If Twitter goes belly up....options?
- Thread starter Warhawk
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QWERTYLICIOUS
Starter
Dude, if they seriously ever bring AIM back, I'd totally mark out!!!! AIM was the real deal back then!!!
kingsboi
Hall of Famer
no doubt. I met many friends through that and that was without any profile pictures of who you were talking to.
The media covering how awful Twitter is from a business standpoint didn't happen until Elon bought it, despite the fact that the company has had a terrible business model for a decade now. Where were all the reports before the purchase?
Also the NYT covering Elon is about as biased as it gets. Now if they cover something that is against their own beliefs, I may be inclined to listen. Anything else is just one sided propaganda.
Sluggah
All-Star
I certainly knew of Twitter’s business woes before Elon even with zero incentive/investment in it, and it sounds like you did too. Not sure where you gleaned that knowledge, but I might’ve picked it up from these pre-2021 NYT articles.
Twitter Stock Drops After User Numbers Decline
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/27/technology/twitter-stock-earnings.html?searchResultPosition=263
Twitter Struggles to Capitalize on Influence and Posts Lackluster Earnings
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/09/business/twitter-q4-earnings.html?searchResultPosition=265
Twitter’s Troubles and Snap’s Appeal: It’s All About the Mojo
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/12/...-about-the-mojo.html?searchResultPosition=303
Twitter’s Business Shrinks, but Investors See a Glimmer of Hope
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/business/twitter-q1-earnings.html?searchResultPosition=316
Twitter Narrows Loss, Adds Users and Misses Revenue Forecast
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/27/...evenue-forecast.html?searchResultPosition=346
Twitter User Growth Stalls, and the Chief Pledges to Make Fixes
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/11/...ngs-user-growth.html?searchResultPosition=348
Can This Relationship Be Saved? Big Tech and Big Advertisers Talk It Over.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/19/...facebook-google.html?searchResultPosition=102
Twitter Is Said to Be Discussing a Possible Takeover
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/24/business/dealbook/twitter-sale.html?searchResultPosition=178
Brace Yourself for What’s Coming at Twitter
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/...r-elliot-singer.html?searchResultPosition=248
If you want to talk articles about Twitter’s content cesspool problems and opinion pieces like “I quit Twitter and it feels great” this list could be 100+
Padrino
All-Star
I'm not even on any social media, and I've been aware of Twitter's long-term financial struggles. That's partly because I have an interest in science- and tech-related news, even if I'm not exactly an active participant in modern tech culture.
If one's complaint is that the average individual was not aware of Twitter's financial struggles prior to Elon Musk's purchase of the company due to a lack of news reporting, well, that's probably because the average individual doesn't really take too much interest in the inner-workings of tech companies, and therefore the news media generally keeps those stories in the tech- and business-related sections of their publications. But as was illustrated above, there has been plenty of reporting over the years on Twitter's failing business model.
Elon Musk, of course, is a billionaire with a big personality and plenty of controversial opinions that he's addicted to airing out within the context of an attention economy that's already primed social media users for a deluge of ill-advised oversharing, so his, shall we say, unorthodox takeover of Twitter was bound to draw a ton of headlines beyond the niche reporting of tech sector journalists. There's hardly any conspiracy to unravel here. He's just another arrogant billionaire who desires the spotlight for the purpose of self-mythologizing.
If one's complaint is that the average individual was not aware of Twitter's financial struggles prior to Elon Musk's purchase of the company due to a lack of news reporting, well, that's probably because the average individual doesn't really take too much interest in the inner-workings of tech companies, and therefore the news media generally keeps those stories in the tech- and business-related sections of their publications. But as was illustrated above, there has been plenty of reporting over the years on Twitter's failing business model.
Elon Musk, of course, is a billionaire with a big personality and plenty of controversial opinions that he's addicted to airing out within the context of an attention economy that's already primed social media users for a deluge of ill-advised oversharing, so his, shall we say, unorthodox takeover of Twitter was bound to draw a ton of headlines beyond the niche reporting of tech sector journalists. There's hardly any conspiracy to unravel here. He's just another arrogant billionaire who desires the spotlight for the purpose of self-mythologizing.
I guess I worded that poorly because obviously you'll be able to find articles on just about anything if you search enough. The point is if you want to pretend like the coverage has been the same, pre Elon and post Elon, then go ahead. Not to get political, but you could provide the same list of articles about a certain president who got hit with the biggest propaganda campaign in the history of our lives. Doesn't mean that the coverage was the same before and after the propaganda machine started. The number of anti Twitter articles has skyrocketed post Elon.
Like I said, when media companies start eating their own, I listen. Otherwise it's just propaganda. These corporations lie to us on a daily basis and we continue to go back to them for news. They aren't news. They're merely just a tool to validate our own biases.
I think I (and everyone else who had any interest) knew that Twitter wasn't making money. The problem now is the radical and erratic changes Elon has made that have driven away a good portion of the advertisers and the gutting of company personnel. He's apparently intentionally breaking the product that was working well and getting closer to being profitable. You can say the coverage has been different - it has, and for darn good reason. Your statement ignores recent events and just assumes that the change in ownership by itself caused the change in coverage. That's not it, it's the erratic behavior and subsequent fallout and impact on Twitter as a product and a company that is doing this.
While I let this post go, your follow up post was over the boundary into political discussion, etc., so I deleted it.
Regardless of your political opinion, Elon's changes to Twitter so far have done nothing but degrade the product, much like Coke changing to New Coke. He's broken the user verification system and then tried to implement a joke of a replacement that was just a blatant money grab, allowed bots and others to impersonate users causing untold issues (along with companies losing millions of $$$ due to fake posts, etc.), degraded the level of conversation (spikes in racial slurs, etc., allowed), is apparently considering adding/monetizing porn on the app, allowed copyrighted material to be illegally broadcast without being taken down in a timely manner, has banned users that fact-checked him, banned users that mocked his decisions and absurd posts (yay, free speech!), driven away millions in advertising from Twitter, fired or caused to quit the vast majority of the employees, downgraded Twitter's credit rating significantly, etc.
But yes, sure, the concern over this app's long term prospects is just political correctness overreacting to his letting a couple of previously banned users (for good reason, given what they were posting) back on the platform.
I think you are the one ignoring the big picture here.It's like what would happen here at KF if moderation was removed. And while some might prefer that, the majority of the users apparently appreciate some guardrails on behavior here. Same with Twitter. If you don't like it, there's always other options (as mentioned previously in this thread) that don't hold up at least some minimum behavioral and posting standards.
Twitter isn't the only option out there, so there is no need to try to turn Twitter into those other, lesser platforms in the name of "protecting free speech", which doesn't exist on private company products anyways and never works out as well as it sounds in theory as the idiots immediately start overrunning those actually contributing.
Edit: And if he didn't just buy it to break it (because he's acting like a petulant child with way too much money on his hands), why not just buy one of the others out there for a LOT less $$$ that are supposedly a lot closer to his "ideal" than Twitter was/is? It's because nobody wants that. He can't take an inferior product (Truth, Parlor, etc.) and make what he wants, because it isn't in demand. What he wanted to do was buy the one everyone already liked and tear it down because he was mad about the success it had being what it was.
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While I let this post go, your follow up post was over the boundary into political discussion, etc., so I deleted it.
Regardless of your political opinion, Elon's changes to Twitter so far have done nothing but degrade the product, much like Coke changing to New Coke. He's broken the user verification system and then tried to implement a joke of a replacement that was just a blatant money grab, allowed bots and others to impersonate users causing untold issues (along with companies losing millions of $$$ due to fake posts, etc.), degraded the level of conversation (spikes in racial slurs, etc., allowed), is apparently considering adding/monetizing porn on the app, allowed copyrighted material to be illegally broadcast without being taken down in a timely manner, has banned users that fact-checked him, banned users that mocked his decisions and absurd posts (yay, free speech!), driven away millions in advertising from Twitter, fired or caused to quit the vast majority of the employees, downgraded Twitter's credit rating significantly, etc.
But yes, sure, the concern over this app's long term prospects is just political correctness overreacting to his letting a couple of previously banned users (for good reason, given what they were posting) back on the platform.
It's like what would happen here at KF if moderation was removed. And while some might prefer that, the majority of the users apparently appreciate some guardrails on behavior here. Same with Twitter. If you don't like it, there's always other options (as mentioned previously in this thread) that don't hold up at least some minimum behavioral and posting standards.
Twitter isn't the only option out there, so there is no need to try to turn Twitter into those other, lesser platforms in the name of "protecting free speech", which doesn't exist on private company products anyways and never works out as well as it sounds in theory as the idiots immediately start overrunning those actually contributing.
Edit: And if he didn't just buy it to break it (because he's acting like a petulant child with way too much money on his hands), why not just buy one of the others out there for a LOT less $$$ that are supposedly a lot closer to his "ideal" than Twitter was/is? It's because nobody wants that. He can't take an inferior product (Truth, Parlor, etc.) and make what he wants, because it isn't in demand. What he wanted to do was buy the one everyone already liked and tear it down because he was mad about the success it had being what it was.
We can't have a fair conversation here when you get to delete my posts and then carry on with your own opinion, so I'm going to bow out here.
Just remember that your sources here are propaganda. The same sources that had people on this very forum thinking it was okay to tell me back in 2020 that I should be locked in my house with no ability to have any sort of freedom to go back into the real world unless I blindly followed what these exact sources claimed were the truth....which subsequently we all found out were false. Don't think I've forgotten about that.
Padrino
All-Star
Much of the "news media" eats at the intersection of controversy and scandal. The simple truth of the matter is that major news media corporations absolutely adore attention-seeking subjects like Elon Musk for the ready-made headlines that such subjects constantly generate. And attention-seeking subjects like Elon Musk absolutely adore the news media despite protestations of "unfair treatment." An immensely egocentric guy like Musk is always at the ready to generate the salaciousness that major news media corporations cannot resist covering. To act as if its propaganda in any way, shape or form to cover Elon Musk's foibles as Twitter's new CEO is to misunderstand the very nature of propaganda, as well as the symbiotic relationship between wealthy narcissists and the news media.
Ok, whatever. My "opinions" are based on published facts (layoffs, published emails and Twitter posts, credit ratings, announced advertising losses, etc.) from a variety of sources and generally aren't based on any political leanings. You are reading much more into it than is there.
So, just go be happy with your conspiracy theories, I guess?
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And after promising to establish a panel to review suspended accounts and deliberate on reinstating them, we get a quick Twitter poll likely voted on by untold bots. You can’t make this **** up.
https://apnews.com/article/elon-mus...sinformation-c60bc41229339eaec5008188fa6d057c
https://apnews.com/article/elon-mus...sinformation-c60bc41229339eaec5008188fa6d057c
Insomniacal Fan
Starter
An article from nytimes about the challenges of implementing moderation, but indicates there's some interest in Mastodon from journalists
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/21/style/mastodon-twitter-adam-davidson.html
I think for professional sports, players are the key influencers. A lot seem to have presences and comfort with Instagram. I'd expect that if there was an exodus of players from twitter as a platform, Instagram might be a likely place for public sports discussion.
I enjoy reddit r/nba for general NBA discussion.
serbiangoat
Starter
Twitter is a disgraceful propaganda tool that's never made a profit, very little will change with Elon the media is just making him out to be some sort of boogie man until he folds to pressure to ban every conflicting opinion to the people who control narratives. I hope he destroys it, it's caused enough damage to people personally and the world in general.
macadocious
Starter
The fact that Twitter isn’t profitable is a disgrace to its previous regime. They don’t advertise. They don’t pay for content. They literally just need ad revenue and to maximize user engagement and sell user data like every other social media platform. It’s server storage, software engineers and sales staff + the normal business operations that any company would have to have (hr, accounting, etc.)
I have an Instagram account but still don't see the "appeal". You can post pretty photos. OK. You can do that about anywhere (Facebook, etc.). It seems like it is focused on the needs of photographers, not the sports world, news, etc. How could it replace a useful thing like Twitter?
Twitter is the modern newspaper (breaking news, sports, entertainment, etc.), along with comments. Calling it a disgraceful propaganda tool is like saying Facebook is, or Instagram is, or any other app that has user posts. I'm confused about this stance.
Twitter censors what they don't want you to hear and they magnify what they do want you to hear. It's a propaganda tool, plain and simple. You don't have to create the propaganda yourself to be a tool in the propaganda machine.
Don't forget that 2 years ago, the same people in this thread called me a conspiracy theorist and claimed they were on the side of "facts" and "science" when they came to the conclusion through those propaganda sources that the best course of action for my life moving forward would be to keep me locked in my house with no ability to ever move freely about the world again.
I never once received an apology for that and you guys certainly haven't learned your lesson about how these media companies are manipulating you. The same media corporations that lied to you about that are now pushing "published facts" about this topic? Don't pick and choose which liars you want to believe and then conveniently forget when you've been lied to. These media outlets are out to manipulate the way you think about this issue. They certainly aren't out to give you straight facts. This has been proven time and time again.
Insomniacal Fan
Starter
Spectacle is sort of central to the whole sports experience, which is why I think being photo first might be the way to go for that domain. How useful is sports news really anyway?
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Since people don't appear to be able to keep their political opinions out of this thread, it is no longer serving its intended purpose.
Since people don't appear to be able to keep their political opinions out of this thread, it is no longer serving its intended purpose.
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