Linderflomann
Tele-Meister
Musk certainly did make it so no one understands what Twitter's mission is anymore.
Tesla cancels the CyberTruck!
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Like you, I have worked a lot of jobs with work crews etc. Those folks are often talented and skilled, but they are more physical type labor gigs. The work for tech engineers, writers, policy people, finance analysts etc is nearly completely in their head.
Like your last crew, they were more skilled and educated and the work, in many ways, motivated them. That is kind of what I am describing. What we could offer during those 20 months was essentially 'hey guys would you like to work all sunny, mild days or would you like to deal with the weather?'
The world has always been split between people who believe people are basically bad and have to be compelled to be good and those who believe people are basically born good and given good guidance and treatment will be productive and good.
We had some teams that performed poorly. The consistent quality of those groups was---> a manager who had a long history of believing their team needed to be whipped into shape and a distrust that their team would perform poorly without stern and retributive management.
My freshman orientation in college, the college president gave a talk to us about a concept of 'self fulfilling prophecy'. At first, I was kind of idling during the talk, wondering when we'd be free to go to our rooms and hang out with new friends and have fun.
But, then he got me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-fulfilling_prophecy
It changed my life that day and forever. That doesn't mean that I think everyone will do right left to their own devices. But, if you develop a good, productive culture, you can trust your folks to do what needs doin' and you can trust in it and depend on it.
maxvintage
Poster Extraordinaire
Lol.
Yes, unruly workers have always been a problem for employers, its true. Their persistent desire for dignity and autonomy has always been a problem for the boss. The many songs about bosses being unreasonable, you seem to be saying, are all because all songwriters are drug crazed maniacs? Seriously? Maybe examine that premise a little.
My point, which does not negate yours, is that often the same people who listen to country songs complaining about the boss are the same people who hail Musk acting like an autocratic boss and treating workers with contempt. It wasn't really about you.
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maxvintage
Poster Extraordinaire
It's a good question. It was only marginally profitable before Musk, and he seems to believe that if he guts the workforce he can make it more profitable. But Twitter isn't like making cars. It's selling access to a product the users make for free, same as Facebook or same as this forum. The way to make this forum profitable has been to sell ads and ask for subscriptions, and to moderate it, so it can keep a broad base of users. Musk's erratic behavior, and his fondness for trolling while CEO, seem like a bad business strategy to me, because it's going to alienate half the market of most advertisers. Do you really want to advertise your product on a forum where the CEO is retweeting anti-semitic memes?
He supposedly plans to make Twitter into an "everything app" like WeSpeak in china, which is like twitter but it also hails a cab, does your banking, schedules airline tickets, tunes your guitar and tells you the weather. This seems like a bad idea to me, but the history of the digital era has mostly been about sacrificing privacy for convenience, so maybe people will go for it.
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bottlenecker
Poster Extraordinaire
Never heard of it, but isn't that like the tdpri?
I can't reconcile this...
...with this.
Woah, this sounds like the mine owner trying to dismiss some accusations here. What is "crazed" exactly? Why are his substance abuse issues relevant? Quit twirling your mustache.
I'm fine with electric trucks--I dig the Rivian.
The Cybertruck was ugly as [something that rhymes with truck].
Skully
Doctor of Teleocity
And who says you don't have a sense of humor?!
As far as remote work and productivity, I think it really depends. Some people are good at it, and love it so much, they will work HARDER and produce more, so that they can continue working from home. It depends on the type of work to be performed too. We have several employees in a small call center, and their work is perfect for work-from-home... it's easy to measure how many calls they're taking and if they're all pulling their weight. Also, no weather concerns that typically delayed opening of the call center--they just fire up their computer and phone and get to work without having to worry about driving through that snow.
For me, I like to work at home every now and then. But for the most part, I actually enjoy the interaction and relationships of being at the workplace with other people. I am not generally as productive at home, it's hard for me to remain focused. Some are like me, and some are very productive at home. Just really just depends.
For me, I like to work at home every now and then. But for the most part, I actually enjoy the interaction and relationships of being at the workplace with other people. I am not generally as productive at home, it's hard for me to remain focused. Some are like me, and some are very productive at home. Just really just depends.
Skully
Doctor of Teleocity
It's not abusive for a CEO to fire an employee for insulting and demeaning him in a global public forum. It boggles the mind that an employee might think it's okay. But I suspect that most of these people imagined they were making like Slim Pickens in "Dr. Strangelove."
maxvintage
Poster Extraordinaire
You, I guess?
maxvintage
Poster Extraordinaire
No, but if thst CEO is publicly braying about his deep commitment to free speech then it shows he's full of... something...what's the word? hubris? Hypocrisy?
bottlenecker
Poster Extraordinaire
I can't even get past the idea he's "CEO". I mean, in reality he's the child king liability that makes more work for competent people.
Skully
Doctor of Teleocity
It shows a bit of hypocrisy and it's not a great look, but there's a practical difference between pledging that all ideas will be given free airing in the public forum the company owns and allowing your employees to insult you in said forum. The real hypocrisy was the knee-jerk, thin-skinned banning of people like Kathy Griffin.
imwjl
Doctor of Teleocity
There are lots of ways to measure the results. Except for both being important hard work, you can't make perfect comparisons. The mental and physical tasks people do are so very different.
I can't help but think of watching same accounting, logistics, pricing, marketing, dispatch, HR and IT in same enterprise for 20+ years. It has settled that much or most of that is work from home now. Overall the jobs are done better than ever and fewer staff.
We did find not everyone could or would be productive with such freedom. It had a period where more had to go back to being in the office. Those same sorts of matters could be why Musk has had the back to office dialogs out there.
This has stood out in our few years of settling WFH. There is a correlation with completing formal education and how successful the working on your own is. The types of distractions differ and the jobs working out well from home ones that are complex and are hurt by distractions. The kitchen or next music track is very different than someone walking around you or chatter in the office.
Skully
Doctor of Teleocity
I think there are a lot of child king CEOs, but all save for maybe a handful have compensating attributes beyond charisma and a talent for working the smoke and mirrors that give them value and keep them in power.
I've never been much of a Musk fan. The irony is that most of the people now hysterically declaring that Musk has turned Twitter into a hellscape are the very fanboys and fangirls that made him what he is.
imwjl
Doctor of Teleocity
Our findings and even jobs like in kitchens, stocking, order picking, and maintenance less rigidity works better. For my department, IT support costs (labor spent on same issues) is up to 20% higher with the site with a very rigid and traditional site director.
Crazy and a very interesting extreme is a group of pricing staff. In 21 years I watched the staff size be cut to 1/4. The tradition of an older white male supervising mostly women where none had formal degrees and all came from retail floors is now 3 millennial women, formal degrees completed, and all runs better with their only scheduled on site or duty 10-12 hours a week.
maxvintage
Poster Extraordinaire
I've made this argument before, but it's really clear nobody is a free speech absolutist and nobody wants unrestrained free speech. We have laws against libel and slander and defamation: these are clearly restrictions on free speech. We have laws banning child pornography, or solicitation of minors. These are also clearly restrictions on free speech. We have laws against fraud: you can't claim things that aren't true, except you sort of can, say in advertising for your tele made of "tonewood," and we have a complicated and expensive judicial system designed to sort out what's fraud, defamation or libel and what's not. It's obvious if you think about it in anything other than a superficial way: unrestrained free speech is a bad idea. And so of course is too much restraint. Absolutism is the problem.
Self restraint in speech is not a virtue Musk seems to have cultivated or advocated, except for other people. It's not just a "bad look:" it's that he's holding himself up as an advocate of unrestrained free speech while also holding himself up as the sole determining authority of what's allowed.
Put aside for a minute the effectiveness of a company that doesn't allow any criticism of management, and consider the idea of a guy seeking to monopolize a platform for public discourse in which he exercises all authority over what's allowed. He made some noises about forming some kind of board or committee that would oversee what was allowed on Twitter--which Twitter already had--but no such organization has been formed or consulted. Instead he's been as they say in law "arbitrary, whimsical and capricious" in his decisions.
The moderation principles at TDPRI are pretty clear--I don't always agree with the moderator's decision, but at least they have declared where the boundaries are. I don't see any principles at all in what Musk is doing regarding speech moderation, other than his personal whims. Absolutism.
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Linderflomann
Tele-Meister
To tie it in with what was said earlier about how workers excel when they clearly understand the company's mission, Musk has both said that he wants Twitter to be a bastion of free speech and the most reliable source of information. These two ideals are in obvious conflict with each other.
It would that a management style such as Musk's works when you have very clear objectives; like "get a rocket into space within some time frame". But for something as complicated and ambiguous as running a social media site it seems a total mismatch.
Skully
Doctor of Teleocity
You're misrepresenting the issue. First of all, back when Musk didn't own Twitter, people defending its enforcement policies were saying, "It's a privately owned company, the First Amendment doesn't apply." And they were correct. Now that they feel that the script has flipped, they're outraged that the private company might be operating under that very philosophy. That's some hypocrisy.
The truth is the U.S. has very, very powerful free speech protections -- the most powerful in the world. You can yell fire in a crowded theater. It's very hard to win and libel or defamation cases. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 makes it so that internet providers and web hosts are not liable for libelous comments published on their platforms, although this proviso has been under threat in recent years.
The laws haven't changed, but there's been a scary pushback against free speech in American society. What it amounts to is "free speech for me, not for thee." I'm against hate speech, racism and misinformation, but none of those are illegal (unless you tie the latter to, say, product claims). And it's good they're not, because the definition of what is and isn't all of those (particularly hate speech and misinformation) sits on a slippery slope, and the definitions are often used by those in power or those looking to seize it -- not necessarily in the government -- to manipulate and control others. Totalitarian regimes love to declare things "misinformation."
I'm a journalist. I'm not at the forefront of anything; my work is generally not significant or important. But I know how the house is built, so to speak, and I can spot shoddy workmanship -- feelz over facts, lies by omission, dishonest use of statistics, logical fallacies, and statements not supported by facts presented as a given. I’ve seen it more and more in recent years.
I’m particularly offended when I see those who view themselves as so smart and honest and above-the-fray embracing lies and shoddy thinking because it aligns with their worldview. These are people I’m likely to agree with on most issues. But just because we hate this person or that person, it doesn’t make everything said about them true. Just because this or that person is a vile demagog, it doesn’t mean that a story about them being a kiddie rapist is true. Our political enemies might have a point about this or that policy, and they should be allowed to express their skepticism. They could be right; they could be wrong or mostly wrong.
There are a lot of stories that make huge headlines, sometimes inspiring social movements, that months later are debunked in the back pages, and hot takes powered by supposition that are mostly about the author or the outlet’s bias. They become cherished lies.
I’ll give an example from my beat/community that shouldn’t be too controversial here: when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences recently apologized to (now deceased) Sacheen Littlefeather for her treatment at the 1973 Oscars. Put aside discussion of whether she deserved an apology. The articles that covered this were filled with statements and “facts” that even a small amount of research – like a glance at her IMDB profile or a single watch of the video of her acceptance speech embedded in the stories – would have revealed as false. Over the years, Littlefeather lied and lied and lied and changed her story constantly. For instance, she said that she was blacklisted in Hollywood after the Oscars on the orders of FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover. Two major problems: Hoover died the year before she appeared on the Oscars and virtually all her acting work came afterwards. (She was an awful actress to boot.) People who’d been around for a while knew she was full of it, but they kept their mouths shut. Younger journos gave it their full, enthusiastic, unquestioning embrace.
Prior to the Musk era at Twitter, the rules were not enforced in a balanced and equal way. There were acceptable forms of racism, often propagated by high-profile media figures. I don’t think that’s changed. There were also acceptable forms of “hate speech.” I’ll use an example that’s hopefully not too controversial here: calling for violence or making death threats against J.K. Rowling usually got a pass. Hopefully, that’s changed and we’re closer to balance.
On balance, I think that Musk’s purchase of Twitter is a good thing. The hysterical reactions are very revealing. I don’t think people are really afraid of racism and hate being propagated. I think they don’t like their worldview -- effectively a secular religion -- being questioned and they really hate the idea that the power to control the conversation and the culture, and in many ways effectively define reality, is being taken away from them and those they perceive to be their allies. I don’t want the other side to define it, either, and I think it’s sad and counterproductive for people to flee platform. Bubbles need to be punctured all around. But, honestly, I think the number of people jumping ship is overstated – a lot of harrumphing and departure announcements with no follow-through.
Linderflomann
Tele-Meister
No, this is misrepresenting the issue. What people are pointing out is that for all of Musk's claims of free speech absolutism, he clearly isn't upholding it.
People rightfully were pointing out that free speech absolutism is not a tenable position when running such a platform. None of these people are under the illusion that Twitter has to platform their opinions; they understand that it's a private company and it can do what it wants. But when that company claims to be all about free speech, yet is banning people, they point out the hypocrisy.
Of course, there is some outrage over what in particular is and isn't banned. But that isn't about free speech per se, it's just about disagreeing about the particular moderation policy.
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