A poll about Elon Musk

[skluth]

Personally, I find the entire Twitter debacle hysterical but don't really care because if Twitter disappeared tomorrow it wouldn't change my life whatsoever. But from my POV, Twitter is for porn.

I stopped using Twitter actively in 2016 and never really saw much porn on it, but the company has never turned an operating profit and porn is one mechanism for doing so that is actively under consideration.  I think it's a bad idea, not because I am opposed to porn in principle, but because with Musk having fired half of Twitter's staff, the company is even less prepared to walk into the same buzzsaw with nonconsensually produced content that established porn sources like Pornhub have had to confront.

If Twitter has to turn to serving porn to turn a profit, then let the site go down. Without going into too much detail here, porn is a vice that ruins lives on both production and consumption ends.

Regardless of how you feel about Elon's changes to Twitter, hopefully we can all agree that cracking down on rampant child trafficking is a good thing.

It's amazing how you changed porn into rampant child trafficking. I agree that rampant child trafficking is terrible and that some porn is created by abusing and controlling minors. But to equate the two is a deceitful slight-of-hand more used by politicians and corrupt church leaders to exploit a discussion to their own ends. It's like priests abuse children so let's claim all Catholics are child molesters. That's as much a lie as your change of focus. I expect better of the people here.

[abefroman329]

Regardless of how you feel about Elon's changes to Twitter, hopefully we can all agree that cracking down on rampant child trafficking is a good thing.

I would agree, if that were what he is actually doing.  I think he is just saying he is, since he has gutted the team that is responsible for child safety.

I also think he's just saying he is since, if he took a hardline stance against sex with minors, he'd lose about 90% of his fanboys 

[JoePCool14]

Ok, I guess the thread has been derailed.

It's amazing how you changed porn into rampant child trafficking. I agree that rampant child trafficking is terrible and that some porn is created by abusing and controlling minors. But to equate the two is a deceitful slight-of-hand more used by politicians and corrupt church leaders to exploit a discussion to their own ends. It's like priests abuse children so let's claim all Catholics are child molesters. That's as much a lie as your change of focus. I expect better of the people here.

Did I equate the two? I guess I made a comparison because they're in the same post, but I didn't equate the two. I didn't say or imply all porn is created using trafficked individuals. And if it came off like I did, I didn't.

I just think that porn is bad, even if all parties involved freely give consent. And I made the connection since we were discussing how Twitter could turn to porn to turn a profit.

[Max Rockatansky]

FWIW discussing the ethics of porn seems to me like it would be a way more interesting discussion than anything about Elon Musk or Twitter.

[abefroman329]

Watching paint dry would be way more interesting than discussing Apartheid Clyde or Twitter.

[skluth]

Ok, I guess the thread has been derailed.

It's amazing how you changed porn into rampant child trafficking. I agree that rampant child trafficking is terrible and that some porn is created by abusing and controlling minors. But to equate the two is a deceitful slight-of-hand more used by politicians and corrupt church leaders to exploit a discussion to their own ends. It's like priests abuse children so let's claim all Catholics are child molesters. That's as much a lie as your change of focus. I expect better of the people here.

Did I equate the two? I guess I made a comparison because they're in the same post, but I didn't equate the two. I didn't say or imply all porn is created using trafficked individuals. And if it came off like I did, I didn't.

I just think that porn is bad, even if all parties involved freely give consent. And I made the connection since we were discussing how Twitter could turn to porn to turn a profit.

Maybe you didn't mean it but it certainly came off that way to me. Porn to child trafficking is a non sequitur. There was no reason to bring it up at all and I saw it as a logical fallacy being used to twist the conversation. I don't feel all porn is bad nor do I feel bad for looking at it despite being raised fairly-strict Christian. I do feel all human trafficking (there are far too many adults, mostly women, who also suffer from this crime) is disgusting and have no sympathy for those doing it. I'm as disgusted by child porn, non-consensual porn, and anything else that takes advantage of and/or abuses others.

There are plenty of other ways Twitter can exploit people to turn a profit. I don't understand why you took the path you did to get there.

[hbelkins]

All I'm going to say about Twitter and Elon Musk running it is this: If Twitter is going to allow the world's corporations to use their function for customer service and tech support, then Twitter is just as much a common carrier as the Verizon/ATT/TMobile/other cell phone service which a customer used to call that corporation for customer service and tech support. After all, if you can't ban a neo-Nazi from having cell phone service (and the mobile data that comes with that service)...you know the rest.

Except Twitter, FB, et al. most certainly do not want to be common carriers, because their obligations to do certain things would go well beyond being required to give an account to anyone and everyone. Which I'm not even sure is true, because I'm pretty sure you could, for example, get your phone line disconnected if you made one too many obscene phone calls to the operator.

Every time I have attempted to use Twitter, or any other social media service, in an attempt to resolve a customer service issue, I have been directed to call or email. I can only recall one exception, and it was a minor situation. I don't think companies are too eager to use social media as a customer service platform, only an advertising/marketing platform.

My professional Twitter account gets 10 percent of the traffic of our Facebook page. So Twitter is an afterthought. I was shocked to learn that most DOTs have more followers and engagement on Twitter than FB. My experience is just the opposite. We started a Twitter account first and then followed up with a FB page about a year later, and FB has been much more popular.

[Scott5114]

Every time I have attempted to use Twitter, or any other social media service, in an attempt to resolve a customer service issue, I have been directed to call or email. I can only recall one exception, and it was a minor situation. I don't think companies are too eager to use social media as a customer service platform, only an advertising/marketing platform.

Of course they're not–who wants to have a potentially angry unhappy customer talking about the problem they're having in public where anyone can see it? That just makes the company look bad.

[NE2]

I just think that porn is bad, even if all parties involved freely give consent.

[JoePCool14]

Ok, I guess the thread has been derailed.

It's amazing how you changed porn into rampant child trafficking. I agree that rampant child trafficking is terrible and that some porn is created by abusing and controlling minors. But to equate the two is a deceitful slight-of-hand more used by politicians and corrupt church leaders to exploit a discussion to their own ends. It's like priests abuse children so let's claim all Catholics are child molesters. That's as much a lie as your change of focus. I expect better of the people here.

Did I equate the two? I guess I made a comparison because they're in the same post, but I didn't equate the two. I didn't say or imply all porn is created using trafficked individuals. And if it came off like I did, I didn't.

I just think that porn is bad, even if all parties involved freely give consent. And I made the connection since we were discussing how Twitter could turn to porn to turn a profit.

Maybe you didn't mean it but it certainly came off that way to me. Porn to child trafficking is a non sequitur. There was no reason to bring it up at all and I saw it as a logical fallacy being used to twist the conversation. I don't feel all porn is bad nor do I feel bad for looking at it despite being raised fairly-strict Christian. I do feel all human trafficking (there are far too many adults, mostly women, who also suffer from this crime) is disgusting and have no sympathy for those doing it. I'm as disgusted by child porn, non-consensual porn, and anything else that takes advantage of and/or abuses others.

There are plenty of other ways Twitter can exploit people to turn a profit. I don't understand why you took the path you did to get there.

I think my mental connection was porn > human trafficking > child trafficking. I guess I jumped the gun on the comparison and didn't make that clear. Trafficking is definitely not just a problem with children, and trafficking and porn are separate issues with connections in some instances.

As for porn itself, ignoring any trafficking concerns, I used to be more okay with it, but over the years I've seen in my life personally what harm it's done and how difficult it is to undo the damage. We can also see the damage it does to society as a whole, becoming very "hypersexualized".

Of course I'm not perfect. But I am trying.

I just think that porn is bad, even if all parties involved freely give consent.

What can I say, lol. It's the side of the argument I'm on.

[Rothman]

Porn is yucky

[abefroman329]

We can also see the damage it does to society as a whole, becoming very "hypersexualized".

As absurd as this statement is, it does a great job of underscoring the beliefs of those who believe in unchecked individual freedom; namely, "I can do as a please, but others still need to confirm to my Puritanical beliefs."

[abefroman329]

Every time I have attempted to use Twitter, or any other social media service, in an attempt to resolve a customer service issue, I have been directed to call or email. I can only recall one exception, and it was a minor situation. I don't think companies are too eager to use social media as a customer service platform, only an advertising/marketing platform.

Of course they're not–who wants to have a potentially angry unhappy customer talking about the problem they're having in public where anyone can see it? That just makes the company look bad.

Also, who wants all of the company's DMs to be discoverable in a lawsuit?

[hbelkins]

Every time I have attempted to use Twitter, or any other social media service, in an attempt to resolve a customer service issue, I have been directed to call or email. I can only recall one exception, and it was a minor situation. I don't think companies are too eager to use social media as a customer service platform, only an advertising/marketing platform.

Of course they're not–who wants to have a potentially angry unhappy customer talking about the problem they're having in public where anyone can see it? That just makes the company look bad.

Also, who wants all of the company's DMs to be discoverable in a lawsuit?

This is a good point. From what I've experienced, the companies ask you to go private with your correspondence, then they direct you to phone or email. They don't even want the situation hashed out in private messages on the platform.

[abefroman329]

And if you're lucky, they redirect you to the phone number or email address of someone who can actually resolve your issue.