not wanting to be forced to share private information that could get them harmed but ultimately we don’t even know if that will be the case.

 

Ultimately Twitter is a company, not a country. And we as users are not citizens. If the new changes have a detrimental effect, people can and will leave and something else will take Twitter’s place. Concern is understandable, but the dramatics are not needed. Not until we know the actual parameters of these changes and how they will impact users.

These are all fair points. Though I would personally argue that the "dramatics" are just the Internet being the Internet. Am I more likely to delete my Twitter accounting light of this acquisition? Yes. But I've been sitting on the idea for a while anyway because Twitter has noticeably made me feel worse and I'm naturally growing out of Twitter. My hatred for Elon Musk coupled with this acquisition makes for a cute snarky comment on this thread (and on Twitter itself, lol) about exiting the platform. So I'm not sure if everyone is being dramatic because this is an end-of-the-world scenario. I do think people will ultimately feel negative effects of this decision. But, like you said, that may all just lead to Twitter losing users and people flocking to another social media platform. Who knows. But I see more of the dramatics as people just being people. ATRL especially is a platform where people do the most over a little.

 

I'm curious about the push for open sourcing Twitter's algorithm. I'm highly skeptical it will be meaningful. I think a lot of people misunderstand the "algorithms" of these systems as being hard-coded systems, when that's not the case. Recommender systems incorporate machine learning and understanding what the systems learn is basically like trying to divine the future from animal bones. The process a recommender system goes through to train is so conceptual and automated that most people won't understand it. Computer scientists and engineers will be able to, sure. But we as a community are rarely listened to when it comes to anything (which is a major problem I personally have with Elon Musk in particular). So I can imagine open sourcing the code is only going to cause more division because people will see in the code what they want to see.

 

I'm all on board for open source projects. I think they are, at worst, a net neutral in the vast majority of cases. But I am a bit concerned about people's misunderstanding of technology, code, and the sort to publicly discuss what they might find in Twitter's code. 

[Ricardo1993]

I just dont care  People get a thrill out of overreactions. 

 

 

[CaptainMusic]

People celebrating this as the end of SJWs  

 

If anything as more people will be allowed to post bigoted comments, it will be easier for people to be targeted and “cancelled” especially if it’s true that he wants every account to be a real person.  They may not be banned by Twitter for their comments but they can still get backlash and lose their job.  

[Vermillion]

 

[killer_rose]

EU warns Elon Musk that Twitter must play by its tough new rules | Euronews

 

Has this been posted here already?

 

[GhostBox]

So Elons spending his night liking and commenting on Right wing News tweets ?

 

only reason he wanted Twitter to spread gop hate and talking points 

[BGXKB]

Nah it’s over for Twitter lol I just got banned after going back and forth with multiple transphobes who kept misgendering me and talking to me about their religion until I finally snapped and said the same things about them and their religion and got banned.

 

“Free speech” will only apply to those whose values align closest to cishet white patriarchal supremacy, as has been the norm on corporate social media since the beginning. Because these people are about making money and minority voices generally are not flush with cash. So we’re disposable to them.

 

Burn it all down.

[Into The Void]

On 4/25/2022 at 7:12 AM, Arlahndo said:

The overdramatics in here. I love it

 

but seriously though, I doubt that much will be changed. 

True nothing will really change people just being overtly dramatic as usual

[Vermillion]

10 hours ago, killer_rose said:

EU warns Elon Musk that Twitter must play by its tough new rules | Euronews

 

Has this been posted here already?

 

It hasn't, and thanks for sharing it. What enforcements, realistically, do they plan of implementing that would make enough of a difference?

 

So far it all seems to be platitudes. But the legislation isn't done being written, apparently. 

[killer_rose]

26 minutes ago, Espresso said:

It hasn't, and thanks for sharing it. What enforcements, realistically, do they plan of implementing that would make enough of a difference?

 

So far it all seems to be platitudes. But the legislation isn't done being written, apparently. 

This is what I could find from a quick search, supposedly coming in force early 2024.

 

What is the EU Digital Services Act and how will it impact Big Tech? | Euronews

[Vermillion]

 

[BrokenMachine]

On 4/26/2022 at 3:24 PM, CaptainMusic said:

People celebrating this as the end of SJWs  

 

If anything as more people will be allowed to post bigoted comments, it will be easier for people to be targeted and “cancelled” especially if it’s true that he wants every account to be a real person.  They may not be banned by Twitter for their comments but they can still get backlash and lose their job.  

Well, they have never been really bright to begin with 

[Rev8]

So..I've read that this might not come thru now?
His stocks fell and he might lose a Lot of money? idk

[Domination]

On 4/27/2022 at 2:07 AM, BGXKB said:

Nah it’s over for Twitter lol I just got banned after going back and forth with multiple transphobes who kept misgendering me and talking to me about their religion until I finally snapped and said the same things about them and their religion and got banned.

 

“Free speech” will only apply to those whose values align closest to cishet white patriarchal supremacy, as has been the norm on corporate social media since the beginning. Because these people are about making money and minority voices generally are not flush with cash. So we’re disposable to them.

 

Burn it all down.

The deal didn’t go through yet so clearly Twitter’s current policy has failed you.

[BGXKB]

7 hours ago, Domination said:

The deal didn’t go through yet so clearly Twitter’s current policy has failed you.

Well, I knew that anyway, I was just using the Musky situation to add fuel to the fire.

 

Either it was a coincidence or the news got the admins tweakin. Either way, clearly not as progressive of a platform as it is popularly made out to be.