Speculation on why Musk wants twitter…

[Jazzmammal]

Banning someone trying to overthrow the government is not free speech.  Hippies and radicals (Weather Underground, Black Panthers, etc) did that all the time back in the day and the news totally covered it.  I also completely agree Twitter is a business not the government so free speech rules do not apply but they are probably the single biggest influencer on the planet and somehow free speech rules 'should' apply but legally I don't think it's possible which brings in Musk.

 

Craig, your point about all the conservatives that have been posting on twitter for years without getting banned is correct but it misses the point.  The point is a clever liar will tell the truth 95% of the time to build credibility and then drop the bomb at the precise moment for maximum impact.  In this case it's presidential elections, Supreme Court nominees and COVID information.  Hunter Bidens laptop story in the NY Post is the biggest example I can think of.  That came out in September of 2020 60 days before the election.  Twitter banned it due to "unverified information".  Look at the story now.  But it doesn't matter if that turns out to be correct or it finally winds up going nowhere.  The point is it was a legitimate news story with some back up information that was still being run down by various news organizations and Twitter banning it right before the election shows conservative bias, simple as that.   Are all the current tweets about Supreme Court justices home addresses being released and protesters going to their homes ranting about the upcoming Roe v. Wade decision banned?  No.  It's clearly illegal to do that, there are specific federal statutes about harassing federal judges with 10-20 year prison terms.  Why are those tweets not banned due to "promoting illegal acts" or whatever?

 

Understand all I'm doing is pointing out Twitters hypocrisy, under the First Amendment all of that is allowed as speech but as soon as someone physically shows up at a justice's house, they should be arrested.

 

As for Musk you guys should not be posting stuff about Musk's finances and his ongoing purchase of Twitter without watching CNBC every morning like I do.  First, twitter stock just had a 12% gain today to $40 a share.  Not that it means much, the market is very volatile right now, don't read anything into the stock price.  Second, Twitter had their board meeting today and when reporters asked the CEO if the takeover was discussed he said it wasn't, it would be discussed at a later meeting.  Really?  What's that old cliche, "Things that make you go hmmmm"?  As for Musk's finances he upped his cash share of the purchase to 33.4b and is asking for an additional 3.5b in financing.  He already has about 7b in financing he'll get that little bit extra no problem.  He's not hurting for anything and remember the smart invester's mantra about Other Peoples Money?  He's just going for as much as he can get, he's perfectly capable of doing it all himself.   It's the same as the old joke about getting a bank loan.  You have to prove you don't need it before they give it to you.  I still think this is all about renegotiating the price using Twitters SEC filing as leverage with a ton of publicity to go with it.  The rest of it like his tweets is just him messing around and having fun.

 

Or my crystal ball remains broken.  Still.

 

Bob

 

 

[Anderton]

20 hours ago, Jazzmammal said:

Craig, your point about all the conservatives that have been posting on twitter for years without getting banned is correct but it misses the point.  The point is a clever liar will tell the truth 95% of the time to build credibility and then drop the bomb at the precise moment for maximum impact.  In this case it's presidential elections, Supreme Court nominees and COVID information.

 

All of which are being commented right now by conservatives, liberals, and "screw-all-of-you"s

 

20 hours ago, Jazzmammal said:

Hunter Bidens laptop story in the NY Post is the biggest example I can think of.  That came out in September of 2020 60 days before the election.  Twitter banned it due to "unverified information".  Look at the story now.

 

That was a mistake. But, I have some sympathy for a situation where misinformation was being spread around like candy at a birthday party, there were successful prosecutions of Russians for spreading disinformation with the express purpose of interfering in the election, and let's face it, the Post is not a pillar of journalistic integrity. Sometimes people make subjective judgements about "the smell test" and they get it wrong. What matters then is whether they correct themselves.  The New York Times is now all over the laptop. Better late than never, which to me is better than the "news" organizations that prefer "never."

 

20 hours ago, Jazzmammal said:

re all the current tweets about Supreme Court justices home addresses being released...banned?  No. 

 

Well, they should be deleted, and the people posting them should be banned from Twitter for 1 year.  Then again, we had two election workers in Georgia slandered repeatedly by government officials, name-checked, and doxed, only to have OAN admit (under pressure from a lawsuit they were destined to lose) that they were wrong. Were all the people who promoted those lies banned? No.

 

I'm not pointing fingers at one side or the other here, I'm sick of the hypocrisy on both sides. If the idea of "free speech" on Twitter is to give dishonest people unfettered access to a giant megaphone to make the lives of innocent people miserable, then I'm uninstalling the app. 

 

Twitter isn't biased in favor of conservatives or liberals. It's biased in favor of anything that gives a ray of hope it can come up with a successful business model.

 

 

[KuruPrionz]

6 hours ago, Jazzmammal said:

Or my crystal ball remains broken.  Still.

 

Bob

 

 

Human history has shown repeatedly that people are by far the most ruthless, greedy and vile of all the predator apes. I would like to exclude myself but I don't suspect it would help anything or fool anybody.

It doesn't take much research to come to this conclusion and there are current examples in abundance on our planet. 

 

I get snarled up in these conversations here on MPN but I also avoid most of them. 

Of all the creations of humankind, music is probably the most wonderful and amazing one. 

So I like it here. But I do get distracted.

 

Never considered even starting a Twitter account. I've been off and on Facebook 3 or 4 times but mostly off and hopefully for good. 

Digging throught the dunghill for that diamond stains the soul. Diamonds are all around us, tonight I played guitar with another guitarist (both acoustic) and an excellent harmonica player. We all sang. That was magic, we sounded good, had fun and the audience enjoyed. For once, nobody was too loud, sweet!

We didn't discuss anythnig, just played. That's the best, even the clangers sound better. 

 

I'm sure jamming with you (and well, everybody) would be fun, even if we maybe don't agree on that much when we not jamming. Cheers, Kuru

[Anderton]

13 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

I'm sure jamming with you (and well, everybody) would be fun, even if we maybe don't agree on that much when we not jamming. Cheers, Kuru

 

First of all, yes, it's good not to stray into these topics too often (to say the least). The only justification is that so many of us are dependent on social media to get our music out into the world, so all these decisions at the upper levels of social media (and streaming) companies filter down to us. We have to decide how much we want to participate in any given structure that's been set up.

 

As to what I quoted above, I'd go even further - I think if you selected 100 random people for a barbeque, they'd all get along just fine as long as they couldn't discuss politics or religion. I feel most people believe they're doing the right thing, and want to do the right thing. Whether they do or not depends, at least IMHO, on two things: The data they use to make decisions, and their willingness to compromise their own beliefs to respect the belief of others.

 

If you think about it, that section in Italics applies to so many situations, from getting along in a work environment...to keeping a band together

[Jazzmammal]

Well put, I agree with all of that Kuru.  You notice I don't jump into political related things too often and I try to avoid making blatant partisan comments.   I'm basically a right leaning centrist and I have a friend who watches OAN all the time, I've maybe watched it for a total of 15 minutes over the last two years it's way to right wing for my tastes.  I never make comments about OAN with him, I've known him for years and I will not risk losing friends much less relatives over politics, he can watch whatever he wants.   As for Twitter, Musk has already shaken things up quite a lot from what I've read.   He's implementing some of his policies now which is one reason why I've said this deal is going through, all this posturing is him simply getting the best deal he can but it's going through regardless.   Many senior people have left including one who, according to reports, was one of the main people who wrote  the algos that did the banning.   

 

Like you, I like this forum because as a musician this is a good place to be.  I'm having a problem right now with getting my Mojo updated,  I've been asking about it on the Keyboard Corner and people are very helpful.

 

Bob

[KuruPrionz]

2 hours ago, Jazzmammal said:

Well put, I agree with all of that Kuru.  You notice I don't jump into political related things too often and I try to avoid making blatant partisan comments.   I'm basically a right leaning centrist and I have a friend who watches OAN all the time, I've maybe watched it for a total of 15 minutes over the last two years it's way to right wing for my tastes.  I never make comments about OAN with him, I've known him for years and I will not risk losing friends much less relatives over politics, he can watch whatever he wants.   As for Twitter, Musk has already shaken things up quite a lot from what I've read.   He's implementing some of his policies now which is one reason why I've said this deal is going through, all this posturing is him simply getting the best deal he can but it's going through regardless.   Many senior people have left including one who, according to reports, was one of the main people who wrote  the algos that did the banning.   

 

Like you, I like this forum because as a musician this is a good place to be.  I'm having a problem right now with getting my Mojo updated,  I've been asking about it on the Keyboard Corner and people are very helpful.

 

Bob

I know the feeling. I have a good friend who is a talented keyboardist, singer and songwriter. He has a nice studio room that he originally built so his dad would have a decent place to live out his end game. When dad passed on he converted it to a studio. 

 

I'll just say that the last time I visited he was a bit more open about his own political leanings, to the point that I began to wonder if I wanted to stay friends. 

I kept my mouth shut and we've since returned to our sharing of music with no further outbursts. 

 

So, music wins!

[Anderton]

Music has always been, and always will be.

 

Can't say the same for all the politicians who think they're so effing important. Can anyone name one politician from Bach's day? I can't...not even his patron.