Elon Musk now owns a controlling interest in Twitter;

[Borg warner]

I hate twitter. Almost every news article I read has something from twitter in it, as if Twitter was the number one most reliable news source in the country.

Elon Musk Could Save Society From Those Looking to Control It

By Brandon Morse | Apr 04, 2022 11:00 AM ET Red State.com

 

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk hasn’t even done anything with it yet, but after effectively becoming the largest shareholder of Twitter, a lot of doors that were locked shut suddenly flew open.

As Thomas LaDuke covered early Monday, Musk took his status as the richest man in the world and used his wealth to purchase up a massive chunk of shares to one of the most influential and yet diseased social media platforms in the west. He obtained 9.2 percent of the company, in fact, and the resulting control shift sent Twitter’s stock skyrocketing like a SpaceX rocket — a whopping 25 percent.

(BREAKING: Elon Musk Makes a Huge Move Buying up Billions in Twitter Stock)

The move had been teased with Musk making the statement that “Free speech is essential to a functioning Democracy,” followed by questions about what should be done about Twitter, the “de facto public town square.” Musk, as he tends to do, made a move that changes everything not long after. The question now is: What will Musk change and how will that change us? Firstly, we need to focus on something that another famous man once said. The comedian Dave Chappelle commented that he was being mobbed by transgender activists on Twitter after being accused of being “transphobic.” He commented that he didn’t care, because Twitter isn’t a real place, and he’s right.

It doesn’t mean it can’t be.

For years, people were thrown off the platform for merely saying things that rubbed the hard-left sentiments of Twitter’s hard-left employees the wrong way. It became increasingly clear that Twitter’s terms of service were, like the pirate’s code, more guidelines than actual rules. If someone said something that hurt the ego, the Twitter employee could somehow label the person saying it as dangerous and have them banned. One notable example is Carpe Donktum, a conservative meme maker who oftentimes created hilarious and effective videos that made the left look bad and Trump look good. Donktum never actually did anything wrong and if he broke any rules he complied with Twitter’s takedown demands. At one point, he made a hilarious video about CNN’s habit of misreporting the news. Twitter told him to take it down after the creator of the original video requested it, which Donktum did. A few days later Twitter issued him a suspension notice out of nowhere with no way to get his account back.

 

As Jennifer Van Laar commented at the time, despite complying with every demand of Twitter and never actually breaking any rules, Donktum was tossed off the platform in 2020. He was banned, not for breaking any rules but because he was capable of doing something the left couldn’t do, and that was effectively making people laugh at his political opposites. Two years prior to this in 2018, I covered how the bias at Twitter had grown out of control to the point where actual threats were being made against the children of right-wing figures and Twitter was doing absolutely nothing about it. Meanwhile, they were suspending conservatives for merely stating that Islamic extremists were committing violence against the innocent, which they were. This was accompanied by footage from Project Veritas that showed employees admitting they were banning pro-Trump Twitter users off of the platform for simply being pro-Trump.

 

Most recently, the satirists at Babylon Bee had their account suspended for making a joke about Rachel Levine, the transgender activist currently serving as our nation’s Assistant Secretary of Health, being “man of the year.” They’ve refused to take the offending tweet down.

Chappelle’s comment that Twitter isn’t a real place is correct, but that statement is only correct because the town square is controlled so tightly by leftists that the conversation became artificial. There are far fewer right-leaning voices on the platform than there were a decade ago and those of us that are still there are limited in terms of what we can say.

Musk can end the tyrannical hold on the conversation, and to be sure, that seems to be his aim. How or when he’ll start to do this is still up in the air, but judging by Musk’s love of doing things instead of complaining about them, the changes may happen rapidly. When they do, the town square will become more full than it’s ever been, and what’s more, even louder than before.

No longer will the leftists on Twitter have their home-field advantage. They can’t rely on Twitter to silence their opposition for them, and conversations will have to take place on equal ground. Many of those who were kicked off the platform will come flooding back and the left will be forced to engage with more voices who won’t be silenced for speaking the truth now. For a time, the platform will become a warzone of ideas that I’m not sure the radical leftists that rule the platform can win. I’ve spoken before of a second Rennaisance that would need to occur in our society in order to get it back on track. It would begin when the people decide they’d had enough of the nonsense we see when we get online from activists of every kind. I said something would have to break eventually.

 

It did with Musk’s takeover of Twitter:

Today we can look around see that things are in a state of pure lunacy. Just logging onto a social media website opens up a world where the news is selling you blood and conflict amidst a population that gobbles it up while signaling virtue after virtue and offering little to nothing in terms of real substance. We have regressed as Sagan said, but something is going to break. People are going to get tired of the nonsense and noise and look for a better way. They’ll refuse to slide back any further, turning, instead, to the wisdom of those who came before us in order to pave the road ahead with knowledge and a thirst for something better.

The second renaissance may not happen today or even in the next few years, but I do believe it’s on the horizon. Humanity has never been one to love wallowing in the mud for long, and soon society will reject those who wish to keep us there and move on to something greater.  Musk’s purchasing of Twitter may be the first sign of a second Rennaisance. Opening up the town square for free discussion is a big deal, and without the careful curating of the radical left, society will be shown ideas and concepts that they hadn’t previously been allowed to see or openly talk about.

Don’t get me wrong, it won’t be pretty, at least at first. Freedom and chaos are cousins and the tumultuousness of having so many opposing voices added all at once will cause quite an uproar, but eventually, that will level out. From there, the open debate will allow good ideas to float to the top, and with good ideas shining as they should, society may very well find itself changing along with it.

Actual science may shine through, biology respected, jokes allowed to be made freely again, sacred cows demolished left and right, and much, much more.

The future is much brighter.

[Fog]

Musk made himself a lot of money with Twitster so far, he could dump and run, and laugh all the way to the bank.

Or, he could back up what he has said and make changes, which it seems about 70-80% of the country wants him to do. If he did the stock would go even higher and he could dump and run, and then laugh all the way to buying a few banks.

We'll see, some of his public statements indicate his thinking trends more in line with conservatives, but then he praises china and invests heavily there, which pretty much makes him an enemy of America.

I don't think anybody outside his inner circle know his plans and they have not said yet.

[MO Fugga]

Already has Starlink operational in Ukraine, with more hardware on the way. Not much more effort than altering the orbits of scores of satellites, and airlifting ****. This man is personally capable of things than bog down every government.

[ChuteTheMall]

Imagine if Musk restored free speech, and brought back Trump and the Babylon Bee

[Paul53]

So he is so overloaded with money that the best idea he has to spend some is  buying a big chunk of Twitter? Feeding the starving, curing the dying, housing the homeless are too boring?

Suddenly I understand that "Alices' Adventure in Wonderland" isn't whimsical fantasy, it's just the daily news report.

[gwalchmai]

7 hours ago, Paul53 said:

So he is so overloaded with money that the best idea he has to spend some is  buying a big chunk of Twitter? Feeding the starving, curing the dying, housing the homeless are too boring?

"Feeding the starving, curing the dying, housing the homeless" are not possible. Never have been. Musk could expend every cent he has and in less than ten years every one of these would be back like when he started. OTOH, changing the direction of a major social media platform/publisher/whatever_tf_they_call_it can make a significant difference in our public discourse, move our country back toward the representative democracy our founders intended, and give those starving, dying, and homeless real hope for the future. 

[Mrs.Cicero]

Restoring free speech, and using that to restore property rights, would feed more people and save more lives in the long run than spending it all feeding today’s starving and Ill.  But going with the highly emotionally rewarding immediate but temporary “solution” is why we have never solved hunger or the availability of medical treatment, and why we never will.

[Paul53]

Guess his 9 Billion dollar worth isn't that useful after-all.

[ChuteTheMall]

"Gee, it's like nobody ever invested in media before. " - Gutenberg

[Fog]

12 hours ago, Paul53 said:

So he is so overloaded with money that the best idea he has to spend some is  buying a big chunk of Twitter? Feeding the starving, curing the dying, housing the homeless are too boring?

Suddenly I understand that "Alices' Adventure in Wonderland" isn't whimsical fantasy, it's just the daily news report.

I read this and it tells me you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the world works and how people act.

Most starving people are there because of choices they made, compounded by in many areas of the world by tyranny.

Dying is a fact of life, it can be delayed by hygiene, healthy living, and in some cases medical intervention. Most life expectancy statistics are improved by lowering infant and child mortality, which is directly affected by parental responsibility and proper nutrition.

Homeless people, like starving people, are mostly there by choice. 

The only thing anyone can do to improve any of the societal metrics is to provide equal opportunity and punish corruption. 

Almost every program out there to help starving, homeless, and diseased people actually rewards the poor choices and behavior by rewarding them. They treat symptoms without accountability and people are worse off after being "helped".

Charities today exist to employ the people doing the "helping", they are more desperate than the people they claim to help.

If money could solve the problem it would have been erased long ago. Anyone that believes otherwise is free to give all that they have and see what the results are. Demanding that others give is hypocrisy.

[pipedreams]

Twitter Employees Express Their Unhappiness About Musk Being the Largest Shareholder

"As the western world celebrates Tesla CEO Elon Musk becoming the largest shareholder in the online “de-facto public square,” some of the employees at Twitter aren’t at all pleased about the development.

And no wonder. Twitter is something of a hard-left cesspool encased in an ideological bubble so thick that they seem to think death threats against anyone to the right of Marx is a-okay. They’re especially okay if they disagree with the mainstream transgender narrative and will only react if a large enough person brings the issue to the public’s attention"

https://redstate.com/brandon_morse/2022/04/05/twitter-employees-express-their-unhappiness-about-musk-being-the-largest-shareholder-in-twitter-n545736

"While it’s unclear when or what Musk will do with his shares, what is clear is that Musk is doing this to make moves within the company to shake up its policies and bring more sanity to the platform.

If that is the case, then these radical leftists and ideological identitarians should absolutely be worried about the company culture. Currently, the culture is hateful, exclusionary, and highly bigoted. There is a clear bias toward the hard-left and anyone expressing ideas that run contrary to theirs will find themselves having a hard time with Twitter’s ban hammer. Many conservatives have been kicked off the platform and many of them never even broke any of its rules. This includes President Donald Trump."

[Borg warner]

This is an actual post from a Twitter employee but I photoshopped my reply since I'm not a tweety bird and I don't do Twitter.

 

[gwalchmai]

2 hours ago, Fog said:

Almost every program out there to help starving, homeless, and diseased people actually rewards the poor choices and behavior by rewarding them.

You channeling the Veep?

[railfancwb]

13 hours ago, gwalchmai said:

"Feeding the starving, curing the dying, housing the homeless" are not possible. Never have been. Musk could expend every cent he has and in less than ten years every one of these would be back like when he started. OTOH, changing the direction of a major social media platform/publisher/whatever_tf_they_call_it can make a significant difference in our public discourse, move our country back toward the representative democracy our founders intended, and give those starving, dying, and homeless real hope for the future. 

Christ said “The poor you always have with you.”

[Fog]

6 hours ago, gwalchmai said:

You channeling the Veep?

 

Nah, even at my worst I make more sense than she does.

[railfancwb]

Possibly the most successful program this nation has had allowing/encouraging/forcing people to work and better themselves was FDR’s CCC/WPA program during the depression. Rather than simply giving money to people as welfare does now, it gave them jobs and paid them for work. Some would say this was socialist/communist make work. However, many of the hiking trails and rest areas, government buildings and parks, and other improvements are still serving the public 90 years later. Today’s free money for existing will provide nothing to the general public and only fleeting benefit to recipients. 

[gwalchmai]

6 hours ago, railfancwb said:

Possibly the most successful program this nation has had allowing/encouraging/forcing people to work and better themselves was FDR’s CCC/WPA program during the depression. Rather than simply giving money to people as welfare does now, it gave them jobs and paid them for work. Some would say this was socialist/communist make work. However, many of the hiking trails and rest areas, government buildings and parks, and other improvements are still serving the public 90 years later. Today’s free money for existing will provide nothing to the general public and only fleeting benefit to recipients. 

Even I agree that such programs were relatively OK. Much more better than night basketball or cash for clunkers. But there's got to be a better way.

[LostinTexas]

All this speculation. I'll wait and see how all this shakes out.

I don't Twitter, so no dog in the fight. Doesn't matter, I'd have been banned a long time ago.

I was on GAB for a while.Extremely good idea, extremely poor execution. After the last altercation with a mod over reporting a few posts, it was time to go. I saw myself out the door with a very Petty Officer type rant and reminded the 'tard that it was free speech and he had to accept it. I didn't wait for the ban.

Unfortunately, the guy who started it is so busy expanding, he has missed a lot, or I hope he has.

[Swampfox762]

Will be interesting to see if he lets Trump back on.  I don't think he's got the balls.

[LostinTexas]

21 minutes ago, Swampfox762 said:

Will be interesting to see if he lets Trump back on.  I don't think he's got the balls.

Recon if he really has the pull? 9% is "controlling" interest, but I wonder if he is sitting on the board yet, or when it will happen.

[minervadoe]

1 hour ago, LostinTexas said:

Recon if he really has the pull? 9% is "controlling" interest, but I wonder if he is sitting on the board yet, or when it will happen.

Elon Musk joins Twitter board after amassing massive stake

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/elon-musk-join-twitters-board-83883243

 

Like you said, we will have to wait and see how this plays out.

[ChuteTheMall]

Some people are upset that an African-American is now Twitter's largest stockholder. 

[railfancwb]

54 minutes ago, ChuteTheMall said:

Some people are upset that an African-American is now Twitter's largest stockholder. 

Thought he is African-Canadian (unless he added American citizenship). Regardless, your point is well made. 

[Swampfox762]

1 hour ago, ChuteTheMall said:

Some people are upset that an African-American is now Twitter's largest stockholder. 

He's not African American as far as I can tell nor is his mother or father.  His  father was born in south Africa and his mother was born in Canadian. Both white as hell.

[LostinTexas]

3 minutes ago, Swampfox762 said:

He's not African American as far as I can tell nor is his mother or father.  His  father was born in south Africa and his mother was born in Canadian. Both white as hell.

Plenty of Africans aren't black. Its a big continent. Seems Daddy-o is a real African as far as country.