This is the biggest thing to happen to twitter since the trump presidency. Both big for twitter, and awful for society.
That’s why free speech policies shouldn’t be dictated by partisan concerns. You never know who will be in control of your social media platform in the future.
Thats an extreme example, but the point im illustrating is that in reality, as a society, we do not approve or endorse all speech, and it is obviously true that censorship is useful. You can see quite clearly that were the president to do this, it would have consequences.
Does that mean we should make certain speech illegal? Not necessarily. Does it mean we should curtail the reach of certain speech? I think it is good for Twitter to do this.
The distinction is that speech being possible is different than speech being emphasized or broadcasted.
Twitter went further down the ideological rabbit hole with Jack at the helm.
No such thing will ever happen. This is just political theater for the sake of appeasing the "sour grapes" faction on the left. There is no political will to tax unrealized gains, tax wealth, etc.
It is the fourth most visited site on the internet. It has well over three hundred million active users. It was one of the main methods of communication for the last sitting president of the united states. It is worth more than three billion dollars. It is currently what this subset of society in this thread is discussing because we find it relevant.
But in my opinion, Elon Musk is a very smart man who not only sees, but has reaped massive value from Twitter. He is notable for tweeting misleading information to affect the stock price of his companies. These actions resulted in a lawsuit from the SEC in 2018.
The ripple effects of stock manipulation are hard to directly tie to the concept of "awful for society". But it certainly feels like when money is given one place, it is taken from another. When that transfer of money is based on misinformation, it creates pain. I personally am doubtful that the billionaire feels any of it, but someone else will.
I also don't believe that Musk has learned any lesson from the lawsuit either. He is currently trying to fight the tweet pre-approval stipulation in the courts. Putting a financial investment into the company to me personally, looks like someone who has found, or is looking for a loophole.
I presume you're primarily referencing his "Funding secured" tweet - which arguably with Elon's pretty solid judgement, he may have well had funding secured - say through verbal agreement - just perhaps not through official legal channels?
It's also arguable as to whether what he's said is misleading or not, and which what he says, what the SEC wants him to do vs. what the Constitution gives him the foundational right to do seem to be at odds.
Because you didn't give any specific examples of his supposed misleading, it's hard to actually argue you further.
You also haven't tied anything you said back to how him buying ~10% of Twitter is awful for society though?
You must also dislike Bitcoin then because the vast majority of what people see, that hypes them up to buy into Bitcoin, is shallow propaganda/is highly misleading - and those people ultimately will lose their money once the blockchain designed to mimic MLM-Ponzi schemes collapses?
I'm sorry that I didn't base my argument on what "he may have well had". But when I think about it that way, sure, he may have well had never done anything wrong. The courts disagree, but they also might not being taking into account what he may have well had.
I tried my best to elaborate on why I felt that him purchasing a stake in twitter was awful for society in my last comment. I am sorry that you didn't find it meaty enough for you to argue on, but perhaps that is for the best.
and yes, I also believe bitcoin and MLM ponzi schemes are also awful.
Most people (or at least HNers) would agree that decreasing the likelihood of another Trump presidency would be a good thing.
Maybe.
> His reinstatement would make a Trump presidency less likely, IMO.
That's...an interesting opinion, but I don't see any strong reason to believe it is true, or even more likely to be true than the opposite effect.
> Most people (or at least HNers) would agree that decreasing the likelihood of another Trump presidency would be a good thing.
For people (at least, US voters) generally that appears to be less true of Trump than literally every other potential candidate, as Trump currently is both the strongest by far polling candidate for the Republican nomination in 2024 against other potential Republicans and the strongest against potential Democratic opponents, winning my most general election head to head polls.
I would speculate that part of the reason he’s polling so well (relatively speaking) right now is that he’s been off twitter for the last year.
That's true of literally every possible candidate; no candidate is preferred by the majority of people, and Trump is preferred by the largest minority.
> I would speculate that part of the reason he’s polling so well (relatively speaking) right now is that he’s been off twitter for the last year.
I would speculate that almost the entire reason is that he successfully took over the Republican brand and people are dissatisfied with the present conditions, largely due to economic conditions, particularly inflation.