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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/
