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Comment by mooreds | Hacker News Reader

I agree. I think he understands that, as indicated by https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1585619322239561728 That doesn't sound like someone burning Twitter to the ground.

Also, many are acting like Musk has free rein in running the company. Yes and no.

Beyond needing employees to actually run the thing, he also has loans to pay back ($13B!) and investors to maintain good relationships with. More on that here: https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/who-is-financing-elon-mus...

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I'm very skeptical of the idea that Twitter can become a place where people discuss things with civility. It seems like the mechanics of the conversation encourage outrage.

On top of that, historically internet forums have required fairly strict moderation to remain civil for any significant amount of time. Without that, one quickly ends up with an incredibly unpleasant space that repels more people than it attracts.

Elon should make @dang CEO of twitter!

Please no, he'd be very missed here :)

dang has suffered enough

Hacker News is great precisely because it is very much _not_ a free speech paradise.

Maybe it would be even greater as a free speech paradise, where we could express opinions in the words and manner we choose.

Perhaps some kind of "HN gloves off" mode might work. Or HN After Dark. Then the traditional civil mode could be retained, while allowing the more wild tangents to run their course in a separate but related area or mode. I think this is inevitable for online discussion. Politicians have their formal, respectful discourse zones, but gloves come off in certain places and contexts where heated exchange is not only acceptable, but expected. And these are the people running things. So to deny the same for the general population, will never sit well.

Well you can just turn on showdead in the options, by far most of the dead comments are not really adding anything useful to conversations

Dead comments can be useful, just like civil comments can be useless. Free speech doesn't make assumptions, it says "yes, the kitchen can get hot".

For some people this is enough: but HackerNews is only great for discussion within the context of socially acceptable topics.

Want to have some open and honest discussions about programming languages, databases, APIs, careers, or math? There are few places where you can read more interesting and intelligent discussions on things like this.

Want to have some civil, but honest discussion about anything truly contentious: say race, religion, crime, homelessness, foreign affairs, IQ, sexuality, immigration, etc? Fully open and honest discussions on these sorts of topics are just not possible unless you have a very commonplace and milquetoast viewpoint.

Should be fairly straightforward to create some sort of subreddit type functionality and let each community set its own rules and self moderate.

Yeah, we’ve seen on Reddit how well that goes.

If that were really their goal, theoretically they could be. For instance, this forum has features, like invisible vote counts, and exponential cool-down periods which encourage healthy conversations.

Whether that is compatible with their business goals is another question.

This forum also has an educated crowd of nerds at the heart of its community. Twitter used to have that too and was a much more civil but also less interesting space when I joined in 2008.

HN is civil because of moderation, not because of the community.

The moderation on HN helps retain civil community members as well. I've been thinking about moderation as a chicken-or-egg situation but maybe it's more of an equilibrium issue. I should go over my old slashdot comments and see if I remember what pushed me out.

Are you the davidw from reddit? Do you ever go on /r/portland? It's moderated to the max yet its still neither civil or engaging. Moderation matters but I think HN does a lot better due to the features that promote well thought out posts and don't really allow trolls to get much traction.

The mechanics of most social media platforms encourage outrage.

1. Most are optimizing to maximize user engagement, and it seems like most platforms have concluded that emotionally charged hot takes are the best way to keep the feed scrolling and the likes and shares flowing.

2. Most don't have the small communities or active moderation necessary to build a culture of civility. (HN is an outlier, though even here I think there are still some topics where the site becomes echo chamber-y.)

I think the fundamental limitation is that a small character limit removes the opportunity for nuance. It is a trade off though - not many people will spend time reading nuanced essays. I’d say this is a big part of the polarization - there’s only enough room to basically say left or right and maybe indicate some magnitude to your belief, so you naturally end up with two parties.

I'm stereotyping Musk here, but it wouldn't surprise me if he decided to solve it with AI (sentiment analysis specifically) so the algorithm promotes positive tweets and downranks negative ones. Might even work, since the field has made huge progress in recent years.

That breaks down with coded language. If groups use code words or emojis they can change their coding faster than sentiment analysis models can be updated. Even if those models can be updated quickly the coding by users can be changed arbitrarily. They can also trivially add trivial positive text alongside the codes to get amplified.

Just as an example take the insipid "let's go Brandon" slogan. Sentiment analysis would rate that as a positive statement unless it was specifically flagged. That's a trivial example. There's untold numbers of covert meanings for emojis, even for banal things.

> promotes positive tweets and downranks negative ones.

Isn't this Instagram thing - my impression at least - have not used longer than a day or two because it's basically fluff only.

Cutting out negative sentiment - whatever the definition - would make it boring IMO

There doesn't need to be one algorithm. Bring your own algorithm would be pretty cool.

> so the algorithm promotes positive tweets and downranks negative ones

Will have to prefix tweets with I positively hate...

AI moderation has spectacular faulure modes (as banned Twitter users know). Imagine a tweet like "The thought of $NAME being unalived brings a smile to my face" would be enough to get through the positivity filter[1].

The word "unalive" itself was coined and became popular to escape such basic filters that have no sense of meaning.

1. I just tried the following on the first online sentiment analysis tool I found, and scored 85% positive: You sound very 'smart'. I have warm and fuzzy feelings at the thought of you being unalived, with your genius

It depends on incentives. Right now histrionics and outrage get boosted and sober, nuanced analysis goes nowhere. Invert that boosting algorithm and maybe Twitter can become useful. I'm not sure what would mean for revenue though.

> I'm not sure what would mean for revenue though.

I think if you have a place with useful conversation and also the attention of people, you can make money.

I agree, but these mechanics are not a law of nature, and can be changed.

Whether Musk will actually do that: dunno. But I don't think it's inconceivable that Twitter could become something much better than it is today.

I think the tweet format is directly opposed to having thoughtful, or even civil, discourse. It's hard to express anything complicated in 280 character, and if you want to have a discussion you need that time to express yourself. Without the short tweet format, what is twitter?

Did you write your comment in less than 280 (278) characters on purpose?

Absolutely.

Civil discussion requires decorum and rules, and Musk and other conservatives view those as "censorship".

It's the same reason none of the reddit clones have ever taken off, turns out most people don't want to participate in a virtual space free of censorship because it just turns into a cesspool

Respectfully, I have not found that to be true. No one side has a monopoly on the lunatics or the level headed.

It's unfortunate ad hominems, logical fallacies, and the "mic drop one liner" get so much traction and amplification.

When I find myself making snap judgments about an issue, I dive in to the opposition, doggedly seek out the underpinning ideas, from academic or level headed folks.

It's helped strengthen my personal convictions on some matters and moderated my pre held notions.

>Respectfully, I have not found that to be true. No one side has a monopoly on the lunatics or the level headed.

I really disagree. I think you have fringe folks on the left but outlandish ideas are mainstream amongst conservatives. For example, 70% of republicans believe Joe Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election.

https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2022/70-percent-republ...

You just aren't going to find such strong belief in anything that absurd on the left.

>When I find myself making snap judgments about an issue, I dive in to the opposition, doggedly seek out the underpinning ideas, from academic or level headed folks.

I agree! Obviously some subjects like anti-vaxxers or election deniers don't have level-headed or academic folks who can support them.

That's really why you need intense moderation because quality content doesn't rise to the top. An 'anything goes' environment tends to promote the absolute worst ideas, as people like Gwyneth Paltrow and Joe Rogan have a far wider audience that actual scientists. If you allow them to lie about important issues, the lie is going to suffocate any academic or level-headed person who has something to say.

> You just aren't going to find such strong belief in anything that absurd on the left.

The 4 years of russian meddling? It genuinly seems to have been widespread to me.

And with the biden one, AFAICT it is not directly about stealing it, but rather enacting stuff that resulted in an unfair benefit to democrats, that seemed unlawful. (Mail in voting by default, for example)

So, no, I don't believe it's mostly one side. But rather that both sides have the loud, crazy, minority.

>The 4 years of russian meddling? It genuinly seems to have been widespread to me.

You mean the highly documented russian interference in our elections? Is that what you're talking about?

>And with the biden one, AFAICT it is not directly about stealing it, but rather enacting stuff that resulted in an unfair benefit to democrats, that seemed unlawful. (Mail in voting by default, for example)

I'm not going to delve too deep into the idiotic conspiracy theories behind the 'stop the steal', the reality is that there is zero evidence impropriety.

The idea that making it easier to vote by mail is a benefit to one party speaks volumes about what conservatives believe.

The fight against vote-by-mail has nothing to do with lawfullness. Conservatives focus on making it hard to vote/voter disenfranchisement because they know they are a minority party.

I'm pretty sure most of those Reddit clones get flooded with "undesirable" bots as a way of killing them off. The people who currently run bots on Reddit, have massive power over public opinion etc, they want to keep their victims centralised, and on familiar territory.

Or, the majority of people are fine with limiting hatefullness and so you end up with just the people who want to spread hate online, which in turn makes it a cesspool

None of the censorship people complain about on Twitter is to do with enforcing politeness or decorum, it's all censorship of specific information or opinions regardless of how politely phrased. And that lack of fixed rules is part of the problem. Trying to paint this as "conservatives hate politeness" is just dishonesty.

Can you give an example of what you're talking about? There are plenty of TERF and transphobic accounts on Twitter right now. You can express transphobic ideas on Twitter.

Anything related to COVID or vaccines for example.

Yeah, they banned folks from lying about vaccines and the COVID-19 pandemic. You can be pro-covid or talk about how you don't want to get the vaccine. You just aren't allowed to spread conspiracy theories and lies.

It doesn't sound too complicated to me

Civil discussion requires high trust societies. Our elites have been doing everything possible to destroy that recently.

Amusing that you don't see this as tautological

The main issue with human conversation is the humans

It's a good sentiment, but he kind of has to say that right? He just spent $44B taking this company private, if advertisers flee and it starts running at a substantial loss, it could mean financial ruin for him

I would think that advertisers would eventually notice anyway. If lead quality decreases due to poor ad targeting or high-value users leaving the platform then they'll start pulling their advertising dollars back.

I have to wonder if there was already some pushback from larger advertisers that prompted Elon's tweet in the first place. Time will tell but we've already got 4chan and some users and advertisers would rather go to a "mall-like" experience to not have to deal with the "crap".

Advertising is an old boy's club. They spend money based on personal relationships, brand image, reputation, reliability, and trust.

The actual quality of the advertising product almost doesn't matter, it's not like any of the advertisers can reasonably independently validate the claims or performance, they're trusting them as given.

Elon has never been a member of the advertising club, he famously chooses to have his company refuse to even be a client, and he doesn't have a reputation for any of those values. Wouldn't at all be surprised if major clients put a hold on their Q4 spend with Twitter the moment they got news of the completed acquisition.

Google, Facebook, and Snap all had major advertising earning misses, the agencies would be pressuring for better deals regardless.

It would not be hard to get advertisers to move away from Twitter. Their ad product has been very weak for a long time.

I can't see advertising being part of the long term plan here. He's a payments guy, and there is much more money in turning Twitter into an economy in of itself. This would be tricky if he needed to rely on banks etc, but more recently, he is also a crypto guy. It will be interesting to see how creative he gets in that area, but I would think that his dream would be to create a fluid online economy. I would expect him to first attempt reinventing the concepts of cash, and loose change, but in a digital platform, rather than one's pocket.

Sure, I agree, he has to say that right now. But I think he has to follow through and keep the advertisers happy.

This isn't Bezos buying the Post outright and running it as a vanity project, Musk has stakeholders.

What you predict (financial ruin) will probably happen if he doesn't do that.

He only has $24 billion at risk. I mean, he has a lot of his reputation invested, but only $24 billion in actual dollars. The rest is from other investors and debt that the Twitter company itself (and not Musk) actually has.

There's just no position someone says "only $24 billion" in a sane way

From someone that was able to raise 24 billion?

I mean, if someone's talking about "financial ruin" because someone losing ~10% of their net worth, which would still leave them the richest person in the world, I think it's perfectly reasonable to say "it's only $24 billion"

Of course there is when they're using it in a relative comparison.

Firing the person who fought against government censorship and worked to establish a balanced content policy for almost a quarter billion people across the planet is not a great move if he wants anyone to believe that. The only people who even know who she is either know the good work she does or had it out for her over the reluctant and long-delayed ban of Trump. She just kind of quietly kept Twitter from turning into a complete snake pit while making sure the maximum number of people could speak. Evidence that keeping your head down and doing good work isn't enough if the people who decide these things don't know about it.

I would've thought a lot of people know her from Joe Rogan's podcast and especially the sections where Tim Pool challenged her.

nope... not a clue

There are some excerpts still up on Youtube, for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbTXqrS9l5E

The weird thing is, I didn't think Tim Pool was completely wrong. I, too, prefer having removed speech available but contextualized. There have been times where I wanted to answer a "prove it!" but couldn't find the video/tweet/whatever because it was completely removed with no explanation.

I also understood Vijaya Gadde and pre-Musk Twitter's position better even if I still think their systems end up hitting marginalized people more than the people who want to marginalize them. The task is harder than Musk realizes, and he fired the person who's been working hardest on it for most of the last decade and understands the problem space best.

The problem with that person though was their obvious bias, as Pool pointed out. She needed someone to challenge her at work, not just on a podcast. Clearly, other Twitter employees were not going to do that as they agreed with those biases.

Firing her doesn't solve that. Who will challenge the ideological clone Elon inevitably replaces her with?

Ideological clone of Musk or Gadde? I'd imagine that if there's more freedom in what can be written then it doesn't matter, a censor that supports free speech is no censor at all.

Can you include this one person's name in your comment or reply so that people like me who are unfamiliar can evaluate such a glowing endorsement of "her" "good work."

I know this sounds like a cynical question, but without a name your comment seems a little bit fanatical.

Vijaya Gadde I assume.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/golden-parachutes-3-fired...

I think you're broadly correct. I'm curious to see where it all ends up. Content moderation is not fun or easy, and I could see him getting thoroughly sick of all of it.

The investors can't really do anything -- the board has been dissolved.

My limited experience is that people with money can still influence companies, even if there aren't formal paths. Share owners still have influence.

And people who lend money typically have contracts and the ability to seize assets if they don't get paid. (I have no idea what the $13B of loans looked like, but can't imagine they were personal, non-recourse loans.)

The old shareholders cannot do anything. His new investors are like a dozen on billionaires who own pretty big pieces.

They don't have an equity stake in the company

They are creditors, though. The terms of the loans are not public, but usually being a creditor provides more leverage than a minority equity stake.

Yes they do. Not the banks. The billionaires who came in as junior partners. Larry Ellison is supposed to be in for a billion. a16z and Andreessen personally are reported to have equity investments. One of the Binance founders, or Binance as a company is supposed to have hundreds of millions of equity. The very large Saudi investor (I don't know if it was an individual or the sovereign wealth fund) when Twitter was public is still involved.

There are a few publicly known partners, and a few who got turned away. They have equity.

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