Twitter Admits To Risk of Losing Advertisers, Staff Due To Musk Takeover (techcrunch.com) 214
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Just ahead of its presentation to media ad buyers later this week at the 2022 NewFronts, Twitter acknowledged in a new SEC filing that its core advertising business could now be at risk as a result of the Elon Musk takeover, in addition to employee hiring and retention efforts and other factors. While Musk's vision for Twitter is one of a more free speech-focused platform, he hasn't offered assurances to Twitter's advertiser base that Twitter will remain "brand safe," post-acquisition. To the extent that he's clarified his vision, Musk said only that he believes any speech not deemed illegal by a government will soon be permitted on Twitter. Of course, Twitter today already moderates a wide range of prohibited types of content beyond what's considered illegal. [...] They may just decide that reaching Twitter's small-ish user base -- at least in comparison with the larger social giants like Meta and TikTok -- is not worth the risk. [...]
Among the many new risks related to the transactional nature of the Musk deal -- like if the merger is delayed or doesn't close (the latter which comes with a billion-dollar financial hit to Twitter, for instance) -- the company said it's exposed to new risks related to its "business relationships, financial condition, operating results, cash flows, and business," including "whether advertisers continue their spending on our platform." As the company explains further in the filing, amid its ongoing risk factors, it continues to generate the "substantial majority of our revenue from advertising" and its loss could harm the business. It notes as well that if its reputation among advertisers declined, it may be less competitive.
[T]he company also acknowledged a more immediate threat of employee departures and an inability to effectively recruit as other potential ramifications of the merge, and noted that "current employees could be distracted, and their productivity decline as a result, due to uncertainty regarding the merger." Musk downplayed any worries over employee departures when speaking to reporters on the red carpet at the annual Met Gala in New York, Reuters noted, saying that "it's a free country," and that: "Certainly if anyone doesn't feel comfortable with that, they will on their own accord go somewhere else. That's fine."
Among the many new risks related to the transactional nature of the Musk deal -- like if the merger is delayed or doesn't close (the latter which comes with a billion-dollar financial hit to Twitter, for instance) -- the company said it's exposed to new risks related to its "business relationships, financial condition, operating results, cash flows, and business," including "whether advertisers continue their spending on our platform." As the company explains further in the filing, amid its ongoing risk factors, it continues to generate the "substantial majority of our revenue from advertising" and its loss could harm the business. It notes as well that if its reputation among advertisers declined, it may be less competitive.
[T]he company also acknowledged a more immediate threat of employee departures and an inability to effectively recruit as other potential ramifications of the merge, and noted that "current employees could be distracted, and their productivity decline as a result, due to uncertainty regarding the merger." Musk downplayed any worries over employee departures when speaking to reporters on the red carpet at the annual Met Gala in New York, Reuters noted, saying that "it's a free country," and that: "Certainly if anyone doesn't feel comfortable with that, they will on their own accord go somewhere else. That's fine."
speech not deemed illegal by a government (Score:2, Interesting)
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I think I liked Orwell's Minitrue (Ministry of Truth) to the MiniDisi (hey, Ministry of Disinformation in Newspeak would be very close to "MiniDisney" if you say it real fast- which shows which groomers are running it).
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I would argue that they are not communist as capitalism has proven a more effective vehicle for their goals once they are in position to control the levers of power. Same type of person though.
It is funny to watch them engage in their tactical libertarianism (It's a private company, they can do whatever they want!).
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For a thumbnail look at the 19th century, as the Industrial Revolution happened, the Prophet Marx turned violating the 10th Commandment into a revolution.
Bismark saw Marx; raised him the Social Welfare State.
Socialism is the price that aristocracy pays to undermine Capitalism.
Here endeth the lesson.
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"Capitalist will sell us the rope we'll hang him with".
-V. I. Lenin
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No, Capitalism is an economic system where Capitalists use their capital to acquire more capital. It rewards whichever method of acquiring capital is most efficient by rewarding the Capitalist with more capital.
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This place has to have a 10:1 ratio of sock puppets to actual posters.
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The FBI has admitted to having at least 20 people on the ground. That's what they've admitted to. Given the amount of teeth pulling it took to get them to admit 2/3 of those involved in the Whitmer entrapment were Fibbie related, expect more admissions in the months to come.
Re: speech not deemed illegal by a government (Score:2)
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I'm trying to find anything that backs up "The FBI has admitted to having at least 20 people on the ground".
All I found was people (such as Tucker Carlson) are suggesting, with no evidence that anyone marked as an "unindicted co-conspirators" was an FBI agent.
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The Whitmer "kidnapping" boasted 2:1 ratio of FBI informants to alleged criminals, with the FBI providing the funding, planning and training.
Good (Score:2, Insightful)
If you're afraid that Elon Musk will expand Twitter's audience past the left-wing nutjobs that infest it currently, and that this will make you take your advertising dollars elsewhere: GOOD.
We don't want to see your ads. The fewer woke ads on Twitter, the better.
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The fewer woke ads on Twitter, the better.
Oh, there still will be ads. Probably ads for things like online casinos, penis enlargement pills, shitcoin ICOs, NFTs, and porn. That's the sort of sponsors typically not put off by the 4chan demographic.
Be careful what you wish for.
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Oh, there still will be ads. Probably ads for things like online casinos, penis enlargement pills, shitcoin ICOs, NFTs, and porn. That's the sort of sponsors typically not put off by the 4chan demographic.
Be careful what you wish for.
I was wondering what sort of ads run on 4chan. I never go there, but I imagine those are exactly the sort of ads that will run in an unmoderated Twitspace as well.
/. is ostensibly moderated and there are no ads here that I would actually click on either. Don't care how Nicole Kidman looks without makeup.
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Well it's not hard to test this theory.
Adverts:
1). Video game advert that looks like it is straight out of 1988 /r/ adult requests
2). Crypto company of some sort
3).
4) Crypto advert of some sort
5). Video game advert
6). Video game advert
7). Antique maps advert
8). Video game advert
9). Avatar Discord advert
10). Cooking advert
All in all the adverts kinda seem weighted somewhat to the subject matter of the room (is that what they are on 4Chan?)
Given the predominance in the sample above the number of video g
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But the premise that Twitter ads will largely be porno and crypto types fails to recognize the audience. 95% of conservatives don't partake in those activities enough to make them useful to advertise. Otherwise you would see porno adverts on Foxnews and Newsmax which you do not.
It's less about relevance to the audience and more about "companies who are willing to see their ad next to tweets promoting the next qanon conspiracy and raving lunatics calling everyone they disagree with a groomer?"
I wasn't implying that conservatives want a bunch of porno, crypto scam, and penis pill ads, I was saying that when you drive out all the legitimate companies, that's what you'll be stuck with - relevance to your audience be damned. Of course, there's always the subscription model...
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and raving lunatics calling everyone they disagree with a groomer?"
I am a member of multiple organizations that require training in how to spot and report sexual assault. In these trainings they went over the actual ways to spot a groomer, and someone who exposes to children to sexual material that is not appropriate at their age is in the definition of groomer. You may not like it, but being against the Florida law is advocating for grooming to be legalized, as you are advocating for the sexualization of kids younger than third grade. Since the law specifically only ou
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Given the predominance in the sample above the number of video game adverts is pretty overwhelming.
Are they from game companies anyone has heard of?
As to Twitter being unmoderated I see zero evidence presented that will be the case. Once again not understanding something, in this case, free speech, leads to presumptions as to what will happen.
I don't use Twitter in any case. I suspect Musk will simply change the color of the lipstick on the pig.
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No-one sees ads on 4chan - you wouldn't browse that site without an ad blocker (same as any site really). Twitter and Reddit sneak past ad blockers with their "promoted" tweets/posts.
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Oh, there still will be ads. Probably ads for things like online casinos, penis enlargement pills, shitcoin ICOs, NFTs, and porn.
Translation: Twitter will be like the rest of the internet.
No matter what side of politics you fall on, warnings like this are about as effective as threatening little Johnny Puberty about going blind with that newfound habit of his.
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Admittedly I use an ad-blocker so I'm not getting the raw bareback internet experience, but from what I can tell adverts for casinos, penis enlargement pills and porn are not at all common on most of the sites I visit. I see them in my email spam box, but only if I bother to look in it.
Seems that most of the internet has got quite good at filtering that stuff.
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Seems that most of the internet has got quite good at filtering that stuff.
I believe the statistics I've looked at for several years now, put SPAM somewhere north of 95% of all email.
The internet had to get "quite good". Otherwise, it would get quite depressing actually seeing the amount of corruption needed in the world, just to keep it spinning.
Re: Good (Score:2)
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Re:Good (Score:4, Informative)
Lol, you make it out to be Elon sitting down at a root prompt and running grep. What you describe is exactly what got the Oath Keepers busted for seditious conspiracy.
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Lol, you make it out to be Elon sitting down at a root prompt and running grep. What you describe is exactly what got the Oath Keepers busted for seditious conspiracy.
Hence the explanation for the tightening of the left's sphincter makes sense. Personally, I see the reason primarily as the outrage of lost power. Whatever the case, the irony is delicious. Just a few months ago the left was screeching "Get your own Twitter. It's a private platform" when confronted with evidence of obvious censorship bias. Now they seem oblivious to the hypocrisy.
CNN's David Zurawik goes on unhinged rant about Twitter. [cnn.com] Not as entertaining as his Six Flags dancing commercials thoug
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I submit that among the reasons that Lefty sphincters are slamming shut over this is the gigabytes of data in DMs from people who were running plays and never thought their musing could become vulnerable.
So you're expecting Musk to sit down and start outing people's private correspondence from the company he bought?
I'm not sure Musk and I agree on many things, but I strongly expect we both agree that's highly unethical.
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Proof they don't believe in free speech (Score:4, Insightful)
They all screamed, but it's a business. Well, yes it is. And trust me there are plenty of people who will easily fill your shoes the moment you decide to bolt. You're not anything special. You are a cog in the machine. The exit door is to your right. Have a good life.
Re:Proof they don't believe in free speech (Score:5, Funny)
You're not anything special.
But but but, muh revolutionary vanguard!
Re:Proof they don't believe in free speech (Score:4, Insightful)
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Some people think that free speech means you must use your labour to facilitate the speech of others. Not doing so is "censorship".
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free speech means you must use your labour to facilitate the speech of others
You are right but Twitter is still a special case. It was a pretty quick search to find a random (acknowledged by Twitter) example of dubious censoring.
Twitter appears to have adjusted its platform overnight to no longer limit the visibility of some prominent Republicans in its search results, a problem that the company said was a side effect of its attempts to clean up discourse on its platform.
https://www.vice.com/en/articl... [vice.com]
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Maybe they have seen how he treats employees in his other businesses.
Maybe they don't want to end up moderating extreme posts all day because Musk doesn't want to ban them. People doing that at Facebook developed PTSD and other problems.
Perhaps they anticipate changes to how they work, e.g. being required to be in the office more often. Best to get out early before it gets bad, before the market is flooded with your former colleagues and while you can still be picky about where you go.
Mass exodus or mass firing (Score:4, Interesting)
As for advertisers... yeah, no. Advertisers go where the eyeballs are. Activists have been somewhat successfully in using fake outrage to get advertisers to drop contracts with people the activists don't like, but that effect it's had on most content creators has been mild annoyance. And it's ceretainly not a strategy that's going to work on a platform the size of Twitter.
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No advertisers don't just go where the eyeballs are. Advertisers are trying to create a brand image that people believe in. If the eyeballs keep seeing things contrary to that such as the brand appearing next to a a bunch of swastikas them the advertisers that care about brand image won't go there.
Eyeballs are necessary but not sufficient.
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It's the opposite, activists have been pushing for advertisers to include things like LGBT+ content, but the advertisers have been resisting. Right now a lot of that kind of content gets demonetized or restricted on YouTube, and we are talking completely harmless stuff like make-up tips.
It even affects tech videos. There is some really nasty sexism on display with the way YouTube treats women who make tech videos, compared to how it treats men.
Twitter avoids this by not having ads appear associated with any
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I don't know if I'd consider make up tips and similar videos harmless. Pretty much all of them ARE essentially paid content that unsuspecting teens think are actual suggestions and recommendations from people they consider trustworthy or even "friends".
I can't think of anything more despicable than that.
Re: Mass exodus or mass firing (Score:2)
Tech guy starts channel. Six months later 400 followers and 300 views per video.
Tech girl starts channel, spills boobs out of tight fitting top. Six months later 100,000 followers and 250,000 views per upload.
Sexism indeed.
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That's the thing. The guys have been 3D printing models with huge boobs, but when it comes to actual boobs YouTube and the advertisers get cold feet.
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If Twitter doesn't lose employees, they need to be fired. Undoubtedly part of Musk's calculation is that Twitter should be a considerably smaller company. So that doesn't really matter.
Twitter doesn't have a massive workforce [vox.com], shaving staff doesn't really make his investment more profitable.
As for advertisers... yeah, no. Advertisers go where the eyeballs are. Activists have been somewhat successfully in using fake outrage to get advertisers to drop contracts with people the activists don't like, but that effect it's had on most content creators has been mild annoyance. And it's ceretainly not a strategy that's going to work on a platform the size of Twitter.
Nope, advertisers care about their brand. They don't want their ads being associated with controversial content.
Also relevant, it's not clear that a free-for-all is has more users. The reason Parler, Gab, and Truth Social suck so much is because the alt-right folks they cater to get their kicks out of trolling liberals. Well if the trolling gets out of hand the liberals aren't just going to sit there
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Twitter has a massive workforce - about 7000 employees. For a company that could *easily* be run by 1000. Let's face it - a large part of their workforce is dedicated to censoring material that the left doesn't like, in addition to all the stuff that nobody likes.
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Another one that doesn't get the difference between firing people and people leaving.
When I fire someone, I fire the least effective and least productive members of my staff. When people leave, the first to leave are exactly those that are the most effective and productive, because they are also the ones that can easiest find a new job.
That's a crucial difference, FFS, but then again, how should I expect the average /. reader to understand that difference if people who allegedly know how to run companies do
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When people leave, the first to leave are exactly those that are the most effective and productive
When the employees are upset about things that aren't politics, I would agree with you. However, when it is about politics, there is a distinct possibility you will lose the most useless and disruptive employees.
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Really depends on what the politics are about. If it's something that could tarnish my resume because someone would ask why the hell I was working for the company, I'll try to get out.
Ah yes free speech (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's take a look at what happens when you don't bother with moderation. Take voat.co for example, here's a little taste of what doing away with moderation does.
https://web.archive.org/web/20... [archive.org]
https://web.archive.org/web/20... [archive.org]
By the way voat.co died because no advertiser would touch them.
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You could literally compare the front pages of Reddit and Voat after the split and you just, feel the toxicity that composed Voat
You didn't have to look farther than the front page to know it wasn't going to be anything more than edgelord garbage.
Big difference (Score:2)
On Voat everyone saw those messages.
On Twitter, anyone who spoke like that would only be seen by people following them.
That's what makes Twitter a pretty good candidate for truly free speech, because you can easily tailor what you see and your timeline of what you see. No one has to look at assholes, and you can also silence/block them if they start bothering you.
All Twitter really needs to do is make sure they follow laws, and try as much as possible to eliminate the ability of people to use sock puppet a
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That won't work, a social platform can't function by people just following their 10 friends and stopping there. It'd wither and die.
Twitter and any other social platform must constantly strive to expand people's subscription lists and interactions to keep them engaged. And that means Twitter absolutely must intrude on your timeline quite frequently. They want you to find new people to follow or to argue with.
Trolls and propagandists of all sorts of course will do their best to take advantage of such mechani
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Yeah... no.
What that would produce is what we already have in many forms in various antisocial media today: Filter bubbles. People would only get to hear what they want to hear and get more and more radicalized because everywhere they go (read: all the feeds they sub to, which are of course the feeds telling them what they want to hear), they get to hear that they are right, that the sky is falling and that the (insert evil boogeyman here) are about to take over the world and that (insert really bad thing h
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The free speech absolutist dilemma:
In other words, if you have 1 open Nazi and 9 other people sitting at a table, you have 10 Nazis sitting at a table.
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I think one of the key problems with the idea of self-moderation (in both senses) is that people never learned to do that. Worse, people never learned to tell propaganda from information. This is one of the big problems of our times.
One of the things I could identify as a probleme here is our schools, who don't teach critical thinking and WHAT critical thinking actually is. Hint: It's not "I don't want to believe A anymore, so I believe B for the same reason I first believed A: Fuck all". This is what a lot
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The point of that launch wasn't to put a car in space for the lulz, though. The point was to test a new type of rocket, to show that it works so customers would pay to launch other things (like satellites) on it. The payload for the test launch
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the launch wasn't frivolous or wasteful.
That's right. Only the payload was.
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May the car company who has never damaged or destroyed their vehicle in an ad cast the first stone.
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Musk is claiming he's going to make speech on Twitter freer. But it's already quite free, the only way in which it isn't is... moderation.
So if Musk was actually going to change something in the pursuit of free speech, it'd be to get rid of moderation.
Instead Musk would be likelier to change something in the name of free speech, that just suppressed dissent and/or amplified whatever made him happy (same thing really, when they don't show you everything.)
Re:Ah yes free speech (Score:4, Informative)
>"Musk is claiming he's going to make speech on Twitter freer. But it's already quite free, the only way in which it isn't is... moderation."
And shadow banning.
And secret algorithms.
And "rules" that change all the time and are unknowable.
>"So if Musk was actually going to change something in the pursuit of free speech, it'd be to get rid of moderation."
It might be what he said- which is to stop underhanded crap, let people know how the algorithms work, prevent partisan "moderation" by staff, and stop so much banning. Perhaps he might even give users more control over what they want to see by moving tools to the users instead of the back-room banners. There are lots of possible options.
>"Instead Musk would be likelier to change something in the name of free speech, that just suppressed dissent and/or amplified whatever made him happy "
There is zero evidence of that. But if so, there would then be little difference from what we had already, just under a different regime and it can continue to rot. Time will tell.
Just the news of him coming in has already seen countless magical and nearly instant major adjustments to many high-profile accounts... suddenly seeing tens or hundreds of thousands of followers added or subtracted. A clear indication of the backroom scampering to undo underhandedness in the fear of being "discovered."
Oh look at how you believe in free speech (Score:3)
This literally always happens.
I talk about free speech issues with people who are screaming about free speech, and then people from that same camp mod me down and try to bury my words.
Until you act like you believe in free speech, nobody is actually going to believe that you believe in it. We can all see your cynical ploy.
Calibre of Twitter employees (Score:2)
In a twitter employee Q&A session the day after the announcement, one employee asked if "Twitter was going to integrated with Tesla's Pi Phone".
If this is the kind of people who twitter currently employ then they can do with losing a few.
For those unaware, the "Pi Phone" is completely made-up by hordes of YouTube channels that post fake clickbait Tesla news. 100% fictional and doesn't exist. I don't even know where the name came from, but it has stuck.
And I'm not saying you're stupid if you believe it
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Pure Arrogance (Score:3, Interesting)
It's so arrogant to warn shareholders who have made it clear they want the new owner that the new owner will be bad for them. It's like when a poker player loses and berates the other player's bad play.
The fact is that conservatives and libertarians have returned in mass to twitter in the last week and this alone will increase advertisers and audience on twitter. The point made is just complete bullshit.
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Problem is what happens in the very likely scenario that the deal does not go through. You are left holding the stock with declining revenue, staff shortages, no clear path forward... all for $1B that will get used up in a few quarters.
Look at what happened to Yahoo...
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Since when have shareholders cared about anything but increasing their stack? They certainly don't care about making Twitter a site people enjoy using. All they want is for Musk to make the share price go up.
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It's so arrogant to warn shareholders who have made it clear they want the new owner that the new owner will be bad for them.
You phrase that like the shareholders will still have their shares under the new owner. Musk isn't becoming CEO, he's buying the entire company.
It's like when a poker player loses and berates the other player's bad play.
The fact is that conservatives and libertarians have returned in mass to twitter in the last week and this alone will increase advertisers and audience on twitter. The point made is just complete bullshit.
Except there's a possibility that Musk's future ownership tanks the user base hard enough to cause Musk to back out... and then Twitter has a damaged business and no buyer.
This is the thing they're worried about.
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Frankly, all shareholders likely care about is whether Musk offers them more for their shares than they could get elsewhere. Preferably more than they are worth now.
Good riddance (Score:2, Flamebait)
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So you are in favour of discriminating against employees based on their politics?
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Well... yeah. Kinda.
I mean, look at it the other way around, if I had a company and one of my workers is an outspoken nazi, I do want to have the right to sack that bastard. I wouldn't want to have my company associated with that kind of filth.
I cannot choose my gender. I cannot choose my skin. I cannot choose my sexual orientation. None of these things are valid points of discrimination. But I can choose my political position. I can choose to not be a racist bastard. That is my choice.
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So you are in favour of discriminating against employees based on their politics?
If someone injects their politics (whatever the flavor) into the office constantly and disruptively then I think that is a good reason to not employ them. If you don't know that, you probably are someone who does that. People are very very very tired of people injecting politics where it doesn't belong. Politics is for things that can't be determined with data and analysis (you know, science). Those that think everything are politics are likely the real problem. And the other 90% of us are voting them
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No, he's in favour of discriminating against employees based on their past actions.
Musk won't be taking 30% of the ad $$$ (Score:2)
Maybe this will bring in even more.
Leftist panties in a knot (Score:3, Insightful)
He has said he wants to promote free speech within the bounds of the law. I think that is a reasonable stand for most people. Except of course if you are a left wing nutjob. In which case you would spin up something ludicrous like, I dunno, the Disinformation Governance Board. And put it within the Department of Homeland Security, the poster child for government waste.
Obviously the purpose of this kangaroo court is to keep a watchful eye on the Musk led Twitter and at the slightest mention of anything Un-Woke brand it hate speech and immediately hit Twitter with fines and sanctions until the un-wokeness stops. Or leftist snowflakes stop crying for their Mommy - whatever comes first.
But fear not. This is another one of those stupid Biden ideas that will never see the light of day.
And as for those Twitter employees threatening to stamp their collective feet and hold their breath until they turn blue? Fuck em. Let them walk. You don't think that Musk can find programmers that aren't a bunch of cry babies? I bet there are tons of talented programmers that are sick and tired of working for woke companies and having to hold their noses through yet another HR stunt, lecturing them on white guilt and diversity.
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I like your left wing fanfic and wish to subscribe to your newsletter. Are you on AO3?
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I wouldn't doubt it. He wrote a lot of the code that went into X.com and some of the early PayPal stuff.
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So maybe Twitter should consider banning accounts from the Taliban? Or from the Saudi regime whose human rights and treatment of women and gays is nothing short of horrific. I'm all for that.
Instead they ban the account of the New York Post for publishing a later to be found true story about the Hunter Biden laptop. Or they ban the accounts of medical doctors for discussing even the possibility that vaccines from companies other than Pfizer and Moderna might be effective in the treatment of Covid for some p
Weird that they'd admit it (Score:2)
Come to think of it, we won't be able to buy stock in Twitter after this. Isn't the whole point of our stock market to democratize capitalism? Doesn't one guy being able to toss $44 billion their way kinda break that?
Ad Model (Score:3)
Are they dumb? He said being reliant on the ad model is a problem that the platform has. He's indicated a premium subscription model and a leaner staff being the keys to profitability.
I get that they need to sell ads for now, since the Biden government will do whatever it can to stop the deal, but this individual shouldn't plan to be there for too long if the deal goes through.
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Exactly. Would I pay $5 a month for an ad-free site? I already do elsewhere -- several times over. I hate ads. More than happy to spend the cost of an Americano once a month. That's a no-brainer.
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Wait, you guys see ads on twitter?
What year is it?
Are you new?
I'll go work for Twitter (Score:2)
Elon, tweet me when ready
Why would anyone believe what Musk says? (Score:3)
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> Well, may be that is why he had to buy Twitter and go private.
This is just such a shocking mis-understanding of the SEC settlement.
SEC's problem wasn't that Elon makes short public statements that effect stock price on another company platform.
SEC's problem is that Elon makes short public statements that effect stock price.
The SEC isn't going to feel any different about that if Elon owns twitter, or if I owned twitter or if twitter were a public company.
And nobody cares (Score:3)
I truly do not understand why they're so afraid of Musk, or why anybody cares at all. It's not like he's buying the CDC, it's just Twitter. It was a garbage dump of toxic morons and scam bots before, and it will be after.
My goodness (Score:3, Interesting)
We are working very very HARD to insist this Mr Musk is somehow very very bad.
I'm pretty much thinking every single propaganda meme you're spreading, you're *EXACTLY PROVING HIS POINT.*
Oh, no! (Score:2)
Propaganda, Anti-Musk Agenda (Score:3, Interesting)
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You sure have a strange hill you want to die on.
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Have you ever considered stopping the glue huffing?
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The one where you called me a Soy Boy.
Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you? I'm pretty sure you're legally mentally disabled. I worry about you. Should you be on the internet without caretaker supervision?
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I can tell you that your narcissism is woefully misplaced.
A thesis by definition cannot be irrefutable. Were it, it would no longer be a thesis, but a fact.
I clicked your little Homepage link.
I'm pretty sure I make more in a year than you do in 10, I have no idea what a gamer-keyboard is, and what you have just done is quite literally the definition of being a Soy Boy.
Get
I wish that I had owned Twitter shares (Score:5, Informative)
Twitter's price vs. earnings ratio was 175.07 [macrotrends.net] on May 3, 2022. It is tremendously overvalued. Musk is paying a crazy premium on top of an overvalued stock for a company that is not even profitable. Just awesome!
What employees are you really losing? (Score:2)
Re: Staff Defeater? (Score:2, Insightful)
As for the advertisers, who cares? It wont be publicly traded anymore, so the only ones who should give a rats ass are Musk and his investors.
Re: Staff Defeater? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me summarise your wall of text:
"He was Green, Progressive and did things I like. So I liked him. And then he started being Green, but not Progressive and do things I don't like. So now I hate him."
Funniest part is, the man never changed. He was always the type to throw weird big money solutions to existing problems. Electric vehicles? Buy an electric vehicle company and throw a lot of vision and money at it. Space fairing? Same thing. Free speech in the internet age? Same thing.
The only difference is that he's just doing the topic you are vehemently against rather than in full throated support. And just like your ideological brothers and sisters who were shouting equivalent of "your body, society's choice" with covid vaccines are now shouting "my body my choice" in front of US Supreme court. It's all in for "rules for thee but not for me".
Re: (Score:3)
Except pregnancy isn't catching. I repeat, pregnancy is not transmissible.
Babylon Bee for the win (Score:2)
https://youtu.be/rFNCsSBnYVg [youtu.be]
"If he buys our free speech platform, people will be able to have free speech on our free speech platform!"