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thewayneYou can't talk about Elon buying Twitter without talking about the legal definition of Free Speech in the USA. There's two parts to that. Quoting an Ars Technica article linked below: "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." The wording prevents the government from restricting speech, but courts have ruled that it does not prevent private companies from doing so.
And that is a critical point. People screamed bloody blue murder when Twitter perma-banned Trump and a number of others for violating THEIR RULES against hate speech a few years ago, saying that Twitter was violating their free speech. Twitter is not the U.S. Government, and at that time, was a corporation that was publicly traded on the U.S. Stock exchange. You could buy shares in it if you had the cash.
Quoting again from the Ars article, ...judges have ruled that private companies like Twitter have a First Amendment right to moderate content. Both Florida and Texas tried to enact laws that would force social networks like Twitter and Facebook to scale back their content moderation. Judges blocked both state laws from taking effect, ruling that the laws violate the companies' First Amendment rights to moderate their platforms.
President Trump, at that time, had the world's bully pulpit. He could call a press conference at any time and get world-wide media coverage. There was no way his Freedumb of Speech was being infringed, one company had taken away one of his toys because he wasn't following their rules in the way he was playing with it.
That was all.
Twitter – BM (Before Musk) – has a Board of Directors. They must answer to their shareholders and provide a return for their shareholder's investments. They must also play by the rules set forth by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in their public talking about the state of Twitter and any financial moves that they make: anything that they say that might affect Twitter's stock price must be very carefully reviewed before being uttered. Any CEO or Board member of any corporation knows about this and plays by these rules, it's part of the game.
Elon doesn't like this. He hates the SEC. He loves to use Twitter BM to broadcast to his millions of followers the least little thought that crosses his mind. He loves to make jokes about 420 – pot references, he tweets while stoned. He is being sued by investors for tweeting about Tesla in such a way that caused it to lose money. He sued the SEC for a tweet that caused chaos in Tesla's valuation, and just lost that lawsuit because a settlement he previously had with them forced him to have his tweets pre-authorized by his attorneys to make sure they weren't further violating SEC rules..
Basically because he's the richest man on the planet, he doesn't want to play by the rules that every other businessman in the country has to play by.
Boo and hoo.
Hey! I revitalized the electric car industry and launch rocket ships! Fuck the SEC!
Nope, it doesn't work that way, boyo.
So now he's trying to buy Twitter and take it private.
The day after the deal was announced – not finalized, mind you – just announced, lots of things happened.
There's a billion dollar payment in the deal that if Musk doesn't succeed that he's got to pay to Twitter for mucking around with the company and failing to buy them. A break-up payment.
There's the resignation of core programmers quit along with a lot of other people
There's the deletion of a lot of users who left Twitter in search of other similar messaging platforms like Mastedon. I have two Twitter accounts, I have not yet decided what I'm going to do with them.
Today there was the revelation that Twitter has inflated the number of followers for years
One problem that Twitter has had for ages is that "the market" thinks that it should have been much more profitable than it is, as social media companies go, considering how many users it has. They just haven't been able to, or interested in, monetizing that. But is this going to be a driving interest of Elon's?
The deal is not final. It has to be approved by shareholders and regulators, i.e the SEC/FTC probably. Tesla shareholders aren't too keen on this either as this spreads Elon across yet another company, and there's just so much Elon that you can spread around. How much attention can he spare?
Tesla lost over $1,000,000,000 in stock value the day that the Twitter acquisition was announced. Stockholders of Tesla are probably not too happy about that!
I read a reporter's comment who interviewed the CEO of Gab, a right-wing version of Twitter, who said he spent all his day working on privacy and free speech policies for his platform. Elon's big interests are SpaceX and Tesla, he also has his neuro-link company and the Boring Company and his solar company and I don't know what else going on. He won't have a Board of Directors after he takes Twitter private, though he'll still have department managers.
Elon says that he wants to maximize free speech, and the follower numbers of some right-wing nutters like MTG surged big-time. Some are saying that he should restore Trump's account, even though Trump has said in public that he doesn't want his Twitter account back. That's probably because his own platform, Truth Central, or Truth Social, or Trub Whatever, which he cannot remember the name of and has only posted to twice, is so much better.
I'm not sure how good of a background Musk has in international law when it comes to how other countries regulate free speech. For example, in Thailand if you talk smack about the Royal Family, you're in big trouble.
"Maximize free speech". Interesting idea, but he'll still have to regulate it within the parameters of each country, which is what Twitter is doing right now. No talking about Nazis in Germany, etc. Twitter BM kicked people off their service for making death threats and spreading misinformation that was provably wrong. If you look at Truth Social, Gab, and other supposed bastions of free speech, you'll find that you will get banned for talking smack about the platform or certain key people, or for making death threats, or certain other types of speech. Platforms are allowed to moderate their content, and do.
Will you be able to make death threats on the new Twitter after Elon takes over, assuming the deal goes through? Is that valid free speech? Will you be able to call Elon "Pedo Guy", as he called one of the Thailand cave rescuers on Twitter after the guy disparaged Elon's offer to build a mini-submarine to rescue the kids and the diver shot down the idea? Elon being the brilliant and experienced cave diver that he is. Oh, wait. He isn't a brilliant and experienced cave diver.
Interesting times ahead.
No, I don't think Musk taking Twitter private is a good thing for Twitter. I think it will turn into a giant cesspool and ultimately I'll leave it because the content that I like will vanish. I appreciate the fact that he kickstarted the electric car revolution and has done amazing things for the space industry, but otherwise, I really don't think much of him as a human being.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/04/elon-musk-twitters-next-owner-provides-his-definition-of-free-speech/
And that is a critical point. People screamed bloody blue murder when Twitter perma-banned Trump and a number of others for violating THEIR RULES against hate speech a few years ago, saying that Twitter was violating their free speech. Twitter is not the U.S. Government, and at that time, was a corporation that was publicly traded on the U.S. Stock exchange. You could buy shares in it if you had the cash.
Quoting again from the Ars article, ...judges have ruled that private companies like Twitter have a First Amendment right to moderate content. Both Florida and Texas tried to enact laws that would force social networks like Twitter and Facebook to scale back their content moderation. Judges blocked both state laws from taking effect, ruling that the laws violate the companies' First Amendment rights to moderate their platforms.
President Trump, at that time, had the world's bully pulpit. He could call a press conference at any time and get world-wide media coverage. There was no way his Freedumb of Speech was being infringed, one company had taken away one of his toys because he wasn't following their rules in the way he was playing with it.
That was all.
Twitter – BM (Before Musk) – has a Board of Directors. They must answer to their shareholders and provide a return for their shareholder's investments. They must also play by the rules set forth by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in their public talking about the state of Twitter and any financial moves that they make: anything that they say that might affect Twitter's stock price must be very carefully reviewed before being uttered. Any CEO or Board member of any corporation knows about this and plays by these rules, it's part of the game.
Elon doesn't like this. He hates the SEC. He loves to use Twitter BM to broadcast to his millions of followers the least little thought that crosses his mind. He loves to make jokes about 420 – pot references, he tweets while stoned. He is being sued by investors for tweeting about Tesla in such a way that caused it to lose money. He sued the SEC for a tweet that caused chaos in Tesla's valuation, and just lost that lawsuit because a settlement he previously had with them forced him to have his tweets pre-authorized by his attorneys to make sure they weren't further violating SEC rules..
Basically because he's the richest man on the planet, he doesn't want to play by the rules that every other businessman in the country has to play by.
Boo and hoo.
Hey! I revitalized the electric car industry and launch rocket ships! Fuck the SEC!
Nope, it doesn't work that way, boyo.
So now he's trying to buy Twitter and take it private.
The day after the deal was announced – not finalized, mind you – just announced, lots of things happened.
There's a billion dollar payment in the deal that if Musk doesn't succeed that he's got to pay to Twitter for mucking around with the company and failing to buy them. A break-up payment.
There's the resignation of core programmers quit along with a lot of other people
There's the deletion of a lot of users who left Twitter in search of other similar messaging platforms like Mastedon. I have two Twitter accounts, I have not yet decided what I'm going to do with them.
Today there was the revelation that Twitter has inflated the number of followers for years
One problem that Twitter has had for ages is that "the market" thinks that it should have been much more profitable than it is, as social media companies go, considering how many users it has. They just haven't been able to, or interested in, monetizing that. But is this going to be a driving interest of Elon's?
The deal is not final. It has to be approved by shareholders and regulators, i.e the SEC/FTC probably. Tesla shareholders aren't too keen on this either as this spreads Elon across yet another company, and there's just so much Elon that you can spread around. How much attention can he spare?
Tesla lost over $1,000,000,000 in stock value the day that the Twitter acquisition was announced. Stockholders of Tesla are probably not too happy about that!
I read a reporter's comment who interviewed the CEO of Gab, a right-wing version of Twitter, who said he spent all his day working on privacy and free speech policies for his platform. Elon's big interests are SpaceX and Tesla, he also has his neuro-link company and the Boring Company and his solar company and I don't know what else going on. He won't have a Board of Directors after he takes Twitter private, though he'll still have department managers.
Elon says that he wants to maximize free speech, and the follower numbers of some right-wing nutters like MTG surged big-time. Some are saying that he should restore Trump's account, even though Trump has said in public that he doesn't want his Twitter account back. That's probably because his own platform, Truth Central, or Truth Social, or Trub Whatever, which he cannot remember the name of and has only posted to twice, is so much better.
I'm not sure how good of a background Musk has in international law when it comes to how other countries regulate free speech. For example, in Thailand if you talk smack about the Royal Family, you're in big trouble.
"Maximize free speech". Interesting idea, but he'll still have to regulate it within the parameters of each country, which is what Twitter is doing right now. No talking about Nazis in Germany, etc. Twitter BM kicked people off their service for making death threats and spreading misinformation that was provably wrong. If you look at Truth Social, Gab, and other supposed bastions of free speech, you'll find that you will get banned for talking smack about the platform or certain key people, or for making death threats, or certain other types of speech. Platforms are allowed to moderate their content, and do.
Will you be able to make death threats on the new Twitter after Elon takes over, assuming the deal goes through? Is that valid free speech? Will you be able to call Elon "Pedo Guy", as he called one of the Thailand cave rescuers on Twitter after the guy disparaged Elon's offer to build a mini-submarine to rescue the kids and the diver shot down the idea? Elon being the brilliant and experienced cave diver that he is. Oh, wait. He isn't a brilliant and experienced cave diver.
Interesting times ahead.
No, I don't think Musk taking Twitter private is a good thing for Twitter. I think it will turn into a giant cesspool and ultimately I'll leave it because the content that I like will vanish. I appreciate the fact that he kickstarted the electric car revolution and has done amazing things for the space industry, but otherwise, I really don't think much of him as a human being.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/04/elon-musk-twitters-next-owner-provides-his-definition-of-free-speech/
no subject
Date: 2022-04-30 12:29 am (UTC)Hugs, Jon
no subject
Date: 2022-04-30 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-05-01 07:56 am (UTC)IF the sale goes through, and that's not guaranteed, we're in for interesting times.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-01 08:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-30 10:54 am (UTC)"Twitter inflated their number of users..."??!!?? A social media and/or tech company doing such a thing. I'm shocked and appalled. Okay, enough snark, good piece.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-01 08:04 am (UTC)"Gambling? Going on at Rick's?!" "Your winnings, sir" "Thank you"
no subject
Date: 2022-05-01 09:46 am (UTC)Exactly. One of my all time favourite movie lines, and as you can see, infinitely adaptable.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-01 05:26 pm (UTC)Awesome movie, especially considering the low expectations of the studio for it. No one had any idea it was going to be such a hit.
no subject
Date: 2022-04-30 01:40 pm (UTC)I mostly use Twitter for local state government news that I can't always find quickly, easily or for free anywhere else. This is going to get interesting. I probably won't leave Twitter just for those reasons.
But I do agree with you.
And I wish social media was controlled like television or radio is. I don't understand why it isn't at this point.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-01 08:13 am (UTC)Broadcast media, TV and radio, is a different regulatory environment because of its nature. Since it uses broadcast transmitters, due to their nature, they cover multiple political and geographic boundaries and cannot be blocked. So the government applied a light hand at regulating their content. I won't go into details about the Fairness Doctrine that used to be in place until it was repealed some 40 years ago as it's a complicated issue and I just don't remember the highlights of it, but originally it was there to try to keep things on an even keel. And for the most part, news was reported without too much bias. Then TV networks figured out you could get much higher Nielson Ratings, which translates directly to higher advertising revenues, by making your news shows compete for ratings. News became more sensational: "If it bleeds, it leads". Regulation largely became a thing of the past, pretty much anything short of nudity and profanity could be aired on broadcast. Then cable and satellite came along and everything changed again. The government wanted to try to avoid directly regulating online content because if it started, it would be too easy or one party or the other to crank the setting too high against their opponents. By not doing it, for one party to start doing it later would be a lot harder. So we end up with an open and largely self-regulated cesspool, as opposed to a highly censored mess. Hard to say which would be better.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-01 04:37 pm (UTC)Much appreciated!
no subject
Date: 2022-05-01 05:31 pm (UTC)I read Walter Cronkite's autobiography, and he described the ratings creeping in. Excellent book. I met him at a signing and have a signed copy. I think I passed on shaking his hand because he looked absolutely terrible: a few weeks later he had triple or quadruple bypass surgery!
no subject
Date: 2022-05-01 06:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-05-01 07:16 pm (UTC)I have books from Walter, Hillary, and Leslie Nielson that I got at book signings!
no subject
Date: 2022-05-01 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-30 03:01 pm (UTC)Twitter even BM irritates me, because it doesn't play by Canadian free speech laws very well. It's bad enough many Canadians seem to think we have any amendments at all to our constitution, much less an American-style 1st. Y'all's is more absolute, although still not as absolute as some seem to think, most importantly in that our freedom of expression *is* allowed to have "reasonable" government-imposed limits, upheld several times now by the SCC. It's the anti-hate provisions here that are allowed to be much more strict. Yet, Twitter doesn't GAF.
With Musk in charge, who knows? I can't imagine they'll play any *better* with us, and his little acolytes will continue brigading anybody who dares criticise him - with his direct support, I imagine. That's not good for either of our nations.
Free Speech for Me but not for Thee....
Date: 2022-04-30 06:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-05-01 05:13 am (UTC)I am currently at the sitting and waiting phase. Planning, sure, but I'm waiting to see if he actually does it or if he gets stymied sufficiently that he takes his ball and goes home and Twitter continues to operate as it has been, just with his money.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-01 05:15 pm (UTC)Interesting take. He definitely likes to try to ignore the U.S. Gov't, in the case of the SEC and to a point the FAA and EPA. It's not quite to the 'break out the popcorn' moment, but I can see it getting there.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-01 06:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-05-01 06:42 pm (UTC)He's tried to ignore some EPA stuff for SpaceX, but he knows he has to work with NASA, so he's slowly relenting on that.