Elon Musk Officially Purchases Twitter, Takes Company Private

[Warhippy]

38 minutes ago, Warhippy said:

 

You absolutely did not see an email from a school board.

 

You absolutely fell for some second hand lies you saw peddled on some kind of right wing rag or from some knuckle dragging bull hog who thinks starbucks hates christmas

 

37 minutes ago, Master Mind said:

I saw the email.

See above 

[StanleyCupOneDay]

2 minutes ago, Master Mind said:

Wish I could.

So you don’t have actual proof of this email, just your word?

[King Heffy]

Just now, StanleyCupOneDay said:

So you don’t have actual proof of this email, just your word?

In the same vein, I have a dinner date with Caroline Cameron tomorrow night.  Wish me luck.

[StanleyCupOneDay]

3 minutes ago, Master Mind said:

 

You can make the entitlement argument on both sides. 

Entitled to be respectful or entitled to be disrespectful. Yeah you can, but it’s not a great argument on one of the sides.

[4petesake]

3 hours ago, StanleyCupOneDay said:

Also gotta say the guy who is constantly attacking the left is making a rather odd decision considering most of his target market is the environmentalists and liberals who want to buy an EV car that also helps the planet. He could choose not to comment and to actually spend his time trying to run Twitter better behind the scenes instead of tweeting publicly, but instead wants to alienate his main market for selling his cars to from his other business, which is now tanking because of it. It’s cutting his nose off to spite his face.

To be a fly on the wall as he points at the whiteboard explaining his plan to the marketing team.

 

 

 

Quote

Several surveys show the once darling Tesla has slipped into the realm of negative brand perception. It would appear that Elon Musk's antics since his purchase of Twitter have also caused people to sour on his other brands. No longer are you battling the evil forces of Big Oil by buying one of the few available but shoddily made EVs from Tesla. Automakers with experience have entered the market, and Musk is proving to be a wannabe GOP hack spreading fantastic conspiracy theories that he disproves with his data dumps. 

MyPillow, here we come.

 

Marketwatch:

The electric-car maker started 2022 with a net-positive score of 5.9%, then peaked in May at 6.7%. In early November, it fell to a negative-1.4% reading.

YouGov found a political divide in the numbers. As the Wall Street Journal explains, "self-described liberals now view Tesla more negatively than conservatives, though conservatives also have a negative view of the brand on average."

…

Morning Consult's numbers also reinforce the political divide. Among self-described Democrats, 24.8% saw Tesla positively in October. Just 10.4% said the same at the end of November. Self-described Republicans saw their opinion of the company rise, from a favorable 20% to 26.5%, over the same period.

"It seems like Tesla is on its way to becoming a partisan brand," Morning Consult's Jordan Marlatt told the Wall Street Journal.

• TWEET
•  
•  COMMENTS

• SAD TROMBONE
•  
• TESLA

 

[Playoff Beered]

Twitter dissolves Trust and Safety Council

Meanwhile, a former top Twitter official fled his home amid attacks following Musk tweets

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/12/12/musk-twitter-harass-yoel-roth/?ref=upstract.com

 

Quote

 

Twitter on Monday night abruptly dissolved its Trust and Safety Council in the latest sign that Elon Musk is unraveling years of work and institutions created to make the social network safer and more civil.

Members of Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council received an email with the subject line, “Thank You,” that informed them the council was no longer “the best structure” to bring “external insights into our product and policy development work.”

The email dissolution arrived less than an hour before members of the council were expecting to meet with Twitter executives via Zoom to discuss recent developments, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the plans.

Dozens of civil rights leaders, academics and advocates from around the world had volunteered their time for years to help improve safety on the platform.

“We are grateful for your engagement, advice and collaboration in recent years and wish you every success in the future,” which was simply signed Twitter.

In less than two months, Musk has already undone years of investments in trust and safety at Twitter — dismissing key parts of the workforce and bringing back accounts that previously had been suspended.

The Trust and Safety Council unraveled after Musk himself had pitched the creation of a content moderation council that would have weighed in on key content moderation decisions, but later appeared to change his mind about introducing such a body.

And in the process, he has exposed some of the company’s current and former employees to online harassment.

Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, and his family were forced from their home after Elon Musk’s tweets misrepresented Roth’s academic writing about sexual activity and children. The online mob also sent threats to people Roth had replied to on Twitter, forcing some of Roth’s family and friends to delete their Twitter accounts, according to a person familiar with Roth’s situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to concerns about Roth’s safety.

Musk’s followers also directed harassment at professors who reviewed the dissertation that Roth wrote in 2016, as well as at his graduate school, the University of Pennsylvania, the person said. The university did not respond to a request for comment.

As head of trust and safety at Twitter, Roth was involved in many of the platform’s decisions about what posts to remove and what accounts to suspend. His communications with other Twitter officials have been posted in recent days as part of what Musk calls the Twitter Files, a series of tweets by conservative journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss.

Musk’s tweets to his tens of millions of followers have for years prompted his supporters to deluge the targets of his ire with online threats — famously, a participant in the rescue of a boys soccer team trapped in a cave in Thailand, whom Musk branded “pedo guy.” But now that Musk owns one of the most powerful social networks in the world and has gutted the company division that previously policed online harassment, the stakes are even higher.

Musk tweets about Roth recalled the QAnon conspiracy movement, which claims incorrectly that Democratic Party leaders direct a child sex abuse network.

“Looks like Yoel is arguing in favor of children being able to access adult Internet services in his PhD thesis,” Musk tweeted Saturday, attaching a screenshot of Roth’s dissertation.

Elon Musk boosts criticism of Twitter executives, prompting online attacks

In the text, Roth suggested that services like the gay dating app Grindr should adopt safety strategies to accommodate teenagers using their platforms, rather than drive them out entirely. Musk also commented on a 2010 tweet in which Roth wrote, “Can high school students ever meaningfully consent to sex with their teachers?” Roth then linked to an article about a Washington State Supreme Court ruling about what age students can consent to having sex with their teachers.

Musk’s critical comments about Roth are something of an about-face from his early days at the company, when Roth appeared to be one of the few high-level Twitter executives Musk supported. On Oct. 30, the billionaire tweeted, “I want to be clear that I support Yoel. My sense is that he has high integrity, and we are all entitled to our political beliefs.”

And Roth appeared measured in his comments on Twitter’s new owner, seeking to reassure the public about company efforts to fight hate and protect elections. He even appeared alongside Musk in a call intended to reassure advertisers.

Even after he left Twitter in November, Roth was muted in his criticism. He warned in an op-ed in the New York Times that there was “little need” for a trust and safety function at a company where “policies are defined by edict.” But he also said publicly that it wasn’t accurate to depict Musk as the “villain of the story” in his takeover of the company.

“I think one of the things that is tricky about Elon, in particular, is that people really want him to be the villain of the story, and they want him to be unequivocally wrong and bad, and everything he says is duplicitous,” Roth said during an interview at the Knight Foundation conference. “I have to say ... that wasn’t my experience with him.”

Musk’s ‘free speech’ agenda dismantles safety work at Twitter, insiders say

Still, Roth is the most visible former Twitter executive assessing Musk’s actions, and his role at the company has been highlighted in the Twitter Files.

Twitter employees have long been wary of Musk’s ability to stoke online criticism. Shortly after he announced his plans to take over the company in April, he tweeted a meme to his tens of millions of followers with the face of Twitter’s top lawyer, Vijaya Gadde, that appeared to suggest the company’s decisions are affected by a “left wing bias.”

Twitter users quickly piled on — calling on Musk to fire Gadde or using racist language to describe her. Gadde was born in India and immigrated to the United States as a child. One user said she would “go down in history as an appalling person.”

Such harassment is part of a years-long pattern for Musk, with few legal consequences to date. Musk ultimately was not held liable in a defamation suit brought after he made his “pedo guy” remarks.

Joseph Menn and Naomi Nix contributed from San Francisco.

 

[Master Mind]

18 minutes ago, Alflives said:

Now that I get what this is about, It must be a joke, no?

I sure hope so Alf.

[StanleyCupOneDay]

2 minutes ago, 4petesake said:

To be a fly on the wall as he points at the whiteboard explaining his plan to the marketing team.

 

 

 

 

And that is exactly how you kill a company, get support from those who will never buy your products and lose support from those who would always (or at least used to) buy your products. The free market at work. Watching this all unfold is like a plane crashed into a train wreck that rolled into a dumpster fire.

[Alflives]

Just now, Master Mind said:

I sure hope so Alf.

I’m pretty sure the whole “kitty litter” thing is a joke.  And if that was a punch line in a comedy club it would be funny as hell.  As for these people wanting to be called by particular pronouns I really don’t see any problem with that.  I think I’m kind of right wing on a lot of things (Am I?) but don’t see this as a political issue.  It’s more an issue on the personal level. And if it helps folks to be okay with themselves (even a little bit more) for me to address them respectfully in the manner they so choose, I’m 110% okay with that.  I remember a time when some women wanted to be addressed as Ms.  Instead of Mrs.  No big deal.  Just like this.  But that Kitty Litter in the washrooms.  That is funny. 

[Alflives]

3 minutes ago, StanleyCupOneDay said:

And that is exactly how you kill a company, get support from those who will never buy your products and lose support from those who would always (or at least used to) buy your products. The free market at work. Watching this all unfold is like a plane crashed into a train wreck that rolled into a dumpster fire.

God!  I sure hope this Musk character does get his stupid ass off the Internet.  He needs to stop being so damned foolish with these idiotic comments (go ahead and think whoever the hell he wants, but stop saying these stupid things).  There are a lot of people who rely on the jobs that his companies provide.  He has a friggin’ responsibility to those people!  And if his comments hurt those companies so those people lose their jobs it’s his stupid ass fault.  He needs to suck it up and shut his mouth.  But he clearly only cares about himself.  Not a guy I’d want n my team or in a trench beside me.  Selfish to the extreme. 

[StanleyCupOneDay]

18 minutes ago, Alflives said:

I’m pretty sure the whole “kitty litter” thing is a joke.  And if that was a punch line in a comedy club it would be funny as hell.  As for these people wanting to be called by particular pronouns I really don’t see any problem with that.  I think I’m kind of right wing on a lot of things (Am I?) but don’t see this as a political issue.  It’s more an issue on the personal level. And if it helps folks to be okay with themselves (even a little bit more) for me to address them respectfully in the manner they so choose, I’m 110% okay with that.  I remember a time when some women wanted to be addressed as Ms.  Instead of Mrs.  No big deal.  Just like this.  But that Kitty Litter in the washrooms.  That is funny. 

The only issue I think you’re rightwing on in my experience on CDC Alf is abortion, but even then I think you support the right of women to choose for themselves even though you disagree vehemently with it, which is perfectly ok, lots of people are personally pro-life, but want the option for others if they choose to do so. Everything else is pretty much considered centrist/center left where 60-70% of the population in Canada is.

Edited December 13, 2022 by StanleyCupOneDay

[Master Mind]

15 minutes ago, StanleyCupOneDay said:

Entitled to be respectful or entitled to be disrespectful. Yeah you can, but it’s not a great argument on one of the sides.

If your friend told you to call them sir/sire, would you consider yourself disrespectful if you didn't honour them? Or would you simply honour them?

 

I know I'm giving an extreme example, but we already see ones like zim/zer, so at what point does it become acceptable to not honour someone's preference?

[StanleyCupOneDay]

4 minutes ago, Master Mind said:

If your friend told you to call them sir/sire, would you consider yourself disrespectful if you didn't honour them? Or would you simply honour them?

 

I know I'm giving an extreme example, but we already see ones like zim/zer, so at what point does it become acceptable to not honour someone's preference?

Is there any straws left with how much you’re grasping them? Sir/sire in reference to someone of higher status is not the same as using a pronoun to make someone feel more comfortable and respected in their body. Why do you insist on believing all pronouns are the same? Because they aren’t. Also thank you for pointing out these new pronouns I wasn’t aware of, I learned something new today and now can be even more respectful and comforting to my lgbtqia2s+ friends and community that I care enough for to use their preferred pronoun/s.

[Alflives]

9 minutes ago, Master Mind said:

If your friend told you to call them sir/sire, would you consider yourself disrespectful if you didn't honour them? Or would you simply honour them?

 

I know I'm giving an extreme example, but we already see ones like zim/zer, so at what point does it become acceptable to not honour someone's preference?

I get your view MM (of which you are completely entitled to express) but n the scenario you’re suggesting that friend would be asking for accommodation that’s disrespectful.  So no, we don’t accommodate that.  Rude, disrespectful, or mean isn’t acceptable.  But the other pronouns (or names) suggested previously are benign.  So it only seems right to try and use those for people who ask us to do so.  What’s the harm?  

[Smashian Kassian]

 

23 hours ago, Bell said:

Does it seem weird that he is attacking Twitter before he owned it?  Is he not responsible now he is the owner and liable for whatever misgivings Twitter may have?  Is this not like punching yourself in the face?

 

Idk Twitter is a pretty big/important/revolutionary company. In any important institution where there's some questions about how stuff is being run at the highest level (whether its a gov't, social media network, or even a hockey team) when the new regime takes over & has info available to potentially explain some stuff there will be some demand for it (atleast amongst those who cared to question).

 

 

5 hours ago, Warhippy said:

 

The thing he's got wrong is the evil in this world doesn't care about the woke **** either, for them its just a tool to gain power/favour.

 

Corporations love the woke causes because it gets them social support without having to face criticism for their lies or unethical production of their products. The 'mind virus' is really more a symptom or barrier than the source. 

[StanleyCupOneDay]

12 minutes ago, Smashian Kassian said:

 

 

Idk Twitter is a pretty big/important/revolutionary company. In any important institution where there's some questions about how stuff is being run at the highest level (whether its a gov't, social media network, or even a hockey team) when the new regime takes over & has info available to potentially explain some stuff there will be some demand for it (atleast amongst those who cared to question).

 

 

 

The thing he's got wrong is the evil in this world doesn't care about the woke **** either, for them its just a tool to gain power/favour.

 

Corporations love the woke causes because it gets them social support without having to face criticism for their lies or unethical production of their products. The 'mind virus' is really more a symptom or barrier than the source. 

It’s rare where we seem to be on the same page for an issue, but you’re absolutely right here in regards to most corporations public actions vs actual practices. Not all of course, but most use social issues support publicly as an easy deflection from changing the labour/wage/benefits/paid leave/quality of product issues that are pervasive among the biggest companies in Canada and the world.

Edited December 13, 2022 by StanleyCupOneDay

[Smashian Kassian]

37 minutes ago, StanleyCupOneDay said:

It’s rare where we seem to be on the same page for an issue, but you’re absolutely right here in regards to most corporations public actions vs actual practices. Not all of course, but most use social issues support publicly as an easy deflection from changing the labour/wage/benefits/paid leave/quality of product issues that are pervasive among the biggest companies in Canada and the world.

 

See I'm not always that bad . No but seriously, it's totally true. If corporations like Nike, the NYT, or Nestle present themselves as though they care about progressive causes they'll never have to answer for things like sweat shops, apologizing for Stalin, or their environmental impact/stealing water (or any other company/example you can think). 

 

When it comes to some of this stuff I find keeping in mind 'people in positions of power are often driven by self interest' to be useful. I think this is definitely an area where I'm there with the more typical left 'socialist' thinking.

 

Edited December 13, 2022 by Smashian Kassian

[Smashian Kassian]

@StanleyCupOneDay And the other important thing is - whether its corporations or just usual people - using these causes for social status doesn't help the cause itself either. Some things are complex, or there just aren't easy answers, but rather than approaching it that way it often just devolves into some BS culture war thing instead. 

 

Edited December 13, 2022 by Smashian Kassian

[StanleyCupOneDay]

1 minute ago, Smashian Kassian said:

 

See I'm not always that bad . No but seriously, it's totally true. If corporations like Nike, the NYT, or Nestle present themselves as though they care about progressive causes they'll never have to answer for things like sweat shops, apologizing for Stalin, or their environmental impact/stealing water (or any other company/example you can think). 

 

When it comes to some of this stuff I find keeping in mind that 'people in positions of power are often driven by self interest' to be useful. I think this is definitely an area where I'm there with the more left "socialist" type thinking.

 

No, just mostly  I kid, I kid. I don’t hate or take personally anyone who disagrees with me, they have their right to their own opinion. I will however argue against it if I do disagree and I guess that makes it seem like I do. It’s definitely the wealthiest and corporations to blame for the inequality that’s screwed over most working people. I can agree with that second part only if you can agree there’s times and people or parties that have a self interest in staying in power that can also align with helping out the average person. I don’t subscribe to the “all people in positions of power are crooks and only care about themselves” train of thought. There’s good and bad, just like with basically anything in life.

[StanleyCupOneDay]

6 minutes ago, Smashian Kassian said:

@StanleyCupOneDay And the other important thing is - whether its corporations or just usual people - using these causes for social status doesn't help the cause itself either. Some things are complex, or there just aren't easy answers, but rather than approaching it that way it often just devolves into some BS culture war thing instead. 

 

Social status? Not sure what you mean? Can you elaborate? There’s definitely issues that are complex, but there’s also definitely issues that are black and white, good or bad, right or wrong too.