No One Wants To Buy Twitter (theverge.com) 316
At one point, it seemed that many were interested in purchasing the micro-blogging social platform (which now calls itself a news service) Twitter, but its fate is quickly drying up. Salesforce (which couldn't buy LinkedIn) showed the most interest in Twitter, but this week its CEO Marc Benioff said his company has "walked away" from making a bid to buy it. The Verge sums up the situation: If you're keeping track, that's now... pretty much everyone who's said they're not interested in buying Twitter. Neither Google nor Disney plan to bid on Twitter, despite reports saying both were interested. Recode says that Apple is likely also out of the picture. And Verizon immediately dismissed speculation that it was considering a bid. Facebook is also said to be uninterested, according to CNBC. And while Microsoft's name has been tossed around, no one seems to think the acquisition would make any sense for an increasingly enterprise-focused company.The situation is so bad that as soon as the news of Salesforce withdrawing its name from the bidding race broke, its stock quickly went up by 6 percent, while Twitter's stock registered a 6 percent drop.
I want to buy Twitter. (Score:3, Insightful)
I have a nice crisp clean $5 bill here I'll be happy to pay for them. I'll even throw in a bag of doughnuts.
Anyone want to outbid me? Anyone?
Yaz
Re: (Score:2)
$5 and a bag of doughnuts? I think you're overpaying.
I want to buy SnapChat (Score:2)
I'll guess I'll keep $5 on hand and pick it up in a few years.
It's going to be fun watching that ridiculous app go the way of MySpace and Twatter.
Re: (Score:2)
I'll pay $10 if they promise to just shut down.
Re:I want to buy Twitter. (Score:5, Informative)
That's cute and everything, but when you buy a company you take on its liabilities[1]. I suspect that's why so companies are looking under the veil and walking away from the altar.
[1] Unless you're this jumped-up barrow boy [wikipedia.org], apparently.
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That's cute and everything, but when you buy a company you take on its liabilities[1]. I suspect that's why so companies are looking under the veil and walking away from the altar.
That's what I suspect as well. Their liabilities are probably well beyond their real estate, securities, and physical holdings, such that they aren't even worth buying as a fire sale.
Still, if I were to incorporate and pay myself some crazy amount to dismantle the company, that $5 + bag of doughnuts investment could pay off nicely...
Yaz
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In principle, if you buy a company, your risk exposure is limited to your investment (that's what the "limited" in the companies' names mean). That's why you don't lose your house when you own stock in a company, even if it goes bust with billions in debt (see Enron there).
Of course if the investment is big and/or you intend to use capital to prop up it, or you incorporate it in your own company, the risks are different. But for a private person, the $5 bill is all you are to lose there. And you could censo
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Corporations also have multiple owners. Of course your house isn't suddenly on the line just because you owned 0.001% of a failed corporation.
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If your $5 buys you a controlling interest, you're on the hook for things like incurred taxes, payroll due, gross negligence or fraudulent behavior. So that's a lot more than $5 you could lose.
Just doing the research to make sure the company doesn't owe taxes or payroll would cost a small fortune.
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What exactly would Twitter liabilities be? Honestly have no idea.
PS, i loved the Microsoft bit and how "no one seems to think the acquisition would make any sense for an increasingly enterprise-focused company", right after they dumped an island made of money for LinkedIn.
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Uh, you don't understand the value of LinkedIn to an enterprise focused company?
No, i really don't. Twitter is a purely consumer product - what use would tweets have within a company?
Crossing the line from consumer to enterprise is not easy, even when you're not Twitter. Facebook is, IMHO, making the same mistake with Workplace [fb.com] in world where Slack and Hangouts/gDocs already exist.
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LinkedIn has clear and obvious enterprise value, both in single sign-on and platform value and the treasure trove of backend user data.
Agreed, fair enough. Then again, there's the question of how much value is really there. LinkedIn might be deemed valuable for Microsoft, but at 26,2 billion?
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Facebook is not Twitter (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook makes about ONE BILLION dollars in profit every quarter. They have virtually no debt. You may not like social media but it's a profitable business for Facebook.
Twitter is something else.
Re: (Score:3)
The level of consumer data available is not comparable between the Twitter and Facebook platforms.
With Facebook you tell them everything: location, age, family size, education, background, employment, relationship, political leaning, posting style (mental state, personality type), browsing style (what links you like to click on, what bait do you take more often than not), what criteria causes you to like something, what you share with others, etc., etc., ad nauseum, ad infinitum. Most people even give them
Gee (Score:2, Insightful)
Who'da thought turning into a 24/7 SJW promotional/hit site wouldn't work?
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Right, in sure that put Google off, I mean can you imagine them implementing some kind of SJW bullshit real name policy on their social media sites?
More likely it's because the extreme trolling and Twitter's slow reaction to it has damaged their reputation, devaluing their brand.
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Right, in sure that put Google off, I mean can you imagine them implementing some kind of SJW bullshit real name policy on their social media sites?
Sure did, how'd it work for youtube? How's it working for every site that implements the "facebook commenting system." You should know already, very poorly. If anything the actual discourse decreases and personal attacks increase. And on top of it, the number of people deciding to try getting people fired for "wrongthink" increases.
More likely it's because the extreme trolling and Twitter's slow reaction to it has damaged their reputation, devaluing their brand.
Someone has never been to a chan site or usenet in their entire life.
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I never said the real name policy worked. It helps if you respond to the points I actually make, not the ones you imagine I might use.
And you are citing chan sites as examples of brands not damaged by their poor reputation for harassment and trolling? You know 4chan can't pay its bills, right? The more trolling they facilitate the more scummy the ads get, until eventually you have 8chan that can only get revenue from sources that literally don't give a shit. Let me know when one of them raises a few million
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Well let's look at all the big chans shall we? 4chan does actually make money, despite what Nishimura claims. He has a long history of lying through his teeth especially when he's making a buck selling user metadata. 8chan is profitable, especially since it has multiple external sources for money. 2chan and 2ch both make money hand over fist. Krautchan also makes money. Sorry, you were saying?
Re:Gee (Score:5, Insightful)
Whenever I hear the phrase SJW I think here's a stupid person that lacks the ability to form a coherent argument.
I'm sure I'm not the only one...
Don't worry. It's a general label for a very specific group of people it's much easier then saying: They're a group of people who have very pro-authoritarian leanings, anti-free speech, stand against many if not all democratic western traditions, and believe that using physical or psychological intimidation is justified(aka no bad tactics, only bad targets), that the one who can claim to be the most oppressed and virtue signaling the loudest is at the top of the pyramid and actual activism is far too difficult isn't it? Besides, it's their own label. Guess it's too bad for them instead of actually doing something positive, they decided that engaging in negative actions which people associated with it, which is their problem.
I'm sure someone is going to come out with a "good job blahblahblah it's lost all meaning..." or some rot. Never mind that said term has really only been in the general public lexicon for oh maybe a year, two years tops(but then you'd have to admit that things like Gamergate, sad puppies, general anti-authoritarian stances have had a far larger public impact on society then the on-going claim that GG is only 300 people, or sad puppies is full of white males who live in their moms basement). But I'll happily remind the people who are now running for a reply, that you're likely among that same group that has abused English so badly that "sexism, racism, misogyny, etc" has lost all meaning.
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What you describe sounds like some conservatives, yourself included. The ones who want to silence criticism (like the Eich debacle) and inflict their dogma on others (like so called "religious freedom" and "bathroom bills").
Re:Gee (Score:5, Insightful)
What you describe sounds like some conservatives, yourself included. The ones who want to silence criticism (like the Eich debacle) and inflict their dogma on others (like so called "religious freedom" and "bathroom bills").
Uses "you're a conservative" yep. There's that "everyone who isn't like me is a conservative" bit, would have been better if you'd used the usual right-wing, at least you'd have been consistent like your previous claims. Sorry, who was the group that threatened and pushed Eich out and jumped all over him for his own private viewpoint that had zero to do with his job? Which group was it that threatened the head of a advertising agency for having an opinion against the current orthodoxy? FYI it wasn't those "scary conservatives."
Want to name the universities in the western world that are so conservative that they're shutting down debates because the students will be "triggered by people who aren't left-wing" are discussing issues that they don't want discussed. Was it those "conservatives" at the University of Toronto that attacked a reporter? Nope in both cases. The last time I remember a religious conservative in the news, it was an anti-abortion protest, and it was again left-wing students who attacked, and assaulted the person. FYI since you're in the UK, how many times have groups like "antifa" violently attacked people in the last 10 years for not having the right opinion.
By the way, which dogma is it that's mine, the one that doesn't exist or the one that doesn't exist?
Re: Gee (Score:2, Insightful)
Uses "you're a conservative" yep. There's that "everyone who isn't like me is a conservative" bit, would have been better if you'd used the usual right-wing, at least you'd have been consistent like your previous claims.
The defensive holier than thou-ness of Mashiki, right here folks. Consistent to a fault.
Sorry, who was the group that threatened and pushed Eich out and jumped all over him for his own private viewpoint that had zero to do with his job? Which group was it that threatened the head of a advertising agency for having an opinion against the current orthodoxy? FYI it wasn't those "scary conservatives."
Don't worry, there are plenty of other examples of behavior, for example the reaction to Colin Kapernik, to the Dixie Chicks, the actions of Judge Roy Moore, that clerk in Kentucky, numerous comments and actions by police forces documented in DOJ investigations...
Want to name the universities in the western world that are so conservative that they're shutting down debates because the students will be "triggered by people who aren't left-wing" are discussing issues that they don't want discussed.Was it those "conservatives" at the University of Toronto that attacked a reporter? Nope in both cases.
Want to learn about Liberty University? Want to learn about the people who suggested ramming protesters in North Carolina? Want to learn about the one that di
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Looks like it's safe to assume you haven't seen any of the videos that have emerged from some Trump rallies.
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Funny, you think everyone who isn't like you is an SJW. The difference being that "conservative" describes a political philosophy and is not an insult. Your tactic is to accuse people of labelling you when of course labelling is only a problem when the label is negative. It's a classic silencing tactic.
As I said, you want to silence other people and use every low down trick you can think of to do it. It allows you to be authoritarian while pretending not to be.
And then, as if you anticipated by point and de
Re:Gee (Score:4, Interesting)
Funny, you think everyone who isn't like you is an SJW. The difference being that "conservative" describes a political philosophy and is not an insult. Your tactic is to accuse people of labelling you when of course labelling is only a problem when the label is negative. It's a classic silencing tactic.
Making assumptions again? Figure you would have learned by now not to do that. Despite all those regressive liberals that use it as an insult and as something dangerous, whether it be individuals, the media at large right? Which is a really good silencing tactic right? After all, if using SJW which is their self-applied label was a silencing tactic they wouldn't have so much face time in the media.
As I said, you want to silence other people and use every low down trick you can think of to do it. It allows you to be authoritarian while pretending not to be.
Really? I'm sure you can prove that. I'll wait, after all I'm not the one out there turning around and doxing people, sticking their faces on posters, and claiming they're rapists for the dangerous thing of wanting to have a discussion on "mens rights" for example on campus.
And then, as if you anticipated by point and decided to help by proving it, you start ranting about Eich again with the unwritten subtext that being allowed to criticise him is somehow a bad thing because it had negative repercussions for his career. To your credit, your assault on other people's free speech, their right to criticise, is relentless and consistent (in that it only applies to views you don't like).
So wait, I'm authoritarian for making the statement that a persons individual opinions shouldn't be grounds for the harassment they receive at the hands of those who don't like his ideology. How does that work again?
You are everything you claim your worst enemies are.
Sorry, what part of expecting people to be allowed to have contrary opinions and not attacking them for is it makes me "everything I claim my worst enemies are." Besides, the implication that you think they're my enemies. How's that assumption stuff going again?
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what part of expecting people to be allowed to have contrary opinions and not attacking them
Listen to yourself. You expect people to refrain from criticising behaviour they dislike (as you just did). In other words you want them to self censor. Of course this doesn't apply to you; you are free to attack me and anyone else who has contrary opinions.
Hypocrisy in a single sentence.
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All you can do is call me an "SJW"
I didn't.
You however, are spamming so furiously and so fast that you either dont read what you are reply to or are intentionally misrepresenting what you are replying to.
Which is it, AmiMoJo? Are you not reading what you are replying to, or are you intentionally misrepresenting it?
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What you describe sounds like some conservatives, yourself included. The ones who want to silence criticism (like the Eich debacle) and inflict their dogma on others (like so called "religious freedom" and "bathroom bills").
I see the left/right thing as more of a circle than a spectrum. Because as people go further to right or left, they spout different rhetoric, but in principle operate the same. The furthest reaches of each, are totalitarian.
An SJW might be a modern day weak woman feminist, or they might be a evangelical social conservative. Different yap patterns, but always willing to dictate how others must act in minute detail.
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Whenever I hear the phrase SJW I think here's a stupid person that lacks the ability to form a coherent argument.
I'm sure I'm not the only one...
Are we talking about the commenter or the SJWs?
Re:Gee (Score:5, Insightful)
I tend to agree that the 'real' money, or rather the 'real' profit, is made by capitalising on tiny fluctuations in the share price over periods of less than a second. Tiny amounts of profit, times lots and lots of transactions, on a continuous basis = huge profits.
However, it doesn't add liquidity in any meaningful fashion, and it doesn't provide any benefit to the corporation whose shares are being traded or to a wider society. It is, purely and simply, economic parasitism.
The simple solution is a miniscule transaction tax on every share, either purchased or sold (your pick, my preference would be those sold, with the exception of the share offerings made by the company selling its shares for the first time - resales / reissues, after share buy backs would incur the tax).
With this system, since the purchaser doesn't face increased costs there's no practical reason for any reduction in available liquidity, and it effectively destroys the system that allows the parasites to exist, by adding proportionally significant costs to their existance, while adding, proportionally, no significant increase in cost to long term share investors.
The only remaining question in my mind would be whether to make the tax a flat, albeit very small, rate, which would affect the sales of lower value stocks slightly more than higher value ones (if only because of investor perception based primarily on lifetime percentage growth figures), or a variable rate tax based on the price of the shares in question, which, while removing this perceptual disparity, would slightly limit the effectiveness and removing all the parasites from the system.
I'd be happy to leave wiser minds than mine that decision though... if only governments (or even the exchanges themselves) had the courage to implement the system in the first place.
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I'd be happy to leave wiser minds than mine that decision though... if only governments (or even the exchanges themselves) had the courage to implement the system in the first place.
Not certain if there are any wiser minds, because you pretty much nailed it. Moderators, get this to +5 informative where it should be.
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I'm sorry, do you have any clue how markets and stock markets work?
Any tax on individual transactions would absolutely mutilate liquidity. Markets and entire economic theorems about their efficiency only works when the cost of a transaction is negligible.
Further, do you have any clue how stocks are issued and priced? The price of a stock is just the price at which the last one was traded for. The price that YOU are going to be able to buy or sell for is different, it's whatever price a second party is willi
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The problem is, you'd have to somehow implement the tax where it becomes effective world-wide all on the same day. Otherwise the first market to pass the tax will see a flight of trading activity to other markets that haven't yet implemented the tax.
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That or they'd find another workaround, like not actually trading the stock but trading a ticket that gives you the right to buy it.
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English is not a programming language, dude. If you can't articulate your thoughts without all those nested parenthesis you're either lazy or unable to communicate clearly. Read a book once in a while.
This feels like (Score:2)
late 90's and where media companies were buying each other out and then dropping as things didn't work out. It think Go network use to gobble up lots of sites.
Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does Twitter need to be bought by anyone? What's with this endless obsession about mergers and acquisitions and consolidation and stock market riches the west has?
Let Twitter do Twitter.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
How much money does it take to fling 140 character snippets around the interwebs? Few hundred load-balanced servers around the world would cost what, $20k a month? Host the whole platform for a quarter million a year?
So what the fuck do they need to go searching for BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of dollars in profit for?
Things can only get wetter (Score:2)
Err, what? Is this a mixed metaphor or did a cat walk across the keyboard?
Who wants a site, which fucks with its users? (Score:3)
More and more unfeatures, but not listening to its users anymore.
The app has way too much ads (open a tweet and you see always a big ad below the replies), the web interface is slow inefficient and buggy.
Users demand since years an "edit last tweet" function, but they always get something else they did not ask for and do not want
- Videos have now autoplay!
- You can retweet yourself!
- We change the length of tweets, fuck you users of the old app
- Moments
Further they have strange ideas about blocking. Following is asymmetric. Cool. I do not need to read you, but you can still read me. Thats better for a site like Twitter than mutal friendships. But blocking is symmetric? I block you (my good right), but suddenly you cannot read me either? That's strange.
I would like them to remove all shit and let the users pay 2 eur per month. That's fair. But then remove all ads and move the t.co tracking links back to nontracking ones.
Well duh... (Score:4, Informative)
No one wants to buy a large open festering cesspool either.
Twitter has turned into a place of seething hatred and all that is wrong with humanity. Almost all the big guys have stopped interacting with it and now use it as a write only medium due ot the sheer numbers of shitmouths that are there that make slashdot trolls look civilized.
Their own fault for not delivering tools that allow the control of the mess early on. now it's too late.
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Almost all the big guys have stopped interacting with it and now use it as a write only medium due ot the sheer numbers of shitmouths that are there that make slashdot trolls look civilized.
Er... Slashdot trolls are civilized. The moderation system demands it. We get our share of spammers, propagandists, and assorted lunatics. We mod them down so fast and so frequently that they give up.
Plus Whipslash and company continue to fiddle with the filters, so the most obnoxious aren't even making it to moderation.
Twitter is not profitable (Score:4, Insightful)
All the talk about censorship of certain users misses the point. TWITTER IS NOT PROFITABLE. Twitter has been around for, what, 10 years, and it still cannot make a profit. It has a stupid business model because TWITTER DOES NOT MAKE A PROFIT. If someone had a decent idea how to monetize the service to turn a profit it would have done so. Dorsey took charge, again, and still no profit. The headline could read "No One Buys Money Losing Tech Company."
Sell the 1st Amendment (Score:2)
Add languages and support tools to get access. Don't ask any gov for access. Draw the best users to the brand and never seek the approval of bureaucrats.
Fun and freedom will always attract the best new users. Been banned or reported is just like gov sanctioned web 2.0 in most repressive regimes. Not the best policy to grow any brand.
Swapping out US protection before, during and after free speech for "international" acceptan
Morphing (Score:2)
Increasing the text limit, adding videos and images, they've strayed from the original vision of mandatory quick updates and have introduced more time consuming/bandwidth-heavy elements that make it more like a traditional blog than just a series of status updates that can be rapidly consumed. Also adding verified accounts has created a disparity in the feature set that has created a different tier of users, perhaps adding an illusion of a schism in communication.
Shouldn't come as a surprise (Score:3)
Twitter's business model has been non profitable pretty much since its inception [forbes.com]. They were aiming for a LinkedIn and no one is taking the bait.
Wonder if we're reaching the end of the second dotcom bubble...
hardly surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
As a platform, the main distinguishing feature of Twitter compared to other platforms is that its 140 character limit makes any kind of discussion impossible, and that it strongly favors social signaling and self-righteous indignation as the primary modes of communication.
I doubt advertisers want to see their products seen in such a divisive, biased, and angry environment as Twitter, and it isn't even useful for market research because its user population is so unrepresentative.
Let it die a slow death (Score:2)
The world will be the better for it.
Will it work as a subscription model? (Score:2)
E.g. people using the client having to pay a monthly fee?
If you see a way of this happening, then there's a future for Twitter. Else, there isn't.
But hey, I can subscribe to newsletters and receive updates there, too. I don't have any kinds of instant notifications set for my Twitter-App, so any updates I only see when I actually open the client.
Which incidentally is the same as with my mail client.
Twitter is great way for companies to communicate with users (especially those that don't want to sign up to F
I know I've said this before (Score:4, Interesting)
I know I've said this before: "Twitter should have been an RFC, not a company".
Remember RFCs and when there were clients other than HTTP that people cared about? This. Twitter's 140 character messages could be just UDP if you don't care about them making it, or a really quick TCP connection to some server that then redistributes the messages. Heck, it could even be blockchain based and distributed with no central server; but it never should have been a company. The only reason it's a company is because of the way VC money sloshes around in the Valley, and it's a casino where retail investors play against the house and always lose.
Re:Show us the profits (Score:4, Interesting)
The same kind of moron who'd pay billions for Snapchat.
There are just so many parallels between now and the early 2000s... maybe this bubble is about to burst too.
Re: (Score:2)
It's a different bubble. This time around it's all about startups and venture capital; there's a few public companies but the bulk of the loss will not impact the stock market. Silicon Valley is about to eat its own shit.
Re:Anita Sarkeesian: Destroyer of Shareholder Valu (Score:4, Insightful)
Somehow I don't think blocking a few rightwing nutjobs caused Twitter to lose value. Maybe it's that the big boom of "hey we've got lots of users we must be worth a lot of money" is over, and potential buyers now want to see evidence that such companies actually make sense as a business.
Re:Anita Sarkeesian: Destroyer of Shareholder Valu (Score:5, Insightful)
When thousands start to suspect something is up and stop trusting the platform, you do lose a significant number, but indeed its not nearly enough to actually destroy twitter, although may be a good sign that the people in charge of the platform don't actually know what is wrong with it or how to fix it because they're enclosed into this small bubble.
Re:Anita Sarkeesian: Destroyer of Shareholder Valu (Score:5, Interesting)
Twitter touted itself as the "free speech wing of the free speech party" and is now banning people for having opinions that the San Francisco loons disagree with.
However, you're right.
Banning a few people doesn't affect the stock price. But when you ban hundreds of thousands? Then the message gets around that your hard work building an audience can be pissed away by the decision of a blue-haired loon in San Francisco who thinks you used the wrong pronoun.
That's when your audience drops off and no-one wants to us it any more... and that does affect your stock price.
Welcome to the wonder world of Twitter. They committed suicide so that the world could see what pandering to social justice loons means for companies.
Re:Anita Sarkeesian: Destroyer of Shareholder Valu (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow I don't think blocking a few rightwing nutjobs caused Twitter to lose value.
I agree insofar as I doubt that it's caused some kind of massive drop in traffic or ad revenue, but the existence of drama surrounding it might be the reason why some companies don't want to bother with the potential headaches.
For example, given the right crowd your little dismissive "a few right wing loons" is fuel enough for a rollicking debate. Twitter (and Youtube and others) only care about censoring the Christian and secular right wing. They do not censor Islamists, who are part of the extreme right by any reasonable measure. The left (and now more and more also the mainstream) defend them even as they try to silence the conventional secular/Christian right wing in America or western Europe, often silencing them precisely due to their criticism of the Islamic right wing.
Do you have any idea what the tweets look like on the Arab language version of Twitter? Go plug some into Google Translate and find out. While atheist bloggers were being hacked to death in Bangladesh, do you know what was trending on Arabic Twitter? #KillAllAtheists.
The new owners would have to decide whether or not they're going to do something about this stuff. The new owners would have to decide whether or not to re-ban Milo if he tried to create a new account. The new owners would have to decide whether or not to dissociate themselves from Anita Sarkeesian, an irrational, misandrist, anti-free speech lunatic whom Twitter should never have put in a position of power.
I don't think there's some sort of highly damaging boycotting of Twitter going on at this very moment, but that doesn't mean these things are entirely irrelevant.
Re:Anita Sarkeesian: Destroyer of Shareholder Valu (Score:4, Interesting)
The one-dimensional political spectrum is very problematic, yes. One of those problems is the enemy-of-my-enemy problem that has led many progressives to defend Islamists to an extent that they would never dream of defending the Christian extreme right.
Nevertheless, there are many similarities between far right Christians, far right Muslims (i.e. Islamists), and secular fascists. It would be foolish not to comment on this similarity. In fact, it's one of the best tools we have in pushing back against the pro-censorship agendas of many so-called progressives.
Re:Anita Sarkeesian: Destroyer of Shareholder Valu (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes and there's a very simple model to make it clearer: pre-modern, modern, and post-modern.
Modern is the start of humanistic values. Pre-modern is old empires enforced with mythic and religious identity and so on. Post-modern is currently half baked, a step towards global but still in its early phase, and hasn't worked out yet.
So for example, post-modern often champions the rights of islamists to not be offended because it wants to avoid western cultural imperialism, even though the islamists are trying to return us to the pre-modern Middle Ages. And of course there was no post-modernity back in the Middle Ages, so post-modernity ends up trying to destroy itself. And taking us all down with it.
Personally I think we all just need to re-study modernity and understand what its core value for is for the world, the stuff it advanced and got right, such as the individual and humanistic values and education and so on. And figure out how the world as a whole can configure to develop towards modernity.
Once most of the world is practicing and working at a modern humanistic level, then a real post-modernity can emerge. The current version of post-modernity is a fuckup.
But it doesn't have to be depressing. Many recoil against modernity because it is godless or lacks rules for living. But Buddha already 2500 years ago said you have to cast off the old myths and figure out for yourself, as an individual, what works, including, what's the answer to happiness and compassion. Depending on how you read it, Buddha was teaching humanistic values thousands of years ago.
Pre modern empire structures, basically weaponise religion to control followers and gain power. But if people just put on humanistic glasses, many of these weird cross cultural issues become very clear.
Re:Anita Sarkeesian: Destroyer of Shareholder Valu (Score:5, Insightful)
The ignorance of, denial of and/or rigid prioritization of grievances is the overriding problem among most post-modernist / progressive / SJW crowds. From it flows all of the cancerous bullshit that has caused so many former self-described leftists to distance themselves.
I want to smack each and every one of them upside the head with pool noodle and explain that everyone everywhere has done a mountain of shitty things. Yes, people as a whole suck... but there are specific bits and pieces worth saving and these value need to be recognized and saved and promoted without regard to the owner of the brain or mouth from which they come tumbling out. Simply badmouthing America or the West or imperialism or neo-imperialism solves nothing, nothing at all, and their bleating often betrays a profound ignorance of the past and current crimes of China, Russia, Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, Iran or whomever else they deem exempt from criticism due to the fact that a few of our past politicians made a dick move or three.
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Yes, said 'champions' treat islamists like little feral pets who they hope to tame, given enough time. And that itself is cultural imperialism.
The whole notion is that 'History has ended' and all we need to do now is sort out the pieces and get everything pointed in the right direction.
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Somehow I don't think blocking a few rightwing nutjobs caused Twitter to lose value
So which part makes them "nut jobs" the part where they post things offensive to regressive leftists, or the parts where they post politically compromising things that hurt their feelings and they should be silenced before you have too much to think for yourself?
FYI twitter has dug this hole on it's own. The second you start censoring content because it hurts feelings or it's politically inconvenient to a group of people, that's when investors start to flee. Their links are just scratching the surface, tw
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So which part makes them "nut jobs" the part where they post things offensive to regressive leftists, or the parts where they post politically compromising things that hurt their feelings and they should be silenced before you have too much to think for yourself?
If you want to think for yourself, then I'd suggest try something other than social media to source your information.
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If you want to think for yourself, then I'd suggest try something other than social media to source your information.
So which part of that disputes twitter censoring things that they disagree with? Oh right...
The point was about 3.2m above your head apparently.
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Kinda defeats your own argument.
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Twitter hasn't turned into a SJW shithole that even attacks mainstream liberals are SJWs.
The value was destroyed because Twitter culture deviated from mainstream communication tool to politically and ideologically driven bandwagoning tool. People might not care if some alt-right figures got banned for whatever or lack of whatever reasons, but they do care that they might end up on a receiving end of SJW lynch mob for twitting the wrong thing while under influence.
Think of it this way - you have a favorite pub where you go to chat with your friends. Then suddenly you notice that every time yo
Re:Anita Sarkeesian: Destroyer of Shareholder Valu (Score:5, Interesting)
While distributed social media (like Diaspora) has been an idea floating around for a while, something like the 'twittersphere' is where it could be most useful, having multiple interlinked 'twitterverses' where different rules on acceptability apply. The SJW's can have some, and the anti-politically-correct can run their own free-for-all zones, and so on. What is then needed is the distributed indexing and so on. But for a technology which is basically a glorified indexed array of char[140]'s, it has little that isn't easily copied in terms of functionality. Given that most users' number of followers is in the 100s, a simple PHP script spewing out RSS feeds is almost good enough for that task (and already way more complex than it needs to be). An aggregator simply needs to get a few KB of text from a few hundred URIs every few minutes, and then compose it into an aggregated feed. The trouble with modern social media is that they need to overcomplicate it in order to turn it into something they control. Then they need to give it away free, figure out how to make money from it, and so on. We really need an 'opentwitter' system. Twitter has demonstrated the need and power of this sort of communication, but cannot make a profitable business out of it. Just like email isn't owned, we need a twitter that isn't owned. And preferably before Twitter as a company tanks.
More generally, a rethink about internet communications would be welcome: having more fine grained control about who can send what to whom would make a lot of sense (and can essentially be done via things like cryptographic keys) -- then basic data and document types. (For example, a tweet is basically a char[140], most small things could be considered a json object fitting some schema, and for many web documents, the content part least, could make do with a far lighter weight document type than modern HTML: something where a high quality light-weight renderer wouldn't need something as complex as an operating system, as modern web browsers are.)
Re:Anita Sarkeesian: Destroyer of Shareholder Valu (Score:5, Insightful)
We really need an 'opentwitter' system. Twitter has demonstrated the need and power of this sort of communication,
No we don't. Twitter is a microcosm of stupid and if it went away overnight there would be zero impact to the lives of most normal people. Millions of idiots would have to find another way to see what the Kardashians are up to today, but regular life would function quite fine without it.
Re:Anita Sarkeesian: Destroyer of Shareholder Valu (Score:4, Insightful)
I think Twitter is a honeypot of stupid, which makes it useful in my book.
If Twitter went away overnight a few hundred thousand rabid and confused people would be let loose to wreak havoc on other sites.
Re:Anita Sarkeesian: Destroyer of Shareholder Valu (Score:4, Interesting)
But for a technology which is basically a glorified indexed array of char[140]'s, it has little that isn't easily copied in terms of functionality. Given that most users' number of followers is in the 100s, a simple PHP script spewing out RSS feeds is almost good enough for that task (and already way more complex than it needs to be).
The problem is if you want replies to tweets, you'll run into the same uncontrolled spam / troll / junk / harassment / propaganda problem that has driven users from distributed systems towards centralized sites and why so many blogs and other sites disable comments. You need some kind of CAPTCHA for rate control and it needs to be replaced/updated as it is broken. And ideally you'd have some third party moderators following guidelines, because no moderation is troll heaven and owner moderation lets you silence all opposing views and criticism. That's the hard part, not making a char[140] aggregator.
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The problem is if you want replies to tweets, you'll run into the same uncontrolled spam / troll / junk / harassment / propaganda problem that has driven users from distributed systems towards centralized sites and why so many blogs and other sites disable comments.
No. What you do is let people host their own replies to tweets by assigning them UUIDs. The only centralization you need is to make sure you don't have UUID collisions.
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You missed *demanded users phone numbers*
I haven't logged in for a couple of months since they insist I give them my tel. Not happening, not with every company under the sun getting data-breached at one time or another including yahoo and microsoft.
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Banned/suspended, a couple of posts from some steam group promoting games and they suspended the account for spamming!!
I'm simply not interested enough in twitter to jump through stupid hoops to get the account back or open another account (new gmail -> gmail tel -> new twitter account afaik).
Re:Anita Sarkeesian: Destroyer of Shareholder Valu (Score:4, Interesting)
Ps
Massive irony: I got the twitter account because they never verified email addresses used to open accounts. I got a password reset and took the account that some annoying oik used my email address to open.
So basically they don't care about security, they just want peoples phone numbers because advertising revenue.
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I use Twitter regularly and it doesn't require a phone number. They don't have mine.
It's a shame they don't support any method other than text message for 2 factor authentication. Because of that I don't use it.
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turns out that alienating half your user base at the behest of a tiny cadre of radical feminists is a lousy business strategy...
I'm pretty sure the 99% of Twitter users have no idea who these people are, nor care.
Re:Anita Sarkeesian: Destroyer of Shareholder Valu (Score:5, Insightful)
And after having damaged their brand and destroyed billions worth of shareholder value, lo and behold, no one wants to buy them! Gee, turns out that alienating half your user base at the behest of a tiny cadre of radical feminists is a lousy business strategy...
Yeah, except that's not the reality of the situation.
As of Twitter's latest earnings report [twitterinc.com], its user base grew more than expected, up to 313 million active monthly users. Their problem has been a softening of advertiser demand, which has reduced revenues below expectations.
Indeed, all of the companies interested in buying Twitter have only been interested because of the reduced shareholder value. Twitter isn't a good buy-out candidate when its stock value is worth more than the real value of its assets; it's only when its market value is at or below the value of its assets and expected revenues that it suddenly becomes something everyone could be interested in buying out. As such, the "destroyed billions worth of shareholder value" is actually a good thing for a company looking to buy them out -- you buy low, not high.
So congrats -- you've invented an argument by working backward form a premise, while ignoring basic math and economics. Because if your argument had any real merit, any big company could buy Twitter, fire Ms. Sarkeesian, re-instate five accounts, and suddenly they'd be able to increase the value of the company by billions. But here's a hint -- the advertisers don't care who is visiting Twitter, or what their politics are. The fact that they gained over 3 million monthly visitors in the last reported quarter (to 313 million) is all they are going to care about -- and advertising is virtually all of Twitter's revenue. But advertisers are going elsewhere -- and its certainly not because there are some butt-hurt Conservative Justice Warriors who can't handle people calling them out for being complete douchbags. These companies have looked at Twitter's fundamentals, and it appears they come up wanting. Perhaps after they lose a few hundred million more in value someone will snap them up.
Yaz
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it's only when its market value is at or below the value of its assets and expected revenues that it suddenly becomes something everyone could be interested in buying out
That is only true if you buy the company as a simple monetary investment: buy, break it up, draw divident,
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From what I understand many of Trump's posts are shadow-hidden; Completely or in regard to geographic areas. Like for example, last I heard if you sign in from Florida Trump had not posted anything in months, as per a week ago, or something like that.
Re: Anita Sarkeesian: Destroyer of Shareholder Val (Score:2)
Re: Anita Sarkeesian: Destroyer of Shareholder Val (Score:2)
I hate to break it to you but your lot represent the status quo, not the alt right. It's not the alt eight or Gamergate that the media, politicians and corporations pander to.
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Those people were banned specifically to improve their brand. Corporations don't want to be associated with shitty people.
I think you mean "they were banned" because twitter thought it would improve their brand among the wider audience, it turns out that their audience that they appealed to is actually an extremely small and vocal minority that the majority of people would label "batshit insane" and "incredibly politically correct."
Twitter seems to believe that brand that's really the huge thing and has wide support is the same stuff that people like Anitia Sarkeesian, Jessica Valenti, Paul Feig, etc believe in. Identity poli
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For the same reason that people want a return on any investment. It's not so unreasonable.
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Exactly. Wanting it is one thing. Expecting it to actually happen when by any sensible analysis it clearly isn't going to is an entirely different kettle of horses.
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It's barely profitable and the user base has stagnated. Essentially, it's just 'still around' rather than a big thing. And worse, it doesn't seem to have any idea about how to resolve the issues.
Frankly, I don't think it can and remain 'twitter'. I don't think the particular communication pattern that twitter supports is sustainable; it's essentially built to guarantee a devolution of conversation into the worst human communication forms, flamewars, bullying, etc.
Re:I'll miss it if it closes (Score:5, Funny)
Twitter is my main source of news.
Yeah, me too: they publish really well researched, in-depth and balanced articles.
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I agree. They should learn to summarize better though.
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The problem, is news doesn't really have to be any of the above. Investigation pieces and editorials do though, but just because they share space in a newspaper doesn't mean they are the same.
News should be nothing more than "this just happened/is happening". With that in mind, Twitter is indeed a good source of news - it reacts really fast to global events.
Re:Twat?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not?!
what is the use of a "micro-blogging social platform" or a "news service" that acts against free speech.
as a private company they are free to ban people for hurting others' feelings (btw nothing worse can happen in that platform), but must deal with consequences.
My comprehensive post (Score:4, Funny)
I just want to say, that I really can't understand
why no company wants to buy #twitter. It's the per
fect platform for truly social people to
[reply] [retweet] [heart] [...]
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I'd argue that Twitter is a very effective form of news. Everyone and his mother has an account these days, and whenever something important happens the immediacy of the communication and it's propagation via comments/retweets means that you get updates pretty much on real time.
I remember following the failed 2016 coup in Turkey and was pretty amazed on how Twitter beat channels like CNN and BBC News - things i read on Twitter would be reported anything up to 30 minutes later on live TV.
It's a shame Twitter
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Well this might be scary to believe, but in some places in the world social media is faster for things like weather alerts then even broadcast TV or emergency alert type systems. That's the case here in Canada, unless of course you're saying that people, police, and the media stating a Toronto hitting somewhere before Environment Canada doesn't even have a warning up or is 30-40 minutes late.
It's a rather sad state of affairs isn't it?