I'm also utterly gobsmacked how people here think "jump to the defense of billionaires" is in any way a substantive counter-argument.

spoken like a true fanboi of a person whose family comes from a mining background in apartheid South Africa. and who has never been back to the place ever since apartheid was abolished. Musk like Thiel is a racist and people who support him are also likely fans of Ayn Rand. But you know all that. Personally I think we should strive to live in a society where those type of people do not feel safe (but you knew that too).

Well, it's simple. BILLIONAIRES BAD. Do you get it now?

I don't see the relevance.

Whatever laws protect that data or communications will continue to exist. And if you're just taking it on good faith that the current ownership won't do anything shady even if there's no laws preventing it, that's a much bigger problem to address.

There isn't any particularly good reason to trust the old management over the new management. It's always been unaccountable billionaires.

Depends on what you mean by "trust." A public company has more accountability in various ways than a private one.

"Public" only adds accountability benefits for protecting public investors to ensure they're not robbed. There's little more accountability benefiting any other outsider.

That’s interesting. I’ve always figured it’s the opposite, since a public company is beholden to fiduciary duty. Would you like to elaborate?

I mean, if we aren't okay with this dataset existing under new ownership, why were we okay with it existing under the previous ownership?

If this dataset is dangerous, regulation is the way to solve that, not relying on the benevolence of corporate boards and shareholders.

No one is forcing those entities to use Twitter. They can post on their own website that they control if they so wish.

> utterly insane how people here jump to the defense of billionaires.

The discussion forums hosted by a startup accelerator are friendly to major capitalists? Who would have expected it?

Startup types are basically the archetype of "temporarily inconvenienced billionaires".

Nice how you swapped "billionaires" for "major capitalists" in building your straw man, there!

Because there are a whole bunch of non-haut-bourgeois billionaires?

> Taking a moment to think about how utterly crazy it is that in 2022 a company with a significant dataset of private and public communications, that has municipalities, companies and governments on the platform, can switch ownership with pretty much zero scrutiny

What you're saying is why do regulations allow for this? Idk, but this is a regulatory question, and therefore it should be directed at the government not at the billionaire in question.

Billionaires are the celebrities and royalty for tech folks. Human beings thrive on hierarchy and we need to have people above us and below us in order to know where we stand in society.

Often people look up the ladder in awe and respect because we all want to move up and be there ourselves one day, so it makes sense to venerate that position in order to justify it within ourselves subconsciously.

> billionaires

Call them Oligarchs like we have been taught to do for their commie counterparts.

Entirely different. Oligarchs are individuals who personally own and control obscene amounts of a country's infrastructure, through backdoor deals.

American Business Titans are individuals who personally own and control obscene amounts of a country's infrastructure, through outsized stock ownership. And they wear fitted t-shirts instead of creepy euro-suits.

Who calls powerful men in commie countries oligarchs? They are Politburo members. Russia is a non-commie country for 30 years.