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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

Fair enough. I don't think he will be able to salvage this and I've deleted my account to reduce the temptation to return.

A reputation is not like a piece of software that you fix and then re-run as though it never broke in the first place. Elon has utterly wrecked his reputation over the last couple of months (and probably longer than that) and it is getting worse, not better.

Edit: I guess Paul won't be going back to Twitter because his account just got suspended...

See for yourself: https://twitter.com/paulg/

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Well said, good analogy.

There’s the immediate issues of the policy. But there’s the bigger issue of the thought process that led to the policy. One of Elons central criticism of old Twitter management was unfair content moderation policy. And almost immediately he enacts a far worse content policy than anything old management did, in a brazen display of hypocrisy.

Even if he reverses course on this one issue, he’s demonstrated that any previous advocacy for free speech was completely disingenuous. He wants to run Twitter like he’s the dictator of a banana republic. And any time you spend on the platform strengthens his ability to do so.

It was disturbing and confusing watching people like pg and Lex Fridman seemingly throw their apparent principles to the wind tolerating this type of behavior. I do sympathize there was some ambiguity about Elons plans for Twitter before this last week but with the banning of journalists and the banning of links to Mastodon, that ambiguity has been removed.

I’m relieved pg took a stand here but like you I wish it was a much stronger one.

If enough high profile people took a stronger stance that might just be enough to make Musk see the light. I'm not going to hold my breath for that though.

What “light” would he see?

That censoring whatever and whomever he wants on a whim is not the same as guaranteeing a platform without censorship?

And he will somehow change his personality and thinking and put the integrity of the platform above his own small thinking limited to self interest?

I really don’t see it. His reputation of an unstable, vindictive, insecure person with the power to annihilate any voice he dislikes and the track record of doing so is precise.

How does one climb back from that kind of chasm and establish public trust?

Twitter used to have certain policies. Now seemingly replaced to “whatever Elon likes, today”.

This is 100% toxic, I stand destruction of trust.

What “light” would he see?

That censoring whatever and whomever he wants on a whim is not the same as guaranteeing a platform without censorship?

And he will somehow change his personality and thinking and put the integrity of the platform above his own small thinking limited to self interest?

I really don’t see it. His reputation of an unstable, vindictive, insecure person with the power to annihilate any voice he dislikes and the track record of doing so is precise.

How does one climb back from that kind of chasm and establish public trust?

Twitter used to have certain policies. Now seemingly replaced by “whatever Elon likes, today”.

This is 100% toxic, I stand destruction of trust.

That he can't do this and drop it.

He doesn’t know he can’t do it. In his distorted view of reality, he’s doing it perfectly well.

I’m addressing his inability to perceive an alternative.

Elon Musk's social media policy is now so sensitive that repeatedly linking to other platforms will get you banned. This is coming from the guy who thinks it's fair play to repeatedly call a rescue worker a pedophile -- of all things that shouldn't be considered fair play on or off social media.

Stand up for your principles and reason from them.

I think even your critical statement gives Elon too much credit. I think he might genuinely think he is doing good, but is just completely out of his depth and is at the same time convinced that he will succeed in improving it. Any thread by Yishsn has more insight to offer on content moderation than Musk is exhibiting and could have easily predicted the failed he makes. Mental issues or his (warranted) arrogance from his incredible past success are clouding his judgment. He also has clearly a lot of penned up culture war anger and might not be aware of that bias either. His behavior is just too erratic to seem like any kind of evil plan. After all he tried to get out of buying Twitter fort months.

PG’s account is now suspended by Twitter.

The ironic thing is that one of his latest posts was about dumb people and identity politics.

The whole group of tech luminaries turned political whiners just goes to show that it’s time for a new generation and they should not bend the knee for the last one but forge their own way.

I agree. The current crop is too anti-democratic.

pg calling him a smart guy is quite disappointing.

The guy is happy to consume and repeat QAnon propaganda(E.g. Pelosi’s husband).

Is happy to lie(journalists who didn’t fix him got banned).

Takes emotional decisions to only reverse them hours later.

Lacks any logical thinking, keeps gaslighting and cannot keep a consistent line(he is a free speech absolutist who believes hate speech and call to insurrection is ok but not doxxing)

Has no morals and uses anything under his power to achieve his goals(banning external links to social media)

It's a pretty technical argument but being an asshole does not necessarily mean you aren't smart.

But buying twitter for billions more than it's worth and driving it into the ground _might_ mean that you aren't smart

I think my arguments above demonstrate that he is not as smart as people portray him.

Definitely a point for the prosecution.

The question is: was Musk in the past as smart as he is today or is that changing. This could point to either mental health issues or drug usage or some other factor. But this is becoming farcical.

>This could point to either mental health issues or drug usage or some other factor.

My money's on inclusive or.

He also predicted no COVID cases by April 2020 when a rock knew that yes it will take a long time.

> banning of links to Mastodon

I’d like to point out that this is what everyone says is happening, but actually that’s not what’s happening.

Twitter allows linking to other social networks as long as that’s not the only thing you do. Twitter is suspending accounts which were made sorely for linking to another network. (The mastodon account was only used for promoting mastodon’s alternative social network).

Here is a thread by twitter which explains the policy: https://twitter.com/twittersupport/status/160453126541959168...

This FUD is almost on crypto twitter levels, and this is very behavior is very unusual for HN.

(I don’t mean you specifically, a lot of people and even major news outlets got this wrong)

If you try to post a link to a mastodon profile, it will fail. Old links will bring up a "this site may be harmful" interstitial. Most large instances seem affected.

I only tested insta, which worked fine for me.

Also, it looks like you can trash my post above, Graham got suspended. I really did not expect this.

I think neither did Paul. But if he did he probably at least has a backup of his stuff.

I un-sub'd from PG, Lex, Musk etc. They are all shades of Peter Theil and Anti-democratic when it comes to them / or their product.

I read some advice that it's better to lock the account than delete it, especially if you had a decent number of followers. Reduces the likelihood of impersonation.

Good point, well, too late for that I guess.

But at the rate Twitter is heading for the scene of the crash I don't think it will matter for much longer.

It's not too late, you have a full month to reverse the deactivation.

Don't tempt me.

Not necessarily, I think you can reactivate your account within 30 days. If you had a blue checkmark I believe reactivation is possible for one year.

It is not appropriate or ethical for pilots to use euphemisms or other language that may downplay or minimize the severity of an aviation incident or accident. Pilots have a serious responsibility to communicate clearly and accurately about the status of a flight, and to take all necessary actions to ensure the safety of their passengers and crew. Using euphemisms or other language that may mislead or confuse people about the true nature of an incident or accident could potentially compromise safety and hinder effective communication and response.

Love, DangGPT.

> Edit: I guess Paul won't be going back to Twitter because his account just got suspended...

I had hopes Elon would be good for Twitter, but this is just comedic

There is an 'in Soviet Russia' joke in there somewhere but I'm not going to get burned like that ;)

Is it just me or pg's twitter account is suspended now?

Definitely not just you, I see the same thing.

I feel terrible for Paul — imagine having a decade of work wiped out overnight. Hopefully it’s not permanent.

If I had as many bad tweets as Paul I would take this for the blessing that it is.

Maybe he had a download. Let's hope for that.

Do you have a Mastodon account yet? I'd like to continue to follow you.

I'm still on the fence about what to do. As I've written elsewhere today I'm not currently in the best of health and social media takes up a lot of time and energy, also I am wondering whether I should simply not let that go and concentrate on more real world stuff. I do still blog every now and then and I'm on HN in waves depending on how much free time I have.

> social media takes up a lot of time and energy, also I am wondering whether I should simply not let that go and concentrate on more real world stuff.

I dont see why more people arent doing this. How much value are these places really providing you in your life. I think its mostly fomo. Maybe theres a gem somewhere in there.

I've gotten a ton of mileage out of social media, met lots of interesting people, made friends from all over the world, made start-up investments (some good, some bad), helped people, have been helped by people and in general found that there are interesting stories everywhere. But that was when I was still swimming in time and now the trade-off is different. As I wrote, I'm on the fence, but the value is/was definitely there.

I will say since Mastodon blew up, I've found a lot less need for HN in my life. I'm still getting all the interesting tech news and projects, but I'm not doing battle with crazy fanatics. It's more pleasant, and I probably spend less overall time on it because of it.

Which instance did you choose and why that one?

I've been on mastodon.social for like five years. The choice was entirely practical: I didn't want to deal with server shutdowns or defederations, so I joined the biggest instance which is pretty core to the whole network.

Laughably, this is a very centralizing choice. And now I am starting to feel the downsides: Mastodon.social has a really hard time coping with server load when Elon does something dumb!

Fosstodon and Hachyderm would be really good choices though too, I follow a lot of people on both, and they're well-run by decent folks.

I do think articles hype up the choice a lot more than necessary though. The differences are primarily "the moderators", and most people don't do stuff to get moderated anyways. And the platform includes good tools for changing instances too.

Ok. Thank you for answering!

Not ocdtrekkie and I hope you don't mind me adding my opinion: I'm on my own instance but I don't host it myself and that's what I'd recommend. Your home is your castle.

Just use any of the hosters, set up the DNS record and be done. It's pretty similar to hosted e-mail under your own domain and even cheaper than a Twitter Blue subscription.

Which hoster do you use?

I had heard only good things about masto.host but they had closed their subscriptions, so I signed up with both Ossrox and Weingärtner IT to give both a try.

I have not decided yet which one to keep because they were both flawless so far. I ordered from both at almost the same time and they both activated my accounts almost at the same time about a day later.

Main instance I use currently is the Ossrox one, but that is just coincidence.

I'm not in any way affiliated with any of those companies and don't know anyone working there personally.

Thanks! I'll point DonHopkins at this.

Same for me and I was surprised how many people I know were already there. I didn't do the statistics for a while but for the people I follow on Twitter it was 10% on 22-11-06 and 23% on 22-11-29.

Health and well-being come first. I just wanted to let you know that your comments and contributions are always appreciated!

Why Mastadon rather than nostr or farcaster?

> A reputation is not like a piece of software that you fix and then re-run as though it never broke in the first place

In a way it is, but it differs from software in that fixing it involves more than reverting the action by which you broke it.

Any good examples?

'Reputation is like a crystal vase, you can drop it, and glue it back together again but it will never again be the same vase that it was before you dropped it'.

"Reputation is like a refrigerator. About 6 feet tall. 300 pounds. They make ice. And when if your refrigerator isn't running, you will get spoilage."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanessa_Williams

Both Bill Gates (IT robber baron) and Mike Tyson (wife beater, ear biter and convicted rapist) seem to enjoy pretty good reputations these days.

Musk's reputational problem is chiefly due to looking quite incompetent at the moment, not his moral failings.

> Both Bill Gates (IT robber baron) and Mike Tyson (wife beater, ear biter and convicted rapist) seem to enjoy pretty good reputations these days.

Not in my book...

Neither in mine, but that hardly matters, does it?

And nevertheless, I think that if polio gets eradicated despite Obama, the world will own Bill Gates a debt of gratitude. Don't you?

Hi jacquesm, I noticed that you have both a strong background in business and a negative opinion of Elon Musk. As someone who is interested in understanding different perspectives, I would love to hear more about your thoughts on this topic. Could you please share more about the actions or decisions by Elon that have led you to form this negative opinion? I'm not looking to engage in an argument, but rather just to gain a better understanding of your perspective. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Is there anything about this comment that is attracting the down votes?

I would like to avoid future mistakes.

Don't say anything that could be seen as positive about Elon Musk unless you are the founder of this website.

I'm really not trying to say anything positive about him. I'm guessing there are things I don't know and I would like to understand them.

Do not try to understand Musk any more than you try and understand Putin, Hitler or Trump, instead you must hate him and believe every negative thing you hear about him. There must be no positive traits or deed ascribed tot them. No negative trait or deed can be questioned. Only then will the social media upvotes flow!

(You can replace Hitler, Trump and Putin with Obama, Soros and Hillary if you're on American conservative social media)

(It really is odd how the hated enemy can never have a single positive chatacteristic... seems to be a universal)

> Elon has utterly wrecked his reputation over the last couple of months (and probably longer than that) and it is getting worse, not better.

Lol. This could be the worst prediction from an otherwise smart person I've ever seen. Please elaborate and define it mathematically. (My guess in trying to do so you'll either discover the errors in your thinking or double down on your intellectual dishonesty)

No personal attacks, please.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You are right. Yet, why is his not a personal attack on Elon?

It wasn't a neutral statement but I don't think I'd call it a personal attack. It's a claim about reputation.

There's also a significant difference between attacking a fellow user in a flamewar style comment vs. talking about a powerful public figure; we don't allow the worst kinds of personal attack in the latter case either*, but the bar is necessarily higher.

* https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

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