Elon Musk - the world's "greatest" spiv?

[Busaholic]

The writer Denise Mina announced on 'Woman's Hour' radio prog this morning she'd changed her Twitter name to Elon Musk, and that many others had done so to: a day later her account was still up!

 

[Cloud Strife]

The reason all these far-right Twitter clones haven’t succeeded is because most of the alt-right trolls get their kicks from winding people up and bullying. If there’s nobody but them on a site, no victims or anyone to argue with, they get bored very quickly. For most it’’s the conflict that is the attraction to them. You can’t ‘own the libs’ if there aren’t any libs around.

Couldn't have said it better myself. They need 'the libs' in order to stick around, otherwise they'll simply leave and find somewhere else for their attention seeking.

I’m never sure what these weirdo bootlickers expect to get in return for this sort of behaviour. It’s kind of cult like.

There is something very specific to these types in that they always need an authoritarian figure to lead them. It's nothing new, of course, but from what I can observe in Poland: they're often attracted to them because they can act like deplorable human beings in the process.

 

[XAM2175]

And this seems to have caused him to backtrack on his pledge to cease permanent suspensions:

"Comedy is legal on Twitter unless I'm the butt of it"

 

[jon0844]

Couldn't have said it better myself. They need 'the libs' in order to stick around, otherwise they'll simply leave and find somewhere else for their attention seeking.



There is something very specific to these types in that they always need an authoritarian figure to lead them. It's nothing new, of course, but from what I can observe in Poland: they're often attracted to them because they can act like deplorable human beings in the process.

Yes, I've always assumed they believe they have now a shield for their terrible behaviour.

If and when they get called out, they can hide behind their great leader and play the victim (and obviously try to cancel whoever it was that called them out).

 

[Tetchytyke]

"Comedy is legal on Twitter unless I'm the butt of it"

It's only "cancel culture" if it's the left complaining about the right. When the right do it, it's just common sense.

 

[birchesgreen]

So they rolled out a new "official" tag for "notable" accounts (presumably the old blue check marks) then killed it on Elon's orders a few hours later.

I sometimes wonder if he has been fitted with one of his other company's neurolink system and its warped his mind.

 

[Cloud Strife]

So they rolled out a new "official" tag for "notable" accounts (presumably the old blue check marks) then killed it on Elon's orders a few hours later.

No doubt after a lot of people spent a lot of sleepless nights working on it.

What a horribly toxic person he is.

 

[brad465]

I see the Blue Tick plans are going well:

https://twitter.com/GeorgeWBushs/status/1590487032471891968

I miss killing Iraqis

https://twitter.com/MPTonyBlair/status/1590616520865943552

Same tbh.

It's also worth noting that one can click on the Blue tick of a profile and there is a difference in message between Twitter Blue subscribers and famous verified accounts.

 

[jon0844]

It's so funny, but also sad for all those people who use Twitter professionally and are now left wondering what's going to happen to the platform.

Elon needs to get bored and sell up.

 

[AlterEgo]

It's so funny, but also sad for all those people who use Twitter professionally and are now left wondering what's going to happen to the platform.

Elon needs to get bored and sell up.

The banks will have it off him in a year or less, I reckon. He is such a terrible custodian.

 

[Cdd89]

sad for all those people who use Twitter professionally and are now left wondering what's going to happen to the platform

“People who use Twitter professionally”

Twitter is nothing but an addictive time-killing activity, and apparently one that people don’t even want to pay $8 for (hardly a lot of money for something people supposedly use and get value from).

I think it always was doomed. I suspect Twitter Free will progressively be made less usable and then we’ll see.

 

[TheEdge]

Musk tells Twitter staff remote working will end

Elon Musk has told Twitter staff that remote working will end and "difficult times" lie ahead, according to reports.
In an email to staff the owner of the social media firm said workers would be expected in the office for at least 40 hours a week, Bloomberg reported.
Mr Musk added that there was "no way to sugar coat the message" that the slowing global economy was going to hit Twitter's advertising revenues.

Ah yes, removing one of the biggest perks of working in the online tech industry. That'll go down well with the staff who survived the mass cull.

 

[brad465]

I see the Blue Tick plans are going well:

https://twitter.com/GeorgeWBushs/status/1590487032471891968

https://twitter.com/MPTonyBlair/status/1590616520865943552

It's also worth noting that one can click on the Blue tick of a profile and there is a difference in message between Twitter Blue subscribers and famous verified accounts.

Update, both these accounts have now been suspended.

 

[jon0844]

“People who use Twitter professionally”

Many businesses use it as a means of communicating with their customers, and artists, authors, actors etc will use it to engage with their fans/customers. It's also a recognised source of news (from both verified and somewhat questionable sources) so, yes, there are a lot of people who use it professionally.

There are business accounts to let you promote Tweets, check the analytics and so on.

Elon is going to destroy all that because he seems only interested in the worst parts of the platform, like the trolling and abuse.

Musk tells Twitter staff remote working will end

Ah yes, removing one of the biggest perks of working in the online tech industry. That'll go down well with the staff who survived the mass cull.

Okay, so a lot of people assembling cars couldn't work from home, but he really doesn't get the benefits of people who mostly work on computers, and communicate by Slack/Teams, even Twitter itself.

Absolutely one of those bosses where things run more smoothly when he's not involved in day-to-day running. Maybe Tesla is doing better now Elon is distracted.

 

[Kite159]

"you will come into the office to do the same work you could have done staying in your home office, just with added meaningless chit chat by the water cooler about the latest TV show"

 

[dosxuk]

Twitter is nothing but an addictive time-killing activity, and apparently one that people don’t even want to pay $8 for (hardly a lot of money for something people supposedly use and get value from).

Tell that to the TOCs and bus operators who use it as their primary information channel and contact point.

 

[GusB]

Tell that to the TOCs and bus operators who use it as their primary information channel and contact point.

This has potential for quite a lot of reputational damage to both companies and individuals. Set up a Twitter account in the name of your favourite transport provider, pay for your blue tick and then announce all sorts of free travel offers.

Some people will be savvy enough to realise that the information isn't coming from a genuine source, but many will not; a few retweets later you've got a rather awkward situation when people turn up to claim their bogus offer. It'll be the staff on the front line who will be dealing with the fallout.

 

[AlterEgo]

“People who use Twitter professionally”

Twitter is nothing but an addictive time-killing activity, and apparently one that people don’t even want to pay $8 for (hardly a lot of money for something people supposedly use and get value from).

I think it always was doomed. I suspect Twitter Free will progressively be made less usable and then we’ll see.

There are lots of people who have made careers from Twitter. Plenty of people in media, comedians, pseudo-viral small businesses (retro football shirt shops are a good example), and so on.

 

[GS250]

I see Musk is going to end home working for Twitter employees. Perhaps he'll also insist on them living on site and lining up at 830am like schoolchildren.

 

[pdeaves]

I see Musk is going to end home working for Twitter employees. Perhaps he'll also insist on them living on site and lining up at 830am like schoolchildren.

Looks like the employees will need to really, really enjoy their actual work to want to stay.

 

[birchesgreen]

What could go wrong really?

Twitter security execs quit amid worries that Musk will violate FTC settlement

Musk's rapid product launches may run afoul of mandates from FTC privacy decree.

arstechnica.com

Some of Twitter's top privacy and security executives resigned this week amid worries that Elon Musk's rapid changes may cause violations of the company's recent settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.

...

"Musk's new legal department is now asking engineers to 'self-certify' compliance with FTC rules and other privacy laws, according to the lawyer's note and another employee familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity to speak without the company's permission," The Verge wrote.

...

Submissions to the FTC required by the May 2022 consent decree are made under penalty of perjury. As Mike Masnick pointed out on TechDirt, "Anyone working in Twitter needs to know that 'self-certifying' something that violates the FTC's consent decree may be tied to a prison sentence and huge fines. This is not how any of this should be working."

 

[jon0844]

So now he's said that he'll try loads of things and some things will be dumb, and he'll just pick and choose what to keep - it really gives a great insight into how he must run his other businesses.

He's literally making everything up as he goes along. Hence why he'll launch a car and say it will be ready in two years, when his engineering team must be thinking 'but we haven't started development yet' and so on.

Having someone dance in some lycra to pretend to be an advanced AI robot was laughable, and even the following year his robot look liked something students could build as part of a Uni project.

 

[Bletchleyite]

He's literally making everything up as he goes along. Hence why he'll launch a car and say it will be ready in two years, when his engineering team must be thinking 'but we haven't started development yet' and so on.

To be fair, other than those which have grown from the grass roots developers, that approach DOES result in business success. If you give designers/developers as long as they like, they will spend forever perfecting it.

It's not quite the same as "throw a bucket of human waste at the wall and see what sticks", which is what he seems to be doing with Twitter.

 

[jon0844]

Sure, you need to set a deadline, but Elon always over promises and under delivers. Everything he does is late, or far less than advertised (think autopilot, or his subterranean tunnels where cars would zoom along at 200mph a few metres apart - and I'm not even talking about Hyperloop).

Even Starlink is fundamentally flawed and will never turn a profit based on calculations by people who have costed everything and also taken into account the fact that you can't offer maximum speed to everyone (and sure enough, they're now having to throttle data and introduce data caps at certain times as the service grows).

He pretty much straight up lied about his solar roof tiles and, well the list goes on.

He absolutely isn't sitting down with a team to come up with a concept and then seeing it through to completion. He is coming up with ideas when he wakes up (like Trump does) and blurting it out without a clue. Now he's changing his mind almost as quickly, which will prove incredibly costly.

And Elon keeps saying he doesn't think things are that hard, or he's an engineering genius. He's not, and many things are hard. Like level 5 autonomy, which I'm prepared to go all out in saying he is never going to achieve. Nor is he ever taking people to Mars.

 

[brad465]

Here's another one:

https://twitter.com/NestleDeathCult/status/1590867972637491200

We steal your water and sell it back to you lol

Here's a thread of screenshots of some more examples:

https://twitter.com/JoshuaPHilll/status/1590899514638229506

The verified brand situation is getting out of control. Quick thread of twitter blue brands, and brands who might be pissed off at Elon right about now.

Continued...

 

[GusB]

Here's another one:

https://twitter.com/NestleDeathCult/status/1590867972637491200

Here's a thread of screenshots of some more examples:

https://twitter.com/JoshuaPHilll/status/1590899514638229506

Oh dear. What could possibly go wrong?

 

[brad465]

Oh dear. What could possibly go wrong?

I wouldn't be surprised if some high profile lawsuits result, one particular contender to watch out for is Ely Lilly Company, a pharmaceutical fan that was parodied by an account claiming insulin is now free. The incident has shone a light on the hefty charges they impose for insulin, and as a result could easily do some serious reputational damage.

 

[AlterEgo]

Twitter has suspended new subscriptions to its car-crash Twitter Blue verification system.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The banks will have it off him in a year or less, I reckon. He is such a terrible custodian.

Sooner than that, depending how quickly and how far the ripples from the bankruptcy of the crypto exchange FTX go.

 

[RichJF]

Elon Musk - the Liz Truss of social media.

I used to use Twitter for part of my job; spotting pieces of military hardware in use (mainly in UKR but also worldwide) & verifying the types of systems. Since Musk took over it has become a complete mess & my superiors accepted that I can no longer reliably use it as a source of Open Source media.