If Jack Dorsey & Elon Musk (who are friends) merely wanted to run a MAGA site full of fascists, they could have just bought Parler & saved themselves approx 43.999 billion dollars.
What they wanted was to cripple the sad remnants of investigative journalism, and the political left, which successfully used Twitter for political organizing, activism & messaging throughout the Trump regime.
Why would anyone who cares about either of these things go to Jack's #Bluesky project.
Amid rumors he was being forced out as Twitter CEO (for the 2nd time), Dorsey reached out to Musk, & together they planned his takeover, which Dorsey backed to the tune of $1 billion in shares. Jack said he planned this exit starting in 2020, which is also when he started publicly making friends with Musk.
He is one of the biggest owners of Twitter.
As Dave Troy noted in Oct 2022: They're collaborators, not competitors.
Attached: 4 images @[email protected] June 11, 2022: Jack: "Twitter Inc could also use [Bluesky] as foundation." "According to the filing, Dorsey and Musk “may be deemed to have formed a group” for the purposes of part of the filing, a designation that indicates the pair were working together on the buyout." Oct. 18, 2022: Q: You've talked about a protocol for Twitter...is this along those lines? jack @jack: yes https://www.ft.com/content/f65414c4-f3e4-4bff-9af0-4960f922ce1d
A Jack Dorsey owned protocol or platform will never, *ever* be a safe space for Democratic or progressive organizing, or even a safe gathering space for any marginalized community (which includes women).
It's actually a big deal to throw away this moment - an opening of possibility to meaningfully disrupt the cycle of Enshittification & to build a vastly more democratic social media space.
Musk won't prevail in any misappropriation claims against #Meta for #Threads because he hasn't tried to enforce against #Bluesky, which directly competes with Twitter, hired Twitter employees & all 3 of its Board members worked at Twitter. BS's clearly been using information acquired at Twitter to accelerate its development. Its attraction to users is b/c it's a copycat clone of Twitter - but Musk has never made a peep about it. And never will.
Tells you something very important about Bluesky
Failure to protect against misappropriation is an affirmative defense in CA.
Dorsey had duty to keep Twitter's TSs. "It is misappropriation to disclose or use another’s trade secret, knowing or having reason to know, that...the trade secret was acquired under circumstances giving rise to a duty to maintain its secrecy or limit its use, or was derived from or through a person who owed a duty to maintain its secrecy or limit its use. (Cal. Civ. Code, §§ 3426.1(b)(2)(B)(ii) and (iii).)"
Journalists shouldn't be spreading these kinds of unsourced rumors, without seeing all the contracts & incorporation documents from Bluesky entities (there are likely more than just the one PBLLP).
Also, people are simultaneously spreading unsourced (& frankly totally BS) rumors that there is ZERO relationship between Musk & Dorsey's Twitter, & Dorsey's Bluesky. So which is it?
@chargrille Mastodon for activism and awareness, Bluesky for cute animal pics and general shitposting, and never the twain should meet.
I agree with your assessment of the musk/dorsey intent, what I wonder is why all this chipping away at Twitter, rather than pulling the plug immediately. The endless blunders and faceplants have shifted musk's carefully crafted public persona from "visionary genius" to bumbling incompetent.
It's clear he doesn't give a crap about the $44B or lawsuits from contractors and creditors, would it not have been better for his reputation (and boundless ego) to take Twitter offline with the vague promise of overhauling the site, then announce he would be "taking the company in an exciting new direction" or whatever, and then simply never follow up?
Can he honestly love posting boomer-humor and getting fluffed by sycophant crypto/fash THAT MUCH? So much that he'd trash his entire reputation over it? It's astonishing.
Re the chipping away obviously I am theorizing but: 1) because Bluesky wasn't ready yet to push journalists & Democratic/left wing users to & 2) Twitter's reputation & network effect remains valuable as an avenue to radicalize clued-out users who remain.
Then Twitter joins BlueSky & we're back to the start, only worse.
Relatedly, it is notable that Bluesky is the only competitor that Musk never banned or attacked - despite the fact that its a carbon copy of Twitter.
@chargrille I'm not sure what value twitter has at this point, it's bots talking to bots and endless t-shirt hucksters. If a normie's going to get radicalized it's far more likely to happen on Truth or Facebook, no? Thru a slippery slope of vaccine misinformation or groomer panic?
And speaking of Facebook, I'm betting that Threads is going to eat dorsey's lunch. FB and Insta's reach is beyond huge, the ability to instantly connect to one's existing network is gonna be a huge boon.
This whole thing is depressing. The lifeline Twitter gave to organizers and vulnerable citizens was unparalleled, it's a genuine loss.
@chargrille Waitaminnit! Are you telling me that Rasputin-lookin'-motherfu**er ain't on the level?!?
</jokes>
@chargrille Is there a more democratic social-media cosmos than #Mastodon & the #Fediverse?
Not as far as I know.
There's always space & opportunity for improvement to jointly optimize, what we've got.
P.S.: A platform organized & directed by Jack Dorsey will never again be an option or choice for me.
Reminder: Dorsey was the CEO before & on Jan 6.
It told me all I needed to know.
#Mastodon #Freedom #Equality #CommunityCounts #RulesMatter #SocialMedia #DorseyTrump
It is frustrating.
But it’s not coming out in mainstream media. I’ve been asking questions that I *don’t* see journalists addressing.
Maybe Dave would be interested in pursuing some of the corporate ownership/legal questions and the nitty gritty circumstances behind how Bluesky was funded by Twitter shareholders but then incorporated into a private company owned by Twitter’s CEO.
Dunno if it's illegal, but, as my grandmother used to say, "It smacks of sharp practice." 🤨
@chargrille mastodon would take off as the next investigative platform, it really has everything needed for it.
What is lacking is an algorithm. If the only people who ever saw your posts are the people who follow you, would your investigation ever reach the public?
I wish mastodon has an algorithm. If it did, it would pretty much kill twitter and bluesky.
More people see my posts now than they did for the last 2+ years on Twitter, where I had 12,000 followers.
There are bots and third party sites that fill this void in some respect, but they are difficult to find because they are not baked into the experience.
I check feditrends when I want a fediverse algorithmic experience. It was super useful to surface breaking news during Yevgeny Prigozhin's march to Moscow.
Parler did not have 350 million users. Nor was it popular among foreign authoritarians.
They know that journalists have no other platform to go. They also know that the celebrities are not going anywhere.
Neither are state and federal govt. agencies.
They acquired them the best autocratic propaganda machine they could, and it will amplify the right wing as never before.
Election 2024 is going to be lit with *effective* disinformation.
@ashwinm @chargrille From informal reports, results are counter-intuitive: while reported impressions were higher on Twitter, click-thru is higher on Mastodon.
I'm curious if that'll scale. If so, journalists will be in a weird position of seeing few react to their toots while the toots drive traffic.
@chargrille I love Mastodon but there are good reasons to use commercial sites. E.g. your instance hasn't signed up to the Mastodon Server Covenant (most haven't), which means they could shut the server down with no notice.
Also, commercial sites don't need you to move instances when volunteer admins lose interest or close down servers.
Having said that, I have no plans to join #BlueSky or #Threads 🙂
Sure but a) This is about Dorsey & Musk's track records, not 'commercial vs. non', & b) it's ironic to posit commercial sites as a bastion of reliability given this week's Twitter crisis, & that Musk's commercial site has spent the last year suspending accounts on his individual whim & inexorably shutting down user services "with no notice."
I support instances signing the Mastodon Server Covenant. My server is run cooperatively by friends & sudden shutdown is not a concern.
@chargrille I agree with you, but Mastodon's model is both a boon and a barrier.
I've tried to get friends to use Mastodon but they say it's either too techie or nobody they're following is on it. I've seen notable figures join Mastodon and then leave when they get little engagement.
I wish I knew the answer.
I love Mastodon, but I understand why people would want a less techie network with all the celebs and influencers etc.
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