Confirmed. It&#x27;s crazy out here in these stweets.

At least unbanning alt-right figures (as much as I disagree with) was in line with Musk&#x27;s free-speech pretense. Everything else that came after that... yikes. I wonder what juicy government contracts the GOP has promised him.

It&#x27;s been off the shark for two months. We&#x27;re already to the point we&#x27;ve been judging people still there for having not seen it yet. o.oUnbanning the alt-right wasn&#x27;t jumping the shark? Firing over half the employees wasn&#x27;t jumping the shark? Promoting COVID misinformation wasn&#x27;t jumping the shark? Yeah, he finally started banning journalists, but he&#x27;s been making the place unwelcome for anyone who isn&#x27;t a Trump supporter for a long as heck time.If you are just now asking if it&#x27;s going to jump the shark, and I mean this not to be sarcastic or mean, but in genuine hope for the future: Please spend some time asking yourself why banning PG was the last straw for you, and not any of the crazy stuff prior.Let&#x27;s make this the last time we let hero worship blind us to the realities on the ground.

Apparently people are trying to save so many tweets right now that the Internet Archive is having a delay: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;paquita.masto.host&#x2F;@SwiftOnSecurity@infosec.exchange&#x2F;109536454876000846" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;paquita.masto.host&#x2F;@SwiftOnSecurity@infosec.exchange...</a>When all this started I thought that Twitter wouldn&#x27;t make it to Christmas. Sometimes I think that was too much, that it&#x27;d take longer to collapse. This past week makes me think I might be right.

I think Twitter is about to jump the shark. This is insane.

Banned for posting a link to his personal website (which has links to his other social media profiles)Ridiculous.

He didn&#x27;t even post the link directly, just said that it was on his site.

Not quite. This was his ultimate tweet:&gt;This is my last straw. I give up. You can find a link to my new Mastodon profile on my site.The tweet itself did not contain a link to <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.paulgraham.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.paulgraham.com&#x2F;</a>, which contains a link to his Mastodon profile. Apparently that was enough to be suspended.

You mean this is a quick way to get rid of mostly unused Twitter accounts? I&#x27;m in.. I&#x27;ve got a few to knock their total account #s down.. After that make a gdpr request and have fun.

I’m guessing he got banned for posting this?

Create your own? There are many implementations over ActivityPub, but you can create your own if you like.

Finally signed up, seems fine. I think the big problem is if the servers will be able to handle the volume.

I agree. Mastadon in concept is OK but execution is quite poor.

It&#x27;s so painful to use. It&#x27;s such a waste they&#x27;re winning the network effect battle off of Twitter&#x27;s collapse. Not that I have a better alternative (open to suggestions).

which exact part is frustrating?there are some additional twitter-like mobile clients, i.e.- <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.macrumors.com&#x2F;2022&#x2F;11&#x2F;29&#x2F;tapbots-ivory-mastodon-app&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.macrumors.com&#x2F;2022&#x2F;11&#x2F;29&#x2F;tapbots-ivory-mastodon-...</a>which supposedly fix the difference

It feels like Mastodon is limited by the limitations the web (rightfully) added to improve security&#x2F;restrict third party tracking. A lot of these UX issues could be fixed by having native client apps, where you add servers and the client takes care of mixing feeds and searches.

I feel like someone should lean into the fact that twitter is going insane and make a carbon copy of it, instead of trying to innovate on the concept&#x2F;UX. Maybe even use a similar name, like bitter, xitter, etc.Innovation is usually the way to overthrow incumbents, but in this case a carbon copy might be more effective.

You can use RSS if you prefer: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mas.to&#x2F;@paulg.rss" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mas.to&#x2F;@paulg.rss</a>

Mastadon UX is really frustrating. Hoping there&#x27;s a better option for following him in the near future

Making a Twitter clone is probably moderately hard. Doing so in a decentralized way is very hard.

Why would anyone fund a startup to reproduce something that’s already wildly popular and successful and still not producing a great ROI?Twitter is hard enough technically, but the global compliance&#x2F;regulatory challenges must be daunting.

Post.news and t2.social are two startups under way

&gt; Where are all the startups?Before: Twitter was everywhere - any clone would fail.Now: Twitter is still everywhere. Seems like drug for journalists.

Mastodon is not really a twitter clone, there&#x27;s a lot of features they disagree with and don&#x27;t want.

gaining 5000 users per hour all day today.  it&#x27;s an utter disaster for Musk, pretty much it

It&#x27;s amazing Mastodon is still so utterly disaster. Where are all the startups? Why is making Twitter clone so hard?

Not an investment, but a donation to a server is a good start: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mas.to&#x2F;@paulg&#x2F;109536767974913388" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mas.to&#x2F;@paulg&#x2F;109536767974913388</a>

Would be pretty amusing if Paul Graham decided to invest in the Mastodon ecosystem. That said, I think Elon is a pretty public cautionary tale of why emotionally driven financial decisions are a bad idea.

For those who missed it, his Mastodon is: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mas.to&#x2F;@paulg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mas.to&#x2F;@paulg</a>

Well, seems that choice was taken out of his hands by an insecure billionaire.

I&#x27;m explicitly quoting the thread title, not the thread content, which is too extensive to do justice to in a line or two.  Reading much of the threads there and elsewhere, and skimming most of the rest, I believe his intent was to create a bolt-hole, but had hopes that Twitter would recover.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but it appears that he was after all.

He said in that second thread that he is not actually leaving Twitter.

I don&#x27;t think OF is even banned, though a lot of them use Linktree which is.

The only accounts that I’ve felt really abuse “using Twitter to promote another site” are OnlyFans creators.

Elon Musk:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;elonmusk&#x2F;status&#x2F;1604593057676300288" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;elonmusk&#x2F;status&#x2F;1604593057676300288</a>&gt; Casually sharing occasional links is fine, but no more relentless advertising of competitors for free, which is absurd in the extremePG did not even post a link, just mentioned the name.

Relevant context:* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=34040165" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=34040165</a> : Promotion of alternative social platforms policy (help.twitter.com)* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=34041985" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=34041985</a> : Paul Graham is leaving Twitter (twitter.com&#x2F;paulg)

Paul sure spent a lot of energy support Elon up until the very last minute.

Alright, I legit can&#x27;t think of a reason why he would ban Paul Graham before everyone else who has promoted Mastodon since the rule change.That&#x27;s the literal opposite of low hanging fruit!

Hilarious. Sorry this is low effort but you can’t make this stuff up.

And his mind.  Or perhaps that ship sailed long ago.

The written policy contradicts his statement.

It&#x27;s just &quot;enforcement&quot;, there&#x27;s nothing malicious about it. Elon Musk is the CEO and policymaker of Twitter now, he&#x27;s responsible for the actions his company takes.

And what interpretation of &#x27;absurd in the extreme&#x27; should we take?

Where interpretation of &quot;casually&quot; and &quot;occasional&quot; is left to the Emperor.

The first word that came to mind when I read the new rule was &quot;arbitrariness&quot;. I did not expect to be proven right this fast, honestly.

&gt; &gt; All of Musk&#x27;s previous interactions with Graham suggests that their relationship is friendly.Mohammed bin Salman invited 30 of his closest friends to discuss public projects before arresting them and torturing them in the Ritz CarltonDon’t ever fall into the trap of anthropomorphism of autocrats

That&#x27;d be extremely unfair. It was extremely dangerous to Mr. Musk&#x27;s estate that Paul Graham used his clout to entice people to switch to Mastodon. This was nothing but a display of unswerving loyalty and adherence to Mr. Musk&#x27;s vision.

&gt; I&#x27;d be shocked if @paulg isn&#x27;t reinstated within 48 hoursThe only reasonable comment in this thread. He was reinstated a few minutes ago.

I wouldn&#x27;t be surprised if the employee who did this gets fired as a result of this. In fact, I&#x27;d be shocked  if @paulg isn&#x27;t reinstated within 48 hours (as they did with Taylor Lorenz a few hours ago.) All of Musk&#x27;s previous interactions with Graham suggests that their relationship is friendly. And if there&#x27;s one thing we&#x27;ve seen from Elon Musk&#x27;s Twitter, it&#x27;s that he&#x27;s not hesitant to fire Twitter employees.

&quot;competitors&quot; ? I thought that Lonnie was bringing us Twitter: The True Public Square? How can there be any competitors for a public square?

&gt; anyone who didn&#x27;t like Musk or the &quot;extreme hardcore&quot; could have taken the severanceIf they aren&#x27;t held hostage by a H-1B visa.

Content moderators can’t switch jobs so easily.

How many malicious employees do you think would be left at this point? There have been massive layoffs, and anyone who didn&#x27;t like Musk or the &quot;extreme hardcore&quot; could have taken the severance.

Malicious? Elon Musk wants employees to have utmost loyalty to him, what&#x27;s malicious to risk taking the fall by clicking the ban button on the rich, famous and powerful to safeguard the vision of the visionary CEO? This was fulfillment of orders beyond the call of duty.Graham was a threat to the Master, what&#x27;s a loyal servant to do?

Possibly malicious enforcement by Twitter staff in light of <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;elonmusk&#x2F;status&#x2F;1604593057676300288" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;elonmusk&#x2F;status&#x2F;1604593057676300288</a>“Casually sharing occasional links is fine, but no more relentless advertising of competitors for free, which is absurd in the extreme”

This is insane. Elon Musk himself [replied to @paulg](<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;elonmusk&#x2F;status&#x2F;1604258004706201602" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;elonmusk&#x2F;status&#x2F;1604258004706201602</a>) not even 24 hours ago. I bet this will be reversed (quite possibly along with the new anti-competitive, anti-free speech policy) but if not, this feels like an unprecedented death knell.

&gt; How do I get the backup of his tweets?You don’t.&gt; I always thought it will be there all the time.Welcome to the fun times of walled gardens owned by capricious wankers!&gt; Does he has back that he can share?Maybe!

I suspect the account will be restored eventually but the wayback machine looks like it has a full snapshot: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20221218215229&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;paulg&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20221218215229&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.co...</a>

<pre><code> Do not stand
 By my page, and weep.
 I am not there,
 I do not tweet—
 I am the thousand winds that blow
 I am the diamond glints in snow
 I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
 I am the gentle, autumn rain.
 As you awake with morning’s hush,
 I am the swift, up-flinging rush
 Of quiet birds in circling flight,
 I am the day transcending night.
 Do not stand
 By my page, and cry—
 I am not there,
 I did not die.</code></pre>

&gt; How do I get the backup of his tweets?When the account appears again you run one of the many archiving tools that downloads tweets to a json file.Preferably a tool that doesn’t require an API key.

pg&#x27;s twitter was amazing archive of insightful content. How do I get the backup of his tweets? I always thought it will be there all the time. Does he has backup that he can share? I am all but stunned right now. Need time to process this.

Same. It&#x27;s sad how quickly this is getting absurd.

Twitter is great, but its the users that provide the value, not Twitter itself. If all the interesting people are moving to Mastodon, guess I&#x27;ll need to move as well.

It&#x27;s allowed to be annoyed about it.

Individuals in societies have this thing called reputation. Him claiming to supportive of free speech while doing this to a social platform he now owns is pure hypocrisy and damages his reputation, whatever&#x27;s left of it.

This is capitalism.  He&#x27;d be completely within his rights to buy Twitter for cash...then completely shut it down, pay off A&#x2F;P &amp; such, and liquidate all assets.

This is beyond ridiculous. Twitter has given me so much over the years and it’s dismantled in days

PG’s tweet said, iirc, go to my website, it has my Mastodon link. He didn’t even mention his website, it’s on his bio.If that’s not okay to Twitter, that’s extremely interesting. Brings Apple’s App Store rules to mind.

The TOS says any accounts that primarily focus on promotion of competitors will be banned, which, hm, but anyways. I think it’s obvious PG’s account was not primarily focused on links to other socials, so on to the next condition.The TOS also says any accounts which post a direct link to such sites will be found in violation.It does not say anything about purely mentioning the fact you have another social media (especially without saying the username), nor linking to a personal website, nor does it say anything about referring to where to find such a thing

Calling this a &quot;blatant attempt at ban evasion&quot; is uncharitable. What he wrote was, at most, arguably against the spirit of the rule. This is not even to speak of whether the rule is reasonable, or even just consistent with Elon&#x27;s stated values.

&gt; blatant attempts at ban evasionThis is a very strange way to describe what&#x27;s going on at Twitter.Musk has loudly announced that you&#x27;re not allowed to even link to your other profiles on any other social media sites, or even describe indirectly how to find them. No major social media site has ever done something quite this anticompetitive, and certainly not all this scale. I&#x27;ve been using the Internet since the Eternal September, and this is a ludicrous policy.

Maaan, the expression &quot;ban evasion&quot; is becoming as meaningless as &quot;free speech&quot; along with &quot;bias&quot; and so on.People just use them fully randomly.

That&#x27;s not very free speech of twitter, now is it?

Is using Mastadon (a competing service) an attempt at ban evasion?

I&#x27;m curious - I&#x27;ve seen his tweet. Can I ask you:1. Are you just an advocate for following a website&#x27;s terms?2. Or do you think there is credibility in these terms?

Actually, Elon just had paul&#x27;s account unsuspended.  Regardless of the reasoning, it makes much of your argumentation moot (irrelevant) because it&#x27;s clear you don&#x27;t understand Twitter or Musk&#x27;s reasoning (nor does Musk).

You are wrong about what PG said. In fact, his Tweet included an explanation of where to find a link to his Mastodon account.Elon has made it clear that these blatant attempts at ban evasion are not allowed.

lol, nostr? There are like 20 people on that, it&#x27;s still just an experiment.

Notice that TikTok isn&#x27;t on the list.  Seems like Musk crafted the rules in a way to ensure that one of his favorite Twitter accounts is safe from this rule about posting links to other social media.

&gt; However, we will no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms on Twitter.So much for free speech.

Musk seems to be indicating that banning it was a mistake:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;elonmusk&#x2F;status&#x2F;1604616426114932737" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;elonmusk&#x2F;status&#x2F;1604616426114932737</a>

LOTT doesn’t usually link to TT.  They reupload the videos to twitter.

From official Twitter support:&gt; We recognize that many of our users are active on other social media platforms. However, we will no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms on Twitter.&gt; Specifically, we will remove accounts created solely for the purpose of promoting other social platforms and content that contains links or usernames for the following platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr and Post.And from Elon Musk:&gt; Casually sharing occasional links is fine, but no more relentless advertising of competitors for free, which is absurd in the extreme.

Yes, that was a Tweet by Musk at some point. Well, we know now how that test played out.

&gt; The acid test for any two competing socioeconomic systems is which side needs to build a wall to keep people from escaping? — ERM

Banned for being too high profile and mentioning Mastodon, essentially.

I use TinyURL. I’m sure other link shorteners work. When a snitch reports the tweet I add random query variables to the url and generate another short link.

No, it literally said in the rules that he posted that any attempt to get around it would also be a violation. He told people where to find it. He attempted to get around it. So it&#x27;s a violation.A stupid rule, but technically someone at Twitter has to enforce it. Since the people suspending accounts aren&#x27;t in charge of what rules they enforce and which they don&#x27;t.How much you want to bet this ends up with the EU threatening Musk again?

The order Proboscidea encompasses elephants, stegodonts, and [redacted, praise Elon].

This is fucking sad. This is just as bad as the old Twitter that banned people for saying things like &quot;learn to code&quot;.Any hope for an improved Twitter is getting tossed out the window.

It appears that he was wrong about that first bit though.

Yeah, well, he also said &quot;I&#x27;m not leaving Twitter.&quot; and nobody tells Elon whether they&#x27;re leaving or not. That&#x27;s Elon&#x27;s call to make and his alone.

So far links to legit-elephant.lol&#x2F;@username@instance.name seem to work.So far.

Emperor doesn&#x27;t like disloyal twirps.

&quot;If I can&#x27;t have you I&#x27;ll destroy you&quot;.

I would be willing to bet that Elon follows pg... and he probably took personal offense to him leaving.

So does that make twitter the communist version capitalism?

The company is a clown show if a CEO has to interfere with moderation policies.

&gt; Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won’t happen again.I&#x27;m not sure a vote is the best option but it doesn&#x27;t solve the problem either. There needs to be due process. You can&#x27;t bring out a new policy and 5 mins later start banning accounts that have tweets older than the policy that also violate the policy.Elon is big on move fast and break things but I think he is going to hard and will destroy Twitter if he continues at this pace.

So sad. It would have been better if it had stayed banned, really would have given that extra push to mastodon&#x2F;etc.Does anyone think Elon can recover this situation? I think he&#x27;ll have to re-float twitter and have an independent CEO, and sell another $15B of Telsa stock to pay back the debt and get some operating capital. With time and rational management, he might be able to then sell out, only losing ~$15B.

Hijacking top comment to note Elon Musk has commented: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;elonmusk&#x2F;status&#x2F;1604616426114932737" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;elonmusk&#x2F;status&#x2F;1604616426114932737</a>&gt; Paul’s account will be restored shortlyAnd <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;elonmusk&#x2F;status&#x2F;1604616863673208832" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;elonmusk&#x2F;status&#x2F;1604616863673208832</a>&gt; Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won’t happen again.

Additionally, Elon Musk just tweeted asking if he should resign as head of Twitter: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;elonmusk&#x2F;status&#x2F;1604617643973124097" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;elonmusk&#x2F;status&#x2F;1604617643973124097</a>

And it shows Paul is followed by 2857 people, following none.
All this random minor chaos is a little saddening.
Eggs have to be broken to make omelette. This looks like sloppy cooking.

I vaguely feel like someone (ahem) is trying to get us to riot over silly things, as an experiment. It doesn’t make any sense.

Will everyone who argued that paulg broke the rules with his last tweet now admit they were wrong or will they now argue the unbanning isn&#x27;t justified?

Correct. The latest new policy as of this morning is that you’re not allowed to reference over half the internet

Odd use of &#x27;gatekeeper&#x27; isn&#x27;t it? Even if I would call this &#x27;gatekeeping behaviour&#x27; (I don&#x27;t think it is, the way that&#x27;s usually used around here at least? Not to say that it isn&#x27;t &#x27;misbehaviour&#x27;) surely the thing that&#x27;s objected to really is gatekeeping by x platforms, where x is &#x27;monopoly&#x27; or &#x27;dominant&#x27; or something?

The way Elon seems to like to take his chances, Twitter pulling out from the EU&#x2F;EEA market might be a possibility. Personally I think that would be beneficial, as even more would switch to Mastodon in 2023. Even if I don&#x27;t use social blogging websites myself, I think that would be a net win.

&gt; prevent consumers from linking up to businesses outside their platformsThis seems quite commonsensical. Isn&#x27;t there already some other (less explicit) existing law that has the same effect?

So, platforms can&#x27;t delete spam as long as the spam is a competitor? That&#x27;s... interesting.

Twitter is definitely not big enough to be considered a gatekeeper

The European Union Digital Markets Act, coming into effect in May 2023, explicitly forbids such behavior. (If twitter is classified as a &quot;gatekeeper&quot;.)<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;commission.europa.eu&#x2F;strategy-and-policy&#x2F;priorities-2019-2024&#x2F;europe-fit-digital-age&#x2F;digital-markets-act-ensuring-fair-and-open-digital-markets_en" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;commission.europa.eu&#x2F;strategy-and-policy&#x2F;priorities-...</a>Example of the “don&#x27;ts” - Gatekeeper platforms may no longer:- treat services and products offered by the gatekeeper itself more favourably in ranking than similar services or products offered by third parties on the gatekeeper&#x27;s platform- prevent consumers from linking up to businesses outside their platforms

Please, they&#x27;re called assassination coordinates now.  He&#x27;s trying to protect us.

I think there are tons of brands that could launch a Twitter clone right now while the dumpster fire is hot. My guess is that nobody wants to run a social media site these days… not even Elon Musk.Social media sites are a sort of grayweb at this point in history.

I think the reason so few are getting into the thing is that Twitter never showed the concept to be a particularly profitable business in the first place, and it couldn&#x27;t seem to grow beyond a certain small size (in comparison to other networks).So why would Amazon or any other company want to invest in their own version of that?

&gt; Feels like Amazon could eat Twitter&#x27;s lunch hereAmazon has spent decades building the complete opposite culture of what it takes to successfully run a social network.

Mastodon or other implementation isn&#x27;t scalable like Twitter.

I&#x27;m kind of shocked that Bezos hasn&#x27;t commissioned an ActivityPub&#x2F;federated network (mastodon instance) that obfuscates the decentralization (for easier onboarding) and gives you some kind of &quot;deal&quot; for having Amazon Prime.Feels like Amazon could eat Twitter&#x27;s lunch here (especially since they, allegedly, run Twitter&#x27;s servers now, meaning that they could handle the traffic).

Looks like now you&#x27;re not allowed to so much as mention that you use other websites on the internet besides Twitter.I think soon getting kicked off of Twitter will become a tech badge of honor. Like having a gmail address back when it was invitation-only.

I think twitter couldn’t be more mismanaged than under this narcissistic idiot, but free speech is far from simple — you just get mindless shitposting and hate speech without some form of moderation.

Well, I think I have to update my understanding of &quot;Free Speech&quot;. It&#x27;s such a simple concept on paper that got extremely complex to deal with once deployed to production.

Elon seems to try so hard to show people how he is, people just don’t want to take him at his actions…

Ah, that’s why I was banned. I had my Mastadon account in my profile. Made that account in 2007. What a shame to have something so important completely torn down.

Possibly of interest: : <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=34045737" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=34045737</a>

I wonder if paleontologists specializing on extinct proboscidea are in trouble.

Here’s the link: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mas.to&#x2F;@paulg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mas.to&#x2F;@paulg</a>

A million users is insignificant compared to the number of advertisers who have abandoned them, and it&#x27;s probably causing cash flow problems which is one reason why he was so desperate to chase people away and&#x2F;or fire them, and why Twitter has been liquidating equipment (that and the huge debt he&#x27;s generated on Twitter&#x27;s books.)Remember how Twitter has stopped paying rent on a bunch of its offices? And Musk just cashed $3.5B in Tesla stock? They probably couldn&#x27;t pay the rent without people going unpaid.Not paying your rent is one thing, but not paying employees results in immediate, we-gonna-fuck-you-in-the-ass attention from governments around the world. My state treats non-payment of wages as a criminal offense by the officers of the company.

Update; Twitter bans posting of handles and links to Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon and more : <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;techcrunch.com&#x2F;2022&#x2F;12&#x2F;18&#x2F;twitter-wont-let-you-post-your-facebook-instagram-and-mastodon-handles&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;techcrunch.com&#x2F;2022&#x2F;12&#x2F;18&#x2F;twitter-wont-let-you-post-...</a>&gt;(Update December 19, 2022, 8:40 AM IST):Twitter has deleted the tweets announcing the policy that prohibited people from posting handles and links to other social networks.The company has also silently removed the policy page that detailed these rules.

&gt;Wow. PG did not even post any links, he pretty much just said &quot;I have a Mastodon account.&quot; And just like that, banned.Twitter may have lost more than a million users since Elon Musk took over : <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.technologyreview.com&#x2F;2022&#x2F;11&#x2F;03&#x2F;1062752&#x2F;twitter-may-have-lost-more-than-a-million-users-since-elon-musk-took-over&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.technologyreview.com&#x2F;2022&#x2F;11&#x2F;03&#x2F;1062752&#x2F;twitter-...</a>[1 hour ago - 4 comments] : <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=34046074" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=34046074</a>This does Not bode well;links to Mastodon, including your Mastodon account in your profile or even the mere mention of Mastodon.Is this action for the actual bleed? - Or paranoia at the current projected losses? - Competition?

Wow. PG did not even post any links, he pretty much just said &quot;I have a Mastodon account.&quot; And just like that, banned.Looks like now you&#x27;re not allowed to so much as mention that you use other websites on the internet besides Twitter.

There isn&#x27;t enough popcorn on the planet for this show. 10&#x2F;10 would watch again.

On the grand scale of things, Musk&#x27;s twitter behaviour isn&#x27;t even a nanohitler, well bellow Bill Gates, the Koch brothers or Murdock and not even close to basically any world leader (Tony Blair, George W Bush, Barrack Obama, Emmanuel Macron). Don&#x27;t overuse words like &quot;abhorent&quot; unless you want to seem like you&#x27;re hysterically overreacting.

It&#x27;s possible, it&#x27;s just that Musk&#x27;s behavior is so abhorrent there&#x27;s essentially no remaining reasonable defense of any of his naked hypocrisy and childishness.

Just a reminder for turbulent times: send tweets you find interesting to archive.ph or archive.is

I was holding the &quot;wait and see&quot; stance on the whole saga. I&#x27;ve now seen. lol

&gt; to comment substantively on this topic at this pointWhy not? &quot;It&#x27;s a private platform!&quot;. If that very substantive statement was embraced a couple of years ago by many that have now got banned I don&#x27;t see why they can&#x27;t follow their own (past) advice.

I joked with a friend years ago when Elon started this act that if the billionaire class is going to have their way with the rest of society then they better at least be entertaining.I can’t say I’ve been much of an Elon fan for a while now but he does give me plenty to gawk at, a modern day bread and circus.

The one potential silver lining is maybe now more people realize the ridiculousness of this all and the pendulum swings back the other way some how.

The situation with Twitter has gotten so ridiculous that it&#x27;s pretty much impossible to comment substantively on this topic at this point.So: lol

&gt; because Twitter does not ban based on political preferences&#x2F;opinions.Because the journalists Musk banned were definitely not banned for their opinions on Musk?I&#x27;m going to preempt the &#x27;harassment&#x27; argument--the photo Musk posted, when he was claiming that the journalists caused him to be stalked, was found to have been taken an hour after Musk&#x27;s jet took off and nowhere near any airport.

It&#x27;s very likely an antitrust issue. This is a significant policy shift meant to stifle a competitor through market dominance rather than competition. I&#x27;d be surprised if the consumer protection bureau doesn&#x27;t start an investigation

You are correct in that this is not a free speech issue. Private organizations can control what is said on their platform.You are 100% incorrect in that free speech is not, has never been, and will never be limited to political preferences&#x2F;opinions.Commercial, frivolous, inconsequential, satirical, and all other forms of free and independent thought are &quot;speech&quot;.&quot;Drink more Ovaltine&quot; is speech the same way &quot;slavery is bad&quot; is speech. These two disparate utterances are equally important and protected as &quot;speech&quot;.&quot;I like big butts and I cannot lie&quot; is speech as important as a treatise on political theory.The comment you replied to lampoons Musk&#x27;s &quot;free speech absolutist&quot; schtick. A nuance you have failed to appreciate.What hasn&#x27;t been noted here, yet, as far as I can tell, is that the EU prohibits this type of behavior (banning mentions of competitors) and it will be interesting to see how they respond. But that&#x27;s an antitrust matter, not free speech.

&gt; This is not exactly free speech issue, because Twitter does not ban based on political preferences&#x2F;opinions.Maybe not as much before Musk, but it does now:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theintercept.com&#x2F;2022&#x2F;11&#x2F;29&#x2F;elon-musk-twitter-andy-ngo-antifascist&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theintercept.com&#x2F;2022&#x2F;11&#x2F;29&#x2F;elon-musk-twitter-andy-n...</a>

&gt; all other major companies do the same but not as blunt: Facebook, Google, Amazon for exampleI do not think this is true. At least not in this scale.
You can post on FB about Twitter or Mastodon. You can search on Google about DuckDuckGo[0] or OpenStreetMap and so on.[0] Even first suggestion for me when I enter the &#x27;d&#x27; char.

Elon Musk killed Twitter Spaces because he was mad at being called out over lying about why he banned journalists: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;ForeverEversley&#x2F;status&#x2F;1603612770892918784" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;ForeverEversley&#x2F;status&#x2F;16036127708929187...</a>

&gt; This is not exactly free speech issue, because Twitter does not ban based on political preferences&#x2F;opinions.Freedom of speech encompasses far more than just &quot;political preferences&#x2F;opinions&quot;.&gt; This is dishonest competition (all other major companies do the same but not as blunt: Facebook, Google, Amazon for example).1. I know of exactly zero other social media platforms that ban the mere mention of other social media platforms.2. Precisely none of those companies are owned entirely by individuals claiming to be &quot;free speech absolutists&quot;.3. Mastodon is not a company, major or otherwise. It&#x27;s a &quot;competitor&quot; to Twitter in the same sense that me raising chickens in my backyard makes me a &quot;competitor&quot; to Tyson or Foster Farms.

&gt; This is dishonest competition (all other major companies do the same but not as blunt: Facebook, Google, Amazon for example). Twitter could be an exception. But it won&#x27;t.During the #deletefacebook movement, Facebook didn&#x27;t ban links to or discussion of competitors.

This is not exactly free speech issue, because Twitter does not ban based on political preferences&#x2F;opinions.This is dishonest competition (all other major companies do the same but not as blunt: Facebook, Google, Amazon for example). Twitter could be an exception. But it won&#x27;t.

Please don&#x27;t post unsubstantive or flamebait comments. We&#x27;re having enough trouble with discussion quality as it is.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html</a>We detached this subthread from <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=34044189" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=34044189</a>.

He mentioned the M word and got suspended for it.

Lolllllllllllllll.  I&#x27;m sorry, but in all seriousness, that really is all there is to say about this.  I guess he is leaving Twitter after all!

This is just vindictive behavior. Wouldn&#x27;t be surprised if Musk authorized it personally

Analogy of tyrant in other thread is very apt. Reminds me of Caesar who won impossible wars, gained huge respect and then took over the senate while still claiming that Rome was a republic. Interestingly he became dictator only because all other nobles thought he must be doing something right if he won all he impossible wars.

There are less interesting ways to set $40B on fire I suppose.

Musk supporter here, downvoted proof here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=33985682" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=33985682</a>I’m in agreement with all of you.This is some BS that goes against all the ideals of an open internet. He’s not just being petty by banning competitors, he’s banning link aggregators. A lot of them are used for organizing political movements or needed for running a business.This move means he doesn’t understand social media. Banning PG without even a link? That’s just icing on an authoritarian cake.Apparently all Elon cares about is usage so hopefully this policy causes a huge drop. I have hope that he’ll quickly reverse course.

You&#x27;d be surprised how resilient these people are

I am of the least charitable echelon of people when it comes to Trump supporters, but even I recognize that this is untrue. Trump has clearly fallen off, as is evident by the remarkable underperformance of his endorsed candidates in the midterm elections. I observe that many Redhats are moving on to DeSantis as their new GOP &quot;God-Emperor.&quot;That said, this has little to nothing to do with the subject at hand.

Trump supporters haven&#x27;t slowed down a bit. In fact, they tried to overthrow the government under his banner. Why do you think it will be any different for Musk supporters?

That&#x27;s likely true, but I wonder about the distribution. Annecdata, but among my contacts, opinions about Tesla follows feelings about Musk, ie. it&#x27;ll have really economic impact.I was (vaguely) in the former category until I saw his petty vengeance on people who he perceived to have wronged him. Eg. he had a Tesla event and arrived 2 hours late. Someone complained, and Musk had his Tesla order cancelled! However I only truly saw him for what he is when COVID hit and he laughed it away as a bad cold while people were dying.

He had two kinds of supporters. The people like me who respected him because of the things he accomplished, and the ones that love him because he pisses liberals off. He&#x27;s lost the former but the latter love him even more now.

I wish, but it doesn&#x27;t seem to be the case. Elsewhere in this thread:&gt; What do you all think would happen if you walked into Safeway parading around with a sign saying &quot;Shop at Ralph&#x27;s&quot;?It&#x27;s honestly sad. It&#x27;s like these people have nothing. Musk has taken advantage of that and given them meaning, but he is debasing and humiliating them in the process. And I assume he enjoys watching people still come to his defense despite nakedly lying to them and manipulating them.

They are all still pretty sure he will buy them a horse thought.

It’s getting really hard for Musk supporters to justify him.

I was going to disagree, but then I thought about it and gave a reluctant upvote.Maybe it’s a bit crass, but I wonder if Elon is on some drugs or something. His behavior is bizarre, and I don’t buy the “he was always like this” line. He didn’t seem to be like this at all until recently.

To which one might, or might not, say &quot;Yay!&quot;

Speaking of which, Kanye, Alex Jones, and Nick Fuentes are interestingly still banned. Hard for anyone to believe Musk&#x27;s free speech claim anymore.

i always thought this was obvious about his character, why are people just now realizing this?

Elon Musk is going the way of Will Smith in terms of public goodwill and adoration!There&#x27;s no turning back!

Can you imagine how that conversation would goElon: Hey I&#x27;m buying twitter, you want in?PG: Look Elon, I&#x27;m just trying to run a start up accelerator, I&#x27;ve already accidentally ended up in charge of one social media site and those nerds are a constant pain in the ass, I don&#x27;t think you know what you&#x27;re letting yourself in forElon: Not even a billy?PG: No billies Elon.

This is hilarious.I’ve been thinking that pg was probably invited to invest (earlier in 2022). Would be cool to hear his reasoning for turning it down at the time.

this is so bad. at this rate it&#x27;s over for twitter - the tech liberetraian folks are getting disenfranchised, when usually, they&#x27;re the supporters of Elon antics. WildCurious to see how other platforms react. Beginning to see a huge opportunity manifest

&quot;I never thought the leopards would eat MY face&quot;.
Serves him right.

Well this aged like milk <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mastodon.social&#x2F;@edbott&#x2F;109536397352268007" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mastodon.social&#x2F;@edbott&#x2F;109536397352268007</a>

Well you could ask paulg, who said that. But use email, not twitter.

Nepotism? Was that even an accusation against the previous Twitter?

the fact that you thought the site wasn’t already neutral but just overwhelmed with content reports and that it is simply impossible to fairly moderate  is a good indication you’re being duped in other areas, fyi

The one good thing that&#x27;s come out of Musk&#x27;s ownership of Twitter is that we now have extensive public evidence that Twitter staff bent over backwards to maintain objective moderation standards even in the face of unprecedented challenges. The &quot;leftist cabal&quot; theories are thoroughly disproven now. And we see now the kind of actions that an actual ideological cabal would take if they controlled Twitter.

&quot;Elon could have come in, aligned the website to be a lot more neutral&quot;How?&quot;slimmed down the employee count&quot;Why would you care about this? How could he know which half of the company should be fired? How does this improve Twitter?&quot; and pushed for more features and more payments for features to get away from dependence on advertisers.&quot;Besides paying to be verified, a system which changed rapidly over weeks being enabled and disabled, what else did he do?&quot;I saw some headline a few weeks ago about Japanese trending on Twitter went from a whole bunch of political stuff to more neutral cultural stuff&quot;What does this mean? That the Japanese Twitter population all shifted to discussing culture over politics? Why would they do that? What does it have to do with Elon Musk taking over?&quot;Stuff like that is what I wanted to see.&quot;Culture is shaped by politics, at least to some degree. Also &quot;culture wars&quot;

&gt; there was all sorts of examples of them being a typical social media platform trying to push various ideas using their control.Can you share some of these?

I had hopes. Twitter was terribly run and there was all sorts of examples of them being a typical social media platform trying to push various ideas using their control.Elon could have come in, aligned the website to be a lot more neutral, slimmed down the employee count and pushed for more features and more payments for features to get away from dependence on advertisers.I saw some headline a few weeks ago about Japanese trending on Twitter went from a whole bunch of political stuff to more neutral cultural stuff. Stuff like that is what I wanted to see.Instead we&#x27;re getting this hilarious situation where Elon is using his authority to ban everything he doesn&#x27;t like. It&#x27;s worse than it was.

I mean, PG basically said that a month ago. He’s turned tail pretty quickly. Blocking him might give other more stalwart defenders some pause.

They&#x27;re still in denial and posting equivalents of &quot;no one could have ever predicted this&quot; to all the people who absolutely predicted this.There were many of us that could see through Elon&#x27;s, and Donald&#x27;s, and SBF&#x27;s bullshit from day 1.But for too many people, it&#x27;s just not possible to admit they were wrong, or anyone else might have been right.

What I don&#x27;t understand is why so many people are so patient to give Musk so much benefit of the doubt, when he&#x27;s shown zero capacity for even-keeled self-correction.

&gt; What is the grand plan now in their world view?He&#x27;s getting his enemies to call for free speech and giving them an object lesson in how capricious moderation can be.Sometimes the best way to change minds from a position of power is to get your adversaries to make your case for you.

Hi, I&#x27;m one of those people, I don&#x27;t have any more grand plans and this is absurd.

pg said almost exactly those words 30 days ago<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;HtOh4yt" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;HtOh4yt</a>

No worries, you can still contact PG on Mastodon.

Honestly, I care less about &#x27;fixing&#x27; something so it is profitable, and more about what ethical compass people are using to make their decisions. A couple months ago it was the free speech absolutionists versus those who felt some form of regulation is needed. Now we seem to be asking &quot;if there are limits to free speech, should discussing other media platforms be part of that?&quot;.This makes me think that we, as a world, are failing at building an ethical framework for people to work by. Why is it that so many of us struggle to evaluate what is ethical and what isn&#x27;t? It isn&#x27;t taught at school, except in the context of religion. We all need to understand the principals of autonomy, beneficience, nonmaleficence &amp; justice for starters.

I would love to talk to one of the people that kept saying “you all don’t understand. Musk runs billion dollar companies, he knows what he is doing. He will fix Twitter” now that this is happening. What is the grand plan now in their world view?

Twitter is an advertising company not a consumer company (Tesla is a consumer company)

Turns out, running a consumer social company is a lot different than building rockets.a part of me still had some hope.
&quot;Maybe he has better plans, maybe he knows what he&#x27;s doing&quot;But nope. I was wrong.

Elon does not get basic systemic issues in social media: when you bark against sth, you just make it big, and it will haunt you.Good &quot;buy&quot; Elon, and sorry for your German plans, which will be severely stressed by lack of water --- major drought in Brandenburg.

Makes me wonder what role the Saudis are playing here. Did they pay him to just destroy the place and hand over data on dissidents?* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Saudi_infiltration_of_Twitter" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Saudi_infiltration_of_Twitter</a>* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nydailynews.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;world&#x2F;ny-elon-musk-twitter-saudi-prince-investors-20221101-szzgo3qoxvhpjmsya5nsq6clxu-story.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nydailynews.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;world&#x2F;ny-elon-musk-twitter-...</a>

At this point, it&#x27;s worth trying to think if and how Elon Musk can benefit by driving down the value of Twitter.  It looks like he&#x27;s doing it on purpose.

Paul an hour ago: &quot;I&#x27;m not leaving Twitter&quot;Guess he doesn&#x27;t have much of a choice now<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=34042993" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=34042993</a>

I don&#x27;t see how this one could be, there was no link. Unless they auto ban anyone who tweets the word Mastodon.

This is really embarrasing. If feel so much Fremdschämen when I think of Elon Musk.

It’d be great if some sort of self-professed free-speech absolutist could just take over Twitter moderation.. Oh, wait.

people have really got to stop pretending like Elon is smart lol

Is is possible this is some sort of &quot;lesson&quot; about the dangers of platforms being able to arbitrarily ban stuff, that will be revealed in a week or two? It almost seems like the exact opposite of everything Musk was implying about a low-censorship platform. It&#x27;s almost hard to believe that Musk&#x2F;Twitter are at serious at this point

Twitter suspends pg's account [fixed]