Posted on 04/29/2022 5:02:02 AM PDT by Kaslin
The impending acquisition of Twitter by the world's wealthiest person, Elon Musk, is one of the most improbable developments out of the business world -- and, indeed, the political world -- in decades. Though a fairly modest percentage of adult Americans use Twitter, at least when compared with more popular social media outlets like Facebook and Instagram, the platform is disproportionately influential in shaping the news cycle and driving current events. Much like a major newspaper outlet, then, the composition of Twitter's ownership matters, even if it matters more for social than for purely financial reasons.
Musk is famously inscrutable -- perhaps even enigmatic. But his reasons for acquiring the social media company for a cool $44 billion seem reasonably clear. The Tesla and SpaceX magnate wants to bring free speech and open discourse back to Twitter, which suffered under the heavy-handed reign of its woke co-founder and former CEO, Jack Dorsey. For his efforts, and assuming he can cross the t's, dot the i's and consummate the acquisition, Musk should be applauded by everyone opposed to the American ruling class' censorious hegemony. That ruling class routinely got its way under Dorsey, as encapsulated by former President Donald Trump's post-January 6, 2021, Twitter banishment.
Twitter under Musk's imminent ownership augurs well for the future of open, dissident, ruling class-skeptical discourse in America's 21st-century digital public square. But many questions still remain for Mr. Musk. Here are just a handful of them.
Most important -- as is the case for any incoming organizational owner, president or chairman -- what kind of personnel changes can we expect right out of the gate? Will Musk fire Dorsey's hand-picked successor as CEO, Parag Agrawal? (He should.) Will Musk fire all the various software engineers and computer programmers behind Twitter's many years of censorship, deplatforming decisions and shadowbans (all of which, predictably, tended to skew in one ideological direction)? Even the human resources decision-makers must go.
Just as important, where will Musk go to recruit his personnel replacements? There is now a flourishing countercultural tech world replete with talented, woke-skeptical entrepreneurs, programmers and software developers. The neo-reactionary right-wing blogger Curtis Yarvin emanates from that world, and Peter Thiel is the single public figure probably most readily identifiable with it. Musk should aggressively tap into that network and meet with Thiel and venture capital firm Founders Fund early and often. He must clean house internally and completely revamp Twitter's recruitment practices.
Furthermore, what public actions will Musk take to redeem Twitter's image and restore its credibility among the broad subset of the population that no longer trusts it? A truth and reconciliation commission-style approach is needed here. Within the confines of what is permissible under extant intellectual property law, Musk should publicly expose Twitter's old algorithms that were used to ban and shadowban digital speech that ran counter to the ruling class' preferred narrative. Public shaming is one of humanity's oldest methods for restorative justice; good ol' fashioned shaming will be a helpful tool for Musk as he seeks to reassure Americans that he means business.
Next, what specific standard will Musk use to secure open discourse and ensure dissident speech is not suppressed on Twitter? The most obvious standard is a First Amendment one; in other words, if the content of the speech is such that the government could not censor it if it were spoken on a public sidewalk, then it should be permissible on Twitter. But even if such a standard were adopted, what steps will Musk personally take to ensure it is upheld? What kind of accountability measures will be put in place to forestall a rogue woke algorithm programmer from sneaking in some code that reverts to the pre-Musk censorship regime? If Musk means business, then he should govern as a hands-on owner -- perhaps even CEO, if he can find enough time in the day away from his Tesla and SpaceX duties.
What will Musk do to tamp down speculation that he is too cozy with China? Jeff Bezos -- who himself has zero credibility on the China question -- mused on Twitter this week: "Did the Chinese government just gain a bit of leverage of the town square?" The context was a New York Times reporter who noted Tesla's reliance on Chinese lithium batteries, as well as its dependence upon China as a consumer market. And there is more; for instance, Musk spoke last year at China's World Internet Conference, a confab closely tied to the ruling Communist Party. Musk should take clear actions, once firmly at the Twitter helm, to ease the minds of those Americans who worry that our geopolitical archfoe may be able to get a little too close for comfort to the man who will control our digital town square.
Finally, what role will Musk play in America's roiling Big Tech policy and legal debates, more broadly? Will he become an outspoken proponent of the need to reform Section 230, the arcane 1990s-era statutory provision that has been interpreted to give Big Tech platforms effective carte blanche for their discretionary content-moderation decisions? Will he advocate for the use of antitrust to break up Google, Amazon and/or Meta (i.e., Facebook)? Will he openly praise Justice Clarence Thomas' recent suggestion that common carrier regulation may be legally appropriate for certain social networks? Musk now has the perfect platform to become a prominent spokesman on these pressing issues.
We should wish Elon Musk nothing but the best at Twitter. But we must also remain vigilant -- and hold the titan accountable to his own professed word.
Time will tell....But I can assure you....Musk has this thought out 10 years down the road.
He wants the data on all the Twitter users.
The article says “Dorsey’s hand-picked successor as CEO, Parag Agrawal”.
That’s strange because it seems clear Dorsey didn’t leave on his own but was fired (again).
I wonder if Musk bought Twitter just so he could censor conservatives and anyone who did not agree with the Leftist lies and propaganda.
Trust but verify.
Bill Barr comes to mind.
So you think Musk paid $40billion to buy twitter so he could do exactly what they have been doing for years? You or Musk one need to put down the crack pipe.
“Time will tell....But I can assure you....Musk has this thought out 10 years down the road.”
Yep, I agree time will tell, and I hope he has indeed looked down the road aways and plans to be straight up. But this new trend is a bit scary: lol
https://twitter.com/Dewert_Ent_CEO/status/1520007244397662209?s=20&t=w-nXhUQ9gZOp32YyvDVUbQ
Correct. Musk voted for homobama. 'nuff said.
He says he wants more free speech. There are three things that make me uneasy about him.
1) He is exposed to blackmail by China through Tesla having a lot of business there.
2) He wants to sell grid-level batteries, which I think is an unworkable pipe dream, but he might try to silence opposing voices by labeling them “climate deniers”.
3) He is one of the Crypto Coin guys and while I don’t know enough to argue about these it looks to me as a giant scam.
if you look at that cartoon he posted his position hasn’t changed...it was the leftists that changed further left.
He is not on the right. Perhaps he fits into the RINO wing of the right...if that.
He seems to be more of a Libertarian than anything.
Musk is a wealthy, Bonafide genius.
He will not fit into an ordinary character mold. He is Elon, a singular entity that defines itself, unique and without present comparative equal
“So you think Musk paid $40billion to buy twitter so he could do exactly what they have been doing for years? You or Musk one need to put down the crack pipe.”
That is my point exactly.
You can’t recognize sarcasm?
I don’t need a crack pipe, but you need additional IQ.
My first thought was, "Heck, no! Libertarians don't lobby governments large and small to force companies to buy 'carbon credits' from companies like Tesla."
But then I remembered the main reason I didn't vote in 2016 for Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party candidate: He came out in favor of a carbon tax!!! OMG! Us libertarians ought to be ashamed that the only one on the general ballot against a carbon tax was Big Government Republican Trump. The last thing I wanted was a new carbon tax.
And I'm the one who installed a lot of solar onto my house. So if I of all people can see how bad a carbon tax is, I can appreciate people's unwillingness to accept Musk as their new political savior.
Grid-level battery is unworkable nonsense that Musk sells and I suspect some states might force the taxpayers to pay for.
I follow Alex Epstein on Twitter and he says Musk is lying his ass off. Alex is already called a “science denialist”. Will he still be allowed to post on Twitter after Musk owns it?
https://twitter.com/AlexEpstein
But if Musk is saying grid-level battery helps smooth the power (getting rid of what electricians call "dirty power") then he's got my attention.
The power coming through my inverter from battery is cleaner than when my inverter has to pull from the grid (because my batteries are discharged and my solar isn't creating enough power for my house's needs). I can see something good coming from a large battery at power relay stations -- but that's to smooth the power not to replace dependency on fossil fuels.
I'm a yuge proponent on decentralized solar power done completely voluntarily. If you live in the southern half of the U.S., own your home and plan to be there at least 10 years, have a metal roof (assuming you'd put the panels on the roof), and a way to mount most or all panels facing south, then solar will pay for itself on about the 10th year and free part of your budget from energy inflation. (My fixed cost of installing solar is being paid through making payments on the HELOC loan I took out to pay for it, now my power bill is small and I no longer have a natural gas bill because I converted my 2 natural gas appliances to high efficiency electric ones. The end result is that the small power bill is the only part of my home energy budget that is susceptible to rising with energy inflation. My HELOC payment with a fixed interest rate won't go up.) But that works only if you do your homework ahead of time, study your power bills each month throughout the year, the average peak solar hours you get at your zip code each month, the angle of your south facing roof, etc.
Truth be told I’ve met my limitations. I don’t know what an inverter is and what I remember from my woodworking class is “ampere kills”.
I try to navigate this area by managing to determine who is trustworthy and who is not.
So far the statement saying “advanced civilization can’t survive on the battery-windmill grid” has seemed true, but I don’t understand the formulas behind it.
AC is great as far as carrying power across distances. The past century plus of homes having power wouldn't have happened with DC power because DC power travels long distances poorly (i.e. the distance from the power plant to your home). So all of our appliances depend on AC power, which means the solar system is no good for your home unless the DC power coming in from solar can be converted to AC.
/s denotes sarcasm in the written word, on the internet any way. The spoken word along with tone/inflection and facial expression denote the sarcasm and easily picked up on. My IQ is just fine, thanks. Since we apparently agree, my bad!
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