The use of the Mudge is certainly the weakest of the indicators I've presented; what do you think of the strongest of them, the unusual use of emphasis? What do you think of the three of them taken together? If you were the author of this document and you just found out that the public would never see it, only officials at the SEC et al - would you feel like this document was likely to be effective for that audience? Is there truly nothing about it you'd change in that circumstance?
I do think there is a good reason for bodies which are meant to dispassionately find facts and enforce regulations to prefer plain language and straightforward argumentation. But even if that weren't the case, it really wouldn't reflect on my argument. Additionally, everything the document alleges could be true, and the allegations worthy of discussion - I haven't argued that they aren't true or that we shouldn't be discussing them, I have no way of knowing if they are true and am ambivalent about whether we should give them oxygen - and that would not reflect on my argument.
I go into slightly more detail on this point here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32603317
No, I don't believe it would read the same without emphasis. Especially since the emphasis is often on superlatives rather than the substance of certain statements. I'm not sure what to say other than, "emphasis is a tool of graphic design that does, in fact, function." It guides the eye and enables the reader to skim, and if you took away the emphasis, this document would be less effective, at least if the goals of the document are what I have argued.
Your questions seem reasonable except the fact they're about him!
Do you understand his (very populist) history?!
It's pretty apparent that one of the intentions of this document is to get Musk out of hot water - totally separate from "protecting the internet" and not a particularly populist goal.
I'd speculate this represents a collaboration between Musk and Mudge's legal teams, probably in exchange for Musk funding litigation from Mudge regarding wrongful termination. That's all speculation, it's just what makes the most sense to me.
I'd write like there's no way this doesn't leak to the public eventually. It's Twitter we're talking about. Juicy gossip is the point of the platform so of course it's going to get spread. I don't know that it undercuts its message though.
https://www.gwern.net/docs/darknet-markets/2013-ulbricht-com...
The way things are presented in sections with numbered subsections, the way some things in the beginning appear to be redacted, are clearly meant to convey the authority of an official document submitted to a legal body.
I'm sure this doesn't violate any sort of law and that you are permitted to write a letter like this and submit it to regulators. What I'm suggesting is that the stylistic choices they make are indicative of the audience they are writing for, and that it is different from their stated intentions. And that suggests to me that this document has an agenda and is willing to accomplish it through deceptive means (those being, lying about the purpose and audience of the document to enhance it's perceived authority by giving the general public the impression they are the fly on the wall of an official proceeding rather than reading a document for their own consumption that may have no bearing on the outcome of this dispute), which is my personal standard for calling something propaganda.
This is Elon’s attempt to burn US taxpayer money helping launder him out of having to pay ~$10b to walk away from Twitter. It sounds like Mudge has his own litigation regarding severance. So it was a no-brained to join Musk’s mercenaries.
This issue is not worth taxpayer time. You want less regulation? Then stop crying wolf to Congress, and more importantly, stop just doing dumb stuff like buying a company you can’t actually run.
This is HN and it only serves as a court of opinions, and Elon isn't popular right now, but let's keep ourselves intellectually honest.
Twitter has had several security issues, including Saudi spies[1], a large-scale hack of several celebrities[2], and even recent ones[3]. Twitter is one of the largest tech companies and a very important town square.
Mudge was hired to do a job by Dorsey, and the newly appointed execs made it very clear that they don't give a shit about security, when the lack of safety measures has been demonstrated to be dangerous to the public.
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/09/twitter-spy-convicted-saud... [2] https://www.thewrap.com/teen-mastermind-behind-elon-musk-joe... [3] https://www.hackread.com/twitter-data-breach-accounts-sold-h...
> Twitter is one of the largest tech companies and a very important town square.
94th on the chart [1] - as for a town square I respectfully disagree, its a website - 12th according to rankings. Just nudges infront of the other famous town square, pornhub and a little further behind, linkedin. Half the 'traffic' of reddit, and 1/3 of apple somehow, not to mention the giant in the room, facebook. Surely if there is a town square that is it ... i doubt many would even agree with that.
> the newly appointed execs made it very clear that they don't give a shit about security
Allegedly
> when the lack of safety measures has been demonstrated to be dangerous to the public.
I am yet to see said demonstration. Are we worried that XYZ blue checkmark twitter users public tweets are not encrypted at rest on their servers? Or that the entire corpus of the library of twitter might be lost in an catastrophic event?
[1] https://companiesmarketcap.com/tech/largest-tech-companies-b...
[2] https://www.semrush.com/blog/most-visited-websites/ (oh how i miss alexa)
I'll stay tuned to see if it happens, like everyone else.
Seems like he wrote it with multiple audiences in mind and I don't see how that detracts from his claims or message.
I would claim they did not write for more than one audience. I'd refer you to my other comments in this thread for that argument.
This leads me to believe that this is a document for public consumption adopting the aesthetics of a letter of concern sent to regulators, and that this document is being submitted to the court of public opinion. I don't doubt that Twitter executives are borderline fraudulent and may have crossed the line into outright fraud - I'd be unsurprised to learn that about any group of executives at any large company. But this document has more the feeling of propaganda than a serious appeal to regulators.