Social Media & Big Tech news and discussions

weatheriscool
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Post by weatheriscool »

Elon Musk buys $2.9bn stake in Twitter
Source: The Guardian

Elon Musk has built up a 9.2% stake in Twitter, according to filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday.

Twitter shares jumped 26% in pre-market trading on the back of the news that the world’s richest person holds shares worth almost $3bn in the micro-blogging platform.

Musk, the maverick boss of Tesla and SpaceX who has an estimated $273bn (£208bn) fortune, owned 73,486,938 Twitter shares on 14 March according to the filing. Those shares were worth just under $2.9bn based on Friday’s closing price, but will now be worth about $3.6bn.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... sla-spacex
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Re: Social Media & Big Tech news and discussions

Post by wjfox »

He's now been appointed to the board of directors –

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/05/elon-mu ... ctors.html
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caltrek
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America's internet is Splitting Along Party Lines
by Sara Fischer and Scott Rosenberg
Aprill 5, 2022

https://www.axios.com/americas-internet ... 393ca.html

Extract:
(Axios) New investments flooding partisan media platforms are starting to restructure America's internet business around the nation's deepening political divide.

Why it matters: For years internet theorists have warned of the "splinternet," a breakup of the global internet into regions governed by different rules and laws. Something like that is now starting to happen within the U.S., splitting the online world into red and blue sectors.

Driving the news: The Daily Wire, a conservative digital media company, is planning to invest "a minimum of $100 million" over the next three years in kids entertainment as a direct response to Disney's opposition to Florida's recently-passed "Don't Say Gay" bill….

• On the right, Donald Trump's new social network, which is struggling to launch, has reportedly raised $1 billion for its blank check IPO. Conservative tech billionaire Peter Thiel is backing a conservative rival to Facebook called Rumble and a conservative rival to Tinder called The Right Stuff. Conservative billionaire Rebekah Mercer co-founded and funded conservative Twitter alternative Parler.

• On the left, billionaires Reid Hoffman, George Soros, and others are backing a new public benefit corporation that aims to tackle disinformation by funding left-leaning local news sites. Other billionaires, like Jeff Bezos, Marc Benioff and Laurene Powell Jobs, have bought up venerable media properties.
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weatheriscool
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Re: Social Media & Big Tech news and discussions

Post by weatheriscool »

One of the greatest innovators of our time has joined the board!!!

Twitter adds Elon Musk to its board of directors.
Source: NYT

Elon Musk is joining the board of Twitter.
The company disclosed the news in a securities filing on Tuesday, one day after Mr. Musk said he had a 9.2 percent stake in the social media giant, a purchase that appeared to make him its largest shareholder. The news sent Twitter’s shares skyrocketing more than 20 percent.

Mr. Musk had been mum on his intentions. He registered with a securities document called a 13G filing, indicating that he planned for the investment to be passive and that he did not intend to pursue a larger role in the company. It was not immediately clear how he obtained the Twitter board seat and whether doing so was a matter of pursuing control.

Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder, stepped down as its chief executive in November and plans to leave the company’s board when his term ends this year.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/04/busi ... ctors.html
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caltrek
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weatheriscool wrote: Mon Apr 04, 2022 4:43 pm Elon Musk buys $2.9bn stake in Twitter
Source: The Guardian

Elon Musk has built up a 9.2% stake in Twitter, according to filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... sla-spacex
Here is some further commentary on that:

Elon Musk Tweeted His Way onto Twitter’s Board — Now What?
by Elizabeth Lopatto
April 5, 2022

https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/5/23011 ... moderation

Introduction:
(The Verge) Ahahahahahaha fine. Longtime shitposter Elon Musk, who has a side gig as the CEO of Tesla, is on the board of Twitter, a newly minted meme stonk, after filing the wrong form with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Tremendous content.

A different style of billionaire might elect to buy a national newspaper with a storied past and re-invest in it, just like he might secretly test his dick-shaped rocket for many years before publicly taking a ride on it. But despite owning Amazon, Jeff Bezos is somehow less internet-poisoned than the meme lord of Dogecoin. The true platform for brain worms isn’t The Washington Post, despite its op-ed writers’ best efforts. It’s Twitter.

Now, obviously, Musk has a long and storied history with Twitter, from SEC violations to defamation lawsuits to threatening journalists to stealing memes. Do you think Twitter is ever gonna successfully moderate its largest shareholder and board member? Like, sure, Twitter spokesperson Adrian Zamora says they’re “committed to impartiality in the development and enforcement of its policies and rules” and that “our day to day operations and decisions are made by Twitter management and employees.” As a practical matter, we’ll find out if our friend Adrian is telling the truth, won’t we?

Because here’s the thing: I notice Musk is already doing some light trolling about Twitter products, with a handy assist from Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal! Specifically, Musk is polling to ask if Twitter should add an edit button, and Agrawal has said the poll will have important consequences. I mean, that’s not tweeting disinformation or anyone’s home address or anything that’s an obvious ToS violation — but it does suggest that some operations and decisions, um, may be made by Musk, actually. The platform’s top shitposter already has the keys to the castle, and he’s gotten them in a way that’s specifically a thumb in the eye of the SEC. We love to have fun on Twitter dot com!
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caltrek
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With the recent news regarding Twitter, Mother Jones made a recent reference to a dated article it now refers to as the greatest hits of Musk’s trouble-making tweets. Here is a link:https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... k-twitter/
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caltrek
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Trump’s Social Media Empire Is Flailing
by Russ Choma
April 5, 2022

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... dwac-spac/

Introduction:
(Mother Jones) When Donald Trump announced he planned to launch his own social media platform—and eventually his own streaming and web-hosting MAGA-verse—his allies speculated it could launch him into another stratosphere of messaging power and wealth. The idea was to wed the former president’s new venture to a so-called “SPAC” (a Special Purpose Acquisition Company)—a publicly-traded empty shell of a corporation that would allow Trump to turn his digital empire into a virtual money machine.

It hasn’t worked out that way.

Since its launch in February, TruthSocial has seemed far more like vaporware than a serious competitor to Twitter or Facebook. Hundreds of thousands of users apparently remain on the waiting list to get in—despite the fact that last week it was reported that new downloads of the platform had fallen 93 percent from its launch, to just 60,000 per week. Hardly anyone wants to get on TruthSocial, and many of those who do want to apparently can’t. When they do get on, there’s very little content. Trump himself has “truthed” just once, back in February, in a short message promising he’d be there more often.

Over the weekend, Reuters reported the platform’s woes extend beyond its users and content—two top executives, who the news service reported were largely responsible for the technical underpinnings of the platform, have quit. And as anemic as the downloads are said to be, a version of TruthSocial isn’t even available yet for Android phones, which account for as many as 72 percent of smart phones worldwide, and 40 percent of smart phones in America.

Former congressman Devin Nunes—a Trump ally who was extraordinarily sensitive about people saying things he didn’t like on social media, to the point where he sued an anonymous Twitter user pretending to be a cow—promised the hiccups of the original rollout would be solved by March 31. But that didn’t happen.
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caltrek
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More on Twitter and Elon Musk
by Alex Wilhelm
April 9, 2022

https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/09/elon- ... he-future/

Introduction:
(TechCrunch) Technology news was entertaining this week, if nothing else. The fact that we started the week learning that Elon Musk had bought a material percentage of Twitter’s stock, spent the mid-week period learning that he had joined the board, and by the end of Friday were busy reading about how employees were digesting the matter, it’s been busy.

But better busy than not, and the saga has given us a lot to think about. I want to touch on the matter one more time today through the lens of voting rights.

Something that we have seen the last few years are multi-class shares at startups. In simple terms, multi-class shares exist when investors and founders create a class of equity that affords them more votes per unit of stock than what is provided by other, lesser types of company stock. This does a few things, including concentrating power in fewer hands. In extreme cases, multi-class share setups can ensure that a founder has complete control of a company, forever.

Facebook is one such company. Twitter is not.

The difference between the two companies isn’t idle. Facebook is struggling to reinvent itself under the guidance of the same leader that brought it to early success while, in contrast, Twitter is now run by a non-founder, and just added a controversial power-user to
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caltrek
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Prankster’s Police Parody in Ohio Argued in Sixth Circuit
by Kevin Koeninger
April 8, 2022

https://www.courthousenews.com/police-p ... h-circuit/

Introduction:
CINCINNATI (Courthouse News) — A Parma, Ohio, resident arrested after he created a Facebook page parodying the city’s police department urged an appeals court to reinstate his First Amendment retaliation claims against the city and several police officers that were previously granted immunity by a federal judge.

Anthony Novak created a short-lived parody Facebook page at a bus stop in 2016, and used it to post several satirical “news stories” under the guise of the Parma Police Department.

Among the items posted by Novak was a statement announcing a “temporary law” that forbid residents from giving food to homeless individuals as a means of keeping them out of the city.

The page was active for just over 12 hours, but Police Chief Thomas Connor sent numerous takedown requests to Facebook and eventually obtained over 3,000 pages of records, including Novak’s identity.

A warrant was issued for Novak’s arrest on the felony charge of disruption of public services, although a jury eventually acquitted him.
caltrek's comment: In my mind, the only obligation Facebook had in the matter was to clearly label Mr. Novak's page as being satirical in nature and in no way reflecting the actual policies and pronouncements of the police department in question (except as an outsider's satirical view of the matter). Anything beyond that was overreach both by Facebook and by the Parma police department. That is my personal opinion and may not reflect the actual laws governing such matters.
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caltrek
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Post by caltrek »

Meanwhile, back at Twitter.

Elon Musk Won't be Joining Twitter's Board of Directors After All
by Matthew Tursi
April 11, 2022

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk- ... t-joining/

Introduction:
(CBS News) It turns out that Elon Musk won't be joining Twitter's board of directors after all.

Late Sunday, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal said Musk "has decided not to join our board," sharing a message he sent the company regarding the change.

(See linked article for announcement)

Musk was set to officially become a board member on Saturday, according to the note, and opted out the same day. Agrawal did not explain Musk's decision to reverse course, saying only that it is "for the best."

Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives suggested one possible stumbling block — Musk's frequent tweeting. "In our opinion, the Twitter board and Musk could not come to an agreement around Musk's communications with the public (various polls) over Twitter as he likely needed to take a more back seat/quiet stance as part of joining the board," he said in a report.
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