Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[celedhring]

Yeah, as a user the blue tick had value to me as a proof of identity. Now it's harder to navigate retweets and such. I don't know why Musk is turning it into a simple premium badge without proof of identity.

[The Larch]

Another enlightened Musk policy has been enacted on Twitter's workplace, remote working is now banned and everyone has to work from the office.

[The Brain]

Another enlightened Musk policy has been enacted on Twitter's workplace, remote working is now banned and everyone has to work from the office.

There's plenty of room at least.

[Berkut]

Yeah, as a user the blue tick had value to me as a proof of identity. Now it's harder to navigate retweets and such. I don't know why Musk is turning it into a simple premium badge without proof of identity.

Because he has no fucking clue what he is doing?

Brilliant narcissists think their smartness applies to all things, and experience and knowledge doesn't matter because in the narrow spaces of their own expertise, their success came to them "naturally".

They almost certainly have no ability to notice that they had a huge amount of luck that went along with their brilliance.

So they think they can go do anything, that they can "figure it out" just like they did when they started a electric car company or a rocket company.

Frum had a pretty good article on Musk and Twitter:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/twitter-elon-musk-list-save-ruin/672021/

TLDR: Hire people who understand the business, shut up, and get out of the way. Give them your vision and then step aside.

[Grey Fox]

Tesla rolls out a lot of software features that get tested in production. I am not surprised that Twitter is doing the same. I remain surprised that Space X doesn't do it.

[The Larch]

Yeah, as a user the blue tick had value to me as a proof of identity. Now it's harder to navigate retweets and such. I don't know why Musk is turning it into a simple premium badge without proof of identity.

Because he has no fucking clue what he is doing?

Yeah, it's quite flabbergasting to see how little Musk seems to know about the business model of a social media company, and how badly (or at all) he's being advised about it. Him basically bouncing ideas and proposals with Twitter users that reacted badly to his early proposals is equally surprising.

[PJL]

Turns out running a social media company is even more difficult than rocket science for some people.

[Barrister]

Tesla rolls out a lot of software features that get tested in production. I am not surprised that Twitter is doing the same. I remain surprised that Space X doesn't do it.

Space X kind-of does.  They've built all kinds of evolutions and iterations of their Starship rocket.

[HisMajestyBOB]

The CISO, chief privacy officer, and chief compliance officers all quit last night.

[Sheilbh]

The CISO, chief privacy officer, and chief compliance officers all quit last night.

Yeah I saw this:

Casey Newton
@CaseyNewton
According to messages shared in Twitter Slack, Twitter's CISO, chief privacy office, and chief compliance officer all resigned last night.

An employee says it will be up to engineers to "self-certify compliance with FTC requirements and other laws."

I'm fully aware I'm a cost to the business I work for - but as privacy lawyer advising a company with a big digital presence, I don't think I've ever heard of a worse idea (and where I work we have engineers who care about privacy)

But frankly it seems insane if the plan is to try to directly monetise Twitter. He wants people to pay for things through subscriptions, is talking about ways of monetising content (again I think Twitter missed the boat on that with Substack and Patreon) or even the stuff about Twitter as a digital wallet. I simply would not trust my card details to company without a CISO, privacy or compliance team.

I think there's something to this take (and perhaps a bit to the general STEM discourse in recent years):

James Ball
@jamesrbuk
I think this is the core of Musk's doomed efforts.

Lots of his challenges are static: getting to space is hard but the challenge stays the same.

Self-driving is a bit dynamic. And he's found it somewhat harder.
Content moderation and safety is fully dynamic. Fix one way in and they'll find another. You're in a dynamic, living system – it's game theory etc.

You will never find one new trick that solves it. It's a forever job – Sisyphus pushing up that boulder.

[HisMajestyBOB]

Twitter verification

Yeah, as a user the blue tick had value to me as a proof of identity. Now it's harder to navigate retweets and such. I don't know why Musk is turning it into a simple premium badge without proof of identity.

Cases in point:
https://twitter.com/stanzipotenza/status/1590741168471494658

https://twitter.com/drewharwell/status/1590822878274097152

Well, if there's ever an issue, I'm sure you can just reach out to Twitter's communication team for reassurance and ...

https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/1590794421418790935

Oh.

[HisMajestyBOB]

https://twitter.com/TesIaReal
 

[FunkMonk]

currently an emergency twitter all-hands going on with Elon Musk answering employee Q's

Elon was asked: "How are you going to deal with the expected attrition and align everyone on a shared vision?"

Elon Answer: "I don't know....we all need to be more hardcore."

https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/1590810660887461888?t=P819258frbdVXf4fmq7Wgg&s=19

[FunkMonk]

Twitter is absolute chaos now. Basically no moderation. I don't know what is real and what isn't 

This has been an insane week 

[Grey Fox]

I admire Musk's ability to throw one hell of a party.