A thread for updates on the various ways the internet is destroying everything and the undying hellsites of social media. Let's all laugh at the abyss.
Bravado and a lack of business acumen leave Musk facing a $1B penalty for his Twitter fiasco
Having waived the right to due diligence in his initial offer, Elon Musk now faces the stark reality of having found out that his f*cking around was a bad idea. Musk is throwing around the weakest of excuses, bot counting, in an attempt to also walk away from the $1B breakup fee he agreed to.
Gizmondo:Elon Musk, current Tesla CEO and perhaps not Twitter's future owner, has a message for the social media network he once coveted but now comments on with a poop emoji: Prove to me that spam bots and fake accounts are less than 5% of Twitter users or watch me blow this whole deal up.
"Yesterday, Twitter's CEO publicly refused to show proof of <5%. This deal cannot move forward until he does," Musk tweeted early Tuesday morning. The day prior, the richest man in the world had sparred with Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, tweeting the poop emoji at the executive's explanation of the prevalence of automated accounts on the social network.
Musk has said that advertising won't be his path forward, so bots shouldn't matter. Having waived the right to due diligence, the count of bots shouldn't matter. Bots is the least important number in Twitters SEC filings to point at as inaccurate, as they disclose it as inaccurate.The poop emoji he responded to Twitter's CEO with demonstrates his deep understanding of his situation. Having derailed Twitter's business with about as much planning as my last trip to McDonald's, Musk has done a lot of damage.
GO Banking:Uncertainty over the deal has led some to speculate that Musk either wants to back out of the deal or renegotiate the price. But backing out isn't so simple because he might face a breach-of-contract lawsuit from Twitter that could cost him billions of dollars, CNBC reported.
Musk and Twitter reportedly agreed to a $1 billion "reverse termination fee" when they reached their deal, but that doesn't mean Musk can just pay the fee and walk away. As CNBC noted, a reverse breakup fee typically applies when a deal can't close for some outside reason, such as a regulatory intermediation or third-party financing problems. Buyers can also walk away from deals if fraud is exposed, assuming it has a material adverse effect.
However, the reverse termination fee wouldn't apply simply because Musk thinks he offered too much money for Twitter. Walking away for that reason means Musk would not only have to pay the $1 billion fee, but also risk being sued for billions of dollars in damages.
Elon Musk appears a very wealthy child who wants us all to hear what he has to say.
While it would certainly be satisfying in a schadenfreude kind of way to see that f*cking gremlin get a bloody nose, I have to ask: are those billions likely to do more good (or at least, less damage) in Twitter's hands?
I doesn't matter the billion left with him will help no one, the billion to Twitter will help no one either.
It'll buy someone a mega yacht. All hail the job creators!
It'll benefit the lawyers.
Thank you Musk for saying the quiet parts out loud, as in drawing mainstream attention to what many of us have known for years: the rules don't apply to the super wealthy.
Twitter Wants the $1 Billion Breakup Fee and Is Willing to Spend Millions on Lawyers to Get It.
I too would pay up to $999,900,000 to get $1B. Hey I'll pay you back after. Cool?
He does realize the last "dirty tricks" job was Republicans against a Republican, right?
Republicans have rebranded that to "Dark MAGA," Rat Boy.
I don't think it's a Trumpist/GOP op, at least, it's not being masterminded by them. I do think it's Elon using their playbook to get them onto his side though. Trump's shown him that he can drop the act and be as horrible as he's always wanted to be and Republicans will love him for it so long as he frames it as taking a stand against leftists & democrats.
Now Elon is trying to recruit lawyers... on Twitter.
This is a crazy person.
Now Elon is trying to recruit lawyers... on Twitter.
This is a crazy person.
It's over folks. He's got Greg.
Not THAT Greg! This one...
Another giant article to say, "Be careful, you'll trigger the conservative hate machine." Which is the reaction to doing anything useful in this country, so why bother?
Liberals are still trying to fight fire with water because that’s how they were taught and they don’t know anything else. Too bad it’s a grease fire
Liberals are still trying to fight fire with water because that’s how they were taught and they don’t know anything else. Too bad it’s a grease fire :lol:
Pretty good analogy, actually. Well done.
It is but the way to put out a grease fire is to smother it....
Taking the analogy along that line, that means the solution is to censor misinformation.
...Not seeing a problem here.
Taking the analogy along that line, that means the solution is to censor misinformation.
...Not seeing a problem here.
The problem being, of course, that no social media platform has shown itself to be remotely up to the task of censoring misinformation.
That and previous attempts by social media platforms to track down misinformation led directly to the accounts of Republican politicians and pundits who were sharing misinformation with gleeful abandon.
Look, it's easy. The first thing you do is define "misinformation" in such a way that it's easily identified by an algorithm and/or minimum wage intern.
That schlorping sound you're hearing is the sound of the worms escaping the can you just opened.
Sorry, should have added "/e tongue firmly planted in cheek"
Obviously censorship just flat out won't work. However, we have no tactic to effectively combat misinformation-fed weaponized willful ignorance short of smothering it.
Which is to say, I don't see any practical solution. Just felt like snarking out a funny-ish hot take. Mea culpa.
Make the social media companies liable for the defamation, libel, hate speech, and violence inspiring rhetoric posted on their sites and force them to break up, change their communication models, or die in a fire. Preferably the latter.
Make the social media companies liable for the defamation, libel, hate speech, and violence inspiring rhetoric posted on their sites and force them to break up, change their communication models, or die in a fire. Preferably the latter.
This, they won't devote genuine efforts to problem unless there's a monetary reason to.
Something I said to someone else on this topic: the volume around this case and around Heard is so deafening because you've got disparate groups that suddenly find themselves in alignment. You've got anti-domestic violence people (at least the portion who believe Heard is a perpetrator of domestic abuse) and women-hating incels standing on the same side of the aisle, even though neither group changed their behavior to get there.
Whenever you have a woman or a person of color or any other member of a less-privileged group who does something that reasonable people might interpret as wrong, the discussion about that possible wrongdoing inevitably amplifies beyond all sense of proportion, once the misogynists/racists/etc come running to the echo chamber to scream their fool heads off.
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