Twitter - Should I stay or should I go

[Occams Barber]

I don't think that is the point of why they are leaving.

I don't really know anything about Twitter, I've never used it. So I don't know why people are leaving, but I can imagine that some might be outraged at how Elon is treating employees, and some might be confused now as to the identity of accounts making tweets and therefore losing trust in whether the comments are coming from a trusted source or a troll.

I left Twitter today.

I have no illusions that my departure will make any difference - but - it's like voting. If 1,000,000 people like me depart it will have an impact.

I left because of Musk's attitude to his employees. I also left because I suspect Musk's simplistic attitude to freedom of speech will turn Twitter into a sewer which has huge potential for damaging society - particularly the US.

OB

 

[Nithavela]

If you look back at some articles from 3-4 years ago about the Twitter HQ... the employees there were spoiled. And it shows based on the fact that they're acting like oppressed because someone is asking them to work 40 hours a week, and that they get fired for tagging their boss in a message where they're trash talking him.

I think the workload Elon is expecting is more along the 80 hours a week ballpark.

 

[stevil]

I left Twitter today.

I have no illusions that my departure will make any difference - but - it's like voting. If 1,000,000 people like me depart it will have an impact.

I left because of Musk's attitude to his employees. I also left because I suspect Musk's simplistic attitude to freedom of speech will turn Twitter into a sewer which has huge potential for damaging society - particularly the US.

OB

I don't think Elon and Twitter is immune to the needs of advertisers.

Advertisers obviously don't want to support and be associated with discrimination and dangerous misinformation or calls to violence etc. So some form of moderation will continue. Elon himself isn't a paragon of do as I do. He is currently spying on his own employees and terminating the employment of employees that speak anything negative about him. This isn't exactly free speech.

Elon has currently said that he will allow user to say stuff, but he will not make that stuff easily findable, unless people are explicitly looking for it. I don't know how well that will go for him. But he has already back tracked on lots of things. Anyway, I guess time will tell if twitter devolves into a swamp of the worst of humanity.

I'm finding it very weird how many on the USA Right feel they need the freedom to create such a cesspool swamp, and that if people moderate from that, that they are accused of silencing the USA Right. I just don't get it. Why can't the USA Right have a political path to success that relies on traditional right wing politics (such as free market and low taxes) rather than on culture wars and lies, and being contrary to science and common sense?

 

[Occams Barber]

I don't think Elon and Twitter is immune to the needs of advertisers.

Advertisers obviously don't want to support and be associated with discrimination and dangerous misinformation or calls to violence etc. So some form of moderation will continue. Elon himself isn't a paragon of do as I do. He is currently spying on his own employees and terminating the employment of employees that speak anything negative about him. This isn't exactly free speech.

Elon has currently said that he will allow user to say stuff, but he will not make that stuff easily findable, unless people are explicitly looking for it. I don't know how well that will go for him. But he has already back tracked on lots of things. Anyway, I guess time will tell if twitter devolves into a swamp of the worst of humanity.

I'm finding it very weird how many on the USA Right feel they need the freedom to create such a cesspool swamp, and that if people moderate from that, that they are accused of silencing the USA Right. I just don't get it. Why can't the USA Right have a political path to success that relies on traditional right wing politics (such as free market and low taxes) rather than on culture wars and lies, and being contrary to science and common sense?

I think the Twitter thing is only part of a much bigger problem. US culture appears to have substituted individual rights for collective responsibilities. At the same time working Americans have been convinced that it is against their interests to fight for the collective rights we see as normal. Mass shootings happens and no-one does anything. There is no concern for affordable healthcare as a basic right. The concept of governing a country has been lost in the argument about who governs the country. Race is a huge issue which the right is not prepared or able to face. Lying has become normalised. Over a million people died because the US was incapable of taking the basic steps to manage Covid. The US is on the brink of possibly re-electing a leader who is obviously incapable of running the country. Either that or a leader who may be exhibiting the early signs of dementia.

It's a little like watching a slow-motion car crash.

OB

 

[MrMoe]

I also suspect that Twitter is on its way to becoming yet another social media cesspool.

Becoming? It's been a cesspool for years.

 

[stevil]

Either that or a leader who may be exhibiting the early signs of dementia.

The attempts of Fox News and other far right propaganda media to show Biden as having dementia have been laughable really.
Some very creative cutting and weird photoshopping, have been intentionally disingenuous.

I have not seen anything that indicates any form of dementia from Biden.

 

[wing2000]

Employee perks aside, I'm curious to see how long Twitter, a platform that servers 237 million daily users, can stay up without its core operational staff.

Would you stick around? Musk seems to be focussed initially on the coders...alas, they are not the folks who keep platform running 7x24......

Musk’s emails to engineers, however, suggested a realization that the worst may yet to come. The emails even went out to staffers who’d walked out Thursday rather than sign the pledge.

Musk also asked all recipients to send him screenshots of their recent code and explain what it had accomplished. While the initial email included no instructions for remote employees, a subsequent one said Musk would try to speak via video to them — but that employees were only excused if they have a family emergency or “cannot physically get to Twitter HQ.”
In a third email eight minutes later, he asked employees to fly to San Francisco, saying he would be at the office until midnight on Friday and back again Saturday morning. Yet another missive an hour later said flying “would be appreciated, but is not essential.”
The requests to help him “better understand the Twitter tech stack” struck many engineers as absurdly late, given that he had fired about half of what had been more than 7,500 employees two weeks ago and then issued an ultimatum on Wednesday that prompted a subsequent wave of departures.

Several critical teams essential to keeping the site functioning were cut to a single engineer or none by the departures Thursday, leaving the company partially on autopilot and likely to crash sooner or later, engineers said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/18/twitter-death-watch-chaos-resignations/

 

[timothyu]

US culture appears to have substituted rights for collective responsibilities.

BINGO

 

[timothyu]

However did we survive before social media when kids started giving away all their and their family's personal info online, selling their souls for a 'like'. We deserve the monster it has become and what it is teaching AI as being 'normal'. The inmates are not only running the asylum but teaching the asylum anything outside of it is where the insanity lies.

I also find it interesting that so many think stifling speech of those who offend their sensibilities is the route to take. Reminds me of the little kids in school constantly running to teacher because someone looked at them the wrong way. Will they be so sure of that ideal when their money will be used in the same way as stifled speech, as what they may buy is now dictated to them as being proper or allowed for their consumption, all for the good of society?

We have a world today of elites with questionable mental stability who think their high financial status has somehow made them gods in the eyes of man and as a result we will respect what their misguided brains put out as they form what they see as a new world government created to reward themselves. Hard to argue with those who can cut off all supply chains just to remind us why they are gods. To top it off these megalomaniacs are now trying to create AI in their own image. More interesting are those who mindlessly follow along. Lemmings over a cliff (compliments of that Disney movie where they were chased over during filming). Don't eat of the tree of free thought for on that day you will surely realize you're being conned.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Yes I remember that. A product that had worked for 30 years was suddenly banished.

If you are referring to Ivermectin or any other drugs that were being misused for covid, those drugs worked for 30 years against the diseases for which they were prescribed. They were not and are not now banished.

Then we were told the new product would guarantee that we could not spread the virus.

No, we were not told that. We were told that the vaccine would reduce the spread of the virus, and it does.

Funny the difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth.. usually about six months.

No, most conspiracy theories either remain fringe theories or they are quietly forgotten. They don't "usually" become truth.

 

[wing2000]

...please don't turn this into another covid thread.

 

[rjs330]

I always hated Twitter because of the low character limits. I have a lot to say usually that's greater than 150 characters.

Well they let Trump back in and he's a real character.

 

[rjs330]

To steal a phrase from The Clash - "Should I stay or should I go"
We hear lots of news lately about Elon Musk's heavy hand blazing a trail of destruction through his newly acquired company Twitter.
He fired half his staff and with his heavy hand he has been monitoring and spying on staff internal conversations on private slack channels and firing people that have said negative things about him.
He has demanded people to work in office and to commit to long hours at high intensity or leave. Early reporting is suggesting that the majority of staff are choosing to leave.
Way to go Elon, how to, within the space of two weeks turn a workforce from highly engaged, passionate, valued, proud and excited, to disgusted, disengaged, unvalued, disappointed and wanting to leave.

Anyway, this thread isn't about staff. This is about users and how they might be answering the question "Should I stay or should I go"
There doesn't seem to be much media focus on this.
We have heard about the Blue Check fiasco, where user's could trust that celebreties and people and organisations with official positions had been verified by Twitter and so the messages coming from accounts with the Blue Check could be trusted as coming from the people and organisations that user think these are coming from. But now with the Blue Check just meaning that a subscription fee has been paid, now users have no idea who is saying what.
But other than this Blue Check, we don't really hear much about the impact on users.
Are users staying or leaving?

Users Leaving Twitter May Be Trending Worldwide But New Poll Proves Otherwise

Around 40% of those polled claimed they were going nowhere.

www.digitalinformationworld.com

After Elon Musk’s abrupt takeover of Twitter, many people saw and heard so many SEOs and marketers take the bold but necessary step of leaving the platform.

But a recent poll that was conducted in this regard proved that users are not ready to leave just yet.

The bizzareness of the above narrative is that from that linked to poll, 21% have said that they have left already (which is massive) and a further 12% have said that they are planning to leave. This makes 33% of the user base (at least those responding to the poll) have said that they have already left or are planning to leave. Which completely contradicts the article which says "proved that users are not ready to leave just yet"

Exclusive: Twitter is losing its most active users, internal documents show

The heaviest tweeters, vital to its business, have been in "absolute decline" since the pandemic began, an internal researcher wrote. It underscores a challenge for Elon Musk.

www.reuters.com

Twitter is struggling to keep its most active users - who are vital to the business - engaged, underscoring a challenge faced by the Tesla chief executive as he approaches a deadline to close his $44 billion deal to buy the company.
These "heavy tweeters" account for less than 10% of monthly overall users but generate 90% of all tweets and half of global revenue. Heavy tweeters have been in "absolute decline" since the pandemic began, a Twitter researcher wrote in an internal document titled “Where did the Tweeters Go?”
...interest in news, sports and entertainment is waning among those users. Tweets on those topics, which have helped Twitter burnish an image as the world’s "digital town square," as Musk once called it, are also the most desirable for advertisers.

So it seems that Twitter was facing some big problems (even before Musk's takeover) of the active users becoming disengaged and less active and moving towards links and conversations that are less appealing to advertisers.

Celebrities are starting to leave Twitter. Here's a running list.

TV powerhouse Shonda Rhimes, "Madam Secretary" actor Téa Leoni and others in the entertainment world say they're dropping the platform after Elon Musk's takeover.

www.nbcnews.com

Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter has some in Hollywood heading for the exit.

"Grey's Anatomy" creator Shonda Rhimes and others in the entertainment industry say they plan to quit the platform now that it is owned by Musk, a self-proclaimed "free speech absolutist" who has vowed to make sweeping changes — including potentially reversing the ban on former President Donald Trump.

"Not hanging around for whatever Elon has planned. Bye," Rhimes tweeted to her nearly 2 million Twitter followers Saturday afternoon, two days after Musk closed his $44 billion deal to purchase the service.

I don't know what the above means. Is this just a few anecdotes. Are all celebreties thinking this way, or just some? Are celebretities significant to keeping Twitter interesting for other users????

Anyway, I'm not a Twitter user, I don't have an account. I am just interested in whether Musk is destroying this platform or not. Twitter is obviously a very significant platform to many people.

You should stay. As a platform for free speech your voice needs to be heard as well as everyone else's.

 

[FreeinChrist]

ADVISOR HAT​

​

A clean up has been done.​

This is a thread about Twitter and not Covid and the Covid Vaccine.​

Stay on topic please.​

 

[timothyu]

Be happy Musk doesn't take an interest in CF

 

[DaisyDay]

I'll touch on both sub-topics...the workforce side, and the end user side.

First the workforce:
I can see both sides on this one as someone who's been on both the "worker-bee" and "Senior Level" ends of the tech world dynamic.

"Highly engaged and Passionate workforce, that's proud and excited" is a "nice to have", but shouldn't be ranked above "delivering results and a product that's sustainable and not losing money"

Based on the statements of both Elon, and the former head Jack Dorsey, it sounds like their pre-Elon business model wasn't. Dorsey even apologized in a Tweet saying he takes responsibility and in his own words "tried to grow too much too quickly".

And let's not mince words here...anyone else taking over that company would've had to lay people off. Mark Z had to, as did Amazon (and a number of other tech big-names) The reason the staff is so bent out of shape about Elon is because there's social/political friction. Clearly the notion of "working for an eccentric rich guy with some wild ideas" wasn't their main gripe, they had no problem working for Jack Dorsey.

As far as them being excited and passionate...were they really excited and passionate about the type of work itself? Or were they passionate about the perks, the cachet, and the fact that they got to be part of squashing their political rivals?

I imagine a lot of people would love going to an office where you can take an hour long meditation break on the roof, have top-shelf coffee shops on campus, having local artisan chefs brought in 3 times a week by the "culinary team" to make you food, and having an art gallery to take a stroll through, and thinking of ways to silence people of society who disagree with them.

But that's not sustainable if the numbers aren't lining up in your favor...at the end of the day, you're getting paid to do a job, and that job needs to translate to revenue.


From the end user side:
If people want to flee from Twitter, I see that as a good thing. I don't like the idea that the town square for speech is consolidated in the hands of 2-3 companies. It's too much power for an entity to have because eventually the people running the show will let their biases control their content moderation policies.

I'd rather have a world where there were lots of smaller options spanning the spectrum and have accounts on all of them to discuss different types of topics. For instance, I have an account here on CF for when I want to debate certain topics in a controlled environment and "play by the rules", and others I'm a member of where I can let my hair down a little and get a little more loose with the language and discuss things that can't be discussed here.

Maybe, but 75% of the workforce seems a tad excessive in the first month. It doesn't seem as though he got much of a feel for the place, let alone who does what and how well.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Maybe, but 75% of the workforce seems a tad excessive in the first month. It doesn't seem as though he got much of a feel for the place, let alone who does what and how well.

It does...but "bull in a China shop" does seem to be Musk's style...

I've seen changes in leadership 3 times in my 15+ years with my company. Though where I work isn't as high-profile as Twitter, I've seen both kinds of approaches used. (the change nothing, and just observe for 90 days, then lay the hammer down vs the "we're squashing some of this now")

It also can't be overlooked that the attitudes of the employees themselves and how that may have played into his decision making.

In the one instance (that was about 8 years ago), we did have a new CIO and CFO brought in, and they eliminated 40% in the first month they were there...and the majority of the people let go were the young, brash, "I'm going to show these new fat-cats the way it is! (and not the other way around" types (which based on company data, the majority of Twitter's corporate staff would've fallen into the age demographics that are more likely to be that way).

Playing foosball during work hours, taking 2 hour lunches (like they were under the old leadership), openly and casually saying & implying things to the tune of "what are they gonna do about it? they can't fire all of us!"...as it turned out they could, and did.

The old leadership at my company is what I imagined the previous leadership at Twitter being...people who were supposed to be the leaders and steering the ship, but caring more about being perceived as "cool" by the 20-somethings who were working there.


One of the big aspects of it was that transitioning to a WAH environment is a delicate tightrope that has to be managed carefully. You have to still maintain some sort of expectation of accountability and reasonable timelines on deliverables, while being pragmatic and realistic enough to understand that for many folks, they are going to slack off a little more when they're "out of sight, out of mind".

A lot of the Twitter staff was being under-managed even when they were on-prem, so that had to be an even tougher balancing act once they started working remotely...which is why I suspect that Elon handed down a "return to office" edict.

And I would imagine with all of the Twitter's resources, they have the capabilities to do some sort of productivity analysis like we did. The company I work for has an IT staff of about 400 people (2100 corporate staff across the enterprise). When we did a similar exercise 180 days after making the decision to stick with permanent remote work, the results weren't surprising.

A good chunk of software developers were logging into Steam to play video games in the middle of the work day...we saw a lot of non-work related video streaming, and some people who were sitting idle for hours at a time (and a few that weren't even logging into their developer VMs for a day or two at a time)...and a few who were even brazen enough (or stupid enough) to post things publicly to their facebook and twitter feeds that equated to an admission that they weren't working... Not a good idea to forget to disconnect from the company VPN before firing up call of duty, it's an even worse idea to make a public facebook post saying you're attending a "Brew at the Zoo" event on a random work day when you haven't requested a vacation day for it.

Luckily, we were able to correct the behaviors without having to fire large amounts of people (though a few people got the axe for it)...but those are kinds of behaviors are especially bad career planning when new leadership is coming in and the company's numbers are down.

 

[HARK!]

I've seen changes in leadership 3 times in my 15+ years with my company. Though where I work isn't as high-profile as Twitter, I've seen both kinds of approaches used. (

I worked for a company that was bought out by our competitors. The firings and layoffs came swiftly. Some of our offices in other cities were shut down almost immediately. Half of the Staff in our home office were gone shortly thereafter; and within a year about 80% of the original staff had been dismissed from our home office.

 

[timothyu]

Such is the way of the god of Global Corporatism.

 

[stevil]

Maybe, but 75% of the workforce seems a tad excessive in the first month. It doesn't seem as though he got much of a feel for the place, let alone who does what and how well.

The owner has every right to downsize his workforce, especially if he disestablishes roles (redundancies) but legally (I'm not sure about USA laws) this ought to mean he cannot hire people for those redundant roles.

I don't have a problem with him firing staff for going to public social media and saying derogatory stuff about the company or company directors or owners. The company should have an established policy about such stuff on public social media sites.

But it seems beyond the pale for him to have been so disruptive to staff moral in his first 2 weeks of ownership, with big changes such as mass redundancies, demanding instantly changing from work from home to work from office, demanding staff work hard (hard is fair enough, but is he demanding 80 hrs per week?), demanding programmers fly in and show him their code (this is just nuts). And then to top that off, after he has upset all his staff, he then spies on them, in private internal communications, and fires people he thinks have been talking bad about him.

I think it will be fascinating to see where the company goes from here. I have no dog in this race. I have never used Twitter, I don't actually know why people use it. I don't care about this weird idea of "free speech no matter what the cost", I don't believe that the voice of the political right has been suppressed previously (I just expect that dangerous or bigotted tweets have been removed and serious misinformation that could lead to deaths during a global pandemic have been removed regardless of the political leanings of the poster. I don't see these things as being inherently political right or left.