I really hope that before "New Twitter" fired thousands of staff, they used an algorithm to see who had tweeted negatively about Musk taking it over and started with those who needed therapy and support groups at the thought of it. Not because of their opinion, but because of their lack of judgement and their inability to meet the demands of a tech company in a competitive industry.
Like it or not, if people are unable to control their emotions in the workplace, they probably shouldn't be working in that place. Perhaps they would be better suited to industries and positions that aren't as volatile and perhaps, where they aren't able to voice their opinion, regardless of how irrelevant it may be.
Sure, it might not be fun to have it done this way where people are getting emailed and seeing their computers wiped remotely in front of their eyes, but based on how many have been acting over the last months, can you really blame the methods employed? This is a tech company with data that they want to protect, and in a world where security can't go simultaneously to each of their desks and walk them out with a box of their personals in their arms, this is the way.
The benefits of working from anywhere, also comes with the drawbacks of being fired while anywhere.
But, let's face it, while Musk overspent on Twitter by a lot and the share price of Tesla are down, it doesn't really matter what he does in his life from here on out, he isn't going to run out of money, his life will be fine, his children taken care of. And, his actions are very much aligned with his beliefs that we are living in a simulation. "Simulated life" means no lasting consequences to actions, only game consequences, so risks can be taken. this is a great belief system to build a life of a billionaire.
It's a life of running over hookers in Grand Theft Auto.
Sorry, sex workers. Wouldn't want to offend anyone and get dragged over hot Tweets. Which has been what Twitter has become, a place very much like the Salem witch trials, where people are naming those they disagree with in order to get them cancelled. Except they aren't even doing it to steal their farmland, they are doing it to steal their attention.
And, the latest casualty is that advertisers are being socially pressured to pull or pause their advertising on Twitter, which is fantastic, because ad model businesses are a scourge on society and are the core reason for the lack of information integrity in the quagmire that is social media. "Drain the Swamp" was a misdirect to actually fill the swamp up to overflowing, with misinformation and disinformation being used to manipulate the uninformed, into thinking they knew something of value.
As the UK hurtles towards a prolonged economic crisis — with interest rates soaring and inflation rocketing — the nation’s leader has been clocked wearing designer shoes worth almost $900. Critics on social media have blasted the new UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak — who has an estimated net worth of $1.3 billion with his wife Akshata Murty — as out of touch.
Do you know who is out of touch?
Sunak is married to a billionaire and probably, has a pretty decent economic mind on him as it is, considering he is tasked with fixing the terrible economic position the UK is in. While people expect him to dress like a commoner, what they should be expecting him to do is,
His fucking job.
He can wear flip flops or shrunken giraffe heads as shoes for all people should really care, as long as he does what he is tasked with and improves the economy. But, this is the problem with the world of politics, as rather than choosing people on their ability to do the job, they are chosen on their personality, their celebrity. And rather than judging them on the job they do, they are judged on the clothes they wear or if they go out and have a drink with friends.
The Twitterati and similar who create most of the vitriol on the internet are for all intents and purposes, horrible humans. But, they have been conditioned to be so, because drama is what the algorithms encourage.
In a pay-per-click world for the platform, the more drama and polarization the better and those 8000 4000 Twitter employees have been complicit in developing this culture and, beneficiaries of it. However, they didn't expect to become the IRL recipients of their own creation, where they themselves have been cancelled.
The student becomes the master.
But of course, they don't see it this way, because just like the majority of people on Twitter, they see themselves as victims of circumstances, not creators of their own experience. When Stephen King, an author who is worth around half a billion dollars is complaining about paying money to subscribe to get additional benefits on a platform that he uses daily to engage and benefit from his almost 7 million followers there, you know that entitlement is nearing its peak.
Twitter is a cesspool, but that doesn't mean that some people don't benefit from it, because they do. Without it, many of these stars would have struggled to maintain or build their brands at all, leaving them irrelevant in a rapidly changing information space. Musk himself would have been at far more of a disadvantage if he didn't have Twitter as a platform, as he has used it to build his brands, that are well out of the financial reach of the average person and into the common psyche. And remember, Twitter didn't ban Trump, until it was in their best interest to do so.
Twitter is not some free forum and it definitely isn't a safe space, because it has been turned into a place of polarization and conflict. It isn't for sharing ideas, it is for cutting down the ideas of others and punishing them for having contradictory views. It is a place of vengeance of small minds, of people who will mostly do nothing of note with their lives, so they punish others through their mass actions and feel that they are part of something important, by cutting down people they disagree with.
But, it is exactly this drama that will at least in the short term, keep Twitter running, because all the people complaining about Musk taking over and his actions, will keep using the platform to complain about it. They aren't going to leave, they aren't going to start their own platform, they aren't going to give up their followership - they are going to double-down, and invest themselves even more emotionally.
And the algorithms will find their voice and amplify it. News sites will embed their tweets into their stories as evidence of social outrage. And advertisers will do what they are designed to do, get their content in front of the eyes of potential customers.
Same ol', Same ol'.
Musk will likely lose a lot of money. But, might not lose that much sleep.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
