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Comment by SilverBirch | Hacker News Reader

There's kind of three options here:

* Elon is personally policing twitter, and has banned PG in a fit of pique, despite literally being at a party in Doha the world cup

* Twitter's staff are just being crazy over the top with bannings - this might actually be the most likely. It's kind of obvious that Twitter has some automated systems that suspend accounts when they get mass reported, and some people with a sense of humour may well have taken Elon at his word and msas reported PG's account, and Twitter is so understaffed slips like this will happen

* With so few staff left, and only the True Believers, twitter's remaining staff have adopted a "fuck you, I'm the law" approach to moderation.

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I say this without any proof, but it will not surprise me the least if he has access to unilaterally ban users directly (i.e. click of a button) without any sort of approval from other staff.

If mudge's testemony is anything to go by, anyone engineering level access can do pretty much anything - with zero accountability. So the only way Musk can't do that, is if he's activly avoided getting access...

> despite literally being at a party in Doha the world cup

I wasn't sure that you were serious, but lo and behold...

https://imgur.com/a/kyoI2X6

picture was posted by: Chief of Public Affairs - Air Force/Space Force (prior position: Space Force 45th Space Launch Delta Media Relations Chief)*PERSONAL ACCOUNT-OPINIONS ARE MY OWN

With Jared Kushner right next to him? Man the Monkey’s Paw is fully clenched.

This is where the value of Twitter is. Not in the money, it's in the DMs.

Twitter for Elon, is power not money. Watch it be a massive force for influence campaigns by 2024.

At this rate, politicians are going to have to learn Mastodon by 2024.

Nightmare blunt rotation right there.

Elon tweeted a video he took at the game, not like he's hiding it.

Can I recommend a weighted combination of those three options, with a collection of other small-weight contributions?

I’m sure Elon said on day 1 at Twitter that he wanted a Twitter client app for his phone where he can just click on someone’s face and he’ll never hear from them again.

Which is odd, as they all have that functionality.

I think you miss the option that the moderation staff is a few (possibly incompetent) people in a sweat shop who just misunderstood what they're supposed to do, as everything is being don on a whim.

this seems unlikely based on what's been happening over the last week or so with elonjet - every time somebody tried to give elon the benefit of the doubt and that actions were being taken without his direct approval, he would publicly back those same decisions.

whoever is taking these actions, it's pretty clear that it's not being done against elon's will or without his knowledge.

> misunderstood

Unless pg’s account is re-instated within 12 hours I don’t think the moderation staff has misunderstood anything at all.

It has been reinstated

Haven't we learned anything from the Trump era? People like you continue to give people like Musk the benefit of the doubt despite massive public evidence that we are long past the benefit of doubt stage.

I agree. We can say with near-certainty that had musk not bought Twitter, PG would still be on Twitter. Whether Musk pressed the button or not, he’s ultimately responsible for the mess.

Elon has been posting about soccer for hours I doubt he was involved with this

Everywhere he would have turned in the past 24 hours he would have seen @'s and DMs with embedded images of his jet track via London to the stadium.

I suspect he's been boiling over and rage messaging staff to banhammer the world.

He is pretty clearly personally policing Twitter. The extent is unclear, but he is clearly doing at least some of it.

Musk literally held a poll over unsuspending the journalists that were banned (which failed twice, he had to delete it once and retry it and still failed to get what he wanted), so it's the first option. He's the head honcho telling people what to do.

Musk personally policing twitter is pretty obvious for, like, last month or more. He personally picks accounts to restore and accounts to close.

And there are very clear patterns in both. Including him announcing some of these on Twitter.

Someone does something Elon doesn't like, magically the next day there's a rule against it that's arbitrarily defined and enforced, even if it contradicts something Elon has said in the past.

Like revealing a "bombshell" that Twitter was shadow banning users... only to then shadow ban the @ElonJet account.

https://archive.ph/jhJHd

And even before Elone Musk announced on Twitter new revolutionary idea how to deal with toxicity ... which was ... effectively shadowbanning.

I guess it's the case of malicious compliance. Nobody wants to argue with Elon and be fired on the spot and nobody gives a shit.

Or maybe said employees are trying to get themselves fired?

I’d bet on a good mix of 2 and 3 here.

Why not all three, in a way?

In a rage, he's set a blanket rule about suspending accounts that do a specific thing.

At his request, staff or system have resulted in PG getting suspended.

With minimal pushback from remaining staff, no one's ensured that actions against major accounts gets checked first.

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