2022.04.25埃隆-马斯克收购twitter

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IDEAS
Elon Musk Buying Twitter Is Weird, Chaotic, and a Little Bit Awesome
Anybody who is extremely confident about how this is going to work out doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

By Derek Thompson
Portrait of Elon Musk
Oliver Munday / The Atlantic
APRIL 25, 2022, 7:29 PM ET
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About the author: Derek Thompson is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of the Work in Progress newsletter.

To be honest, I still can’t believe this happened. Earlier today, Twitter accepted Elon Musk’s offer of $44 billion to buy the company and take it private. In one of the largest and weirdest tech acquisitions in recent memory, Musk fought off initial opposition and a poison-pill threat to buy the social-media service.

News of the deal has polarized Twitter users and employees. How will Musk transform the social network while remaining chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX? Will his promises to protect free speech also increase misinformation and abuse on the platform? And, um, is Donald Trump coming back?

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Read: Will Elon Musk go full future-of-civilization on Twitter?

Here are some totally unstructured answers to those questions, whose randomness I hope adequately captures the bafflement I still feel about this news.

1. Nobody knows Musk’s true motivation.

In the biggest picture, what happened is that a car-and-rockets executive who made his name in digital payments bought a website where people scream at one another about the news. Anybody who is extremely confident about exactly how this is going to work out doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

Read: Of course Elon Musk wanted Twitter

Musk is a brilliant executive. One of his companies technologically outpaced NASA at the same time that his other project became the most valuable car company in the world. But solving Twitter—unlocking the value of its content, opening the free-speech spigot, clamping down on abuse, all while making heavy users on both the far left and the far right simultaneously happy—is a completely different challenge. A hard-tech CEO choosing to install himself as head of a chaotic social-media scrum is like the world’s most talented lion tamer paying to lock himself inside a shark tank with a great white. Why would anyone do this to themselves? Wait, no, maybe he’s actually got this? Or maybe the shark eats him immediately? Everything is in play here.

2. Let’s be honest: Musk buying Twitter could be good for Twitter.

Within Media Twitter, there is little social punishment for being relentlessly negative about everything. (When you’re paid to follow a news cycle that ping-pongs among authoritarianism, pandemic, and war, “relentless negativity” comes rather naturally from simply paying attention.) But this glum bias can prejudice journalists against seeing how, sometimes, not everything turns out maximally bad. So, while my entire Twitter timeline is filled with people predicting calamity and threatening to leave the service in protest, I want to spend a bit of time outlining why I think Musk buying Twitter could actually be good.

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Twitter is one of the most important products in the space of information. In the news discourse, Twitter is very often the straw that stirs the drink. But it’s a terrible business, which has lost $861 million as a public firm and reported a profit in less than half of its earnings calls since going public in 2013. It’s also bafflingly turgid at innovation. The direct-message functionality has updated sluggishly. The Trending Topics section is the strangest piece of real estate on the internet, where pile-ons jockey for space with bizarrely insistent attempts to get me to learn more about Zendaya’s red-carpet look.

Why is it such a bad business? I’m not sure, exactly. But consider the fact that, at the board-of-directors level, Twitter is basically run by a bunch of people who never use Twitter. If I told you that a restaurant was run by chefs who never taste the food, you might say something like “It sounds like the food might have a lot of problems,” or “I’ll bet the diners constantly complain about it,” or “I suspect that repeated requests to change the menu are met with relative indifference,” and guess what, all of that is more or less true with Twitter.

Evelyn Douek: Running Twitter is going to disappoint Elon Musk

I don’t want to suggest that zero Twitter engineers and product managers are on Twitter. Many are, and I know some of them personally, and they’re fantastic. My point is that corporate leadership matters, and it might be nice to have somebody who cares lovingly for Twitter to be in charge of Twitter—if for no other reason than to do something about that infernal Trending Topics box. Musk’s love of Twitter is beyond doubt. His ability to transmute that love into nifty app updates for power users is less certain.

3. The political effects of Musk taking over Twitter are going to be really interesting.

When Twitter banned then-President Donald Trump in January 2021, it was unprecedented. Here are some big questions about Trump and a Musk-controlled Twitter:

What if Donald Trump is allowed back on Twitter? Does that give him an advantage in 2024, by being able to buy more shares of our attention? Or does Trump’s presence make his awfulness more prominent in the minds of moderates, pushing more people away from the Republican Party?

And what if Donald Trump is invited back to Twitter but refuses to return? Does that make Musk and Trump enemies? What if conservatives returning to Twitter implode the value of Trump’s media SPAC? Does a Musk-Trump rivalry suddenly code the anti-woke Musk as a liberal? If Trump sees Musk’s Twitter as a threat to his SPAC, will he lead conservatives against Musk’s entire corporate portfolio? Would that reduce demand for electric vehicles among conservatives?

You get the point. To run a social-media company in 2022 is to invite metric tons of scorn to be heaped upon you every minute of your waking life. Musk may have invited an inconvenient amount of political scrutiny, for a guy who has worked, and continues to work with, the federal government.

4. And then there’s the abuse issue.

My optimistic outlook for Twitter basically comes down to this. Twitter could be a lot better: There’s more low-hanging fruit than you think. And Elon Musk actually uses and likes Twitter, which makes him a good candidate to fix those problems.

Kate Klonick: What I learned in Twitter purgatory

My pessimistic outlook for Twitter basically comes down to this: I’m not sure what Musk’s plans for “light-touch content moderation” will look like. But running a social-media site appears to be something like tending to a garden, except the garden is the size of Australia, and there are alien weeds that grow one foot per second everywhere you look.

I don’t know what Musk will do to change the norms around extremist speech and abuse. But I do think that extremism and abuse will become even more salient under Musk’s leadership, given his reputation. As a result, whether Twitter actually cuts down on abuse, I think we will in the next few months hear more about the abuse that’s always been there. Put differently: Lots of people really hate Elon Musk, and they’re going to be vocally critical of just how awful Twitter is becoming—or always was.


5. Humans are impossible.

Elon Musk has proved himself to be an extraordinary entrepreneur and businessman in the domains of digital payments, electric vehicles, and space flight. But social media is really, really different from those things. With PayPal, the product is money. With Tesla, the product is cars. With SpaceX, the product is rockets. But with Twitter, the product is people.

Money transfers, cars, and rockets are responsive to engineering prowess. People are impossible. People are horrible, and brilliant, and strange, and nasty, and clever, and conniving. People bite back in a way that software and hardware do not. So although my faith in Musk as a strategic executive is nonpareil, I predict that Elon Musk will fail as Twitter owner. Ten years from now, when I imagine he will no longer be Twitter’s leader, the narrative of 21st-century technology will shift from “Software is easy; hardware is hard” to “Software is easy, hardware is harder, and humans are impossible.”

Derek Thompson is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of the Work in Progress newsletter.




理念
埃隆-马斯克收购推特是奇怪的、混乱的，而且有一点棒极了
任何对这一结果极有信心的人，都不知道自己在说什么。

作者：德里克-汤普森
埃隆-马斯克的画像
奥利弗-蒙代/《大西洋》杂志
2022年4月25日，美国东部时间下午7点29分

关于作者。德里克-汤普森(Derek Thompson)是《大西洋》杂志的工作人员，也是《工作进展》通讯的作者。

说实话，我仍然无法相信这一切的发生。今天早些时候，Twitter接受了埃隆-马斯克(Elon Musk)提出的440亿美元收购该公司并将其私有化的提议。在近期最大和最奇怪的科技收购案之一中，马斯克击退了最初的反对和购买社交媒体服务的毒药威胁。

这笔交易的消息使推特的用户和员工两极分化。马斯克将如何在继续担任特斯拉和SpaceX的首席执行官的同时改造这个社交网络？他对保护言论自由的承诺是否也会增加该平台上的错误信息和滥用？还有，嗯，唐纳德-特朗普会回来吗？

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阅读。埃隆-马斯克将在推特上全面介绍未来文明？

以下是对这些问题的一些完全无序的回答，我希望其随机性能充分捕捉到我对这一消息的困惑之处。

1. 没有人知道马斯克的真正动机。

从最大的方面来看，所发生的事情是，一个在数字支付领域成名的汽车和火箭高管买下了一个网站，人们在这个网站上对新闻互相叫骂。任何对这件事的确切结果极有信心的人，都不知道自己在说什么。

请看。埃隆-马斯克当然想要Twitter

马斯克是一位出色的管理者。他的一家公司在技术上超过了美国宇航局，同时他的另一个项目成为世界上最有价值的汽车公司。但是，解决Twitter--解锁其内容的价值，打开言论自由的水龙头，遏制滥用，同时让极左和极右的大量用户同时感到高兴--是一个完全不同的挑战。一个硬科技的CEO选择让自己成为混乱的社交媒体的负责人，就像世界上最有才华的驯兽师花钱把自己关在鲨鱼池里和大白鲨在一起。为什么有人会对自己这样做？等等，不，也许他真的有这个能力？或者是鲨鱼马上就把他吃了？这里的一切都在起作用。

2. 老实说：马斯克收购Twitter可能对Twitter有好处。

在媒体推特内部，对所有事情都持无情的负面态度，几乎没有社会惩罚。(当你拿着钱去关注一个在专制主义、大流行病和战争之间摇摆不定的新闻周期时，"无情的消极 "就会自然而然地出现在你的关注中）。但是，这种悲观的偏见可能会使记者对有时并非所有事情的结果都是最坏的情况产生偏见。因此，当我的整个推特时间线充满了预测灾难和威胁离开服务以示抗议的人时，我想花一点时间概述一下为什么我认为马斯克收购推特实际上是好事。

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推特是信息空间中最重要的产品之一。在新闻讨论中，推特往往是搅动饮料的吸管。但它是一个糟糕的企业，作为一家上市公司，它已经损失了8.61亿美元，自2013年上市以来，只有不到一半的财报电话报告了盈利。它在创新方面也是令人费解的。直接信息功能的更新很缓慢。潮流话题部分是互联网上最奇怪的一块地产，在那里，一堆人争先恐后地试图让我了解更多关于赞达亚的红地毯造型。

为什么这是个糟糕的生意？我不确定，确切地说。但考虑到这样一个事实：在董事会层面，推特基本上是由一群从不使用推特的人管理。如果我告诉你，一家餐厅是由从不品尝食物的厨师经营的，你可能会说："听起来食物可能有很多问题，"或者 "我打赌食客们不断抱怨，"或者 "我怀疑反复要求改变菜单的人都会受到相对冷漠的对待。"你猜怎么着，所有这些在Twitter上或多或少都是真的。

伊夫林-杜克 经营Twitter会让埃隆-马斯克失望的

我并不想说Twitter的工程师和产品经理是零。很多人是这样的，我个人也认识其中一些人，他们都很出色。我的意思是，企业领导层很重要，如果有一个对Twitter充满爱意的人负责Twitter，可能会很好--如果没有其他原因的话，那就是对那个无休止的热门话题框做些什么。马斯克对Twitter的热爱是毫无疑问的。他是否有能力将这种爱转化为对高级用户的有趣的应用程序更新，则不太确定。

3. 马斯克接管Twitter的政治影响将非常有趣。

当推特在2021年1月禁止当时的总统唐纳德-特朗普时，这是前所未有的。这里有一些关于特朗普和马斯克控制的Twitter的大问题。

如果唐纳德-特朗普被允许回到推特上怎么办？这是否会让他在2024年获得优势，能够购买更多我们关注的股份？或者说，特朗普的存在是否会使他的可怕之处在温和派的心目中更加突出，把更多人从共和党中推开？

而如果唐纳德-特朗普被邀请回到推特，但拒绝返回呢？这是否会使马斯克和特朗普成为敌人？如果保守派重返推特，使特朗普的媒体SPAC的价值受到影响怎么办？马斯克和特朗普的竞争是否会让反醒的马斯克突然被编码为自由派？如果特朗普将马斯克的推特视为对其SPAC的威胁，他是否会带领保守派反对马斯克的整个企业组合？这是否会减少保守派对电动车的需求？

你会明白的。在2022年经营一家社交媒体公司，就是邀请人们在你清醒的生活中每时每刻都对你进行公吨级的蔑视。马斯克可能已经邀请了大量的政治审查，对于一个曾经并继续与联邦政府合作的人来说，这是不方便的。

4. 然后是滥用问题。

我对Twitter的乐观看法基本上归结为以下几点。推特可以做得更好。垂手可得的果实比你想象的要多。而埃隆-马斯克实际上使用并喜欢Twitter，这使他成为解决这些问题的好人选。

凯特-克罗尼克：我在推特炼狱中学到的东西

我对Twitter的悲观看法基本上归结为以下几点。我不确定马斯克的 "轻触式内容管理 "计划会是什么样子。但是，经营一个社交媒体网站似乎就像打理一个花园，只不过这个花园有澳大利亚那么大，而且到处都有每秒长一英尺的外来杂草。

我不知道马斯克会做什么来改变围绕极端主义言论和虐待的规范。但我确实认为，鉴于马斯克的声誉，在他的领导下，极端主义和虐待行为将变得更加突出。因此，无论推特是否真的削减了滥用行为，我认为我们在未来几个月会听到更多关于一直存在的滥用行为。换句话说。很多人真的很讨厌埃隆-马斯克，他们会大声批评推特变得多么糟糕，或者说一直都很糟糕。


5. 人类是不可能的。

埃隆-马斯克已经证明了自己在数字支付、电动汽车和太空飞行等领域是一个非凡的企业家和商人。但是，社交媒体与这些东西真的真的不同。对于PayPal来说，产品是钱。特斯拉的产品是汽车。SpaceX的产品是火箭。但对于Twitter来说，产品是人。

汇款、汽车和火箭是对工程能力的反应。人是不可能的。人是可怕的，聪明的，奇怪的，讨厌的，聪明的，纵容的。人的反击方式是软件和硬件所不具备的。因此，尽管我对马斯克作为一个战略执行者的信心是无可比拟的，但我预测埃隆-马斯克作为Twitter的所有者将会失败。十年后，当我想象他不再是Twitter的领导者时，21世纪技术的叙述将从 "软件很容易，硬件很难 "转变为 "软件很容易，硬件更难，而人类不可能。"

德里克-汤普森是《大西洋》杂志的工作人员，也是《工作进展》通讯的作者。