Elon Musk acquires Twitter, Discuss

[Roli]

I think the biggest part that he is wiping away how "tweeting" has become part of the language we use.

Similar to Hoovering or Xeroxing (I do know both of those brands are not so main stream anymore)

Feel there could have been a different path (like xtweet, twitter by x, or done a bird noise things like tweets or chirps).

I don't think he will for a couple of reasons, the first being that the url is still (and will probably remain) twitter.com.

Personally I think this is just marketing, change it to X to get everyone speaking about it. Maybe the share price has dropped, or advertising isn't going so well. It's like when he changed the logo to the Dogecoin logo, everyone was losing their shit, saying, "oh my god, Elon's going crypto with twitter!"

As I opined at the time, no he isn't, it's just a publicity stunt.

This one is better because it has everyone talking about it (including us) and not just the crypto heads.

The second reason is the cost of rebranding, it would be pretty phenomenal to rebrand all of the APIs, literature and other materials and all for what? Nobody in the history of the site, has ever stopped using it because of its name.

 

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[Black_Dragon43]

I think the biggest part that he is wiping away how "tweeting" has become part of the language we use.

Similar to Hoovering or Xeroxing (I do know both of those brands are not so main stream anymore)

Feel there could have been a different path (like xtweet, twitter by x, or done a bird noise things like tweets or chirps).

Maybe there is a way to keep "Twitter" as part of the X app. Twitter being the communication side of the app.

Doesn’t WeChat basically have a monopoly because it’s like the Chinese govt?

Seems ridiculous to try and do this on an app that was already really niche before he started going against the govt, and now is even less mainstream.

He’s just paving the way for Zuk to copy him with these features on Zuks way more popular, friendly with the govt app

If people aren’t advertising on Twitter then people aren’t buying things on Twitter, so wtf does it need a payment platform for?

If companies refuse to advertise with him, I’m sure they’ll refuse or ignore accepting his new payment method

He’s got a vision for sure, be interesting to see how he grows it from here

I'm not sure what Musk's end-game is. Does he really want to get rid of government control, or is this merely a play until Twitter becomes the dominant platform?

In my opinion, there can't be social media without government control. Maybe a fringe social media, sure, but not a mainstream dominant platform.

Any government would want to infiltrate a social media platform, because the amount of data they can retrieve from it is immense.

And let's not forget that Musk wouldn't exist as what he is today WITHOUT government funding & support. The government has backed ALL his current ventures (Telsa, SpaceX mainly).

So who owes who?

 

[MitchC]

Maybe there is a way to keep "Twitter" as part of the X app. Twitter being the communication side of the app.


I'm not sure what Musk's end-game is. Does he really want to get rid of government control, or is this merely a play until Twitter becomes the dominant platform?

In my opinion, there can't be social media without government control. Maybe a fringe social media, sure, but not a mainstream dominant platform.

Any government would want to infiltrate a social media platform, because the amount of data they can retrieve from it is immense.

And let's not forget that Musk wouldn't exist as what he is today WITHOUT government funding & support. The government has backed ALL his current ventures (Telsa, SpaceX mainly).

So who owes who?

Agreed, and he doesn’t just have to keep USA government happy but China as well

 

[Guest-5ty5s4]

Twitter Sign Lettering Removed From Downtown San Francisco Office

The company is being rebranded as 'X' by Elon Musk.

sfstandard.com

Im on Twitter every day. I already saw it. I’m saying that I bet this is temporary and he changes it back - the whole thing looks like a marketing tactic.

I’m surprised at how fast everyone bought into it.

 

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[Andreas Thiel]

Came across this ... uh ... tweet?:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1683692305532739584

View: https://twitter.com/alex_valaitis/status/1683692305532739584

 

[wade1mil]

I’m surprised at how fast everyone bought into it.

Time will tell I guess. I'll take X sticks around in a friendly wager.

 

[TyFrom99]

Maybe there is a way to keep "Twitter" as part of the X app. Twitter being the communication side of the app.

This is what the smart move would've been. Present it as Twitter by X or whatever. His X.com dream is stupid in the long term.

Anyone saying they've been happy with the way Twitter has been run since Musk took over I'm convinced is either a new twitter user or just a fan of his, it has undoubtedly gone downhill in almost every aspect.

 

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[JordanK]

I’m still bullish on Twitter. I think my original thoughts further back on the thread still stand.

Twitter isn’t going anywhere. X is now the name of the overall brand/parent structure. Similar to how Facebook, Instagram, Threads exist within Meta (metaverse). Google, Youtube exist within Alphabet and now Twitter exists within X. If anything this suggests Elon is planning to expand his offerings similar to WeChat in China.

I don’t know why people are worried about physical cash disappearing? We are already in the beginning era of “digital cash” that exists outside of the government realm. Criminal organizations, corrupt countries, politicians, business people always need a way to move wealth secretly so the demise of physical cash doesn’t matter. You’ll just rock up to retailers/people in the future and pay with your off the books account if you so wish. You can already do this with bitcoin, eth… Minus the lack of complete widespread adoption so far but the transition is happening.

I have been following Elon because of SpaceX since 2008. I was a big nerd for that stuff growing up. This is a guy with a lifetime vision, the tenacity to do it and to embrace the suck. The ability to look beyond quarterly or yearly financial results. He now also has the cash to burn. People are focused on the 44 Billion price tag. Its insignificant. SpaceX has a 150B valuation with an almost monopoly like dominance of the launch industry and exponential growth. The reason he has received money from government contracts in relation to this is because he is SIGNIFICANTLY undercutting competitors and delivering on time or ahead of schedule launches on reusuable rockets while competitors haven’t even stopped producing one off vehicles.

Tesla has an 850B valuation. Although he owns less of the company as its publically traded. I could write another chapter on their dominance of electric car industry in the west. More threats exist to this dominance but they are doing cool things with data & self driving that may propel them further.

His main competitors Google (under threat from chatgpt, search quality decreasing as more websites go private to stop data scrapping). Youtube, still a beast but under threat from Tiktok.

Tiktok, chinese - may be banned or curtailed. Not a typical social network similar to youtube its an entertainment platform where the majority only consume not create or partake.

Zuckerberg - facebook, IG, threads. Very reliant on users, advertising revenue etc… pivots all over the place as he seems to be lacking a major vision. Jumped on facebook coin when crypto was booming then to reels when tiktok surged, metaverse/nft/online items & on to copying elon with verification - threads. Vulnerable as we saw with Apples changes to user data tracking (ad targeting). If userbase begins to fall off as we are seeing signs of with Facebook does Zuck have the ability to turn the ship around? As far as I know most of his net worth is tied to social media.

 

[Andreas Thiel]

The WEF might be officially in charge at Twitter (sorry, X) now.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1696566031177707766

View: https://twitter.com/Safety/status/1696566031177707766


TL;DR - Fk your freedom of reach. We need to combat manipulation. Election discourse needs to be "accurate" and "safe".
Sure, the details of what actually gets censored will matter, but I already feel the trends often indicate that they are very actively managing reach / visibility. They promise to put labels on tweets that they consider problematic, but can we trust that they won't just use these to paint a prettier picture?

 

[Roli]

The WEF might be officially in charge at Twitter (sorry, X) now.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1696566031177707766

View: https://twitter.com/Safety/status/1696566031177707766


TL;DR - Fk your freedom of reach. We need to combat manipulation. Election discourse needs to be "accurate" and "safe".
Sure, the details of what actually gets censored will matter, but I already feel the trends often indicate that they are very actively managing reach / visibility. They promise to put labels on tweets that they consider problematic, but can we trust that they won't just use these to paint a prettier picture?

I think they're right though, manipulation through lying is a big problem. One thing I will say about Elon's Twitter that I like, is the debunk explainers on videos. I have seen various videos saying "look this video shows A murdering B" and then the debunk says "Actually people might want to know this video is from so and so film".

 

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[Andreas Thiel]

I think they're right though, manipulation through lying is a big problem. One thing I will say about Elon's Twitter that I like, is the debunk explainers on videos. I have seen various videos saying "look this video shows A murdering B" and then the debunk says "Actually people might want to know this video is from so and so film".

You can't draw a reasonable line. There are too many historic examples of people that were considered troublemakers in their time that later turned out to be spot on. These people will be silenced left and right.

 

[Roli]

You can't draw a reasonable line. There are too many historic examples of people that were considered troublemakers in their time that later turned out to be spot on. These people will be silenced left and right.

Good point. I think they are saying Pfizer are already subverting this new policy and getting Twitter to take down any anti vax facts.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Has anyone here qualified for Twitter monetization? I have enough followers, but haven't tweeted enough to reach the views criteria.

 

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[Andy Black]

Twitter to become part of the Google Display Network and show Adsense ads?

Given Twitter is mostly text based, I think this could be a good fit.

As someone who manages Google Ads though, I steer clear of the Google Display Network, preferring to focus on the Google search engine itself.

Would this mean that Google ends up indexing all tweets so it knows where to put ads? If so, would that mean it can do a better job of placing the ads than Twitter itself?

Twitter is leaning on Google for help with its advertising business

Owner Elon Musk and CEO Linda Yaccarino are starting to outsource their ad sales

qz.com

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Musk gets into the AI game...

Blog

Read about the latest announcements from xAI including Grok, Grok-1, and the PromptIDE.

x.ai

 

[Robdavis]

Musk gets into the AI game...

Blog

Read about the latest announcements from xAI including Grok, Grok-1, and the PromptIDE.

x.ai

This "making sense of the world" stuff really bothers me.

Any AI that comes out and says anything other than "common sense" ie. The Script, is going to get panned by the majority for being rubbish.

So it's likely that the AI creators are going to have to try to work out what is going on, to be able to try to know whether their AI is accurate or inaccurate.

But opponents of the worldview of the AI creators will just say that the AI creators are biased.

The only solution to this seems to be to train your AI to have multiple worldviews. But this then leads to the AI simply asking you what answer you want to the question that has been asked.

So for example (assuming different users):

Ex 1:
User: Is Capitalism any good?
Super AI: Well, it has created more wealth for humanity than any other political ideology.
User: Obviously been progamrmed by far-right nutjobs.

Ex 2:
User: Is Capitalism any good?
Super AI: Please state your political affiliation.
User: Left of centre.
Super AI: Capitalism has a track record of increasing income inequality as an economy grows.
User: Excellent AI.

Ex 3:
User: I want to get rich, should I become a doctor or a lawyer?
Super AI: You should start a business.
User: This AI is f**king useless, everyone knows that to get rich you should get a good job and invest in the stock market.

Ex 4:
User: Are politicians ever corrupt?
Super AI: Don't be daft, they are the cream of public servants.
User: FFS.

I suspect that the end result will be that governments will legislate to create a Ministry of Truth and then the AIs will be expected to align with that view. This will just have the affect of reinforcing all the "problems" with the current versions of "common sense".

Alternatively, AIs will just have biases, so right wing AI will defend capitalism and left wing AI will defend socialism and conspiracy AI will claim that the world is secretly controlled by aliens and that Climate Change is a myth and flat earth AI will say that everything you are told by the government and all teachers is a lie etc. etc. Then you will just pick the AI to get the answer that you want.

As an aside; this is all part of a bigger problem of the "Information Super Highway" turning into the "Mis-Information Super Highway". Where there is now so much information on the web that you can find almost any answer you like to almost any question you like.

 

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[JordanK]

As the war in the Middle East develops Twitter has a lot of false information, misleading stuff but its also the only place you can find accurate information. You literally get to see what people on the ground are posting and the sick stomach churning videos that mainstream media usually can't platform on TV. I have actually seen a shift with the TV channels they seem to be showing a lot more distressing or slightly blurred content in order to compete with Twitter. Or because they are leaning towards one side or the other and want to cause outrage in a favorable direction to their views.

I think it's also been a good week for free speech in English speaking countries as lots of the woke police get canceled themselves for having the "wrong view" vs the people with actual power, influence and wealth. They are realizing how important this is.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

I feel like X is getting more sticky with its curation of news, explore, and what's happening.

 

[wade1mil]

And freedom of speech...

 

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