By "social media" we mean any large computer network that allows people to interact in shared communities. The big ones of course are Facebook, Twitter (X), and Instagram, but we can't forget newer platforms like Discord and Slack.
Dedicated video sites are off-topic here and YouTube has its own separate thread
.
What we should discuss in this OTC topic are news items, business operations, and activities by the networks themselves, not specific things posted by users. Those should go into threads appropriate to the subjects of those posts. For example, if an actor tweets about a film, we'd discuss that in the Media forum topic for the film, not here. If Facebook changes its policies, that could be discussed here.
The politics, motives, competency and wider business activities of the owners and leaders of social media companies (e.g. Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg) are also off-topic — except in situations where they are directly making specific policy for the platform.
Talking about a particular Instagram policy change (or a high-profile ban on a specific user) directly announced by Mark Zuckerberg would be acceptable in this thread, speculating about Zuckerberg's wider motivations wouldn't be.
The thread's also not about "dumb thing [public figure] said on [social media platform]". If there isn't a specific thread related to the subject of the statement (e.g. US Politics), then it's probably gossip and not worth talking about.
created back in 2020 that we never opened. Unfortunately, it's a little stale, so bumping it isn't going to work very well, but I would like to restart it. The reason I'm doing so is that the Computer Thread seems to have become the de facto place for this sort of talk, and it's a big tonal clash with talking about computer tech.
The hot topic of the day is Elon Musk's bid to acquire Twitter. We first discussed it in the Computer Thread, starting roughly here, and I am not going to rehash the entire discussion. Instead, I am going to resume from the last post:
CNBC: Twitter is reportedly taking another look at Musk takeover bid
Twitter's board is reportedly meeting with Elon Musk and may seek to negotiate on his buyout offer. Musk claims to have secured $46 billion in funding to buy the company at a valuation of $43 billion and is preparing to make a tender offer to its shareholders.
While the board has passed a poison pill, it could be facing resistance to that from groups of shareholders and will want to talk things out rather than face a hostile takeover. It's also possible that Twitter's stock could crash if the offer fails to go through.
Another possible topic was originally posted here.
Ars Technica: EU to unveil landmark law to force Big Tech to police illegal content
Following on from the recently passed Digital Markets Act, which requires large tech companies to unbundle first-party software from hardware platforms, the proposed Digital Services Act will require medium and large social media platforms and search engines to police hate speech and disinformation while adding additional protections for children against targeted marketing.
It also bans "dark patterns", which manipulate or trick people into clicking on ads or other content. The article doesn't explicitly say what that means, but I assume it includes things like disguising ads to look like parts of a site's user interface, hiding "close" buttons, and such.
For large companies, the requirements would go into effect immediately. For medium companies, they would have a grace period to implement the changes.
Thierry Breton, the EU’s internal market commissioner, has warned that Big Tech has become “too big to care.”
This phrase, "too big to care", intrigues me. It's an indictment of the idea that these companies have decided that growth and engagement metrics overwhelm any sense of social responsibility.
In my opinion, a law like this would be impossible in the United States, since it would be challenged (likely successfully) on First Amendment grounds.
Edited by Mrph1 on Dec 12th 2023 at 11:24:56 AM
You really think someone would do that, just go on the internet and tell lies?
I have met people this naive, sadly. That if it's on the internet, it can't be a lie. Same with publication.
Edited by ScubaWolf on May 24th 2022 at 2:51:35 PM
"In a move surprising absolutely no one"
Lost in Space
Isn't that at least 75 percent of the problems we're having with social media?
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
That and people not willing to put in effort and just mindlessly believing what they see in their timelines...which I think everybody has been guilty of at least once.
"In a move surprising absolutely no one"
Share price update; yesterday's stabilisation turned out to be a one off as the value for Tesla's shares closed at $628. It's predicted to get worse this week as more drama with the Twitter buyout is expected to occur. Investors are blaming the buyout for diverting Musk's attention away. (Interestingly this was Tesla's most profitable quarter ever despite being projected to sell less cars then previously promised.
Meanwhile Twitter's stock has dropped to the point that Musk will end up losing $40 Million on the deal. Musk is asking for his bid price to be discounted by the percentage of bots on the platform, suggesting 25%. Twitter is holding firm that he pays the original bid amount in full. Supposedly there is a Twitter shareholder meeting this week so we'll likely get some update then.
Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
...does he really think anyone would take this offer at all seriously? It's extremely well established that he has no idea how many bots there really are (and an educated guess is not good enough), Twitter's not sharing that information, and this is an absolutely terrible metric to base a discount around. All Twitter has to do is say no and they can still force him to buy at the original quoted price. They've got all the cards here.
Especially since the stock market activity might actually be an across the board stock re-evaluation. A bunch of stock skyrocketed after the pandemic stimulus happened, much of it pumped into various meme stocks (which Tesla is) inflating it way past where it should be. It's those stocks that are collapsing really hard, especially since there's not actually any good reasons why Tesla should be valued so much higher than...every other car manufacturer. The values might well be going back to much closer to the pre-stimulus amount and Tesla was at $180, which is much more in line with the rest of Tesla's industry.
And yeah, this stock collapse has nothing to do with Tesla's actual profit margins, it doesn't mean that Tesla will suddenly lose all their customers.
Edited by Zendervai on May 24th 2022 at 6:12:58 AM
Not Three Laws compliant.
I do think that Musk is panicking about the Tesla share price going down cancelling his loan and the Twitter stock price going down causing to lose money on this deal (despite that loss being chump change for him). So he's desperate to either walk away from it while declaring a victory or get a better offer. The problem being that because he signed away due diligence on the bot issue and due to the terms Twitter put into the agreement he can't just back out of it.
This is the problem with insisting that any critical statement is purely the result of some sort of nebulous bias rather than the actual concrete issues being discussed.
"Yup. That tasted purple."
The Unknown
I'm not a haggling expert but like. If you're trying to convince someone to let you pay less, I'm pretty sure you need a really compelling reason. "I'm paying more than what it's worth" is a bit of a hard sell but not entirely unreasonable, while "I should pay less because bots exist" is nonsensical. Plus he doesn't have the data to back this up.
Edited by Karxrida on May 24th 2022 at 3:38:31 AM
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
@Scuba Wolf: They couldn't put it on the Internet if it wasn't true!
I despise hypocrisy, unless of course it is my own.
Lost in Space
There are reasons why Tesla stock was so high: the forward P/E looks a lot better five years out for a disruptive company growing at 50-75 percent per year with a TAM that is basically the entire auto industry. The pullback is too large to explain on market conditions alone; there must be a significant component that involves Twitter fears. There are no other factors that could reasonably have caused so many investors to get cold feet if they hadn't already.
I have again been proven wrong: it really does look like the stock market wants to force Musk to abandon the Twitter deal.
Edited by Fighteer on May 24th 2022 at 11:42:52 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
It really doesn't help that he's making himself look like a buffoon in front of everybody, which does not help public trust in him or Tesla (whom he is the face of). It makes people weary of the company, which can make the stock market get anxious and react badly. The best thing he could have done from the beginning when he started buying it was to just keep silent...and he did not. The stock market as a result is punishing him the more he puts his foot in his mouth. This is often also why most companies make very carefully worded public statements, because they know how volatile the stock markets can be.
"In a move surprising absolutely no one"
Redmess
Indeed, and it is also why companies generally keep quiet about mergers beyond the basic facts.
Optimism is a duty.
But that would make this not a conspiracy orchestrated by the anti-Elon caucus to make him look bad.
"Yup. That tasted purple."
I did learn one thing while looking for the latest news on the buyout; Musk still has that SEC appointed Twitter minder ensuring at no point does he tweet anything about Tesla’s shares. I don’t know if taking Twitter private would still require that step, but I presume so.
Redmess
I would assume so, yes.
Optimism is a duty.
Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
Right, so, if this deal happens, Twitter's dead. Full stop.
This is an SEC filing from today about it.
It's hard to slog through, but here's the cliff's notes.
There is now 33.5 billion dollars of equity involved in the sale now, which will mean Musk is actually minority owner of the company. His own 7 billion contribution won't have much impact, but Twitter's gonna be on the hook to somehow pay back 33.5 billion or more in debt within 5 years. That's not happening and when they fail, the vulture capitalists involved will strip the company for parts, collapse it and make it declare bankruptcy and shut it down so the remaining debt will be just full stop gone.
This sort of equity leveraged buyout is exactly what happened to Toys-R-Us and Borders. Name any suddenly collapsing major company in the past couple decades and there's an equity leveraged buyout in there somewhere. (Except Radioshack, that one was entirely self-inflicted). And when Twitter inevitably collapses, the collateral damage will hit all of Musk's other companies. Because being known as the guy who bought Twitter and immediately strangled it to death is going to cause a huge re-evaluation on how useful he actually is to any of his other businesses and whether or not he's a liability.
And there will be enormous impacts on a lot of communities that are dependent on it in various ways, all because Musk couldn't be bothered to check with a money person on whether or not it was a good idea first.
Edited by Zendervai on May 25th 2022 at 6:17:56 AM
Not Three Laws compliant.
Foreign Troper
If that is the case, by all means, go ahead with it. Good riddance 
Oh no, consequences.
So, let's hang an anchor from the sun... also my Tumblr
Tesla's shares rose to $658 today, higher than yesterday's but lower than the day before that. I'm going to guess after the SEC report has time to sink in its going to drop again.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Cue a lot of content creators having to move yet again (after Tumblr did its... thing, many people switched to Twitter to promote their stuff).
Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.
Redmess
I don't really get that equity buyout. If that's basically a death sentence, then why did Twitter even agree to the deal?
Optimism is a duty.
Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
At this point, they kinda can't back out easily either. If Musk has a way to get the money, the deal they signed means they need to let him buy it.
Also, it's basically a golden parachute for the current execs and there's a big payout for the current shareholders involved.
Edited by Zendervai on May 25th 2022 at 6:40:04 AM
Not Three Laws compliant.
Redmess
So who would end up paying those debts if Twitter went bankrupt?
Optimism is a duty.
Lost in Space
In venture capital bankruptcies like this, should they happen, investors spend some time fighting over the scraps with lawyers and then typically walk away with substantial losses. Since Twitter has no capital assets, they will probably try to sell it off to some other investor who's willing to buy it on the cheap.
The SEC may also step in along with additional armies of lawyers to look for evidence of material misrepresentations and other forms of malfeasance from the various parties, which would include Twitter's board as well as Musk himself. In this worst-case scenario, he might see much more serious legal consequences than a restraining order from the SEC.
Edit: From this Twitter thread, it seems that Twitter's exposure is likely less than the $33.5 billion previously estimated, and closer to $18 billion if Musk can renegotiate the deal to a price of $45 per share.
Edited by Fighteer on May 25th 2022 at 7:01:56 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Yeah, so even if they are garbage (as in this case), a lot of people read and believe them.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"