this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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656
It's real. Twitter Shadowbanning is back. (blog.twitter.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
138 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

“Freedom of Speech, not Freedom of Reach - our enforcement philosophy which means, where appropriate, restricting the reach of Tweets that violate our policies by making the content less discoverable.”

Surprise! Our great 'X' CEO has brought back one more bad thing that we hated about twitter 1.0: Shadowbanning. And they’ve given it a new name: "Freedom of Speech, Not Reach".

Perhaps the new approach by X is an improvement? At least they would “politely” tell you when you’re being shadow banned.

I think freedom of speech implies that people have the autonomy to decide what they want to see, rather than being manipulated by algorithm codes. Now it feels like they’re saying, “you can still have your microphone... We're just gonna cut the power to it if you say something we don't like”.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well that was the whole point. His old friend Peter Thiel and others failed to set up a competing service against Twitter, so now they're undermining Twitter. Either Twitter steps into line and becomes what they want it to be, or it dies due to the $13bn debt/tax avoidance scam that Musk performed.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

$13bn debt/tax avoidance scam that Musk performed

Since I don't follow Musk, please elaborate. I hope, you don't mean his buying an unprofitable company for $40B was to avoid taxes...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Overpaying and then destroying the value means that eventually, he will be able to claim losses on his taxes. This will allow him to reduce his tax liability for his profitable businesses.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Sure but it doesn't make sense to destroy more capital than you're liable in taxes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No. I'm referring to the $13bn out of the $44bn purchase price that Twitter paid itself. As Twitter is now deep in debt, it won't be making a profit any time soon, so there will be no tax paid on that $13bn purchase.

The $44bn purchase is broken down more or less as:

  • $26bn by Musk ($20bn of which was from Tesla shares),
  • $5bn from other investors, including that Saudi prince,
  • $13bn in a loan that Twitter took out to buy itself on behalf of its new owners.

The process is known as a leveraged buyout, and it's what's killed many staple businesses that were otherwise perfectly viable, eg Toys R Us.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Dear Elon,

You say you hate socialism yet you socialized around 40% of the acquisition money.

Curious.