Musk claimed that he was forming a "moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints" and that "No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes". As far as I know, it was never formed but he unbanned Trump anyway. Seems like moderation on Twitter will just be "if Musk likes it, it's allowed."
There's a joke from "Malcom in the Middle" where Bryan Cranston and the youngest son build a delightful imaginary society out of legos where a council of enlightened elders benevolently governs the city. After awhile, the son decided to take the city in a more authoritarian direction, and Cranston asks the child what happened to the council of elders, to which he replies, "I had them lined up and shot!". Which is sort of how I imagine the moderation council thing would work out with Elon, so this probably just skips a few steps anyway.
I'm sure he would remark that he consulted the largest moderation council available, the general public, or some equally lame shit like that. The guy does what he wants.
I think it’s a good assumption as far as assumptions go. The poll was just something to hide behind. Because a majority votes on something doesn’t mean it’s right, and his company also isn’t a democracy. Why not run polls on all of Twitter’s content moderation? The people can speak on each matter.
Probably Musk’s way of running Twitter will need to stabilize to a reasonably predictable long-term state, before it is feasible to spin up the council idea - if he even still wants to do the council idea.
Musk really likes control, but unfortunately he's not good at reconciling long-term, stabilizing control with short-term, whimsy & desire-based control.
For this reason I think it's likely that the following will happen:
- Trump will use TF out of his unbanned account--this is one of the few platforms that he could really count on, looking back, and so it's a viable tool for him, not just a place to vent
- Trump will eventually abuse the account/platform in some obvious way, again because he views it as a tool and he's desperate or very close to deperate, and he is also not a moralist
- This will raise a lot of problems for Musk. It will by this point have absolutely steamrolled Musk's lighter, more open view of free speech, and entered into his Find & Smash Annoyances Control-Zone
- Musk will have to move on Trump due to a variety of pressures, including internal to Musk's own psychology
- We'll probably get to see what Musk's council idea looks like in practice, and it will likely be formed around the concept of someone like Donald Trump communicating desperately
- If Musk waits too long to act, I think he'll probably slip up and call Trump a d-bag or some similar thing, because THIS is Musk's version of free speech--it's based on a high-pressure, subjective emotive assessment
I'd be lying if said I wouldn't enjoy watching an ego-fueled shit-slinging battle between Musk and Trump. But that's wishful thinking, more likely is that Mr. T. gets a pass on his egregious behaviour and Mr. M. turns a blind eye to it or even holds it up as an example "free speech" to earn more brownie points from his legions of muskrats. I would not be surprised if others on the left are not shown any such leniency.
Actually, now that I think about it a bit more, the whole thing is like an exercise in controlled opposition like on Russian media.
You know until 2016/2017 we let people post just about anything they wanted on all of the major platforms. Maybe not racial slurs and direct threats, but everything else was good. It was like that for a very long time and mostly everyone was fine with it. All that changed is that liberals didn’t like the political results—far right ideas becoming more popular and organized.
Pre-acquisition, there were arbitrary keyword and phrase bans. (Maybe there still are, I don't know for certain.)
For example, "tar and feather" was forbidden. I fail to see how that was anything other than an antiquated expression for "street justice". There are no -ists or -isms associated with it.
Musk was always going to do this. It's amazing how many times Musk lies and people just keep believing anything he says. It's not surprising that Musk likes Trump. Both are pathological liars.
It's interesting to see the follower count slowly increasing (currently at ~300k) as if they are pulling the list from cold storage. Also it seems like the tweets are slowly being loaded back in also as I can reach the bottom without anything else loading in, but that could be a bug with infinite scroll.
Perma-suspended Twitter accounts lose all of their followers.
More specifically:
> Trump’s account is showing weird/low following and follower counts now because it will take time for the company to rebuild his connections. The same thing happened in 2017 when a Twitter contractor went rogue and deactivated Trump’s profile.
I think some people are flagging news they dislike. Though it seems that flagging was originally intended for identifying posts that are "breaking the guidelines or otherwise [do not belong] on HN".
I only spectate on Twitter. Much more so since Russia invaded Ukraine. You know what all those accounts that are focused on the war are doing? They're tweeting like nothing has happened.
They're tweeting away and millions are following and commenting and retweeting, completely indifferent to Musk and the takeover.
I'm sincerely happy Mastodon is seeing some growth. But I think that growth is coming from a minority of users and that the bulk of Twitter users simply don't care.
Correct. It’s left wing Parler/Truth or whatever the right wingers exited to. I’m hoping Twitter continues to become a place where the wingnuts on both sides feel unwelcome and go off to their little ghettos to be with their little groups of diehards. For everyone else life goes on.
Also for people that do leave, there will be vacuums created and new influencers will rise into those spaces.
> As a part of the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) “Social Media Exclusivity Term,” Trump has agreed to wait six hours before posting the same content from Truth Social on any other sites, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
> The former president is allowed, however, to make posts from his personal account related to “political messaging, political fundraising or get-out-the vote efforts” at “any time” on any social media site.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586059953311137792