2022 and beyond Social Media Thread

[albionmoonlight]

I don't know if this makes sense, but the Elon/Twitter stuff is kind of falling into threads where it does not quite fit. And with all of the social media stuff out there, it seems like an all-purpose thread to discuss it might be useful.

My first thought--I have pre-teen/young teen boys. The main social platform--by far--is discord. That is the one that they use to engage with real life friends and with far-flung internet communities. They also use reddit for general browsing and YouTube for watching stuff. Neither is into TikTok, which seems weird given their ages, but they both say that it just does not interest them.

Twitter/facebook/MySpace/Message Boards/email might as well be telegrams as far as they are concerned--ancient technology notable only for historical interest.

[cuervo72]

I don't believe my kids care about Twitter either, and they're both over 20. I know Discord and TikTok are in their mix. I'm not sure I get the randomness of TikTok, or the fact that it is mostly video. Not something I need. (Now, I understand there are some videos out there of the "do a little jump, now WHOOPS I'm naked!" variety. These are amusing in their way, but I figure you can see that sort of thing elsewhere outside the app.)

So, I want to read things from Twitter. It's become my latest aggregator, after Netvibes, then Facebook, then Google News. Facebook just became too much crap -- aunts posting gluts of "you're this old if you remember this" and puppy pictures and Jesus sayings; ex-coworkers posting hippie chick, witch/bitch, sparkly rock gifs; HS classmates hawking diet schemes. Oh, and ads. Too many ads. A lot of them, oddly, for women's underwear. Which is not something I ever buy (for me or anyone else) though I do get the visual appeal of the marketing.

Google News was better, but still gave me a little too much Fox-oriented content, and didn't seem fast enough.

So a few months ago I broke down and started a Twitter account. It was pretty nice -- I could follow news outlets, sports outlets, People/Billboard to cover pop culture trivia holes (though People is a little too much of 90 Day Fiancee and LOOK HOW GROWN UP 9 YEAR OLD CHILD OF CELEBRITY IS" and "ALL THE QUESTIONS YOU HAD ABOUT THIS CELEBRITY'S FAMILY"; seriously, who the fuck cares? Billboard is better, it lets me know of things like Super Freaky Girl and that Takeoff was shot and killed.). Also I can follow celeb packs like Gail Simone, Diedrich Bader, Michael McKean, John Scalzi, etc.* or get daily mass postings of art from Jack Kirby and Alex Ross, or stuff like the Super 70s Sports Guy. With a little Subby or Young Drachma mixed in.

I'm sure at some point there will be another aggregator. For now, this one works, but we'll see for how long.


* edit: I forgot TV's Frank.

[Brian Swartz]

I expect this kind of thing to continue to evolve, and in a few years there will be something we've never heard of. Some of the old ones will continue on, and others will crumble.

[miked]

My daughter is 13 and complained about wanting Tik Tok for the longest time. Their friends just sit around and make stupid Tik Tok videos half the time, which seems dreadful. Nobody uses Facebook or Twitter. For a while she wanted Instagram and Snapchat, but now she does not really care too much for those. I imagine in 3 years it will be something else. She thinks Facebook is stupid and we are falling in to boomer territory by even caring what goes on there.

[Ksyrup]

My kids are also into TikTok, which I don't get. And Instagram. I don't care about pictures and don't have any interest in communicating via pictures/videos. My kids send at least 1 or 2 TikToks to our family text group a day and maybe 1 out of 10 of them I find entertaining. Most I just don't even understand why? I will never do TikTok/Instagram. They both use Twitter though, and we do a fair amount of DMing stuff we see to each other (the wife is sometimes included, but it's mostly between me and the girls). At least they got over Snapchat, which was the stupidest thing I've ever seen - we'd get random flashes of light in the car and it's just snaps of stupid faces sent back and forth. You don't have to be old to think that's stupid.

Like cuervo, Twitter has long been my aggregator . I love the fact that I don't have to constantly change it to a chronological feed (like FB, which would not allow and actively hid the Most Recent feature for years), however the constant stream of stuff means I miss a lot as well. The ideal set up for me would be a Twitter feed with FB-like groups dedicated to certain topics, hobbies, interests, teams, bands, etc. That's the ONLY thing I miss about FB is the message board-like communities. I just couldn't take everything else that went with FB to stay.

As a dinosaur, I much prefer the message board experience - it can be a relatively small community where you get to know people compared to... the anonymous universe... (or conversely, 3 or 4 local friends - it's often nicely positioned between the two extremes), topics can be picked up or left based on the ebb and flow of the community, it's much easier to see things you might have missed, and there isn't a "raging stream" feel where if you don't jump in right now, you miss out totally on discussing a topic. The Twitter feed just keeps moving, and if you aren't there and jump in, it's gone. Here, we can easily pick up a topic after a weekend, or when a topic/issue comes back up weeks or months later, people see new activity, and it can start back up.

The trend to go just video sucks, IMO. I remember when Fox Sports essentially became a video board, and I haven't been back in 5+ years at least. I also don't do podcasts - I have no interest in listening to people talk, as the only time I would do that is in my car and that's music time. YouTube is fine for what it is, but there's absolutely no "community" feel to it. It's just there to watch videos when that's what you want.

[albionmoonlight]

Anyway, my tuppence worth on Musk and Twitter. He’s in for a rocky ride, and the question for me is whether his ego is going to make him destroy Twitter. Right now, what’s pretty clear is that he doesn’t understand what makes Twitter work. 1/10

— Prof Paul Bernal (@PaulbernalUK) November 1, 2022

Pretty good summation thread, I think.

tl;dr Owning Twitter and making it profitable isn't easy. And Musk seems particularly ill-suited to do it.

[Kodos]

I have a Facebook account, but I mostly just check the little bell icon for updates my friends have posted (family stuff and the like) rather than scrolling through. And I don't have the app, I just go to Facebook in Firefox (the app is a privacy nightmare). If not for that, I would abandon Facebook entirely. But it's good for casually staying up on my friend's lives.

Not on Twitter or any other social media. Really, FOFC kinda acts as my news aggregator. And then I have the NY Times app for just plain news.

[Kodos]

Also, I kinda hope Musk kills Twitter and loses all the money he spent on it for nothing.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Kodos

But it's good for casually staying up on my friend's lives.

Which, ya know, seems like it was kinda always the purpose.

Honestly, one of my bigger regrets about my FB involvement is how many Pages I ever followed.

And I miss the days when you could easily pare your feed down to only seeing Friends posts.

[Ksyrup]

I originally got on FB to connect with old schoolmates ahead of our 20th reunion. In the 10-15 years since, I realized there are only a tiny fraction of those people I really like or care to interact with (or even follow), and that I felt much the same with people I now know who live near me or I interact with in real life.

The only value I got out of FB was in groups, but even that required me to accept the typical social media interaction experiences of people whining, others responding, flare-ups, infusing politics, etc. Some of the groups were interesting from a psychological perspective, like a couple of running groups I was in where it seemed like 75% of the people were there to post pics of themselves every day to get comments, and then like clockwork, every 2 or 3 weeks, one person would point this out to the group and get jumped on by a bunch of people offended because it hit too close to home (I'm just guessing!). Every now and then I'd post in one of those threads that this group is like spending a day in an airport people watching/judging.

I just got tired of it. Basically, if you distilled FB down to all that is interesting that people can communicate to each other, but could remove the people, FB would be great!

[GrantDawg]

I look at Facebook maybe once a day. I have most of my "friends" blocked on there because of the constant barrage of Right-wing stupidity. I only check it to keep up with my family since we spend zero time together. It is the only way I have seen several of my nephews and nieces. Instagram never interested me. I don't take very good pictures, and I really don't get much (again outside of family members) from seeing pictures.

I have developed a Tik Tok addiction. I don't get any news or deep discussions from it. I just really love the comedy and parody stuff on there. I spend 30 minutes to an hour on there every morning after I catch up on news (from Twitter and here mainly). It actually has a pretty amazing algorithm that does a great job of funneling what you show interest in on to your "For You" stream. Every once in awhile I will get someone spouting nonsense, or something I have no interest in. But it is really rare. I was afraid it was going to be loaded with kids doing the dances as such, but the algorithm did an excellent job keeping the stuff it sent me age appropriate. I actually can't remember a single under 21 creator popping up on my timeline. Can't say the same of Facebook's Reels, that seems to constantly have underage kids as suggestions that it keeps pushing on my timeline there.
Youtube is very useful for "How To's" from gaming to stuff around the house. If I had the time, I could probably really get into Twitch. I every once in awhile watch someone playing a game I'm trying to learn. There is just limit to how long I can watch till I want to play it myself. Plus, there is really weird trend of these streamers putting their face in the corner, which is distracting and usually very unattractive. I really don't need to look at you, dude. I'm here for the game.
Then there is Twitter. I constantly look at at Twitter. I check it first thing in the morning, I check it at work, and then I generally browse it while watching TV at night. I get most of my news from there, and in the last couple of years I have started being apart of the Twitter of Time community for Wheel of Time fans. They are way less toxic than the Facebook and Reddit communities. I've actually feel like a part of the community there.
I also check Reddit once a day, but only the communities I follow (generally gaming). Before I got so into Twitter, I used to use Reddit as my aggregate for current happenings, but was just so dark most of the time.

[GrantDawg]

Oh, I also use Facebook to see Ben every once in awhile. He posts regularily on there unlike here.

[Izulde]

I paradoxically find myself using FB more than ever, but then I'm in a fair number of groups where I'm relatively active (the AP Lit teachers group in particular has been the best PD I've ever had, even though I'm not teaching this year and might not ever again).

Twitter never did appeal to me. Instagram and Snapchat I never had any interest in, though I keep aware of it. TikTok I'll once in a while see something on because it gets sent to me.

And yes, FB is a dinosaur land. TikTok and YouTube are primarily where Gen Z has congregated. Instagram and Snapchat are secondary in popularity, and I feel like Instagram will experience the biggest dropoff once those two start going the way of FB.

Twitter still has staying power for a while yet, unless Musk breaks it (entirely possible)

[miami_fan]

Twitter is sort of a catch all for me.I also use Twitter as a news aggregator but also for some work stuff and surprisingly to interact with like minded people who have become friends. So far, my son's social media presence includes Tik Tok, Snapchat and Discord. I would also include his PS5 and Xbox chats.

One thing that still boggles my mind is how open he is with whatever he is watching on Tik Tok. Don 't get me wrong. I am extremely happy that he does show me the stuff that he is watching. I just know I would never run to show my parents what my peers were doing when I was his age no matter what it was.

[Ksyrup]

Speaking of aggregators, my phone's Chrome Google homepage serves to aggregate articles that suit my interests. One of the articles that came up just now:

Alternatives to Elon Musk’s Twitter: Mastadon, Reddit, Cohost, Tumblr, and more - The Verge

It's one of those catch-22 things. I'm concerned about privacy issues, but I'll admit I like the fact that I get articles tailored to my interests without having to search for them. When I make travel plans, all of a sudden I get articles about places to go where I've booked hotels or planes. When I read music reviews or sports articles, I get related content.

Someone above mentioned Mastodon. Based on the description in that article, I might give that a try tonight. Even if I stay on Twitter, I want to find some other places more topic-based (Reddit seems too chaotic, although I've browsed there from time to time).

[Edward64]

FB to keep up with family & friends social stuff. I've blocked my BIL Trumper (and others) about 5-6 years ago. The remaining folks are generally pretty good about keeping politics and social protests out.

Use Twitter. Not into TikTok or Instagram or SnapChat.

I've got a Line group chat with some school friends from all over the world (some of them are very sensitive/paranoid about security). I use WhatsApp to communicate with family over the world. Use Discord for some games.

[Kodos]

I don't use it, but Mastadon is supposed to be good from a privacy standpoint.

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Also, I kinda hope Musk kills Twitter and loses all the money he spent on it for nothing.

I am fascinated to see what Musk does with Twitter. My suspicion is that he was just talking shit when he made the offer and shocked when Twitter said sure and took him to court to force him to buy it. I have no need nor no interest in paying for Twitter or any of the content but I did not think I would pay for the Athletic either.

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

I have developed a Tik Tok addiction. I don't get any news or deep discussions from it. I just really love the comedy and parody stuff on there.

Some of the stuff has shown me on there or stuff that has made it over to Twitter is hilarious. The people in those videos have some real talent. I am not sure if they could carry a 22 minute sitcom much less an entire season but I have laugh more than I have at most of the sitcoms on terrestrial TV.

[Ksyrup]

It sounds like I could find some tailored interests/entertainment from TikTok, but I have the same issue with it as I do podcasts - I want text and images, not videos and sound. I don't walk around with earbuds in and am not going to play stuff on my phone out loud, so that practically limits how often I would use it.

I looked at Mastodon and now I don't know if that one is worth joining. You can only join one server at a time, the topics are limited, and some have wait lists. So if you get in one, you're limited to just that topic, it looks like. And then if you leave that one for another topic, you're stuck there unless you can get back on a previous server? It's a bit confusing.

I am going to check out CounterSocial and Cohost tonight.

[GrantDawg]

Tik Tok is what I watch when I have some time alone. I agree that I mostly don't want video/sound because if you are not alone you either have to put earphones on or be really rude. That said, i listen to podcast all day because I my work. I wear headphones all day when I am not in the car. Podcast and Audible 8 hours a day pretty much.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

[JeeberD]

I spend more time than I should on TikTok...both for entertainment, as well as news/information. However, their algorithm is REALLY good and I've found it is an echo chamber of those who share my political alignment. Nothing ever shows up from those with differing viewpoints. I know that a lot of people think that's a good thing, but I take the information I get off the platform with a grain of salt.

I'm on Facebook throughout the day on the app...I don't post much, expect to share pictures of the kids or fun things we're doing, or during the baseball playoffs when I make all of my friends roll their eyes at my Astros posts.

I've been on Twitter more the past couple of weeks than I have...ever? But that has a lot to do with the baseball playoffs and trying to consume as much information as possible. Once the playoffs are over, I imagine that I'll go back to jumping on their during random intervals to get specific information, or if a tweet is recommended to me.

I do spend a bunch of time on the Astros message board, as well as the affiliated debate and discussion board. That's probably where I spend the bulk of my online time these days.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Kodos

I don't use it, but Mastadon is supposed to be good from a privacy standpoint.

Thanks, never heard of it. But pretty sure that group is happy with Line. It went from email group, to FB, to WhatsApp, to Line.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

Anyway, my tuppence worth on Musk and Twitter. He’s in for a rocky ride, and the question for me is whether his ego is going to make him destroy Twitter. Right now, what’s pretty clear is that he doesn’t understand what makes Twitter work. 1/10

— Prof Paul Bernal (@PaulbernalUK) November 1, 2022

Pretty good summation thread, I think.

tl;dr Owning Twitter and making it profitable isn't easy. And Musk seems particularly ill-suited to do it.

Making it subscription based for most of your heavy users while trying to turn it into something similar, but worse than tik tok, sounds like a sure-fire way to destroy it.

I don't think Musk actually realizes how much he's disliked right now and people are looking for absolutely any reason to bail on twitter.

[Lathum]

https://twitter.com/chrisfluming/sta...L-QfLMyDDkQHyQ

[Fidatelo]

My sons (12 and 13) are not allowed on TikTok, but I'm sure they'd be on it all the time if they were. As it is they found YouTube shorts and spend way too much time watching those, which I think are basically the same deal. For socializing with friends it is all Discord for them (or in-game chat).

I have a FB account but have rarely ever posted anything. I don't check it very often, as the non-chronological feed confuses/infuriates me. I'd just have left it entirely if not for the Groups feature, which is useful for one or two groups I am part of.

I have a Twitter account but stopped actively using it around 7 or 8 years ago. I only keep it around so that I can view tweets people link to. I've been debating just killing it since the Elon takeover, but haven't acted yet.

My main news consumption is via Reddit. I follow some local groups and then also just get world news on the main feed. I spend way too much time on there. My secondary news consumption is via this forum

The move to video-over-text content is awful. My house is just filled with blaring sounds at all times from people consuming content. I really miss the internet from around 10 years ago or so; it felt like the sweet spot where sites had mostly figured out responsive, clean design but content was still focused around articles and text. I sort of feel like the death of Google Reader was the end of the golden era of internet from my perspective.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

My first thought--I have pre-teen/young teen boys. The main social platform--by far--is discord. That is the one that they use to engage with real life friends and with far-flung internet communities. They also use reddit for general browsing and YouTube for watching stuff. Neither is into TikTok, which seems weird given their ages, but they both say that it just does not interest them.

Twitter/facebook/MySpace/Message Boards/email might as well be telegrams as far as they are concerned--ancient technology notable only for historical interest.

Except for some use of Facebook for keeping up with family and old friends, I use the internet like a pre-teen boy. Lines up with my maturity level

SI

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Which, ya know, seems like it was kinda always the purpose.

Honestly, one of my bigger regrets about my FB involvement is how many Pages I ever followed.

And I miss the days when you could easily pare your feed down to only seeing Friends posts.

I mean, even if you ditch all the pages you follow and are basically just with friends, it means that 1 out of every 2-3 posts are ads.

About 90% of my Facebook interactions end up like this:

• My wife says "did you see what X posted"
• I go to my my wall
• I scroll between 30-90s before getting fed up not finding the post I was looking for - in this time, I have scrolled past at least 10 ads, clicking on none of them
• Then I just search for the user, look at the post, say "Haha, that was funny", "Wow, I can't believe how much their kid looks like them", etc
• Then I close Facebook and go to Reddit, which has like 1 ad for every 8ish posts in the app or none on Firefox with Noscript

How people have the patience to spend all day, every day scrolling there to do it... I just can't. I mean, I think, at the end of the day, it's ostensibly to look at family and friends crap, but generally to post political garbage and either try to "convert" the other side or, more likely, try to crap on someone with different political views.

SI

[Lathum]

My son is 12 and has been begging for Discord and I have been fighting it. Seems like a lot of you have kids that age who have it. What made you ok with it?

[Ksyrup]

Speaking of TikTok and privacy/security...

TikTok just acknowledged to European users that it can share their data with the Chinese government. This is a massive admission, and a key to a puzzle. To understand why, it's important to understand CCP influence in Chinese companies (thread).https://t.co/r3LkLdiSRi

— Isaac Stone Fish (@isaacstonefish) November 2, 2022

[sterlingice]

I was going to post something about that earlier in this thread but hesitated. Like I can't see myself using TikTok until some of the privacy concerns are addressed and I'm not sure how they can suitably address them. Like, TikTok seems to be one big viral app from the CCP - where Russia has to develop their own tools and farms to sew division on other social media like FB, Twitter, etc - China can just do whatever with TikTok from skim data to sew division to manipulate using what appears to be a hyper good algorithm (which probably has nothing to do with the lack of data privacy).

SI

[Ksyrup]

Apparently the latest idiocy from Musk is allowing content creators to charge for access to video and Twitter takes a cut. I can't fathom any video I would pay to watch on Twitter. And you're telling me it's not going to end up on YT? This would be like paywalled articles - I click on a link I want to read, see I'd have to pay, back out of the link, and scroll on.

I think one outcome from this Twitter mess is that I'll likely never consider buying a Tesla because this guy is just proving he's an erratic mess.

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by Lathum

My son is 12 and has been begging for Discord and I have been fighting it. Seems like a lot of you have kids that age who have it. What made you ok with it?

Most of the kids my son talked to on Discord were kids he knew through gaming or sports. For him, Discord was just an off shoot for the gaming chat more often than not. Every so often, he would have issues with someone who was problematic but he has always been good about blocking people or logging off if they become overbearing. When I set it up for him initially, I blocked anything not sent to him by a friend and blocked all DMs.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Apparently the latest idiocy from Musk is allowing content creators to charge for access to video and Twitter takes a cut. I can't fathom any video I would pay to watch on Twitter. And you're telling me it's not going to end up on YT? This would be like paywalled articles - I click on a link I want to read, see I'd have to pay, back out of the link, and scroll on.

I think one outcome from this Twitter mess is that I'll likely never consider buying a Tesla because this guy is just proving he's an erratic mess.

It's all about monetizing porn.

[Brian Swartz]

Regarding TikTok, I would surmise that the percentage of users for whom privacy issues are a deal-breaker is quite small.

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

It's all about monetizing porn.

This. He is just trying to tap into that OnlyFans money.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

This. He is just trying to tap into that OnlyFans money.

And that at least isn't the worst idea to make his money back. There are porn creators on Twitter, I'm sure they wouldn't mind a new revenue stream.

It is the $8 for verification thing that is nonsensical. "Blue Checkmarks" are the main content drivers on Twitter. Most social media tries to pay those creators to drive more views and get more content. He is trying to make them pay for the privilege to provide content. That is backwards.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

Regarding TikTok, I would surmise that the percentage of users for whom privacy issues are a deal-breaker is quite small.

It is what held me out for a long time. I finally caved because I figured if China wanted my information, they probably already got it. I might as well gets some laughs out of it.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

And that at least isn't the worst idea to make his money back. There are porn creators on Twitter, I'm sure they wouldn't mind a new revenue stream.

It is the $8 for verification thing that is nonsensical. "Blue Checkmarks" are the main content drivers on Twitter. Most social media tries to pay those creators to drive more views and get more content. He is trying to make them pay for the privilege to provide content. That is backwards.

It's not just that. It's the original purpose of the blue checkmarks - it's for all of us to know who among the most popular brands, personalities, news people, etc., are real and who are fake. So selling blue checks to them is fine, I guess, if that's what they want to do, but there are only so many of them. You and I don't need a blue checkmark because it doesn't matter if I'm Ksyrup or some a-hole pretending to be Ksyrup on Twitter because I'm a nobody.

The way it's being positioned, it seems like more of a way for two distinct groups of "nobodies" to show the world who they support - Musk fanboys and Trump fanboys.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

"Blue Checkmarks" are the main content drivers on Twitter.

Maybe that's part of what could change.

I mean, a Twitterverse populated by fewer "celebrities" would sure as hell drive the collective IQ of the place up

[Ksyrup]

Uh... no. If Twitter is anything, it's proof of the "better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool then open it and prove it." Just because some voices are amplified over others doesn't make them more or less stupid than the general populace.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Maybe that's part of what could change.

I mean, a Twitterverse populated by fewer "celebrities" would sure as hell drive the collective IQ of the place up

But drive the population down. That is not great if you want to make money. I mean, you could give IQ test if all you want is smart people, but you won't make any money doing it.

[whomario]

"Oh no, they actually consider the shit i said and say as some sort of hint and aren't enthralled by my half hearted public statements while i continue to make ludicrous tweets and fire half the staff, how dare they!"



(Also: if you post this without the header you could play a good game of "Trump or Musk?" )

[Ksyrup]

This is promising. Read the thread, it gets worse...

What's left of Twitter's trust and safety team took less than a minute to determine that "shut it Jew" does not violate whatever the rules are now. pic.twitter.com/vt9vXsqOLw

— Mike Rothschild (@rothschildmd) November 4, 2022

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

But drive the population down. That is not great if you want to make money. I mean, you could give IQ test if all you want is smart people, but you won't make any money doing it.

Maybe it's a version of philanthropy, who knows with him.

[Lathum]

We really are irrevocably broken...

[cuervo72]

Yeah, this is going well.

I'm sure advertisers will leap at the opportunity to be the corporate face of the next genocide. https://t.co/E2hrShukfi

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) November 4, 2022

Of course a good number of the replies to the ex-employee's thread are like "well what good did you do" and "why didn't you stop human trafficking and child porn" and leftist thisthat.

[whomario]

Also gone: A group of employees whose reports about the algorithm amplified right wing personalities and the accessibility team.

He's pretty much gutting everything that contributed to at least the idea of a platform having agency and providing a good environment (or in his view: unnecessary woke stuff). His idea/plan literally is: Charge people, save costs, bank on the whole thing carrying itself without much input.

It's not at all surprising and i am kind of glad he couldn't even muster a couple weeks of keeping up the facade. This way i hope more people realize he never had any intention to do anything else than what many of the oh so evil leftists predicted he would do.

[albionmoonlight]

If China told Musk “buy Twitter and destroy it or we’ll stop selling you the rare earths you need for Tesla,” would he be doing anything differently than what he’s currently doing?

[JPhillips]

Elon has apparently demanded a billion in annual savings from infrastructure costs. lol

The question now is how little does Elon get when he sells. Will the total even start with a B?

[albionmoonlight]

He would not sell it for that little. That would be admitting defeat. He would kill it out of spite rather than make a pittance on selling it if it really does crater in value to that extent.