Elon Musk Officially Purchases Twitter, Takes Company Private

[Warhippy]

well...shocking

 

Twitter's new owner Elon Musk says that he is granting "amnesty" to suspended accounts, which online safety experts predict will spur a rise in harassment, hate speech and misinformation.

The billionaire's announcement on Thursday came after he posted a poll to his timeline asking people to vote on reinstatements for accounts that have not "broken the law or engaged in egregious spam." The yes vote was 72 per cent. 

"The people have spoken. Amnesty begins next week. Vox Populi, Vox Dei," Musk tweeted using a Latin phrase meaning "the voice of the people, the voice of God."

Musk used the same Latin phrase after posting a similar poll last weekend before reinstating the account of former U.S. president Donald Trump, which Twitter had banned for encouraging the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

Trump has said he won't return to Twitter, but he hasn't deleted his account.

Reinstatements a 'disaster waiting to happen'

Reinstating banned accounts could mean bringing back the "worst offenders" including neo-Nazi trolls, people who maliciously posted intimate images of people without their consent and other accounts that repeatedly violated Twitter's rules against hate speech, cyberstalking or harassment, said Danielle Citron, a law professor at the University of Virginia. 

"It's a disaster waiting to happen," said Citron, who is also vice-president of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative and sits on Twitter's Trust and Safety Council, a group of outside advisers who haven't met since Musk took over.

"It's crazy because the whole point of the permanent suspension is because these people were so bad they were bad for the business."

Citron said an "amnesty" plan goes against years of work — supported by then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey — to build a platform for healthy online discourse that wouldn't drive away average users fearful of being harassed.

In most cases, Twitter only permanently suspended accounts that didn't respond to other restrictions, such as temporary suspensions or restricted posts.

"So many people actually learn from suspensions and don't re-violate," Citron said. "You have to get pretty bad to get a permanent suspension."

Another member of the Trust and Safety Council, Alex Holmes, said he is still awaiting feedback on the status of the council, which is due to meet in mid-December.

"With this latest decision, I can't see this sitting right with the council or indeed what is left of the policy team, whose job it is to create effective policies that keep the platform safe," Holmes said.

Hate speech on the rise since Musk takeover

In the month since Musk took over Twitter, groups that monitor the platform for racist, anti-Semitic and other toxic speech say it's been on the rise on the world's de facto public square.

That has included a surge in racist abuse of World Cup soccer players that Twitter is allegedly failing to act on.

The uptick in harmful content is in large part due to the disorder following Musk's decision to lay off half the company's 7,500-person workforce, fire top executives and then institute a series of ultimatums that prompted hundreds more to quit.

Also let go were an untold number of contractors responsible for content moderation.

Among those resigning over a lack of faith in Musk's willingness to keep Twitter from devolving into a chaos of uncontrolled speech were Twitter's head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth.

Major advertisers have also abandoned the platform.

On Oct. 28, the day after he took control, Musk tweeted that there would be no "major content decisions or account reinstatements" until Twitter formed a "content moderation council" with diverse viewpoints that would consider the cases.

On Tuesday, he said he was reneging on that promise because he'd agreed to it at the insistence of "a large coalition of political-social activists groups" who later "broke the deal" by urging that advertisers at least temporarily stop giving Twitter their business.

Hateful content reviews taking longer

A day earlier, Twitter reinstated the personal account of far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, which was banned in January for violating the platform's COVID misinformation policies.

Musk, meanwhile, has been getting increasingly chummy on Twitter with right-wing figures. Before this month's U.S. midterm elections he urged "independent-minded" people to vote Republican.

A report from the European Union published Thursday said Twitter took longer to review hateful content and removed less of it this year compared with 2021.

The report was based on data collected over the spring — before Musk acquired Twitter — as part of an annual evaluation of online platforms' compliance with the bloc's code of conduct on disinformation.

It found that Twitter assessed just over half of the notifications it received about illegal hate speech within 24 hours, down from 82 per cent in 2021.

[Gurn]

19 minutes ago, bishopshodan said:

One thing I have read is that many head offices have a high percentage of psychopaths.

 

I am positive that I have worked with a few as the amount is about 12% in corporate leadership when psychopaths only make up 1.2% of the population. 

 

I mean....the way Elon acts, if the shoe fits...

However, I'm not comparing him to Dahmer or Bundy in case anyone gets upset. 

What? Are you implying Elon bit of more than he can chew?

[thedestroyerofworlds]

 

[thedestroyerofworlds]

When advertising is a major source of revenue, that's gotta hurt.  No wonder he's been trying to push the subscription fee check mark crap.

 

 

 

https://www.npr.org/2022/11/25/1139180002/twitter-loses-50-top-advertisers-elon-musk

 

Twitter has lost 50 of its top 100 advertisers since Elon Musk took over, report says

[Timråfan]

Regarding all the top management guys Musk fired.

Do they have the capacity to start a newer version of Twitter or are they under contract still? 

 

[RUPERTKBD]

8 hours ago, Timråfan said:

Regarding all the top management guys Musk fired.

Do they have the capacity to start a newer version of Twitter or are they under contract still?

I'm no expert, but my guess would be that terminated employees have the right to do whatever they want, including developing a similar app to compete with Twitter....however, the code that went into Twitter would likely be intellectual property of the company and off limits to former employees.

 

That being said, I see no reason they couldn't form their own startup....

[thedestroyerofworlds]

1 hour ago, RUPERTKBD said:

I'm no expert, but my guess would be that terminated employees have the right to do whatever they want, including developing a similar app to compete with Twitter....however, the code that went into Twitter would likely be intellectual property of the company and off limits to former employees.

 

That being said, I see no reason they couldn't form their own startup....

I'm pretty sure they would have ideas how to build something better.  

[bishopshodan]

10 hours ago, Timråfan said:

Regarding all the top management guys Musk fired.

Do they have the capacity to start a newer version of Twitter or are they under contract still? 

 

I imagine they have a non-compete clause.

[Timråfan]

3 minutes ago, bishopshodan said:

I imagine they have a non-compete clause.

Do you know how long those non-compete clauses applies?

[bishopshodan]

1 minute ago, Timråfan said:

Do you know how long those non-compete clauses applies?

Not a clue if there is a standard.

 

My brothers former employer tried to get him to sign one. They dragged their feet getting around to it. In the meantime he got set up, quit and started his own company.

I think the one they were trying to impose was 5 years.

[Timråfan]

20 minutes ago, bishopshodan said:

Not a clue if there is a standard.

 

My brothers former employer tried to get him to sign one. They dragged their feet getting around to it. In the meantime he got set up, quit and started his own company.

I think the one they were trying to impose was 5 years.

Five years is very long. I thought maybe two years were appropriate.

[bishopshodan]

15 minutes ago, Timråfan said:

Five years is very long. I thought maybe two years were appropriate.

Yeah.

I'm not sure of any standard lengths

 

Edit: just read that they are usually a year long

Edited November 26, 2022 by bishopshodan

[Elias Pettersson]

 

 

[Gurn]

May 28,1937 is a while ago.

[Ghostsof1915]

On 11/25/2022 at 12:30 PM, thedestroyerofworlds said:

And yet public polls were how Elon "decided" to reinstate Trump, etc.   

 

That, without purging said bots that were somehow the reason he wanted to get out of buying Twitter.   

 

Lol

Well he's known as a hypocrite. His Gigafactory Berlin was built on an environmentally sensitive site/area. He didn't care. He bulldozed the area and went ahead with the factory.

When someone tells you production dates are in "Elon Time", i.e. he says Summer in 2023 it's usually 18 months later.

Edited November 26, 2022 by Ghostsof1915

[Alflives]

Is Musk someone who we can ignore, or is he like Trump and will do bad stuff, so needs to be addressed?  

[Master Mind]

45 minutes ago, Alflives said:

Is Musk someone who we can ignore, or is he like Trump and will do bad stuff, so needs to be addressed?  

Can easily be ignored.

 

But people often choose to spend time on things that upset them.

[bishopshodan]

2 hours ago, Gurn said:

May 28,1937 is a while ago.

Psst...dont tell them about Puma and Adidas.

 

Wait! my wife is half German...and since things never change to suit a narrative... 

[bishopshodan]

2 hours ago, Elias Pettersson said:

 

 

Damn it.

I had erased those Hodgetwins from my memory. Cringy AF. Thanks a lot.

Guess it proves Elon is fully on the leg of these right wing fear monger types now.

VW... is a Nazi company still? after all these years later? that what you are saying 100% to Elon? 

 

We don't like it when people that are compareed to Nazis/Hitler here on CDC!  right? right?

 

 

[4petesake]

13 minutes ago, bishopshodan said:

Damn it.

I had erased those Hodgetwins from my memory. Cringy AF. Thanks a lot.

Guess it proves Elon is fully on the leg of these right wing fear monger types now.

VW... is a Nazi company still? after all these years later? that what you are saying 100% to Elon? 

 

We don't like it when people that are compareed to Nazis/Hitler here on CDC!  right? right?

 

 

I can’t help but laugh watching Elon dunk on….(drumroll)…his  former customers and advertisers. Seems like an odd thing to get satisfaction from but hey, he’s the genius not me.