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Comment by noirbot | Hacker News Reader

I don't think most of those people are saying Musk can't do this, just that it's going to make the whole site worse. There's a reason I prefer Twitter to 4chan.

They can do whatever they want with Twitter, but I don't have to use it. Which is exactly what everyone complaining about "censorship" on Twitter was told as well. If Musk wants to make Twitter more hospitable to trolls and harassers, then they're welcome to go annoy each other in their new paradise.

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Honestly I find 4chan much less toxic than Twitter in practice. Like I can find some of the most horrible, infuriating and potentially illegal content on Twitter whereas on 4chan it's relatively rare depending on the board and the occasional shooting that gets posted on there first or whatever.

Twitter with a proper /b/ section would be great though

Thanks for the idea

I comment this as a parody last week and it's now being promoted as a desired outcome the next week.

lol, let me check that out

your threads are more so focused on the threat of more bigoted stuff

I’m focused on how it would be a hilarious meme factory, amplifying the amusement park that twitter already is to 4chan levels of entertainment, while inheriting a much better more modern interface than 4chan if they tweak twitter just a little more

Yeah that comes with crazy, I’m looking forward to it. I really like that “but muh advertisers dictate what I do” goes away when reducing the options for advertisers. This could be a big and lulzworthy shakeup for the overton window.

> I’m focused on how it would be a hilarious meme factory

I'd like to buy an Internet Experience without memes.

For some mysterious reason, no one, including you, gets specific about what type of content and memes will now be allowed.

Because we dont care

They're looking forward to 4chan but better... do they really need to?

4chan's /b/ is entertaining if you enjoy gore, racial epithets, homophobia, and literal nazis

Yeah its shocking

I always find myself laughing at the speed and meme preparedness of the respondents though. Twitter has some of that but it really pales in comparison.

People will just have to find a different forum if they want something else shrug

I really like the potential for Elon to tell advertisers to pound sand since he wouldnt need to impress shareholders with the idea of ad revenue growth, and many people and organizations will still see the value of advertising there.

I didn't think it would be possible to make Twitter more hospitable to trolls and harassers, and I figured Musk's play would be minimizing bots, trolls, and extremists in order to attract the sane masses and drive up the stock price (sane people = better content = more ad/subscription revenue).

This is essentially the opposite of everything he's said about why he's looking to buy Twitter. It's all about him complaining that the "trolls and extremists" are being unfairly censored. He's all but said he wants to reverse Trump's ban.

There's no world in which Musk is going to be anti-trolling. The dude literally started this whole thing BY TROLLING.

"Trolls" is probably too broad a term since it covers "far-right trolls" as well as shitposters/clowners. Musk is against the former, not the latter. In any case, I'm excited about the potential to shake up moderation; my politics aren't "unfairly censored" by any means, but I'm having the most extreme, caustic positions shoved in my face all the time by an algorithm that optimizes for en(r|g)agement.

Are you sure Musk is against the former? I don't have strong knowledge either way, but it's pretty hard to split that line. The recent history of at least the US far-right can be described as recruiting/evangelizing primarily via "clowning" and "shitposting" that seemed fun until it wasn't. Musk has been fairly open history about palling around with folks I'd easily describe as "far-right trolls", or at least only a few degrees away from them.

I'm mostly unsure if I trust Musk, someone I associate with unfiltered mental garbage intended to en(r|g)age on Twitter to lead the vanguard to moderate out any of that.

I can never know anyone’s intentions, but I also don’t assume the worst for no reason at all. Musk hasn’t measurably changed in the last five or so years, but left-wing opinion of him has nearly reversed. I also reject the characterization of recent right-wing history; I think it is harmless as harmless as any clowning, but the left let that genie out of the bottle a decade and a half ago.

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