Twitter HQ's giant X sign dismantled | Hacker News Reader

Twitter HQ's giant X sign dismantled

sfstandard.com

36 pointsanigbrowl17 comments

You can't make this stuff up. Like an episode of Silicon Valley but in real life.

I hate when satire shows predict reality way too well, man.

About two years ago, I was interviewing for my first job at a startup. It was still a small company (I was about the 75th employee), and part of my interview loop included the CEO.

I asked him if he was a fan of the show Silicon Valley, and how accurate it was. He said he loved the show, and said that it's generally a pretty accurate depiction of SV startup culture, though obviously with some things exaggerated for comedic effect.

These days, I'm not sure how much exaggeration is still there. Life imitates fiction.

Wow, why did Musk fold so easily? He’s already taken so many other things to litigation, how did the City get this one by him?

Probably knew he’d have to take it down and took the opportunity for a publicity stunt.

I assume some PR person managed to convince him that going to court to try to assert the right to flash lights into random peoples' homes was a bad look, even by his standards.

hmmm and yet today he threatened to sue the non-profit Center for Countering Digital Hate. after also re-instating kanye west this weekend despite west's anti-semetic posts. also after he re-instated an account that posted blatant CSAM ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/31/technology/twitter-x-cent...

Also officially Twitter has no PR department and responds to reporters with poop emoji.

So all this behavior indicates Musk would be more willing to litigate the removal of his sign versus any sort of compliance.

Or maybe a general safety thing. It's hard to spin "your giant metal X blew off the roof and crushed a family". At least with autopilot they always get to say "the software kinda malfunctioned and we blame the driver anyways."

In the latter case, a throng of simps will come to his defense on social media to claim that the family was a necessary sacrifice to reach the techno utopia Musk envisions. Just think of all the families in the future Musk promises he will save! Why, that’s like infinity families, let the man do whatever he wants!

It was just some metal girders, strapped onto two metal girder towers? My heavens, what an exceptionally tacky & ugly looking thing that was.

This saga has been so stupid, so ridiculous, but yup, it was even dumber & lower class than I would have assumed.

The the uprights are not even bolted down, they are held down with sandbags. Incredible.

On a tangent, is Twitter broken for anyone else? I can now view profiles again without being logged in, but it only shows me really old Tweets.

For example https://twitter.com/elonmusk shows me Tweets from April 2022 (while Nitter ironically works correctly)

Strange, I am seeing this behaviour for your linked profile of Elon, but if I look at my own profile I do not see it (still login-walled). I can see @dhh but only tweets from 2019 or earlier. I have tried a few profiles and I'm getting mixed results, with no clear pattern except maybe more prominent profiles are visible. It's certainly not tied to verified status.

If you're not logged in, Twitter profile timelines seem to now show Tweets in the order of popularity (likes?).

To this day I'm surprised how so many people are convinced that Elon is a megagenius.

Is this really a surprise? I mean, Trump was elected President after all. Nothing should surprise you as to how gullible people are.

Pretty hilarious. Elon is intentionally destroying Twitter for being forced to buy it.

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