zen21

> Next, anyone reasonable would presume there's a know rate of failure and given that data an appropriate number of machines are on-hand as back ups so that the integrity of the process is maintained.

These would be reasonable thoughts if this was an industrial process that was done regularly, but it’s not. It’s done once every 2 years, and the voting machines are relatively new. There is no reason to assume they’ve done all this testing and contingency planning, and frankly they don’t need to.

A small glitch that is resolved doesn’t compromise the integrity of the process. There is absolutely no logic to that idea.

As far as I can see he didn’t retain a lawyer. He just had a consultation at best. That’s essentially meaningless. If you’ve ever worked with lawyers before, a consultation just gives you an overview of how the law works in the area you need help.

Unless you actually hire a lawyer, they aren’t going to look at the details of the case, and are just going to offer opinions on what you tell them.

Nothing was “confirmed by a lawyer” in any meaningful way.

It’s fair to say ‘cool’ is too narrow a word. Feel free to substitute ‘has positive associations’.

> no one will derive negative associations by a brand simply doing nothing. Unless someone else makes a fuss about it. This seems crystal clear to me

It seems crystal clear to you, and yet you have provided no explanation for it. It just seems like a belief you have that isn’t shared by brand advertisers.

I didn’t say anything about my beliefs. I’m simply explaining how brand advertising works.

> I don't believe this is true.

Ok.

> I believe that the only way a brand can get reputational damage for advertising in the wrong place (and possibly for just anything) is to be singled out and subjected to a shaming campaign by multiple media.

That is a very specific belief. Why do you believe it?

Generally this is true because normally the internal working of a company isn’t public and doesn’t affect its image. With Elon’s takeover of Twitter, nothing could be further from the truth.

> they are clearly afraid of the possibility of being accused later of not having pulled out before anything happened. But accused by whom, and according to which principle?

It’s not unfair to suppose they they are afraid of being associated with something that happens in the future. Brand advertising is generally conservative that way. The whole point of it is to be associated with things that are cool and well liked. The chaos of musk’s takeover has obviously already undermined that sentiment and there is certainly risk that bad things may happen.

However the idea that they are afraid of being accused of something, is just a fiction. There’s nothing to support this view.

They just want to be associated with something cool, and Twitter isn’t cool. Their spending is on pause because Elon has introduced uncertainty, and if Twitter returns to stability or even starts on a reliable upward trajectory, they will be falling over themselves to be associated with it again.

Elon has done severe damage to Twitter’s brand, and frankly his own. Can he recover? It seems possible, but not obvious he knows how or that it matters to him. He’s not a victim. Who cares what people think of him? He’s the richest man in the world for now, and that gives him the freedom not to be concerned about that.

This doesn’t seem credible at all. You make it seem like he’s some kind of cult leader, which he is not. People find him fascinating as a tabloid character because he’s the richest man in the world for now. That’s all.

People were fascinated by Gates, and later Bezos when they had that title, but now nobody pays them any serious attention.

SBF seems like Evel Knievel - i.e. he became identified with being SBF. It wasn’t a heist as such. Just the byproduct of him playing this fictional ‘genius’ character, and then getting so into it that he forgot it was just a role play.

He’s also fired a large number of people involved in content moderation, and compliance officers have simply resigned.

The company is far less healthy now than it was before, and this is very public knowledge.

Nothing to do with political factions, and all consequences of Elon’s decisions.

This aims to address these issues. Verifiable hardware and open source OS and wallet.

As for the second paragraph. If you don’t think Musk has changed twitter’s brand and reputation, then I think you are in a minority.

It’s about the overall reputation of Twitter. Newspapers are a good analogy. Is Twitter more like the NYTimes, or the NYPost? That will determine who advertises.

How common is the knowledge of these best practices?

It doesn’t seem to need the government to corrupt it.

You can see how this is very different from using the energy simply to operate an online gambling operation or to perpetrate large scale securities fraud.