So Now Musk Doesn't Want Twitter After All

[Anderton]

"Someone foolish enough to take the job!" Hmmm...he took the job, didn't he?🤣

 

Talk about setting someone up to fail! Half the employees are gone, the company's losing money, there's a lawsuit about reneging on severence payments, and once users go away they rarely return. 

 

So for this reason, I told Mr. Musk that regrettably, despite being foolish I could not accept his job offer. Besides, Musicplayer doesn't have any lawsuits against it, is growing, and the people here are cool.

 

[update] He emailed back and said I could have a Tesla if I said yes. I asked if he could get me an eBeetle instead, but he didn't answer back. I may have offended him.

[KuruPrionz]

43 minutes ago, Anderton said:

"Someone foolish enough to take the job!" Hmmm...he took the job, didn't he?🤣

 

Talk about setting someone up to fail! Half the employees are gone, the company's losing money, there's a lawsuit about reneging on severence payments, and once users go away they rarely return. 

 

So for this reason, I told Mr. Musk that regrettably, despite being foolish I could not accept his job offer. Besides, Musicplayer doesn't have any lawsuits against it, is growing, and the people here are cool.

 

[update] He emailed back and said I could have a Tesla if I said yes. I asked if he could get me an eBeetle instead, but he didn't answer back. I may have offended him.

Feller seems to be his own problem. 

No way I'd want any part of that mess!!!! 

[Floyd Tatum]

I thank him for releasing the Twitter files, and exposing all the far-left bulls*** that was going on there.   He probably just wants to get someone else to do the day-to-day running of the place so that he can get back to engineering, his main gig.   I think.

[KuruPrionz]

Elon Musk has resigned.

https://www.thestreet.com/technology/elon-musk-steps-down-as-ceo-of-twitter?puc=yahoo&cm_ven=YAHOO

[Anderton]

14 hours ago, Floyd Tatum said:

I thank him for releasing the Twitter files, and exposing all the far-left bulls*** that was going on there.   He probably just wants to get someone else to do the day-to-day running of the place so that he can get back to engineering, his main gig.   I think.

 

Frankly. I think the Twitter files - although revealing about the thought processes and internal controversies behind the decisions that were made - have implications that go way beyond politics. It's true that companies can run their companies however they see fit, with whatever agendas they want. However, once they start making editorial decisions, then the question becomes whether they're a publisher or not. If so, then they become liable for misstatements of fact and fraud that could result in damages.

 

The classic example of the "internet-is-not-a-publisher" is a phone service. If someone coordinates how to blow up something by calling people using AT&T phone lines, AT&T is not liable. However, if someone tips off AT&T that a terrorist plot is being concocted using their phone lines, it's AT&T's responsibility to alert the authorities. If AT&T knew but didn't do anything, then AT&T would be liable for negligence and subsequent damages.

 

A similar scenario is why the Dominion suit against Fox is able to proceed. Dominion is making the claim that Fox knew they were making false statements, but did so anyway without regard for any damages that could result. The suit hinges on whether Dominion can prove that to a court's satisfaction.

 

It seems to me (and I'm no lawyer) that if Twitter was indeed making editorial decisions about what to "publish" that did not involve misstatements of fact and fraud but simply expressed opinions people there didn't like, then Twitter was a publisher. But in that case, it would also be liable for misstatements of fact and/or fraud that would result in damages. So, it would have to tread a very fine line when publishing, well, anything. For example, suppose an article said that Covid vaccines caused your balls to swell up to the size of grapefruits if you had red hair. If it wasn't true, but publishing that caused redheads not to get the vaccine out of fear and that led to peoples' death, someone could sue Twitter. On the other hand, if it turned out to be true and Twitter didn't publish it because they thought it sounded ridiculous, they could be sued by redheads whose balls swelled up to the size of grapefruits. 

 

I've noticed a lot of news organizations (right and left) are now doing CYA by reporting something, then saying words to the effect of "XYZ has not independently verified the accuracy of this story." That's a great way out. They can say they are merely reporting, which is their function, but not taking ownership of the content, so they can't get into trouble.

 

 

As the head of Mastodon says, "free speech" does not mean "all speech." The dividing line between the two will play out in courtrooms for decades to come.

 

 

[David Emm]

Craig, the grapefruit bit caught me off guard. There was a sitcom moment years ago that I still enjoy.

A man is reading a menu and says "Melon balls. I hope that's a side dish and not a medical condition." 😬

 

Good point about free speech. It implies *responsible* speech. Lunatic-scented ranting doesn't pass the litmus test.

[Floyd Tatum]

Post deleted, I forgot about the no politics, sorry

[KuruPrionz]

1 hour ago, Floyd Tatum said:

I don't know, it seems to me that the political angle, i.e. the disinformation and election meddling from the democratic party is, I think, the big story here. 

And it seems to me that the big story is that a man who is not good or competent at customer service paid way too much for a customer service oriented site that has only been profitable for 2 years out of the 17 years it's been in existence. That information was not hidden, all one has to do is look for it. Only a fool would pay 55 billion dollars for a money pit.

 

Turning Tesla into a piggy bank trying to keep Twitter afloat has gutted the value there for stockholders as well (glad I'm not one, wish I'd shorted it!!!). I guess once you've started a fire you might as well burn your house down. 

 

He made a lot of money, it's his to lose as well. 

 

Tesla is no longer the only game in town for EVs and EM's talent for driving off potential customers is not going to help him in the long run. 

Viewing from a safe distance, all I can do is laugh. 

 

With regards to your political comments, is one form of absurd bullshit actually better than another (sure, I can see that one might prefer the horsecrap that soothes them rather than enrages)? Better to take the high road and ignore all that crap entirely. To be honest, that is what MPN is about with the "no politics" rule. 

This is Craig's forum (and his to moderate) but I'd say you've been walking on thin ice in this thread. 

 

I simply avoided Twitter completely, no reason to change that now. 

 

[Floyd Tatum]

Yeah, I was thinking about the no politics thing after I posted that, but didn't get a chance to delete it until now.   Post deleted.   Everyone can go back to calling Elon an idiot, I guess that's acceptable.

[KuruPrionz]

3 hours ago, Floyd Tatum said:

Post deleted, I forgot about the no politics, sorry

No worries, we all have our stumbles. 😇

[Anderton]

59 minutes ago, Floyd Tatum said:

Yeah, I was thinking about the no politics thing after I posted that, but didn't get a chance to delete it until now.   Post deleted.   Everyone can go back to calling Elon an idiot, I guess that's acceptable.

 

I'm more lax about politics in this forum, as long as any discussion remains civil, non-partisan (in the sense of not advocating for one side or the other), relates to us as musicians, and above all, is educational and puts things in context. So, I definitely wanted to answer your post. It said:

 

"I don't know, it seems to me that the political angle, i.e. the disinformation and election meddling from the democratic party is, I think, the big story here."

 

Starting off with "I don't know, it seems to me..." is a great way to further a discussion. It means you're open to hearing more. I agree with you that any meddling will indeed be the "story du jour," but let me explain why I think it won't have legs compared to the questions surrounding section 230 of the telecommunications act of 1996, which definitely affects musicplayer.com and our world. Unfortunately, to explain why I feel this way, I have to give a political context.

 

Any privately-owned communications medium can have whatever agenda they want. You need look no further than the various right-wing forum sites like Gab and Parler that cropped up in response to a sense that the media giants were leaning left. We have "news" organizations that put themselves in left or right silos, and have direct lines of communications with like-minded politicians. That's the way things work in this country. 

 

I don't know how old you are, but the government pressuring the public sector is nothing new, and not unique to one party. I won't bother giving a zillion references to examples because I don't think anyone would disagree.

 

Now, I have to say I don't think I have the full story on "the Twitter papers." I've read self-serving excerpts from both sides. So far my takeaway is that there was a combination of diverse opinions from people who had no idea what the hell to do. In most cases where people see evil, I see incompetence  

 

Where it gets dicey is quid pro quos. If some politician said to Twitter "if you run that story, you might want to think about what would happen if I took a long, hard look at section 230...y'know, just thinking out loud here...capisce?" What people call "jawboning" has always been accepted if done in public, like the ex-pres giving a $7 million tax break to Carrier in exchange for the company keeping some of the jobs it was planning to outsource in the US. That's also the way things work in this country. But if there are hidden backroom agreements that reek of extortion, and are designed to benefit a certain party at the expense of another, then that becomes a problem.

 

Another issue is context. Although the left was upset with the Mueller report because it didn't "get" the ex-prez, and the right was upset because they called it a "witch hunt," the indisputable reality is that it proved Russia meddled in our elections, primarily through the use of social media, and planned to do so again in the future. Several Russian agents landed in jail as a result.

 

So, social media didn't want to be duped again, and the Hunter Biden laptop story sounded incredibly sketchy. At the time, the more you dug into it, the sketchier it sounded. Social media had also not forgotten how many people thought that the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email servers, introduced just before the election, affected the outcome. Yet ultimately, there was apparently nothing truly problematic other than stupidity.

 

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." So social media was gunshy about "bombshell" revelations that seemed highly suspect. The irony is that over time, "sketchy" and "Hunter Biden" have become frequent word pairs. The centrist and left-leaning media that had been suspicious had to acknowledge they got this one wrong, and although the laptop still hasn't produced a true smoking gun, it's dropped enough clues that there might very well be one.

 

So, that's the politics of the situation. To circle back to my original point, maybe a scandal will come out of it, but it will be just one of many that happen regularly on both sides of the aisle. On the other hand, the element of editorial responsibility, judgement, what constitutes a communications medium versus a publisher, and the impossible task of how to ensure that information presented is always accurate will be with us for some time.

 

It's also possible (probable) that people will give wrong information in good faith. How do you determine that, as opposed to some who presents wrong information as truth in order to manipulate?

 

These are the unanswered questions with far greater longevity compared to the latest possible example of influence peddling in our political system.

 

Hopefully that's all that needs to be said on the political side of this topic, I think I've covered everything.

 

As to musicplayer.com, I edited some posts in the GX-80 review to reduce redundancy and have a better flow. Nothing was actually deleted, just hidden. Is that censorship? Or am I just concerned with presenting information in the most efficient way possible, to benefit our audience? Does that turn us into a publisher, even though in the other forums, people can say anything they want as long as it doesn't conflict with the terms of service? But what if it conflicts with a moderator's stated intention of what can be discussed - is that preemptive censorship? Or being a publisher? After all, magazines don't have to publish every article anyone ever submits to them.

 

I don't have the answers. And apparently, Elon Musk found the answers so elusive he just gave up.

 

 

[Joe Muscara]

2 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

man who is not good or competent at customer service

It's worse than that, he has what was called Asperger syndrome (now just part of the autism spectrum). So a guy with a social interaction disability bought and ran a social network.

 

(Don't get me wrong, I realize he has a disability but he doesn't seem to have the skills to run a place like that. I wish he would surround himself with talented people and listen to them, instead of trying to do these things himself.)

[David Emm]

Watching people gyrate at ever increasing speeds is GIVING me Asperger's. It gives making money a bad name it doesn't deserve when the more financially rich someone becomes, the more their anus seems to be hovering over everything like a giant UFO. The much smarter billionaires are very quiet people who keep a careful eye on the rates at which various things are improving or decaying. They're our greatest hope and worst threats, percentage of each still TBD daily, as usual.

 

Someone posted a video of a General Dynamics "robot dog" with a machine gun mounted in its back. Here we go. It darkens the idea of "saving the planet" when plans are clearly afoot to arrange for 4 or 5 of those things to chase you down with extreme prejudice. Its Terminator 7 with Snausages. In addition, if you were to set 1000 of them loose on the Ukranian battle fields, that proxy war would be over within a week and Russia would be a fresh 3rd World vacation spot.  

 

My point: watching "Christmas Wars" with one eye while savoring part of a Terry's Chocolate Orange and tweaking an ELKA-X patch is a sensible antidote to the news. Highly recommended.

[KuruPrionz]

1 hour ago, Joe Muscara said:

It's worse than that, he has what was called Asperger syndrome (now just part of the autism spectrum). So a guy with a social interaction disability bought and ran a social network.

 

(Don't get me wrong, I realize he has a disability but he doesn't seem to have the skills to run a place like that. I wish he would surround himself with talented people and listen to them, instead of trying to do these things himself.)

I am aware of the Asperger Syndrome affliction. As someone who was an autistic child (and a good friend tells me I am still autistic), I am sympathetic to that aspect. 

"So a guy with a social interaction disability bought and "tried to run" a social network. "

Edited for truth. I definitely had a social interaction disability when I was younger. Being intelligent is no cure for that. 

 

I learned an incredibly important principle working at Kinko's. I was not good at customer service when I started there but shortly thereafter the regional Sales Manager gave a presentation at our store meeting. The theme was "You can act your way to a new way of thinking more easily than you can think your way to a new way of acting."

I enjoy acting so I started acting like I was nice and over a fairly short time that changed everything. I became one of the best team members they had for taking care of customers at the front counter or register. Being nice to people makes them want to be nice too, it's an upward spiral and I feel lucky to have learned it so long ago. It rarely fails. It has become a fairly constant part of who I am and I am grateful for it. 

 

It doesn't appear that Elon has learned that simple concept yet. There is still hope but he's pretty much hosed Twitter (not that it takes much to ruin a cesspool of human "thought" sewage). The part I don't understand is how he thought owning Twitter would ever make him any money. There is nothing to indicate that if you take a look at the reality. 

 

[Anderton]

17 minutes ago, KuruPrionz said:

The part I don't understand is how he thought owning Twitter would ever make him any money. There is nothing to indicate that if you take a look at the reality. 

He believed his own press. Thought he had the Midas touch.

[analogika]

If the scoop here in this subreddit is even half true… 

 

“Back when I was at SpaceX, Elon was basically a child king. He was an important figurehead who provided the company with the money, power, and PR, but he didn't have the knowledge or (frankly) maturity to handle day-to-day decision making and everyone knew that. He was surrounded by people whose job was, essentially, to manipulate him into making good decisions.

Managing Elon was a huge part of the company culture. Even I, as a lowly intern, would hear people talking about it openly in meetings.

People knew how to present ideas in a way that would resonate with him, they knew how to creatively reinterpret (or ignore) his many insane demands, and they even knew how to "stage manage" parts of the physical office space so that it would appeal to Elon.

The funniest example of "stage management" I can remember is this dude on the IT security team. He had a script running in a terminal on one of his monitors that would output random garbage, Matrix-style, so that it always looked like he was doing Important Computer Things to anyone who walked by his desk. Second funniest was all the people I saw playing WoW at their desks after ~ 5pm, who did it in the office just to give the appearance that they were working late.

People were willing to do that at Space because Elon was giving them the money (and hype) to get into outer space, a mission people cared deeply about. The company also grew with and around Elon.

There were layers of management between individual employees and Elon, and those managers were experienced managers of Elon.

Again, I cannot stress enough how much of the company culture was oriented around managing this one guy.”

 

 

[KenElevenShadows]

3 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

I am aware of the Asperger Syndrome affliction. As someone who was an autistic child (and a good friend tells me I am still autistic), I am sympathetic to that aspect. 

"So a guy with a social interaction disability bought and "tried to run" a social network. "

Edited for truth. I definitely had a social interaction disability when I was younger. Being intelligent is no cure for that. 

 

I learned an incredibly important principle working at Kinko's. I was not good at customer service when I started there but shortly thereafter the regional Sales Manager gave a presentation at our store meeting. The theme was "You can act your way to a new way of thinking more easily than you can think your way to a new way of acting."

I enjoy acting so I started acting like I was nice and over a fairly short time that changed everything. I became one of the best team members they had for taking care of customers at the front counter or register. Being nice to people makes them want to be nice too, it's an upward spiral and I feel lucky to have learned it so long ago. It rarely fails. It has become a fairly constant part of who I am and I am grateful for it. 

 

It doesn't appear that Elon has learned that simple concept yet. There is still hope but he's pretty much hosed Twitter (not that it takes much to ruin a cesspool of human "thought" sewage). The part I don't understand is how he thought owning Twitter would ever make him any money. There is nothing to indicate that if you take a look at the reality. 

 

I think it's more challenging when you are that rich and successful. It seems like a lot of people are surrounded by sycophants, especially if they have a large ego.

 

Imagine that someone in Musk's circle has an idea. Musk shoots it down. The guy with the idea counters that. Musk and his circle abruptly cuts him off, saying, "Well, Musk is a billionaire who has been successful at _____ at _____! What have you done?" And really, no one is going to top that, good idea or not.

 

And for that matter, people are utterly enamored with rich people. They think, "That person is rich. Surely that person has something I don't. They must know better. We should make way for them." Sometimes that can be effective. But sometimes, several smart brains really is better than one.

 

[Joe Muscara]

See, I think early period Steve Jobs was like this, but after he got his butt handed to him and thrown out of Apple and spent a number of years finding his way via NeXT along with their technical successes but business "failures," by the time he came back to Apple he was ready to build a team and lead. He still had his quirks and flaws, but surrounded himself with people who knew their areas.

 

It happens time and again. I worked for a small software company that was owned by this one guy who was a programmer and geek all his life. He was great at that, but I quickly realized he had never really had a real job. He worked at McDonald's in high school, then when Apple started to make Macs in the 80s, started this business with a partner. Not that all corporate culture is good, but you do learn things about running a business and working with people. He had none of that. I don't think Mr. Moosk has really been forced to learn that, either. That's a problem with a lot of these tech CEOs who started these companies. Even if they're not surrounded by sycophants, they just don't have the experiences you get from working for and with other people.

[Anderton]

4 hours ago, Joe Muscara said:

See, I think early period Steve Jobs was like this, but after he got his butt handed to him and thrown out of Apple and spent a number of years finding his way via NeXT along with their technical successes but business "failures," by the time he came back to Apple he was ready to build a team and lead. He still had his quirks and flaws, but surrounded himself with people who knew their areas.

 

Apparently, he listened to them as well as directed them. I think that had a lot to do with Apple's success.

 

At one point, someone at Apple sounded me out about a possible gig. What I found from talking to people there was that it was a great place to work, but the closer you got to the top, the more difficult and volatile it became. I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. Good results can come from disagreements that get resolved by multiple people contributed to a solution, even if the process gets heated along the way.

[KenElevenShadows]

So apparently it's better to be one of the mid-level grunts at Apple?

[Anderton]

52 minutes ago, KenElevenShadows said:

So apparently it's better to be one of the mid-level grunts at Apple?

 

That's what I heard, but it was many years ago. I have no idea what it's like these days...

[RABid]

I remember a year or so ago, I said something on this forum questioning Musk's accomplishments and was met with lots of backlash from people that thought he was doing great with SpaceX. My how things change.  

[KenElevenShadows]

1 hour ago, RABid said:

I remember a year or so ago, I said something on this forum questioning Musk's accomplishments and was met with lots of backlash from people that thought he was doing great with SpaceX. My how things change.  

 

I don't know how he is doing with SpaceX, to be honest, but they're not mutually exclusive. He might be really successful at one thing and disastrous at another.

 

He might be a complete loon regardless.

 

I don't know if he's gotten worse, he's been more "exposed", or both. I just don't know. But I just wanted to mention that maybe SpaceX was going well. Or still is. 

[Anderton]

6 hours ago, RABid said:

I remember a year or so ago, I said something on this forum questioning Musk's accomplishments and was met with lots of backlash from people that thought he was doing great with SpaceX. My how things change.  

 

The Reddit excerpt from @analogika quoted above seems to say that SpaceX was doing great in spite of Musk, rather than because of him. But of course, Musk is the public face of the company, so he got the credit.

[Joe Muscara]

In many respects, Musk's visions are good, right? SpaceX, Tesla, and possibly even Boring have helped us push the envelope in those fields (Boring should, but so far it has been mostly talk AFAICT). Tesla has helped push EV tech and solar power and battery storage across those industries in ways that may not have happened without it, and SpaceX has given some folks rides to and from ISS without having to cram them in a Soyuz capsule and deal with the Russians.  

 

Let's go back to my parallel with Steve Jobs. Apple would have been nothing without Woz, but Jobs made himself the public face of the company (Woz was never that kind of guy) and pushed it to do things that would not have happened without him. Musk seems somewhat similar. He deserves credit for building SpaceX with some pretty capable people. It's mysterious why he seems to think he can run Twitter by himself more or less, and it's a shame it has become a political thing. He could have done something great with it if instead he looked around, spent some time to find out what was working and what wasn't, etc. and made the platform truly balanced as well as removing the reliance on share price and all that. I have my theories and ideas about his politics that I won't get into here except to say he's too susceptible to tendencies of human nature in this regard and that's what's failing him. See @Craig Anderton's posts about how both sides have accused him of bias towards the other side for more info.

[KuruPrionz]

1 hour ago, Joe Muscara said:

In many respects, Musk's visions are good, right? SpaceX, Tesla, and possibly even Boring have helped us push the envelope in those fields (Boring should, but so far it has been mostly talk AFAICT). Tesla has helped push EV tech and solar power and battery storage across those industries in ways that may not have happened without it, and SpaceX has given some folks rides to and from ISS without having to cram them in a Soyuz capsule and deal with the Russians.  

 

Let's go back to my parallel with Steve Jobs. Apple would have been nothing without Woz, but Jobs made himself the public face of the company (Woz was never that kind of guy) and pushed it to do things that would not have happened without him. Musk seems somewhat similar. He deserves credit for building SpaceX with some pretty capable people. It's mysterious why he seems to think he can run Twitter by himself more or less, and it's a shame it has become a political thing. He could have done something great with it if instead he looked around, spent some time to find out what was working and what wasn't, etc. and made the platform truly balanced as well as removing the reliance on share price and all that. I have my theories and ideas about his politics that I won't get into here except to say he's too susceptible to tendencies of human nature in this regard and that's what's failing him. See @Craig Anderton's posts about how both sides have accused him of bias towards the other side for more info.

My spin on the bottom line, Elon wants to have control - that's his "comfort zone". 

If he'd approached Twitter with a more open viewpoint he would have realized the obvious. The ONLY way to control Twitter is to close it down completely. 

As soon as you allow opinions and/or facts (should I say "facts"?) the downward spiral begins. I've watched 2 people attempt to change each other's minds, more often than not it's a fools journey and a total waste of time for both parties. Multiply that by a few million people and who knows how many bots and foreign government agencies bent on mayhem and a hundred thousand hard working employees could not begin to contain it. 

 

Infinite, eternal chaos. Control is not an option. Somebody who is more savvy about human nature would have realized that before parting with hard-earned billions. 

[Joe Muscara]

I recently heard someone say that ALL social media is about content management to one degree or another. When you think about it, it lines up. Even if you say, "this is a video sharing site," that's content management. If you try to stop haters, that's content management. Throw in those trying to manipulate others, then you have to figure out how you're going to manage all that. Good luck.

 

Like as been said before here, Musk has difficulty with social skills. And, he's a technical person, so he thinks he can engineer a solution. Will he learn? I hope so, but I'm not holding my breath.

[David Emm]

Here is a very rational, balanced observation of Twitter. It gave me some added food for thought in the midst of the recent populist firestorm, especially where I've sneered too hard and given myself a charley horse. Its not all B&W.

 

Its a shame to see the positives suffer from bad management. I walked away from it due to the vitriol, but there is clearly something important and sobering to be had in a platform where yelling doesn't drown out the pluses.  

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04506-6?utm_source=pocket-newtab

[KuruPrionz]

10 minutes ago, David Emm said:

Here is a very rational, balanced observation of an aspect of Twitter.

Changed that for ya. 

Scientists are smart, one of them should be able to start a new site that caters to their needs. 

If they don't put a monetary value on it or go public with stocks then nobody can buy it and change it, true?

[Joe Muscara]

14 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

Scientists are smart, one of them should be able to start a new site that caters to their needs. 

If they don't put a monetary value on it or go public with stocks then nobody can buy it and change it, true?

Some of them, including some in the article, have already moved on to Mastodon.  Mastodon "competes" with Twitter but it's decentralized so that there are multiple servers and admins, not just one. If it turns out that a server/admin is bad, other servers can not connect to it essentially shutting it down. And servers can be themed. Some of the scientists mentioned in the article are on a server called fediscience.org (so named because Mastodon servers are part of a federation).

 

What I'm saying is that they've more or less already done what you suggest. No one owns Mastodon. Anyone can get a copy of the software and start their own server.