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4/26: Direction of Country, Rasmussen Reports |
Right Track 31,
Wrong Track 63 |
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4/26: Biden Job Approval, Rasmussen Reports |
Approve 41,
Disapprove 58 |
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4/25: Generic Congress Vote, Harvard-Harris |
Republicans 50,
Democrats 50 |
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QUICK CLICKS
Russia Ratchets Up Rhetoric, More Twitter Fallout, Shanghai and the Supply Chain
World: Russian foreign minister says possibility of nuclear conflict and outbreak of World War III over Ukraine is 'serious, real' (Yahoo)
US: Five things to watch as Elon Musk acquires Twitter (The Hill)
World: Shanghai closures are roiling supply chains for US tech, auto firms (WaPo)
US: Bezos launches China conspiracy theory after Musk buys Twitter (Fox Business)
US: Vice President Kamala Harris tests positive for COVID-19 (ABC)
US: Manchin stirs the pot while other Dems try to resuscitate their party-line vision (POLITICO)
US: Harvard commits $100M to redress its complicity with slavery (CNN)
US: Dow Plunges 800 Points Ahead Of Big Tech Earnings (Forbes)
US: Home prices jumped nearly 20% in February, but slowdown may be coming (CNBC)
US: What's next for first class air travel: floating beds (Axios)
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SOCIAL MEDIA
The Twitter Takeover
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LEFT-LEANING SENTIMENT
Musk’s Vision Is Shortsighted, and Will Lead To Twitter’s Decline
- Elon Musk says he plans to loosen Twitter’s “content moderation” standards, which will empower online bullies and make harassment more likely.
- While Musk has successfully acquired the social media platform, changing it will be much more difficult, because Twitter already has an established corporate culture.
- By acquiring Twitter, Musk is showing he’s no different than any other billionaire, in that he wants to operate outside of laws and accountability.
“Twitter Under Elon Musk Will Be a Scary Place” Greg Bensinger, New York Times Opinion: “Twitter has never been a place for rational, nuanced speech. Expect it to get much, much worse. The decision by Twitter’s board of directors on Monday afternoon to accept a takeover bid from Elon Musk means the company thinks the social media company would be best served by the ownership of a man who uses the platform to slime his critics, body-shame people, defy securities laws and relentlessly hawk cryptocurrencies. Mr. Musk said that central to his vision for the service is for it to be an ‘inclusive arena for free speech,’ but users should understand what that phrase means: It means free speech for people like Mr. Musk, a billionaire and the world’s richest man. … Under the notion that more speech is the best antidote to harmful speech, earnest users can probably expect to be shouted down even more frequently by trolls and bots.”
“Buying Twitter is one thing. Changing it? Good luck with that.” Megan McArdle, Washington Post Opinion: “Ordinary people tend to think of ownership and control as functionally the same; I bought my house, I get to decide if I want to renovate. … Corporate renovations are a whole different level of difficulty. There are certainly policies Musk could alter by executive order, and thereby immediately improve the public discourse. He could rejigger the algorithms to show us tweets in simple reverse chronological order, rather than promoting the tweets most likely to 'engage' us, which would make users less likely to encounter the latest highly engaging outrage. He could de-emphasize advertising, which would lessen advertiser pressure to ban offensive speech. He could ax the retweeting functions that promote the formation of cancellation mobs. All those things would make a big difference — but they would also probably make Twitter a less viable business, costing him a bunch of money.”
One more opinion piece from the Left: Elon Musk wants to own Twitter to protect his ‘freedom’, not everyone else’s Robert Reich, The Guardian Opinion
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RIGHT-LEANING SENTIMENT
A Desire to Control Twitter Sparks Anger, and Change Won’t Be Easy
- As members of the press and tech community cry foul over Musk’s plans for Twitter, it becomes clear many don’t prefer open discourse, but rather the ability to exert control.
- Unfortunately, it may be unrealistic to expect many significant changes at Twitter over the short term, because of how corporations are structured.
- The existing power structure at Twitter has banned stories in the past if they harmed progressives, so this could be good for both journalism and democracy.
“Reaction to Musk Offer Suggests Content Moderation More About Control Than Safety” Kalev Leetaru, Real Clear Politics: “The reaction among the press and tech communities to Elon Musk’s efforts to purchase Twitter has been nothing short of apocalyptic. A common theme has been that democracy itself would be under threat if unelected billionaire oligarchs controlled what was allowed online. Yet this is precisely how social media works today. … Only a year ago, the media cheered the unilateral decisions by a handful of billionaires to effectively banish then-President Donald Trump from the digital public square. Lawmakers and media outlets alike proclaimed the societal benefits of private companies controlling the digital public square beyond the reach of government. In contrast, the possibility of a libertarian-leaning billionaire like Musk wielding that same power has been presented as nothing short of an attack on democracy itself.”
“Are we being blindly optimistic about Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover?” Rajan Laad, American Thinker: “The situation currently on Twitter is such that merely questioning the groupthink can get a user suspended. At times, information is suppressed without the user's knowledge — i.e., the tweet is allowed, but its visibility is restricted. Twitter also allows and promotes trends that are beneficial to the progressive agenda. For conservatives, the hope is that Musk will liberate the platform from its overwhelming leftward bias and restore free speech. … On Twitter, liberal users are threatening to quit the platform, much like how they threatened to leave the U.S. when Donald Trump was elected president in 2016. Twitter's board may have accepted Musk's offer, but that doesn't mean things change magically. … There are copious policies and standards. There are rules of corporate governance that mandate multi-level approvals for any changes. All of this means abundant red tape before any change is allowed to percolate.”
One more opinion piece from the Right: Elon Musk is good for Twitter, journalism — and democracy Editorial Board, The New York Post
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FLAG THIS
Majority Give Musk Nod of Approval, Twitter Employees Sound Off Too
A poll published Monday found 57% of respondents approved of Elon Musk buying Twitter, while 43% said they were opposed (Harvard CAPS-Harris).
Meanwhile, in a worker-run survey of around 200 Twitter employees, 44% said they were neutral on Musk, while 27% said they loved him, and 27% admitted they hate him (Blind).
Our weekly finance newsletter The Street Sheet (sign up here) asked “do you think Elon Musk taking over Twitter will be good or bad for the world?” — 72.6% responded “good” while 27.4% said “bad.”
Flag Poll: Is it a good thing that Elon Musk bought Twitter? Join our discussion here.
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FLAG FINDS
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WATERCOOLER
President Grant Born, Floating City, Wendy's From KFC
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On April 27, 1822, Ulysses S. Grant, Civil War leader and 18th president of the United States was born. Above is an engraving of his birthplace in Point Pleasant, Ohio.
CNBC: Here’s what the world’s first floating city in Busan, South Korea, could look like
Stylist: Friendship Ghosting: “I Haven’t Replied to My Friends for Over a Year. Now I Want to Get Back in Touch”
Popular Science: Astronomers just caught a ‘micronova’—a small but mighty star explosion
Today I Learned about Dave Thomas, who was a mentee of Colonel Sanders, and later sold his stake in four of his franchises back to Sanders for $1.5 million. He then went on to found a chain of restaurants called Wendy's.
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For the user Musk buying twitter was a good thing. Free speech is always better than censorship. For Musk it might be a bad business decision as he had to pay way too much. I don’t understand social media companies anyway. Why censor anyone? just put a disclaimer on things you don’t agree with and let the people decide or better yet prove a link to an opposing position to balance it from both sides.
Yes, and even the European Union is afraid.. I wonder why. They are already bullying him.. like they do our administration.
Elon musk’s purchase of Twitter is a good thing as long as he holds to the freedom of speech. We still need common decency on any social platform, but the definition of common decency seems to be changing with the current liberal climate. I definitely hope that conservative thoughts will not be disregarded on Twitter in the future as well as liberal thought. It’s a chance to discuss the way in which things should head currently and in the future, however, this dialogue should be discussed in a cordial way. Sometimes, it may not appear to be cordial because of the way a person takes it. My biggest concern is the philosophy of the left, is that man is in control of the world and we as a world can move it towards a one world government where everybody gets along and that will just never happen without coercion. Those that would be in power who are mostly on the left are the ones who would enjoy real freedom and the rest of the people would have to abide by what they say. We saw all of this starting to occur during the COVID-19 pandemic. I hope the American people have learned over the last two years that we are not just sheep and to follow blindly like many did during World War II.
Tim, I don’t see much cordial discussion anywhere. Least of all on social media. I have pretty much stepped back from social media because if the venomous hate speech. I feel like there’s never been greater division in our country, maybe the world. I hope that Musk can bring back free speech to the platform. But doubt the hateful rhetoric will end.
Michele – I think if users were validated as real people and not able to hide then social media would definitely clean itself up. If those people spouting garbage used their real names and/or people could see who they were I think that hate would stop. But conversely, the media has to go along with stopping it too instead of deliberately inciting division – including the administrations who have run our government.
Tim – I agree with your concern about supporting ALL sides of an issue but I feel the schools and colleges need to clean up their act too … as well as the press and television media. I know even when I graduated in the 70’s, communist ideas were already the norm in my alma mater. Unfortunately, the pandemic was used also to divide and destroy and even the medical profession was essentially forced to shut up if they questioned or noted additional treatment options by the chosen, monied few making huge salaries and proceeds from their positions in places like the CDC. Dr. Fauci was not an elected official, appears to have great qualifications **on paper** but has rarely acted in a truly scientific or medical assignment for too many years plus his recompense for patents our taxes paid for rendered him and the rest of the government paid developers of vaccines disgustingly biased.
I hope the Musk purchase of Twitter turns out to be a good thing. I believe that more speech is better than censorship, sunshine disinfects and that we are all smart enough that we do not need some computer program deciding what I should see or read.
While I am waiting for an answer to the question to manifest, I am enjoying the “pearl clutching” on the Left over Musk’s move. Do you think the Left really believes the sky is falling?
I enjoyed reading that a hold was placed on the computer programmers from destroying things. Having been in IT, yes, there are people who (1) refuse to work with those taking over a company and (2) will plant things in the code.
I am amazed by the hysteria surrounding this! So much fear of hearing something you don’t agree with. We have seen the topics that have been labeled “fake news” only to have this label reversed later (wuhan lab, Hunter Biden’s laptop and others). I don’t trust anyone to decide for me what is fake and what is not! We have to decide for ourselves instead of looking to any social media platform to do it for us!!! I hope Musk fixes the obviously biased platform but the real problem is people at large thinking they and only they know what is right. That anyone who thinks something else is somehow evil. Maybe something is right for you but not necessarily for me. We were a healthier society when personal responsibility and personal belief took precedence over what others were saying.
There are a few definite positives for users – one is getting rid of bots and validating actual human being users. People should be accountable for what they post. I never understood why you can’t sue someone/platform for ruining your reputation on a soc media platform. As far as less moderation – that’s a difficult job because some of it DOES need moderation – an example is people posting horrendous things – but the current political climate made moderation a joke and rendered it so one-sided it made Twitter useless for most Americans except for journalists who somehow believed that what was posted is what people thought (when it probably was tweeted thru bots from one or two sources at most) – or, conversely, at times acquiesced in trying to slant American thinking to a bias of a few sick, oligarchs that ran counter to American ideals. The creation of “fact-checkers” – some of whom aren’t even real people – is a joke. Some rely only on specific media reporting which is reminiscent of the Russian Pravda. As far as the headline that Musk will “lead to Twitter’s decline” – huh? Who is using it anyway? It’s been declining forever. Or did the politicians and journalists never notice that? Probably neither since they feed off of each other like bottom feeding carp.