this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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[–] [email protected] 416 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 208 points 1 year ago (4 children)

As all billionaires are. Along with unempathetic sociopathic psychopaths.

[–] [email protected] 65 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I can't fathom having the power to save our at least change millions of lives...but instead choose to leech more wealth from the people that need it most. And systematically make the world worse. It's a sickness.

There are no good billionaires.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (11 children)

I would build SO much low income, homeless, and transition housing. I would also start my own line of bamboo products and packaging to replace plastic.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

That may be the most tautological sentence I've ever read.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Automated teller ATM machine 👍

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

Well yeah. If you weren't sociopathic, you wouldn't be holding onto all of your money, but would instead be trying to help people with it.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Being a billionaire means having the means to help millions of people, and deciding to instead keep all that money for yourself.

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[–] [email protected] 348 points 1 year ago (11 children)

According to Hwang, the company now formerly known as Twitter did offer "an alternative handle with the history of the @x account" so that his original account, complete with its posts and followers, could live on and continue to be used.

What short, catchy username did Musk's company change Hwang's handle to? @x12345678998765.

You can't make this shit up. God damn!

[–] [email protected] 115 points 1 year ago (6 children)

that sounds like what an idiot would have for a password.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago

So you are saying one could log into @x with that...

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Quick someone check if it’s Elons password!

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nah his password would definitely include an "42069" in it.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

Did you try xXx42069NoScopexXx?

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (3 children)

However, Hwang tells me, he was also offered a new handle of his choice – as long as it's available. He just hasn't picked one yet.

[–] [email protected] 116 points 1 year ago (1 children)

He should ask for @twitter.

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"as long as it's available" is as good as nothing imho.

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[–] [email protected] 217 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What short, catchy username did Musk's company change Hwang's handle to? @x12345678998765.

It could have been worse.

They could have named him "X Æ A-12" 😵‍💫

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[–] [email protected] 148 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Man...

I was pretty bummed when I heard that Twitter was going to die. There are some cool moments in history that happened on Twitter. It was a hell of a ride, but the writing was on the wall well before Elon bought it. It was time to go.

But not like this.

It deserved a good death. Not to have it's corpse raped on full display over and over.

A lot of very talented people committed so much time and energy to this. When it launched, it was a novel idea and they really forged some roads in our understanding of how we communicate and receive information.

It was clear at the end that it would never produce the kind of ROI on advertising to make investors happy, and that Nazis had clearly taken over the platform and used it to bastardize journalism further. It was time to go to pasture.

But not like this.

Hopefully its mutilated, humiliated and desiccated corpse will feed the growth of the federated web.

I hope you find peace, sweet prince.

[–] [email protected] 87 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Twitter was profitable before Musk took over.

The purchase itself saddled Twitter with $13 billion in debt. Musk paid $26bn, other investors (including the Saudi prince) together paid $5bn, and the remaining $13bn was a loan Twitter took out to buy itself on their behalf.

The new owners only paid tax on the $31bn they paid, not the $44bn that was paid to shareholders. (Here's something I'm not sure about: Musk was one of the largest shareholders. Is the $44bn the total value of all shares - does that include Musk's shares? Did he basically buy shares from himself?)

The interest on that $13bn was comparible to Twitter's revenue, before Musk started fucking around. Twitter could not afford that debt.

The buyout itself was what killed Twitter. Everything since then has been nothing but a clown show to distract from the fact that was the original intention.

[–] [email protected] 85 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thank you. I hate it when people say Twitter wasn't profitable. It was profitable. It just wasn't an infinite money printing machine like people (investors) wanted. Twitter didn't need investor money or loans to pay all its bills unlike say Tumblr.

Twitter was the victim of the same financial BS as Toysrus.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Wait, that sounds like a leveraged buyout. I overlooked that detail in the news. It changes everything.

I know that some investment firms use leveraged buyouts to drain every bit of money from a company before they chop it up, sell the good bits and let the rest go bankrupt due to the massive debts left in the carcass of the old company. It's so scummy I wonder why it's not illegal.

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[–] [email protected] 137 points 1 year ago

Shitty social media website does shitty thing and continues enshittification full throttle.

[–] [email protected] 72 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Well I went ahead and did a mastadon. No clue what I am doing, but.. Woohoo?

I'm [email protected] there too I guess. Idk

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (6 children)

You'd want to include your instance as part of your handle. I know, it's not as intuitive as a centralized service, but it is a requirement, especially when sharing the name elsewhere. So, your Lemmy account is [email protected]. Folks on lemmy.world don't need that, but folks on another instance (like me) would. I can get it from clicking your username, but there's no way to figure it out for a different platform from here.

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[–] [email protected] 68 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What short, catchy username did Musk's company change Hwang's handle to? @x12345678998765.

That's some really !funnyandsad material...

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[–] [email protected] 66 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I hate to say it because Fuck Elon, but this is just one of those things you sign away when you agree to the terms of service.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (1 children)

True, but it's still worth criticizing because of him being so dickish about it. He even renamed the account @x12345678998765.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And he could have gone down the "Mike Row Soft" route and offered the guy some free stuff as compensation. Terms allowing them to do something doesn't mean they have to be dicks about it.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Exactly! Musk is being an asshole because he can and he likes it. Sure, he has every right to be an asshole just like Jason Aldean has the right to release a racist song. That doesn't make them free from criticism.

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[–] [email protected] 61 points 1 year ago (8 children)

As much as this sucks, this person has no rights to their name and never did. Stop using the platform and giving it attention!

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago

Yeah, it’s not like they ever bought that name from Twitter so there’s no real argument that they actually own it, even if they’d ever bought the checkmark BS.

Money and a rename would have been a goodwill gesture, and expecting any goodwill from this version of twitter is insanity.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think anyone is saying they are owed money. But just taking the handle with nothing in return is really not nice.

They could at least give the guy like Twitter Blue for life or whatever the heck premium is called now.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (5 children)

To be fair, no user "owns" their account. Everything about your Twitter account, from the user name to the data you tweet belongs to Twitter. I hesitate to call it a dick move. It's more of an Elon move.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago

Musk is an overpaid idiot, but anyone has to expect not to have any real rights on any website.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Imagine how amazing the PR would have been if the title had been: "User gets spectator seating for a SpaceX launch in return for lost handle"

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago

More X-crement. Stop wasting your time on this shit site.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago

Another example of Musk being a cunt, what a surprise

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I can hear his theme song now.....

X gon' take it from ya (uh), he gon' take it from ya X gon' take it from ya, he gon' take it from ya

First we gonna rock, then we gonna roll Then we let it pop, go, let it go

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This can be done with any centralized social media. You don't know your username.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I doubt X has much money to spare to give to people considering how they hemorrhage money.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

const x = 0;

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