Elon Musk and Twitter Reach Deal for Sale (1 Viewer)

[SaintForLife]

Elon Musk struck a deal on Monday to buy Twitter for roughly $44 billion, in a victory by the world’s richest man to take over the influential social network frequented by world leaders, celebrities and cultural trendsetters.

Twitter agreed to sell itself to Mr. Musk for $54.20 a share, a 38 percent premium over the company’s share price this month before he revealed he was the firm’s single largest shareholder. It would be the largest deal to take a company private — something Mr. Musk has said he will do with Twitter — in at least two decades, according to data compiled by Dealogic.

“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Mr. Musk said in a statement announcing the deal. “Twitter has tremendous potential — I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”

The deal, which has been unanimously approved by Twitter’s board, is expected to close this year, subject to a vote of Twitter shareholders and certain regulatory approvals.

The blockbuster agreement caps what had seemed an improbable attempt by the famously mercurial Mr. Musk, 50, to buy the social media company — and immediately raises questions about what he will do with the platform and how his actions will affect online speech globally.

Elon Musk and Twitter Reach Deal for Sale

Twitter agreed to be taken over at $54.20 a share, a 38 percent premium over the share price before it was revealed that Mr. Musk had been buying up the company’s stock.

www-nytimes-com.cdn.ampproject.org

If Musk does what he claims he wants to do it will be a big improvement and good for free speech.

 

[Nebaghead]

Just asking, not challenging. How credible is the source of that?

Further on the “protected user list”. A real code person has looked at the screen shot I posted and dismissed it as false. However, they were then contacted directly and shown the actual version of what was found, which isn’t the screen shot that was made public and they now say this:

Typically something like this wouldn’t be hard coded, it would be a database/table with users that gets looked up. You don’t send out code base to tens of thousands of servers with lists like this, it’s not efficient. If they do, Twitter has bigger problems than Elon.

 

[MT15]

Typically something like this wouldn’t be hard coded, it would be a database/table with users that gets looked up. You don’t send out code base to tens of thousands of servers with lists like this, it’s not efficient. If they do, Twitter has bigger problems than Elon.

Yeah that is me trying to sound like I know what I am talking about. The person I quoted above has a fairly long thread looking into to it. I would take even money right now that Musk is exempting his favorite posters from the terms of service. Just look at Andrew Tate’s account if you doubt that he is exempt.

 

[MT15]

Twitter is losing much of its revenue, as Musk seems to be taking a more active role. Certain accounts get away with using language that is racist, sexist and homophobic (all are right wing) while the rest of us are punished sometimes in excess of the rules. There are still a fair amount of decent posters left, and I have curated my feed by liberally blocking accounts, so that my feed isn’t terrible.

 

[MT15]

Musk continues to tweet fake stories, doing absolutely zero to verify what he retweets. Either he is actively sowing disinformation or he is cognitively impaired.

 

[LA - L.A.]

Musk continues to tweet fake stories, doing absolutely zero to verify what he retweets. Either he is actively sowing disinformation or he is cognitively impaired.

It's probably both.

Trump and his minions have figured out this isn't 2016 or 2020 anymore. Faked videos aren't going to fool enough people to make a difference anymore, because people are more savvy and aware of them and every faked video gets quickly exposed as fakes to the people who see them.

All faked videos do is remind people that you can't trust the people who are trying to benefit from faked videos. The faked videos hurt Trump and his minions more than it helps them. They mistakenly think everyone else is fooled by the faked videos that they are fooled by.

 

[Bigdaddysaints]

Musk continues to tweet fake stories, doing absolutely zero to verify what he retweets. Either he is actively sowing disinformation or he is cognitively impaired.

whats the over under if someone made an altered AI version of a Musk video, that that user would be banned before the first person could hit share...

And could you imagine the outrage the MAGAs would have if Zuck made a video like this about Trump and posted it on Facebook?

 

[MT15]

Twitter has suspended yet another account that supports Harris. No word on why yet that I’m aware of.

 

[Nebaghead]

Twitter has suspended yet another account that supports Harris. No word on why yet that I’m aware of.

Our rules being Elon doesn’t like them.

 

[Bigdaddysaints]

i wonder how fast he would suspend an account that posted an AI video of him like he did Harris?

 

[RobF]

Musk currently seems to be amplifying right-wing propaganda inflaming the situation in the UK, where there have been riots due to propaganda falsely blaming an illegal immigrant for the knife attack on a children's dance class that killed three children. Tweeting things like 'civil war is inevitable', and responding to further inflammatory propaganda from people like Tommy Robinson - previously banned from Twitter, reinstated by Musk.

Hard to be a responsible social media platform when the owner is wildly irresponsible.

 

[MT15]

Musk currently seems to be amplifying right-wing propaganda inflaming the situation in the UK, where there have been riots due to propaganda falsely blaming an illegal immigrant for the knife attack on a children's dance class that killed three children. Tweeting things like 'civil war is inevitable', and responding to further inflammatory propaganda from people like Tommy Robinson - previously banned from Twitter, reinstated by Musk.

Hard to be a responsible social media platform when the owner is wildly irresponsible.

Don’t you all have firmer laws in the UK? Can he be dealt with, at least over there?

 

[RobF]

Don’t you all have firmer laws in the UK? Can he be dealt with, at least over there?

Kind of? Musk's stuff is certainly getting attention: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/05/no-10-criticises-elon-musk-post-x-riots

But I think the laws generally are firmer in some areas, similar in others. E.g. libel laws saw this other clown fined £180,000 recently for lashing out and defaming others on twitter: https://www.theguardian.com/culture...00-pounds-to-two-people-he-called-paedophiles

But libelous comments directed to or clearly about an individual are one thing, amplifying inflammatory propaganda is more nuanced. Especially if it's subjective, or if it's about a true, but highly atypical, incident being misrepresented as typical, for example.

 

[MT15]

Kind of? Musk's stuff is certainly getting attention: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/05/no-10-criticises-elon-musk-post-x-riots

But I think the laws generally are firmer in some areas, similar in others. E.g. libel laws saw this other clown fined £180,000 recently for lashing out and defaming others on twitter: https://www.theguardian.com/culture...00-pounds-to-two-people-he-called-paedophiles

But libelous comments directed to or clearly about an individual are one thing, amplifying inflammatory propaganda is more nuanced. Especially if it's subjective, or if it's about a true, but highly atypical, incident being misrepresented as typical, for example.

I wonder if a bunch of people who were harmed could band together and do a class-action type lawsuit? Do you have those?

 

[LA - L.A.]

Kind of? Musk's stuff is certainly getting attention: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/05/no-10-criticises-elon-musk-post-x-riots

But I think the laws generally are firmer in some areas, similar in others. E.g. libel laws saw this other clown fined £180,000 recently for lashing out and defaming others on twitter: https://www.theguardian.com/culture...00-pounds-to-two-people-he-called-paedophiles

But libelous comments directed to or clearly about an individual are one thing, amplifying inflammatory propaganda is more nuanced. Especially if it's subjective, or if it's about a true, but highly atypical, incident being misrepresented as typical, for example.

Someone needs to goad Musk into trash talking the royals.

 

[LA - L.A.]

Elon Musk is clearly a key player in the global far right fascist push to subvert and overthrow the world's democracies.

Elon Musk says ‘civil war is inevitable’ as UK rocked by far-right riots. He’s part of the problem | CNN Business

Social media has played a big role in fueling the anti-immigration riots engulfing towns and cities in the United Kingdom.

www.cnn.com

 

[MT15]

And now Twitter is suing companies who quit advertising with them, according to Linda Y.

Also, Twitter just dinged this post for “hateful conduct” while allowing the worst of anti-Semitic, racist, homophobic and misogynistic posts to stand.

 

[LA - L.A.]

I think I just found out why Elon lashed out at Xi recently with a tweet.

China launches satellites to rival SpaceX’s Starlink in boost for its space ambitions | CNN

China has taken a major step forward in its bid to create a rival to SpaceX’s Starlink this week by launching the first of what it hopes will be a constellation of 14,000 satellites beaming broadband internet coverage from space.

www.cnn.com

 

[bird]

I think I just found out why Elon lashed out at Xi recently with a tweet.

China launches satellites to rival SpaceX’s Starlink in boost for its space ambitions | CNN

China has taken a major step forward in its bid to create a rival to SpaceX’s Starlink this week by launching the first of what it hopes will be a constellation of 14,000 satellites beaming broadband internet coverage from space.

www.cnn.com

While Xi is ultimately more of a concern Musk is definitely dangerous.