Like everyone else I don't have much hope for saving twitter, even if he had 25% stock. The whole concept is unhealthy for society in the first place. Second you can't really run a global top down managed forum/platform like that today without some pozzed rules. Basically you need a blanket least-common denominator set of rules that offends everyone some of the time. That's one of the problems with consolidation. An open platform using a common protocol would be much better in this regard.

But choice of rules aside, here's a few simple steps to greatly improve the current situation:

• Stop arbitrarily banning people over your stupid rules. Just delete the posts! Especially don't make people apologize or agree that they violated rules. Banning should be reserved for platform abuse, illegal content, and harassment. (Platform abuse could include repeated rule violations, but I think I'd save it for when it gets to the level of spamming.)

• Still, why ban at all? Put them in isolation. Someone breaking X rules gets their content limited to followers only (who have to click to agree to see the content as with the mature content warning today) for some period of time. Transparently - no shadowbans. Their followers can't RT their posts and nothing they do affects the network. If someone is repeatedly offensive I stop following them. I don't care what they say after that. Offensive content is only an issue for the platform if it gets to some global home or trending page. (unless you're a leftist, then someone even thinking Ni.... is grounds for a ban) Isolation solves that without entirely removing someone's freedom to speak. Again, they will always know that they are isolated, why, and for how long.

• Remove all algorithmic manipulation of trending hashtags. Don't even allow mods to edit the trending list. Just apply the above rules to delete posts that violate the rules. This means transparently deleting the post that included the hashtag. That will remove it from trending and everyone will know what's happening.

• Same with the news sidebar. (which I think is completely unnecessary and only a way to inject subversive editorial content) Make it entirely user-generated too. When lots of users link to a news story then the story goes in the sidebar. This would be based on your personal follower network so I might see trending stories from Epoch Times while some dumbass far from my network sees MSNBC stories. Moderators could have a way to "merge" stories to keep the list clean. Or maybe let users do that themselves. Really all of these points can be sold to shareholders as a way to save money since you won't need to pay an army of moderators.

• Don't employ or use "independent fact-checkers." I don't care so much about the stupid context links you use to editorialize posts as long as the content is there, but they should always be general and applied based on text pattern-matching, never applied manually by a moderator to a specific post.

• Obviously I would also eliminate most of the rules you have in the first place. I wouldn't even know where to start. I suppose any rules you had when the platform began are good enough for today. Anything added after that to be "relevant" was clearly gaming the system to punish specific users for content you disagreed with.

I still won't use your empire of shit and I hope your stock tanks. But good luck setting things back on track if you actually care about free speech. At least, that's what I'd say to someone in Musk's position if they were reading this. They aren't, so thanks for listening to my rant I guess.

Like everyone else I don't have much hope for saving twitter, even if he had 25% stock. The whole concept is unhealthy for society in the first place. Second you can't really run a global top down managed forum/platform like that today without some pozzed rules. Basically you need a blanket least-common denominator set of rules that offends everyone some of the time. That's one of the problems with consolidation. An open platform using a common protocol would be much better in this regard.

But choice of rules aside, here's a few simple steps to greatly improve the current situation:

• Stop arbitrarily banning people over your stupid rules. Just delete the posts! Especially don't make people apologize or agree that they violated rules. Banning should be reserved for platform abuse, illegal content, and harassment. (Platform abuse could include repeated rule violations, but I think I'd save it for when it gets to the level of spamming.)

• Still why ban? Put them in isolation. Someone breaking X rules gets their content limited to followers only (who have to click to agree to see the content as with the mature content warning today) for some period of time. Transparently - no shadowbans. Their followers can't RT their posts and nothing they do affects the network. If someone is repeatedly offensive I stop following them. I don't care what they say after that. Offensive content is only an issue for the platform if it gets to some global home or trending page. (unless you're a leftist, then someone even thinking Ni.... is grounds for a ban) Isolation solves that without entirely removing someone's freedom to speak. Again, they will always know that they are isolated, why, and for how long.

• Remove all algorithmic manipulation of trending hashtags. Don't even allow mods to edit the trending list. Just apply the above rules to delete posts that violate the rules. This means transparently deleting the post that included the hashtag. That will remove it from trending and everyone will know what's happening.

• Same with the news sidebar. (which I think is completely unnecessary and only a way to inject subversive editorial content) Make it entirely user-generated too. When lots of users link to a news story then the story goes in the sidebar. This would be based on your personal follower network so I might see trending stories from Epoch Times while some dumbass far from my network sees MSNBC stories. Moderators could have a way to "merge" stories to keep the list clean. Or maybe let users do that themselves. Really all of these points can be sold to shareholders as a way to save money since you won't need to pay an army of moderators.

• Don't employ or use "independent fact-checkers." I don't care so much about the stupid context links you use to editorialize posts as long as the content is there, but they should always be general and applied based on text pattern-matching, never applied manually by a moderator to a specific post.

• Obviously I would also eliminate most of the rules you have in the first place. I wouldn't even know where to start. I suppose any rules you had when the platform began are good enough for today. Anything added after that to be "relevant" was clearly gaming the system to punish specific users for content you disagreed with.

I still won't use your empire of shit and I hope your stock tanks. But good luck setting things back on track if you actually care about free speech. At least, that's what I'd say to someone in Musk's position if they were reading this. They aren't, so thanks for listening to my rant I guess.

Like everyone else I don't have much hope for saving twitter, even if he had 25% stock. The whole concept is unhealthy for society in the first place. Second you can't really run a global top down managed forum/platform like that today without some pozzed rules. Basically you need a blanket least-common denominator set of rules that offends everyone some of the time. That's one of the problems with consolidation. An open platform using a common protocol would be much better in this regard.

But choice of rules aside, here's a few simple steps to greatly improve the current situation:

• Stop arbitrarily banning people over your stupid rules. Just delete the posts! Especially don't make people apologize or agree that they violated rules. Banning should be reserved for platform abuse, illegal content, and harassment. (Platform abuse could include repeated rule violations, but I think I'd save it for when it gets to the level of spamming.)

• Still why ban? Put them in isolation. Someone breaking X rules gets their content limited to followers only (who have to click to agree to see the content as with the mature content warning today) for some period of time. Transparently - no shadowbans. Their followers can't RT their posts and nothing they do affects the network. If someone is repeatedly offensive I stop following them. I don't care what they say after that. Offensive content is only an issue for the platform if it gets to some global home or trending page. (unless you're a leftist, then someone even thinking Ni.... is grounds for a ban) Isolation solves that without entirely removing someone's freedom to speak. Again, they will always know that they are isolated, why, and for how long.

• Remove all algorithmic manipulation of trending hashtags. Don't even allow mods to edit the trending list. Just apply the above rules to delete posts that violate the rules. This means transparently deleting the post that included the hashtag. That will remove it from trending and everyone will know what's happening.

• Same with the news sidebar. (which I think is completely unnecessary and only a way to inject subversive editorial content) Make it entirely user-generated too. When lots of users link to a news story then the story goes in the sidebar. This would be based on your personal follower network so I might see trending stories from Epoch Times while some dumbass far from my network sees MSNBC stories. Moderators could have a way to "merge" stories to keep the list clean. Or maybe let users do that themselves. Really all of these points can be sold to shareholders as a way to save money since you won't need to pay an army of moderators.

• Don't employ or use "independent fact-checkers." I don't care so much about the stupid context links you use to editorialize posts as long as the content is there, but they should always be general and applied based on text pattern-matching, never applied manually by a moderator to a specific post.

• Obviously I would also eliminate most of the rules you have in the first place. I wouldn't even know where to start. I suppose any rules you had when the platform began are good enough for today. Anything added after that to be "relevant" was clearly gaming the system to punish specific users for content you disagreed with.

I still won't use your empire of shit and I hope your stock tanks. But good luck setting things back on track if you actually care about free speech. That's what I'd say to someone in Musk's position if they were reading this at least. They aren't, so thanks for listening to my rant I guess.