Elon Musk offers to buy Twitter

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

Twitter is a basket case, loses money, makes money for a couple of years and goes onto lose it again.

I can only assume he secured ~50% in loans and leveraged buy out loans due to the fact that Twitter has such a mass of users (and that he put up ~50%) that it probably wont depreciate too much.

Another interesting thing is Musk's interesting past with shutting down those who have criticised him online, plus being aggressive to unfriendly reporters. Wonder how his new free speech drive will tie in with them.

Despite what Musk has said about free speech lets not forget he has a history of saying things to get what he wants. The right to free speech as laid down in the First Amendment does not prohibit private citizens, businesses, and organisations from restricting speech. If it suits him he'll shut down free speech in a heartbeat.

 

[Bonzo Nododo]

How dare he spend his own money to make Twitter allow more freedom of speech!!!
He should be keeping it in his own pocket or funding Fred Karnos Democrat Army like the owners of the filthy rich US corporations who have become so rich through out and out capitalist business.

 

[Citizen of Legoland]

Don‘t know why but he reminds me of a Bond villain.

More like an Austin Powers villain …

 

[kippaxwarrior]

Only a matter of time before the Scousers claimed him and twitter .....

 

[BlueHammer85]

Twitter is just Troll paradise

 

[mexico1970]

Twitter is just Troll paradise

The BBC has dragged out every excuse why someone can't buy a private company. Stars and vultures alike announcing that they will leave the platform and it's a sad day for democracy.

These people wouldn't know what democracy looked like if it slapped them in the fizzog ;)

 

[blueinsa]

Hopefully his plan is to send it on his first rocket to Mars with a one way ticket!

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

I'm fortunate (/unfortunate?) to have a pretty large following on there and honestly I don't have to seek out these spats and cranks. I can tweet the most inane, harmless thing and be inundated with utter shite, and I defo don't follow dickheads either. It can be very tiring. I'm not complaining, but just pointing out that people's experiences wildly differ. I'm a white, straight bloke in my 30s too. It's meant to be relatively easy for me. Can't imagine what it's like just being a woman on there, never mind openly gay etc.

You’ve made yourself known on there, so opened yourself up to comments from all sorts of people from sound to pond life.

I guess we all put up with more than we should in the workplace at times and Twitter is yours and so you have to suck it up there.

I assume that most people with larger followings use the mute and block button and/or don’t real all replies as it would sent them insane.

I don’t envy you on having to deal with that side of Twitter though.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

Getting people cancelled isn't a thing.

Cancelled is an American slang term that millennial Americans used when cutting off a friend.

You can withdraw support from somebody but you can't really force others to do so.

People claiming to have been cancelled for their views are usually just getting the consequences of their bad behaviour and misconduct.

Cancel culture lives in the same distortion of reality as PC gone mad and "Woke culture".

True, but it doesn’t stop people wanting people to be cancelled.

Look at Zouma, for instance. He did something extremely stupid. He’s been punished by having his cats taken off him and he’ll have his day in court where he‘ll get a fine too.

Twitter wanted him sacked! Just one example of the overexaggeration on there.

 

[inbetween]

Despite what Musk has said about free speech lets not forget he has a history of saying things to get what he wants. The right to free speech as laid down in the First Amendment does not prohibit private citizens, businesses, and organisations from restricting speech. If it suits him he'll shut down free speech in a heartbeat.

Musk attracts the harshest critics and I don't think he's ever attempted to shut that criticism down? He's been hit hard over the years and many want him to fail but that's because he is a challenge to the established order of things. He is however the only true big tech person that is out there to make things better and no-one can deny his success. He certainly isn't there to count his money like the other billionaires that's for sure.

What people don't like about this acquisition is that Twitter is useful to them as an anonymous political platform. I think he sees this as being beyond politics because Twitter really does have huge potential to become a universal communications platform. Currently it can't be freely used for that because it has been taken over by political acolytes and trolls. You can't say anything on there without some keyboard warrior having a problem with it.

Twitter has huge potential and I'm not surprised at all that he's bought it. By the sounds of it the first thing he'll do is solve the biggest problem on there which is anonymity by mandating verification. As soon as people are unmasked you can absolutely guarantee that 'free speech' will change considerably from what it used to be...