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Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by shanebellone on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @06:59AM (#34064704)
I see two potential outcomes:

1.) Twitter becomes an echo chamber for the alt-right.

2.) Twitter dies.

Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by mhoad on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @07:00AM (#34064711)
You just described the same thing twice.
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by shanebellone on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @07:42AM (#34065065)
That's a matter of perspective.
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by mhoad on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @07:54AM (#34065192)
It’s a matter of historical record that there are no profitable or successful social media companies that could be described as alt-right echo chambers.

The only brands that want to advertise on those sites are scams.

Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by shanebellone on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @07:58AM (#34065229)
Fox does alright.
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by mhoad on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @08:03AM (#34065276)
I did say social media companies for the record which is what we are actually talking about here.
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by shanebellone on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @08:15AM (#34065408)
Fair. It's worth pointing out we have about 20 years of "historical record", and none have attempted to niche down. I would argue both crypto and gold could drive revenue for an alt-right social media platform.
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by mhoad on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @08:27AM (#34065545)
Maybe “revenue” is masking the reality of the situation here.

No alt right echo chamber is ever in a million years going to be able to provide a good return on investment for $44B.

If they go down that path they WILL die which was my original point.

Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by shanebellone on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @09:04AM (#34066000)
Eh, that almost feels like a strawman argument. Pre-Musk Twitter wasn't worth $44b either. By normal metrics, it only needs to be profitable to sustain.

It might be more accurate to interpret Twitter as a luxury good (from Elon's perspective). Similar to how other billionaires build lavish yachts.

With that being said, there is no argument for his purchase or subsequent actions being construed as a viable investment strategy. The whole debacle looks like child's tantrum.

Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by mhoad on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @09:24AM (#34066297)
It’s not a strawman. I’m talking about very concrete facts.

1. There is not a single instance in the entire history of the internet of a profitable alt right social media website that anyone actually uses.

2. The price he paid was indeed so overvalued and has only dramatically dropped in value since then that they can already no longer pay their bills after just 7 weeks.

Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by shanebellone on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @09:59AM (#34066745)
You are but it's ignoring other concrete facts. The concept of alt-right social media is ~2 years old.

1. Facebook took 5 years to become profitable.

2. Twitter took 12 years.

3. Instagram had no revenue before Facebook bought it.

Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by skinnymuch on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @03:32PM (#34072091)
Gab is nearing age 6. Stormfront and chans with alt-right focus have been around longer than 2 years. Qanon began on 4chan over 5 years ago. Rumble is 9 years old at a $2B market cap with no profits in sight. Parler is over 4 years old and tried to sell itself by tricking Kanye West.

Rumble and Gab should be profitable now if you brought up FB becoming profitable at 5. This is all before FB found it’s mobile ads focus and became the behemoth it is now.

Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by skinnymuch on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @03:18PM (#34071891)
The argument still works even at a $24B valuation (45% discounted). No right wing platform is going to be worth $25B in the foreseeable future.
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by skinnymuch on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @03:29PM (#34072052)
No crypto company is worth that much. Coinbase market cap is under $10B. Binance can’t really be trusted and isn’t transparent. We don’t know how much true crypto activity there is. Most daily activity could be wash trading and other activities that don’t help a legit platform. We don’t know if crypto can be a strong part of a huge right wing platform. There’s no reason to believe it can be in the foreseeable future.

Fox owned MySpace and failed spectacularly with it. They technically tried niching down when they sold the site to Justin Timberlake. Fox itself is doing well enough, but only has a market cap of $16B including their non-right wing assets too.

Truth and Gab have to use non right wing code for their platforms. Code that the coders don’t want either platform to use. Truth wasn’t even giving them credit before.

Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by Zigurd on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @01:28PM (#34070065)
Right wing TV in the US stays afloat by being part of basic cable packages.
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by mbg721 on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @09:43AM (#34066541)
How is "alt-right" different from general "right-wing"? Regardless, AM radio is probably the closest thing, although call-in shows are very low-tech as a form of "social media".
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by mhoad on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @09:50AM (#34066624)
I don’t know.. probably more into school shootings and racism than usual?

I didn’t pick the term, I was replying to a comment that used it. I was just trying to keep it consistent.

Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by mbg721 on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @09:52AM (#34066655)
Fair enough, but you have to realize that nobody calls themselves "alt-right" with the philosophy "Oh boy, more racism and school shootings is just what this country needs."
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by mhoad on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @09:57AM (#34066725)
I’ve yet to see a single consistent principle from them to be fair. Reactionary is kind of their defining feature. I was more talking about the outcomes that tend to follow them around.
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by mbg721 on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @10:02AM (#34066791)
If you summed up the American right as "We don't all agree what we want, but it's certainly not this. It was better before," I think most right-wingers would agree. "Reactionary" is thrown around as though all sweeping change is progress, and that's not necessarily true.
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by mhoad on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @10:12AM (#34066931)
I feel like maybe you’re responding to an argument I’m not actually making. I don’t disagree with anything you just said in that post.
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by mbg721 on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @10:31AM (#34067242)
My point was that you're never going to find consistent principles in a group that's really a coalition of the persistently unhappy, beyond "this isn't progress".
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by skinnymuch on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @02:36PM (#34071264)
Have people like Nick Fuentes, Richard Spencer, Matt Walsh, or Alex Jones never said that sort of stuff? I’d be shocked if none have. I’ve seen Walsh and Fuentes say unhinged insanity and call for the persecution if not death of some marginalized groups.
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by ModernMech on Sunday December 25, 2022 @09:41AM (#34127597)
Yes they do; the phrase was coined by Richard Spencer. They even had a website: AlternativeRight.com
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by gadders on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @07:03AM (#34064735)
Why didn't it die when it was an echo chamber for the alt-left? Are you saying that the alt-left is more numerous, or more acceptable to advertisers?
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by forgotusername6 on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @07:08AM (#34064783)
What is the alt left?
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by gadders on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @07:16AM (#34064860)
Antifa members, NYT journalists, AOC stans etc etc.
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by shanebellone on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @07:42AM (#34065071)
I'm thankful stupid identifies itself.
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by gadders on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @10:13AM (#34066967)
We are indeed lucky.
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by shanebellone on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @10:25AM (#34067142)
Touche.
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by mcv on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @09:16AM (#34066180)
NYT isn't that left, is it? It always comes across to me as mildly conservative. Not Trump-stupid conservative, but definitely not far-left. (Mind you, I'm not a NYT reader, so I could be missing out on their left-wing content.)

Twitter before Musk was certainly not a left-wing echo chamber. It had plenty of right-wingers, middle of the road jokes, corporate accounts, etc.

Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by throwaway2729 on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @07:09AM (#34064794)
Decent people
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by mbg721 on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @09:45AM (#34066572)
"Alt" is just a way of calling out beliefs you don't like as outliers, hoping that will make them go away.
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by shanebellone on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @10:03AM (#34066800)
The alt-right will absolutely disintegrate in time. Education is trending up, religion is trending down, and archaic views die with those who hold them.
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by mbg721 on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @10:24AM (#34067131)
Religion isn't dying; Christianity might be dying. What you're seeing is fashion, not progress. It's like when older people say "Oh, the kids are so good with technology," when mostly it's clicking around walled-gardens.
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by shanebellone on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @10:32AM (#34067255)
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by mbg721 on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @10:37AM (#34067345)
Sure, casual Christianity is dying. But saying "Oh, I'm an atheist" doesn't mean that you lack a religion any more than Michael Scott yelling "I declare bankruptcy!" is a declaration of bankruptcy.
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by shanebellone on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @10:53AM (#34067600)
Interesting perspective considering the majority of religious people (that I've encountered) preach without practicing or adhering to established doctrine.

Would you consider those people religious, casually religious, or not at all religious?

Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by mbg721 on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @11:08AM (#34067851)
I'm using "casually religious" to mean "I go to church because my parents always did, but I don't really believe in that superstitious nonsense." Catholicism in particular is going through a stark divide right now, because the "Christmas and Easter" Catholics are no longer bothering to show up for Christmas or Easter. So at a glance, it looks like the Church is getting more conservative, but it's really mostly attrition.

But that's all outward religious practice; my comment was more getting at my suspicion that many human behaviors are effectively religion in disguise. Where do axioms come from?

Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by shanebellone on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @12:12PM (#34068862)
Where did religious axioms come from?

From those who sought to control through the theft of individual power and the consolidation of that power to a ruling class.

Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by Zigurd on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @01:36PM (#34070182)
If that sounds like an odd and artificial take, it is.

Atheists know what they are doing. Even, nay especially, the young. They actively reject superstition. The totally reject the white supremacist style of American evangelical churches as utterly disconnected from Christ-like behaviors.

So why claim they are unaware of what atheism means? That is meant to comfort the bulk of evangelicals who rely on preachers for their worldview.

Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by shanebellone on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @03:41PM (#34072217)
Firmly agree with this.
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by rsynnott on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @09:37AM (#34066463)
I think 1 basically implies 2; becoming Truth Social, only without the main attraction, won't pay Twitter's bills.
Re:Elon Musk’s $44B education on free speech by mbg721 on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @09:40AM (#34066492)
For that to happen, it has to lose all its momentum, MySpace style. I don't see anything right now replacing it, which is why the journalist class is in such a state of impotent rage.