Musk Takes 9.2% Stake In Twitter

[disneysteve]

Vibrant community? Membership is down at X, as well as Facebook. X is full of porn, misinformation/scam/conspiracies, it's basically turned into a right-wing cesspool and major sources of revenue have since pulled out. The place has turned into a real dump. Facebook is next. For Twitter/X, that has meant a 75% loss in value of the company since Musk acquired it, and sharp losses were expected to be posted for 2024.

It's true, private companies should be run how the owner wants them to be run. If that's censorship, then it's censorship. If it's a free-for-all, then, whatever. They all deserve what they sell, right?

Funny (well not really) to see this thread again. It certainly hasn't aged well. Folks who said Musk wouldn't change things and was only buying Twitter as an investment were clearly wrong. He destroyed the platform and has lost millions of dollars in the process. Advertising dried up and boatloads of users, myself included, closed their accounts and moved on. It turned into a cesspool of hate and conspiracy theories which drove away millions of users.

With the latest announcement that Facebook will end fact-checking, they are next in line to fall. which is unfortunate because despite all of it's problems, I still like FB and use messaging and Marketplace regularly. The one big advantage FB has over Twitter is that everything isn't public. I can control who my friends are and who can see my posts unlike Twitter where everyone sees everything.

[james.hendrickson]

Vibrant community? Membership is down at X, as well as Facebook. X is full of porn, misinformation/scam/conspiracies, it's basically turned into a right-wing cesspool and major sources of revenue have since pulled out. The place has turned into a real dump. Facebook is next. For Twitter/X, that has meant a 75% loss in value of the company since Musk acquired it, and sharp losses were expected to be posted for 2024.

It's true, private companies should be run how the owner wants them to be run. If that's censorship, then it's censorship. If it's a free-for-all, then, whatever. They all deserve what they sell, right?

UA_Guy, Musk says engagement is up.

[ua_guy]

UA_Guy, Musk says engagement is up.

Musk says a lot of things that I take with a grain of salt. The company being private means they don't have to report a lot of information that a public company would. It is whatever he says it is, for now. I doubt engagement is up, maybe by a smaller cohort, as social media membership is fracturing with the addition of Bluesky

[disneysteve]

Musk says engagement is up.

Of course he does. Do you really expect him to tell the truth? He rarely has about anything else. Plus, what does "engagement" mean? I'd be very curious to see accurate numbers for active users. I'd bet anything that has dropped. I personally know dozens of people who closed their accounts.

[disneysteve]

social media membership is fracturing with the addition of Bluesky

I have to admit that so far I've been extremely unimpressed with Bluesky. All I get is a string of strangers following my account who I constantly have to block. They all have profile pictures of attractive young Asian women so they're either sex workers (which I have nothing against but don't need following me) or they are fronts for more unseemly accounts.

I was hoping Bluesky would be more like Facebook where my account was private except for the folks I choose to connect with but it's more like Twitter where everything is public. I don't care for that at all.

[ua_guy]

I have to admit that so far I've been extremely unimpressed with Bluesky. All I get is a string of strangers following my account who I constantly have to block. They all have profile pictures of attractive young Asian women so they're either sex workers (which I have nothing against but don't need following me) or they are fronts for more unseemly accounts.

I was hoping Bluesky would be more like Facebook where my account was private except for the folks I choose to connect with but it's more like Twitter where everything is public. I don't care for that at all.

I didn't see any benefit to joining. My other half did, and he seems to enjoy it. Apparently it's become quite an oasis for those who are fed up with Zuck and Musk's BS.

[disneysteve]

I didn't see any benefit to joining. My other half did, and he seems to enjoy it. Apparently it's become quite an oasis for those who are fed up with Zuck and Musk's BS.

I admittedly haven't spent a lot of time there. I'll have to give it more of a chance. I still like FB since I only see my friends' content. I don't want to see stuff from strangers.

[myrdale]

I have to admit that so far I've been extremely unimpressed with Bluesky. All I get is a string of strangers following my account who I constantly have to block......
I was hoping Bluesky would be more like Facebook.....

I have a friend who I met online years ago, he is around 80. Over the past year he has had a significant change in his mental capability, to the point he has retired from the online game. Mutual friends have told me he has been scammed out of more that $100,000 from a person who claims to be a single mother in her 30's he met through Facebook. Looking at his Facebook profile, nearly half of the some 300 people he is friends with are women who appear to be 20-30 with half naked profile photos.

Honestly with him I don't know where the line is drawn between elder abuse / scam / dirty old man / lonely / he should have known better, but Facebook appears to have played a significant part in his financial ruin.

At least like you said you can keep Facebook locked down, but if you don't there is a lot of trash out there.

[disneysteve]

I have a friend who I met online years ago, he is around 80. Over the past year he has had a significant change in his mental capability, to the point he has retired from the online game. Mutual friends have told me he has been scammed out of more that $100,000 from a person who claims to be a single mother in her 30's he met through Facebook. Looking at his Facebook profile, nearly half of the some 300 people he is friends with are women who appear to be 20-30 with half naked profile photos.

Honestly with him I don't know where the line is drawn between elder abuse / scam / dirty old man / lonely / he should have known better, but Facebook appears to have played a significant part in his financial ruin.

At least like you said you can keep Facebook locked down, but if you don't there is a lot of trash out there.

That's a shame. I definitely get "friend" requests from people on FB who I don't know and are probably scammers. The profile pics are always attractive young women. I just decline and block, but I still have the mental capacity to do so. It's very easy to see how easy it would be for someone to get scammed though. I see it with my mom all the time.

[myrdale]

I do have a Twitter account, but honestly I've never used it. I probably made it 15 years ago, and the last time I recall logging in was when Beirut exploded to see a copy of the video. I don't think I have ever actually posted a tweet. I just never saw the medium as appealing.

[disneysteve]

I do have a Twitter account, but honestly I've never used it. I probably made it 15 years ago, and the last time I recall logging in was when Beirut exploded to see a copy of the video. I don't think I have ever actually posted a tweet. I just never saw the medium as appealing.

I was mainly “read-only” on Twitter. It was a great platform for following prominent people whether political or entertainment or business or whatever. Also for following important services for timely updates like our local police and fire departments and news agencies. That’s often where I learned of local traffic issues, water main breaks, stuff like that. But I closed my account due to Musk’s BS so not any more.

[EasyMoney00]

UA_Guy, Musk says engagement is up.

It probably is. Before, it was 90% bots. Not sure if that's under control now. I never used Twitter or TikTok.

Where do all the left leaners go now? They're going to start hating on Facebook since zuck said no more with censorship. They abandoned Twitter since there is now freedom. Guess they'll have to start writing to pen pals again...if people even remember what that was.

[disneysteve]

Wild that you equate freedom with misinformation and fact-checking with censorship. Personally I’m much more interested in the truth.

[EasyMoney00]

Wild that you equate freedom with misinformation and fact-checking with censorship. Personally I’m much more interested in the truth.

Then you'll love community notes. Facebook will be implementing this instead of some blue haired human who has an agenda. Imagine that sort of person moderating content. But, they're private companies, they can do what they want.

[ua_guy]

It probably is. Before, it was 90% bots. Not sure if that's under control now. I never used Twitter or TikTok.

Where do all the left leaners go now? They're going to start hating on Facebook since zuck said no more with censorship. They abandoned Twitter since there is now freedom. Guess they'll have to start writing to pen pals again...if people even remember what that was.

Bluesky is the better platform, and it was developed by Jack Dorsey (is that name familiar?) to basically be what Twitter was in its heyday before it was sold and destroyed. lol.

Facebook was garbage before and after the change. And no, the bot/scammer problem on X has not been solved. It really hasn't been solved anywhere, but it's really, really bad on X according to those who still use it.

To DS' comment, you're confusing "freedom" with something else. Do you know that Musk has altered his platform to only show certain viewpoints he blesses? I know a number of people who were part of the community reviewer program. Basically, the community of users are able to independently fact-check claims on Twitter. They had a lot of success debunking political lies, both foreign and domestic, and then just before the 2024 election, that all changed. Their efforts were no longer effective, and false information was actively being promoted by the platform.