[Venkatesh]

Amul special doodle on Twitter charging for the blue tick.

[harshaguduru]

Originally Posted by Bluengel180

Businesses do NOT want a toxic platform.

I'm Slightly off-topic and going on tangents as this is not about Twitter as such

Disagree with you partly. Businesses want sales. If businesses were averse to toxic platforms then people like Joe Rogan / Trump / Half the politicians in India would not be thriving.
What most businesses don't want is to offend anyone or get pegged into a camp firmly (with few exceptions to the rule) as they end up alienating 30-60% of their target audience.


We all have to face it, Polarization always creates engagement. And this is something our Politicians and business leaders understand well.
It's part of our psychology. Polarized outspoken opinions get 3-5x more engagement than wholesome content does.


It's Newton's law at its fundamentals. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. For every left-leaning view, a right-leaning view props up.
The subtle delta in scale ends up forming the majority narrative.
The biggest beneficiary of the Twitter saga is that now the whole world knows about it. Soon you will have 200-400 million new accounts created with zero marketing spending just because of the FOMO. Every celebrity who is posting that they are exiting has no reason to broadcast. Just delete and get away with it but they do want to get their share in the limelight. And for everyone that leaves we have another posting that firmly supports Elon.


Polarization is quite evident right here on this thread including with me, but the hallmark of T-Bhp is that even differing opinions are expressed in a clean and gentle way. That level of maturity is rarely seen in social media and kudos to the Moderator teams here for enabling this environment.


Paradoxically biggest threat and advantage to a safe dialogue will always be anonymity and that is one of the most dangerous features of current social media platforms, but the flip side if anonymity is removed everyone is at risk for expressing an unpopular opinion.

[anjan_c2007]

U turns in two major nerve shaking decisions within 24 hours of one another.

(1) Delhi government reverses order to ban non BSVI vehicles in its territory. This has appeared in today's media reports.

(2) Twitter takes a U turn and asks some of its fired employees to return back to work.

https://m.economictimes.com/news/int...w/95343987.cms

Hence, we can conclude that we have quite many Elon Musks both at the national and international levels.

[amitoj]

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/6/2...onation-parody

So much for free speech!
What a disaster this is turning out to be.

[padmrajravi]

Originally Posted by amitoj

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/6/2...onation-parody

So much for free speech!
What a disaster this is turning out to be.

How is this against free speech ? Twitter was never about anonymous opinions. It was always about speaking out with your identity exposed. So curbing parody accounts is the right step in my opinion. If they can somehow mandate that all accounts are tied to a legitimate human being or business, the bot problem will be taken care of. Of course an unreliable individual in control of the most popular Townsquare with ability to ban people is a problem.

[amitoj]

Originally Posted by padmrajravi

How is this against free speech ? Twitter was never about anonymous opinions.

He banned people who changed their display names. The real twitter handle is very much visible. Even after that, accounts that clearly stated they were parody accounts were banned for mocking Elon.

[binand]

Originally Posted by padmrajravi

How is this against free speech ?

I think you have a point here. This is only against Musk's own declared position, as evinced in these tweets:

Claims to be a free speech absolutist: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1499976967105433600

Then claims that Twitter needs to adhere to free speech principles: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1507777261654605828

Offers this explanation what he means by free speech: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519036983137509376

Avers that he will uphold free speech even if he himself is attacked: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1527491436005957633

Even if he is at direct personal safety risk: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1589414958508691456

And after all this, he bans an Emmy-winning artist. Who was tweeting from her own verified account (so not anonymous!).

All it suggests is that Musk comes across as a hypocrite.

Originally Posted by padmrajravi

Twitter was never about anonymous opinions. It was always about speaking out with your identity exposed.

I'm not too sure of that. Some of the causes that found their voice through Twitter (eg: #MeToo) had significant anonymous participation. Twitter themselves put up a blog post last year on why anonymity matters, at the same time addressing some of the misconceptions around it:

https://blog.twitter.com/common-thre...ough-anonymity

Choice quote:

Anonymity helps people express themselves more fully. It gives them the room to express themselves particularly in places where they feel unsafe.

Originally Posted by harshaguduru

Disagree with you partly. Businesses want sales.

So apparently Twitter's user numbers are growing:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/7/2...gh-advertisers

But, advertisers are hesitant to return, and this article argues that it is because of Musk's actions:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...tisers/672029/

[Turbohead]

I don't understand the negativity here.

If he can get rid of bots pushing political agenda, there's nothing better than that for the online community! Social media has never been the same ever since political parties started exploiting it by dividing the populace.

And all the stuff you see here is typical Elon Musk - ridiculous time lines, attempting to monetize assets have been the cause of Elon Musk's success in his previous stints. A strategy he follows is the fail fast policy - try something and make it as quickly as possible so that you will know whether it will work or not in the first place.

The dude has always tried new industries - from making apps to manufacturing cars and rockets. Social media is something new and I'm pretty sure Twitter will see drastic and quick changes in the next few months/years which may or may not succeed. Let's not forget that he is an individual who is not afraid to risk it so the size of the investment in terms of net worth is nothing new considering how he went wild with SpaceX which people thought will fail from day 1.

As with all things in the world, you can admire him but that's just way too much power in one person's hand who can use it to manipulate society- he's done it before with experiments relating to promoting Dogecoin and crypto and also asking people to move to Signal which many have installed but hardly anyone uses.

If anything, it's certainly a milestone in the social media space.

[extreme_torque]

Originally Posted by binand

I think you have a point here. This is only against Musk's own declared position, as evinced in these tweets:

Claims to be a free speech absolutist: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1499976967105433600

Then claims that Twitter needs to adhere to free speech principles: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1507777261654605828

Offers this explanation what he means by free speech: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519036983137509376

Avers that he will uphold free speech even if he himself is attacked: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1527491436005957633

Even if he is at direct personal safety risk: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1589414958508691456

And after all this, he bans an Emmy-winning artist. Who was tweeting from her own verified account (so not anonymous!).

All it suggests is that Musk comes across as a hypocrite.

There are plenty of people mocking Elon on Twitter. The account in question has been banned for "impersonation" without labeling itself as "Parody" not for mocking or making fun of Elon or for being anonymous. Its wholly out of context. But as I said, this is a harsh action.

Originally Posted by amitoj

He banned people who changed their display names. The real twitter handle is very much visible. Even after that, accounts that clearly stated they were parody accounts were banned for mocking Elon.

No the account in question was not labeled "Parody" and this is precisely the reason why it was banned for impersonation. The account was named "Elon Musk"

That said, permanent ban is a harsh punishment. A warning and then a permanent ban would be better after clearly defining the said in the twitter policy (or may be there is because I havent checked).

[binand]

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

There are plenty of people mocking Elon on Twitter. The account in question has been banned for "impersonation" without labeling itself as "Parody" not for mocking or making fun of Elon or for being anonymous.

There are four points here that I consider are pertinent.

1. That an account needs to be labelled "Parody" or will be immediately banned permanently is a rule Elon came up with after banning Kathy Griffin.

2. Twitter's own rules (until then) for dealing with such accounts went through a sequence of Request to modify profile > Temporary ban > Permanent suspension.

3. The ban of Kathy Griffin is antithetical to Musk's own previously articulated views: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61399483 ("permanent bans should be extremely rare and reserved for accounts that are bots or scam accounts")

4. The reason Kathy Griffin was singled out is probably that she tweeted #VoteBlue slightly ahead of Elon making the plea to vote for Republican party.

[padmrajravi]

Originally Posted by binand

I'm not too sure of that. Some of the causes that found their voice through Twitter (eg: #MeToo) had significant anonymous participation. Twitter themselves put up a blog post last year on why anonymity matters, at the same time addressing some of the misconceptions around it:

https://blog.twitter.com/common-thre...ough-anonymity

Thank you for that article on their stand on anonymity. I realized it only now. I have always thought Reddit was the place to go if you want anonymity.

Off topic: I am not sure anonymity and free speech go hand in hand. Free speech is not an absolute right in any country. If one's speech leads to a mob incitement, almost all governments have provisions to consider that an offense. Twitter or any social media is a public place now. Any statement made there must be accountable. So to provide free speech legally, all accounts must have an identity.

[extreme_torque]

Originally Posted by binand

There are four points here that I consider are pertinent.

1. That an account needs to be labelled "Parody" or will be immediately banned permanently is a rule Elon came up with after banning Kathy Griffin.

It should not matter because your argument was that this account was banned for mocking EM. It wasn't.

Originally Posted by binand

2. Twitter's own rules (until then) for dealing with such accounts went through a sequence of Request to modify profile > Temporary ban > Permanent suspension.

3. The ban of Kathy Griffin is antithetical to Musk's own previously articulated views: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61399483 ("permanent bans should be extremely rare and reserved for accounts that are bots or scam accounts")

I agree that a permanent ban is harsh primarily because EM said that it should only be reserved for certain circumstances although you could say impersonation is scamming in a way (unless labelled parody)

Originally Posted by binand

4. The reason Kathy Griffin was singled out is probably that she tweeted #VoteBlue slightly ahead of Elon making the plea to vote for Republican party.

Again there are plenty of people asking to vote blue and I dont see a pattern of permanent bans with those accounts. If it was a pattern i would make that accusation but at this time it is not.

P.S. This is what I meant when I said mainstream media, on both sides of the spectrum by the way, mostly never gets it right. Look at the headline
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...musk-rcna55916

Trust the left leaning media to sensationalise everything and put out news out of context to create an evil out of EM and outlets like fox to make him the victim. The rot is deep.

[binand]

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

It should not matter because your argument was that this account was banned for mocking EM. It wasn't.

Don't think I ever said that. The only argument I have been making here is that Elon Musk comes across to me as a hypocrite for claiming to be a "free speech absolutist" who disagreed with Twitter's content moderation policies in the past, until he got control of the platform only to bypass even the safeguards contained within those policies and moderate aggressively.

[extreme_torque]

Originally Posted by binand

Don't think I ever said that. The only argument I have been making here is that Elon Musk comes across to me as a hypocrite for claiming to be a "free speech absolutist" who disagreed with Twitter's content moderation policies in the past, until he got control of the platform only to bypass even the safeguards contained within those policies and moderate aggressively.

I guess you need to read the earlier posts to know why i said that. Secondly I dont think Free Speech definition applies to "impersonation" per the policy they laid out explaining the same.

By definition impersonation is "an act of pretending to be another person for the purpose of entertainment or fraud" - If it is entertaining it should be marked "Parody".

[binand]

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

I guess you need to read the earlier posts to know why i said that.

Didn't quite understand this. Can you point to the post where I said Kathy Griffin was blocked because she mocked Elon Musk?

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

Secondly I dont think Free Speech definition applies to "impersonation" per the policy they laid out explaining the same.

I also don't think you understand the absolutist aspect of Elon's professed "I'm a free speech absolutist" stance.