Defender or Enemy of Free Speech? Review of ‘Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover’ on PBS

The PBS programme screened in the U.K. on 29 October 2023 revealed Elon Musk as both a defender and an enemy of free speech.

Some of us Twitter users are in a state of denial over the brutal cutting down of our favourite Social Media platform by its ruthless new owner Elon Musk. His act of Twittercide shows a disregard for the affections of users both for the now defunct little blue bird and for the compatibility of brand name and symbol.

Clearly, Mr Musk has total self-confidence in his business decisions. After all, haven’t they made him compete so successfully in the Croesus competition recently, outperforming other super billionaires such as Bill Gates, King Charles the third, and the assorted highnesses of the Gulf States?

In October 2020 in the run-up to the presidential election, Twitter, made an unprecedented move temporarily to block tweets on the New York Post’s news story about Hunter Biden‘s laptop. The tweets were judged both unreliable and potentially damaging the the election success of President Biden,

President Trump lost the election and used the censorship by Twitter as evidence of the big steal.
The Twitter content team warned against the Twitter site being used to encourage an insurrection. Trump was temporarily blocked by Twitter.
Musk called the block a great mistake and had undermined his belief in Twitter, calling it an example of ‘the woke mind virus’. His anti woke attacks made him a popular free speech advocate.
In 2022, Twitter blocked a Musk platform, the Babylon Bee, an outlet for the free speech views. Musk began his move to take over Twitter.
At first it was a friendly business relationship. He was about to join the board when further dispute led him announce a hostile takeover.
Within a month he announced his arrival with a typical off beat way. ‘Let that sink in’,
He couched his intentions accompanying his quirky joke with a video of himself carrying a kitchen sink.

Observers described not so much as an impulse buy but a rage buy.
Twitter was undoubtedly underperforming financially which Musk believed was a wrongheaded view its its idealistic ‘woke’ mission. Ironically, his own vision was idealistic, but that was to lead to dubious removal of free speech of individuals that disagree with his views.
A rapid downsizing took place. An estimated 75% of staff was fired. Content moderation became a multi-billion battle between the old and the envisioned new Twitter.
His reforming real was shown in his act to rebrand and rename Twitter. Twitter users abandoned the platform. Advertisers withdrew their custom at a cost to the company of billions of dollars.
Musk exemplified free speech in often paranoid conspiracy tweets against politicians such a Hilary Clinton and public figures such as medical guru Fauci, and former Twitter insider turned whistle blower Yoel Roth. Unproved slurs about pedophilia would go viral.
Free speech beliefs went hand in hand with censorship. He democratically
sought the advice of Twitter users on his leadership and the overwhelming reaction against him led him to decide to announce he was standing down. He made it clear he intended to complete the task of building the unloved ‘X’ into a world beating alternative to the old Twitter.
Continued setbacks appear to trigger Trump-like public and private outbursts.

A PR rescue event has recently become public known as ‘TheTwitter Files’ project was announced. Regardless of motive, dubious business practices were revealed to further embarrassment.

The programme from PBS provided a compelling picture of a leader’s over-reaching ambitions
with inevitable personal tragedies, and flashes of dark humour.

We can expect further episodes. I leave you to supply the appropriate Shakespearean analogies.

Transcript from the podcast

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1945222/13871003-defender-or-enemy-of-free-speech-review-of-elon-musk-s-twitter-takeover-on-pbs.mp3?download=true

BBC melt down as the Huw Edwards drama unfolds

Thursday 13th July. BBC news over the last 24 hours seems to be in a state of shock, in which rational decision-making has disappeared. It reminds me of the communication confusion I personally experienced at the time of the soviet invasion in Czechoslovakia, in August 1968.

The current confusion was triggered a week ago by an article in the Sun newspaper. The article had been in typical Sun hyperbolic style, announcing that an unnamed BBC personality had payed tens of thousands of pounds for explicit images, starting when the recipient was aged 17. The article was justified as being in support of the family of the abused teenager, with implications of criminality by the BBC presenter, and its suppression by the BBC.

The level of interest escalated, with BBC and the Sun still refraining from naming the senior broadcaster involved. This in turn resulted in public denials by BBC broadcasters whose names were being circulated as candidates.
If the Sun and the BBC were the two main protagonists, the Police, and the Social Media, particularly Twitter, also contributed to the story.
Twitter, unfettered by legal considerations, was awash with tweets implying the name of the alleged broadcaster in various ways. There was even a list of names and gambling-style odds tweeted. One name quickly became a hot favourite. Odds shortened with the news that a senior figure had been temporarily removed from his planned appearances in the BBC.
A poll by the Mail suggested that the name of the BBC presenter was widely known well beyond those closest to the story at the BBC or the Sun.

Increasingly prurient information emerged. Two current BBC workers and one former member of staff were reported as having received messages by the still unnamed presenter that made them feel uncomfortable.
The Met Police ended their assessment into the original allegations and determined there was no evidence of a criminal offence. The BBC resumed its internal investigations “whilst continuing to be mindful of our duty of care to all involved” as the announcement put it

Then, today, the tipping point.

The presenter is revealed as Huw Edwards, the highest-paid BBC news executive. The news was broken by his wife Vicky Flind in the early evening.
Flind herself had been a BBC news executive before leaving to join a rival news organisation.
Her statement continued that her husband was “suffering mental health issues” and is now receiving in-patient hospital care.

The pent-up frustration of thousands of Twitter users (OK, including me) burst into thousands of messages. Many were of the ‘knew all the time’ gloating type. A fair proportion took advantage of Twitter’s renewed commitment to minimal censorship to scapegoat the Sun (or the Scum as preferred term of abuse), and its ultimate proprietor, Rupert Murdoch.
On balance of sheer numbers, tweets loathing the Sun were in a considerable majority.

@Sillyshib
My friend has just reminded me the Sun has dutifully ruined a man’s life and career to keep the Tories and their horrific mismanagement of our country, off the front pages ahead of the by-elections next week.

@arusbridger
The Sun claims tonight it “never alleged criminality” and blames other media for “reading too much” into its reporting. Like yesterday’s Sun story (still on website) saying the BBC figure “could be charged by cops & face years in prison.”

@BBCNewsnight
“The Sun has behaved impeccably throughout this.
It has done so with a degree of measured carefulness”
Rod Little, columnist at The Sun, commends the paper’s work during the BBC presenter scandal.

@OffencePolice
If it hadn’t been for the Sun, Huw Edwards would still be on TV reading the news and then hopping on his mobile, looking for teenage boys to groom

As Twitter overheated, BBC news seemed to go into panic mode. Having broken the news of Huw Edwards as revealed by his wife, it was as if the State Broadcaster had ditched its planned news schedule and was scrabbling around for something to replace it.
The closest I can relate it to from personal experience is a period I spent in Prague when the velvet revolution broke out, and the State Media resorted to a blank screen and classical music.
From six to seven pm today, our State Broadcaster, so proud of its reputation for independence from outside interference, found its own compromise. The screen showed silent clips of Huw Edwards in action at the Queen’s funeral, the King’s Coronation, as News Anchor on the 10 O’Clock news. But the words apparently emerging out-of-sync from his lips came from a discussion with contributors in some invisible BBC studio.
I expected some vestige of normal service to be restored after an hour, with news at 7 pm. Maybe some national news, or an international report from the NATO summit at which the PM was a contributor.
There was relief from the bizarre voice over at least. Familiar faces of BBC’s presenters appeared. But the denial of other news continued.
I grumble on Twitter
“BBC News seems to be holding a lengthy self-flagellation period over the sad case of Huw Edwards. No other news permitted until further notice”
I found some consolation watching the tense end to a magnificent cricket test match with England snatching victory against Australia. But as I switched channels for other news, all I could find on BBC was further fevered debate over the Huw Edwards revelations.

There may well have been some news squeezed in, which I missed.
At 10.30, the flagship late-night programme deteriorated to an Ill-tempered spat between pundits protesting the Sun’s impeccable behaviour, and those claiming its malevolence. There has been over four hours broadcasting during which the BBC news has retained an obsession over the fate of its most celebrated and remunerated news presenter. A kind of mind-freeze has been taking place.

Twenty four hours after its brain-freeze, normal BBC news functioning resumed. The early evening news begins with the news of the Govt’s acceptance of the Public Sector Pay Review body recommendations raging between 5 to 7%, but with no further negotiations. In England, Junior Doctors begin their strike action in search of a considerably higher figure. A movie celebrity, Keven Spacey, replaces Huw Edwards in a different case of alleged sexual misdoings.

A serious heat-wave across parts of Europe is also reported. Eventually, the Edwards affair gets a thirty second summary.

It has become yesterday’s news. I retain images of a time in Prague in 1968 when unlit streets were full of silent protestors demonstrating against the invasion of their country by its Eastern neighbour.

Twitter Wit and Wisdom under the new ownership of Elon Musk

Twitter has seen substantial changes under the new ownership of Elon Musk. But some tweeters have retained their sense of humour, and often offered flashes of wisdom. Here are twelve selected from the early weeks of April.

Thanks to

@deelomas (2 nominations)
@ModigThe
@MachTownclock
@sturgess_steve
@ArtCrunchy
@MarieAnnUK
@SydesJokes
@kercle
@CosmopolitanUK
@stephenfarrow
@EvLenz

@ModigThe
Phone rings:
Hello, my name is John from solar panel solutions, I understand you are the homeowner?
No, I’ve just broken in to the house.
I beg your pardon?
I’m a burglar.
Oh, well, I won’t keep you, thanks for your time.
Click.

@MachTownclock
🕙 BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG!… [10pm]

@deelomas
My young co workers asked me to show them some photos of me in high school. I said I’d go home and dig some out. They said, “Can’t you just look on your phone?”
And I laughed and laughed and laughed and then I cried…

@sturgess_steve
Is Easter better than Christmas? Posed by #JeremyVine. Presumably this question is aimed at a slightly backward amoeba.

@Tudortweet
I think I’m an armchair Republican. But this buildup to the Coronation Show is tilting me out of my armchair.

@ArtCrunchy
Is today a bank holiday?
@BettinaRoss1
It’s a public holiday here in Germany today, one of the so called silent ones (stiller Feiertag). Everything’s closed, there’s no sports, dances, noise allowed, and the year’s early local spring fairs are closed. In tune with this, it is dark, cloudy & rainy. I’m staying in bed.

@MarieAnnUK
That awkward moment when a Brexit loon tried to set fire to an EU flag but it wouldn’t burn because it meets EU regulations on flammable materials.

@SydesJokes
‘When a clown moves into a palace he doesn’t become a king, but the palace becomes a circus.’ Turkish proverb.

@kercle
It blows my mind that so many Americans can believe in God while simultaneously watching children being massacred 🤯. Why the need for guns if God is looking out for you?

@CosmopolitanUK
Kate Middleton breaks royal protocol with bold Easter manicure
@stephenfarrow
Newsflash: adult woman gets her nails done.

@deelomas
If I’m reading their lips correctly…
My neighbours are arguing about some creepy lady who lives next door

@EvLenz
A man is ordering at a restaurant, “Do you think you could bring me what that gentleman over there is having?”
The waiter looks at him sternly, “No sir, I’m very sure he intends to eat it himself.”

Twitter wit and wisdom. New year edition 2023

Twitter continues its new uncharted course, with Captain Ahab aka Captain Musk at the helm. His willingness to reaccept tweets ‘in the interests of a libertarian philosophy begins to have unexpected consequences.

@kelvmackenzie: After 8pm tonight on @GBNews I will produce the super-sized bucket on Mark Dolan show ( he’s sitting in for Mark Steyn) to pour over a migrant system which grants asylum to 77% who apply here but only 25% in France and 37% over the whole EU. We are such mugs.
@Tudortweet: Think I’ve just found Jeremy Clarkson’s role model. Traces also detected on ruined toilets at Pompeii.

@Tudortweet: In the build-up to great holiday I would like wish everyone peace and good will. The ‘everyone’ is a bit of a stretch, as it’s work in progress.

@BorisJohnson: Merry Christmas to all! Wishing everyone a safe and happy holiday season 🎅. Let’s take a moment to reflect on the year and give thanks for all that we have! #MerryChristmas
@AngelaRayner: I see the ghost of Christmas past has paid an early visit this year. 😱

@AwayFromTheKeys: A wee old woman passes away and as she’s been a kind old soul all her life, ends up in #heaven.
“Ooh, I’m in heaven”, she says to Peter, “can I meet #God?”.
“He’s currently in Scotland”, says Peter.
“Scotland? Why’s he in Scotland?”.
And Peter replies, “Working from home! “.

@EvLenz: What do you call a bunch of chess players bragging about their games in a hotel lobby?
Chess nuts boasting in an open foyer!

@NicholasTyrone: Boris Johnson isn’t prime minister any longer, so why is he doing a prime ministerial, happy Christmas to all kind of video? Seems unnecessary and needlessly annoying.
@Tudortweet: 30% of Tory MPs, known as the Lemming Coalition, are urging the return of Boris Johnson.
@ConsPost: ‘All we want for Christmas is Boris back’ say 35,000 Conservative Post readers

@pv1004: Guests staying were a little bemused when the sophisticated cat toys they bought my black and white claw machine ignored the gifts, but had an ecstatic time with the wrapping paper for about 40 minutes, performing destructive shredding at its best. #CatsOnTwitter

@JohnSimpsonNews: My erudite classicist daughter tells me that the Arctic is so called because there are bears there; ‘Arktos’ being the Greek for bear. ‘Antarctic’ means ‘no bears’, she says.

@JonIzzard: This is why I prefer to describe myself as a manic depressive. Bipolar is geography and explains why polar bears don’t eat penguins.

@jjwalks: “I asked my wife what she wanted for Christmas. She said, ‘Nothing would make me happier than a diamond necklace.’ So I got her nothing.”

@pv1004: Here’s a special treat that I forgot to tweet yesterday- joke from cracker – How does Jack Frost get to work? …….. By-icicles.

@Cobratate: Hello @GretaThunberg. I have 33 cars. My Bugatti has a w16 8.0L quad turbo. My TWO Ferrari 812 competizione have 6.5L v12s. This is just the start.Please provide your email address so I can send a complete list of my car collection and their respective enormous emissions.
@GretaThunberg: yes, please do enlighten me. email me at smalldickenergy@getalife.com [These tweets from Andrew Tate (@Cobratate) and Greta Thunberg made headline stories which were enhanced when Andrew Tate was arrested in Romania under suspicion of serious sexual wrongdoing]

@TudorTweet: Three Paras walk into a bar. Paranormal, Paracetamol, and Paraplui …
Finish the joke. There’s got to be a good one in there somewhere.
@TudorTweet: Here’s my effort
Three Paras walk into a bar. Paranormal, Paracetamol, and Paraplui …
ParaNormal disabled an attacker with a hypnotic stare.
Paracetamol stopped a fight painlessly.
Paraplui realised he was in the wrong film, and went back to Cherbourg.

@JoJoFromJerz: Maybe someday, women in America will have as many rights as guns do.

1 January
@Saccaguru: I went to A&E and it was full of immigrants. One bandaged my arm. Another gave me an X-ray

@horvitzpolitics: I always knock on the refrigerator door before opening in case there is a salad dressing

And that’s it for the start of 2023. Twitter along with the media is having trouble finding positive or amusing things about the New Year.

TR January 3 2023

The Wit and Wisdom of Twitter

Twitter has become a self-parodying system since the takeover by Elon Musk. It makes its own headlines. Its new owner contributes with his own messages, which at times take on a surreal character.

I’ve started collecting my favourite tweets, those which amuse me the most. They capture the everyday creativity to be found around us, wherever we look. Here is my first collection of recent tweets.

@deelomas

How many times do you have to tickle an octopus to make it laugh? 

Ten-tickles! 

Of course, it only has 8 of those. So the first 2 were test-tickles…

@clecylad

Tesco today

Bereft of eggs.

I mentioned it at check out. Was told it was due to the

Aviation flu

I love my Tesco 😂😂

@capntom

Replying to @clecylad

Nasty. Aviation flu saw off the popular de Havilland aircraft company.

Also replying to @clecylad

Well, I went to the shop to buy fruit but they were Sans-Berries

🙄

[I know… very bad]

@FrankRoss 123

Dont be fooled by Origami, it only looks good on paper.

@lesmartin7

Laughter is the best medicine, though it tends not to work in the case of erectile disfunction

Also

I went to Waterstones and asked the woman for a book about turtles. She asked: “Hardback?” and I was like: “Yeah, and little heads.”

@EvLenz

I miss the times when each village only had one idiot.

@lewis_goodall

I’m going to give you nearly all of politics for the next 2 years in two tweets:

(1) OBR- Real household disposable income per person, a measure of living standards, is set to fall 4.3% in 2022-23 the largest fall  since ONS records began in 1956-57.

(2) That is followed by the second-largest fall in 2023-24 at 2.8%.  That’ll only be the third time since 1956-57 that disposable income per person has fallen for two consecutive fiscal years. 

Should it happen or anything close, everything else will be embellishment and detail.

@madscientistFF

Do you know what a “watchamacallit” is?

@deelomas. Yes, it’s that thingamajig in the second drawer in the kitchen.

@c_love888

Pipe dream at best. How would you get a bill to end the House of Lords through the House of Lords?

@johnathanLevitt7

From the above article, I liked the quote: Awarding Dylan the Nobel, he said “is like pinning a medal on Mt Everest for being the highest mountain.

@Baskerville448

You know, it’s odd isn’t it that any fish caught in the Channel belongs to the EU, but any humans found there belong to the U.K.?

@johnathanLevitt7 Mermaids always cause trouble

@Tudortweet So do philosophers.

@MichaelRosenYes

I  was cutting my toenails this morning and one nail flew across the bathroom, hit the pedal bin, dented it, bounced up, broke the window, flow out and killed a crow that was flying past. I feel terrible about that, now.

If you have a favourite, please let me know.

Elon Musk’s scheme for Twitter hits the ground limping

Elon Musk continues his chaotic takeover of Twitter. He has finally clinched the on-off deal for Twitter with a deal quoted as an over-priced $44 billion. He is now proposing an extension of the site’s blue tick badge scheme for $8 a month. Millions of users are threatening to quit.

His actions  over the last few months have been that of an enormously wealthy vaccinating adolescent. At times he reflected market opinion that his object of desire was too expensive, and arguably mutton dressed up to look like lamb. 

Anyway the deal was eventually done. Mr Musk tweeted his delight, describing himself as the chief twit. His sense of humour is rarely far from the surface when he is appearing in public.

But it became clear he has grand plans for his new plaything, but no clear idea how to put them into practice. The plan is appropriately grandiose. Something about enhancing humankind by liberating voices in the global town square. His immediate actions were to fire the top team at Twitter, bring in his own firefighters, and start a discussion on Twitter on how to achieve results. First he has to make it pay.

‘We need to pay the bills somehow‘

He tweeted ‘we need to pay the bills somehow’ partly to clean up the site from an unknown number of bots and false accounts. This started a Twitter debate in which his original idea of $20 a head payment was eventually fixed at $8. Millions of users currently using the site for free were outraged. As you would expect, and no doubt Elon Musk expected. Undeterred he brought the debate to close.

“Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit. Power to the people! Blue for $8/month,”

[That’s how this bad boy does business, folks] 

His initial target is expanding the current blue-tick badge scheme. At present, it protects public authorities as as Govt Departments from fake sites. It also caters for celebrity tweeters from politics, show biz, and the arts.Improvements to the scheme had already begun under Twitter’s earlier owners.

Doubts are being raised

Doubts are being raised beyond those of ‘furious peasants’ like myself who currently pay nothing. An examination by Verified Handles, a site dedicated to facts and carefully examined opinion, states:

Even to non-verified users this is a significant change from any verification schemes in the past. I’m familiar with smaller sites that use paid verification as a means to support development of the site. Twitter will need to change its revenue model as advertisers leave the platform. Musk has publicly stated he wants recurring paid customers to make up half of the company’s revenue.

Following an already turbulent few days, the platform will be taking a big risk that undeniably will cause impersonation, untrust and financial fraud on a scale never seen, followed by untrust and financial fraud before if the planned change goes ahead. This will cause more disruption than the 2020 account hijack, where 130 verified accounts were hacked and use to promote a bitcoin scam.

https://news.verifiedhandles.com/Elon-Musk-Buying-Checkmark.html

I am reminded of the nominated new word of the year for 2022 Permacrisis. A period of sustained turbulence and crisis.

52 Tweets I won’t be favouriting

 

Here are 52 tweets (minus URLs) I collected in a 24 hour period recently. They were chosen for the elitist rationale of a dislike for other people’s obsessions. Many are obviously click-bait. Most display interests which I do not share with the authors or with some target audience

If the tweets have been selected non-randomly through some Twitter Bot, there is something going seriously wrong with the algorithm.  The tweets are listed in the order in which I came across them, rather than in some kind of league table of level of nausea they produced. I have added a few comments which occurred to me and which stopped me getting too dispirited in my self-appointed task. I have retained some idiosyncratic grammar of the original tweets. On a recount, the number came to 53, which seems like a trifling discrepancy probably unconnected with intervention by a foreign government.

What happened when a man pulled a long hair from a pimple

Anything shocking about what a man sees in a photograph of his wife

Anything shocking about what a wife sees in a photograph of her husband

What putting vapor rub in your ear on a cotton bud overnight will do to you

What eating three bananas a day for a month will do to you

What happens next after letting your baby sleep with a very large dog/snake/combine harvester/blue whale

When someone puts socks on their wipers

When someone votes for Trump then discovers something shocking in his grits

When someone works out the manufacturing cost of an iPhone 7

Quiz telling me how dirty my mind really is

 

Picture of a man of eighty who hasn’t showered in sixty years

Picture of a man of sixty who hasn’t showered for eighty years

When a man takes a closer look at his wife doing something and is shocked to see…

When a Russian injects his semen into an egg (doesn’t say what kind) with shocking results

What Princess Diana might have looked like today

What any former celeb looks like today

How buying 100,000 twitter followers will change my life

What doctors revealed about strange marks on a son coming home after a party

Insane nail hacks

Twenty awesome things you would never believe happen without photographic evidence

Twenty awesome things you would never believe happen even with photographic evidence

What happens when you rub stuff on to your face\anywhere else

Quickest and heartiest way to get rid of bad breath\bad neighbors\bad thoughts

Ways to cool down my burning tongue\burning anywhere

What amazing thing happens when you press your forefinger for sixty seconds

See what happened to a painful bubble on her skin which continued to grow

The best and easy way to get rid of blackheads

Eight craziest things to come out of the human body

Fatal Selfies taken just before death that will give me goose bumps

 

Things to do to my penis so I won’t need Viagra

The something miraculous which happens if you put an onion in your ear over night

What you shouldn’t let grow out of your nose

Perfect response on Facebook to rude woman calling you a “dirty biker”

Instagram star with 70 inch booty shares video to silence haters who cry photoshop (took a while to translate, but still no thanks)

Baking power has miraculous powers to cure diseases, it even whitens teeth

The simplest way to remove blackhead and get a glowing face

After losing forty five pounds this guy played the most epic prank on his parents. (Did he crawl in the cat flap with a sub machine gun?)

Book Review WET DADDY

Girl proves that big boobs are useful

Bizarre photos that will make you say WTF

How to Get Rid of Cysts without Surgery with these Simple Tricks. Goodbye Cyst

Man Wants To Be Buried Like A Pharaoh. But His Wife Has …

This Is What Those Weird White Dots On Your Face Mean

Men Can Have Superpowers Right Away. Amazing Ways To Become Extraordinary (next tweet about women?)

If You Put A Clothespin On Your Earlobe For 5 Seconds, This Is The Incredible Effect

It’s Very Simple! Learn To Pop A Pimple Without Leaving A Scar

People Come From All Over The World To Cuddle 500 Kitties At This Cat Sanctuary

Disgusting Medical Treatments That Could Save Your Life

Get Rid Of Inhalers! This Miraculous Juice Will Totally Cure Asthma Attacks

“The one thing that could improve the health of all Canadians”, see Dr. Danielle Martin’s fine new book.

 

Dirtiest Parts Of Our Body. Mouth May Be One Of The Grossest Thing Of Our Body

Velvet drawstring shorts. Use code TIGER for 15% OFF Order now

Nigel Slater’s chipolata and cranberry batter pudding recipe

 

For the serious-minded media studies student

 

There is a promising research topic here. Talk with your tutors about Research design, qualitative research methods, saturation of constructs, research questions.

What is Twitter’s New Business Model?

Major changes are announced by Twitter. The company is cutting back on staff and reorganizing its leadership. But will it find a new Business Model?

One of persistent questions in the business press has been ‘what is Twitter’s business model?’ The company has grown sensationally but always on its potential to make money rather than short-term profit. In that respect it is similar to Amazon. LWD subscribers will find several posts on this topic.

Turnover of senior executives

Over the last few months there has been a rapid turnover of senior executives at Twitter. Its head Dick Costelo departed in July when a Board reshuffle saw its brilliant entrepreneurial co-founder Jack Dorsey return in a transition role as CEO.

This resulted in a sideways move for a Twitter insider Adam Bain, who was considered a candidate to take over from Mr Dorsey who was seen as more of an ideas man with great inspirational and motivational skills.

Then earlier this month, [5 October 2015] Dorsey’s interim position was reclassified as a permanent one as CEO. This left unresolved a possible clash of interests with his involvement with Square, a fast growing mobile payments company in which he still retains executive responsibilities. As the new CEO, Mr Dorsey acted swiftly and announced major staff reductions at Twitter in a major restructuring plan.

Here comes Omid

One week after his appointment, Mr Dorsey also announced the arrival of Mr Omid Kordestani, an influential figure at Google whose reinvention of its corporate self as Alphabet may have contributed to Kordestani’s move to new challenges at Twitter.

Outsiders considered that further moves are required to give the company stability and coherent leadership. The official role of Mr Kordestani is as executive chairman. It remains to be seen how the leadership roles at Twitter will play out, and how the Company will redefine its business model.

The $39 dilemma: should I start tweeting by buying a few thousand followers?

To tweeters offering to sell me thousands of followers. You explain how to begin tweeting already with large numbers of followers.

— Tudor Rickards (@Tudortweet) June 22, 2015

Twitter teems with offers through which you can buy followers by the thousand.  This seems the social media equivalent of the sub-prime financing of mortgages  

A few months ago I started tweeting more regularly. This relatively harmless occupation was rewarded as I connected with a small number of discriminating tweeters who followed me, and I them. Tit-for-tat following was part of social media practice.  It also explains how ‘like attracts like’.  My followers and following grew steadily month by month. The scale was still manageable.

“Not today, not tomorrow and probably not anytime soon.” The tragedy of Charleston

 A foreign journalist captured the view that legal steps to deal with gun violence in America were only a remote possibility.

BBC journalist Anthony Zurcher wrote an article in the wake of the Charleston massacre this week [17^th June, 2015] He outlined the events involved before a young man perpetrating a race-hate crime with the hand gun he obtained as a 21st birthday present, a few months earlier.

As Kurcher put it

“At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries,” Mr Obama said on Thursday morning.

He continued: “I say that recognising the politics in this town forecloses a lot of those avenues right now. But it would be wrong for us not to acknowledge it. And at some point it’s going to be important for the American people to come to grips with it, and for us to be able to shift how we think about the issue of gun violence collectively.”

At some point – as in not today, not tomorrow and probably not anytime soon.

The outcry of pain and anger was none the less poignant for being over-familiar.

Deeply held and contrary belief systems were expressed with little evidence of willingness to understand contrary beliefs and fears. Clint Eastwood’s tweet was retweeted over a hundred times.Another tweeter expounded the dangers of churches being declared firearm- free zones.

Glenn Reynolds, a law professor with nearly 400,000 tweets to his name was cited by Kurcher as commenting that the President could always try being honest for a change.

https://twitter.com/eagle_vision/status/611660746880106500

The American Dream 

Around the world,  the American dream is increasingly being scrutinized with a mix of puzzlement and despair I have little to add to what I wrote briefly about the Sandy Hook school massacre last year. 

Tweeting 140 characters is as inadequate as writing another blogpost or even another book on leadership.

"Nine people were killed in a church because they were not armed" either you believe that or you don't. http://t.co/zWSWgE6NSm. RIP.

— Tudor Rickards (@Tudortweet) June 19, 2015