Comment by bmelton
2 years ago
I'll take the hit here.
I thought electric vehicles were a really dumb idea. Too many problems to be solved for. Range. Charging. Depreciation. Getting people to switch. All of the other infrastructure. Now it's what everyone does, and Tesla is (last I checked) one of the very few EV makers that is able to make a profit on EVs, while upstarts in the space (including Ford) are losing money on every EV sale.
I thought self-landing rockets was a dumb idea.
I thought Starlink was a dumb idea.
I think a lot of what Elon is doing now is a very dumb idea, but as a Twitter user with friends across the political spectrum, I have seen what has appeared to be a suppression of speech that largely affected my right leaning friends, while my left leaning friends gloated about it. I've watched journalists like Taylor Lorenz break the rules with impunity while journalists on the right were deplatformed for doing less.
This is clearly a departure, and I would argue that many right leaning friends were hoping that Elon would stop the pendulum swing, I don't think any were expecting the pendulum to swing back the other way so hard. Elon's actions have seemed arbitrary, but a) Every change looks bad when you don't know their motivations, and b) I've been wrong about Elon's entire life to this point.
It's possible that he's done surveys or polls or gotten data indicating that fear of doxxing is a thing that is meaningfully suppressing Twitter engagement. It is possible that he knows what he's doing, but it isn't what he's said he's doing and it definitely isn't what we expected him to be doing.
I don't know the answer to those questions, and so I don't know if he's ruining Twitter or just transforming it into something that it hasn't been, and I'm mindful of the fact that practically every single change that Twitter has ever made has been received as "the end of Twitter," from verified accounts, to changing their API ToS, to blocking apps, to suing users with any vague reference to 'tweet' in their apps, to bookmarks, analytics, 280 characters, etc., etc.
Agreed, well said.
Elon's had a busy productive life, and my take on my University friends who've had busy productive lives is that they now have the self-insight of a baked potato, roughly. No doubt because they haven't had spare time to reflect on their actions or motivations. But that doesn't mean they can't self-correct, it just means they usually have to run into a brick wall or two before they do. I'm guessing he'll correct this latest boner.
I'm still highly critical of what Musk is doing (again, without knowing the 'why') but something that seems important and is going unnoticed is that while the previous administration's actions were just as arbitrary and capricious, they almost always related to events that were popular topics of discussion like recent elections, a global pandemic, and other things that are naturally topics of discussion.
I think the current rules are likely just as dumb, but the number of people likely to be suspended for doxxing Elon or posting about Mastodon is undoubtedly a MUCH smaller segment of the population.
It's amusing watching the reactions to it. I've run enough communities in the past to appreciate how many times you have to make decisions that go against your personal ethics for the sake of the community. Everyone draws different lines on the sand on what they consider "free" speech, and anything closely resembling what is protected in America will likely get you into trouble internationally. Elon is finding out that it's hard, and while it may seem like he's setting his lines in untenable spots, it seems just as possible to me that we're all wrong and he isn't.
You're right, about the previous Twitter administration and how it worked. Take away this (big) pinch and Twitter can be a real improvement on the last version.
I have trouble swallowing this abuse of market power because the courts and govts have allowed so much such abuse for so long. It's a big issue for me (and the EU.) Without that context, I might find it easier to shrug off.
No question, speech and community make for interesting decisions; if he can stay within the law, he'll have a fair bit of leeway from me.