1/ Thread: Twitter's Pandora's Box

If you are not American, chances are extremely high you probably yawn when a political leader who lost the election allege and claim the election was rigged.
2/ If Trump claiming election as fraud and inspiring supporters to protest lead to permanent ban on Twitter, what will happen to all those opposition leaders in all those countries?

And yes, those claims do lead to protest, to violence, and to many unfortunate deaths.
3/ Many such protests were indeed organized with the help of social media.

In many cases, those opposition claims are real as the incumbent autocratic may end up getting 80%+ votes by organizing a staged election.
4/ What would be the excuse for not banning those opposition leaders from social media if the autocratic govt in those countries demand such action given the opposition does not accept the election result and call for protests?
5/ If Twitter/Facebook doesn’t follow the autocrats' direction, why shouldn’t they be shut down in those countries for treating their cases differently?

Should Twitter ban an international leader(s) with terrible record of crime against humanity?
6/ Should Twitter ban leaders if they utilize the platform in a harmless manner but exert real damage in the real world?

Can Twitter ban Trump? Yes, they can. They are a private company with their own rules and regulations. If you violate their rules, you can get banned.
7/ However, I do believe if you want to build a generational company that can be here 50-100 years from now, you need to be as close to the legal definition of freedom of expression as possible.
8/ I am not American. But if there is one thing that I truly idolize about America, it is its deep commitment to freedom of expression.

What is freedom of expression? It appears to be a simple idea (and indeed it is), and yet I believe it is often misunderstood.
9/ Freedom of expression primarily means just three things to me.

Freedom to share stupid ideas.
Freedom to share radical ideas.
Freedom to criticize/mock people in power.
10/ The first two are almost always mirror of each other, and what passes as stupid to someone is usually seen as radical by the other.

I marveled at the height of freedom Americans enjoy in their country. Very few countries allow their citizens to mock their President/leader.
End/ Fewer and fewer even let a free and fair election to take place.

Twitter opened a Pandora’s box, and I don't think anyone knows what happens from here.

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More from @borrowed_ideas

10 Jan
1/ Thread: Thoughts on $FB

Earlier today, I asked on twitter which of the big tech is most likely to have lower market cap in 10 years than it is today.

Perhaps predictably, ~54% people voted for FB.

Is the crowd exhibiting wisdom or too much first-order thinking?
2/ Let me make a case for both.

$FB's business model probably fails the Lindy test.

In 2012, it had zero revenue from mobile ads. IG was acquired in 2012 which also had zero revenue.

Of ~$80 Bn 2020 revenue of $FB, >90% comes from mobile ads. IG alone contributes ~$15 Bn.
3/ Think about the velocity of change for a second. The two things that make FB part of today's big tech club made zero revenue just 8 years back.

Here's the problem though. If the velocity of change remains true today, FB might have an issue.
Read 11 tweets
8 Jan
1/ Notes from @_ram_ episode @InvestLikeBest

A bit late to this, but I was really looking forward to listening to Ram on Patrick's podcast.

Ram is one of the most kind, humble, smart, and approachable PMs active on fintwit, and boy he did not disappoint.

Here are my notes.
2/ Lots of quick and dirty method of estimating the potential of internet.

Ram thinks global e-commerce and marketplace is a ~$40 Tn opportunity in 2040.

Show me the numbers? See the image.
3/ That's just products and services sold on the internet.

On top of that, you have advertisement which is typically ~1% of GDP. Advertising itself can make ~$10 Tn worth of businesses.

No wonder $AMZN wants a piece of that even if it comes at the expense of consumer experience
Read 14 tweets
31 Dec 20
1/ Thread: The danger of ridiculing early tech

Survivorship bias is real, but it is always humbling to look back and see how different revolutionary tech was perceived when they first came to the scene.

Let's look at telephones, cars, and social media.
2/ When Edison was working on the idea of telephone, he was trying to work out a way so that telegraph operators could talk to each other.

As telegraph operators were scattered all over the world, a telephone would be a great help for operators to coordinate with each other.
3/ What about ordinary people talking to each other?

"What are you smoking, Monsieur? Why would people from faraway places talk to each other? And do you know what it would cost you?"
Read 11 tweets
30 Dec 20
1/ Thread: Limits to the asymmetric payoff for Bitcoin

Most of my friends who bought btc tell me the asymmetry embedded in the payoff for buying bitcoin.

Just buy 1% of your portfolio; you really don’t need to understand anything.
2/ If btc reaches a million, you are set for life. If it’s zero, you won’t lose much sleep.

It makes perfect sense and for a long time, I agreed with them. The math is undeniable.
3/ Yet, the more I thought about it, the more I realized the real concern is not that whether btc reaches zero or a million when you have 1% exposure.

The real concern is what happens AFTER it reaches a million.

Here’s I think what will happen.
Read 11 tweets
29 Dec 20
1/7 From 300 followers in March to 30,000 in December, I will remember 2020 as the year I got completely hooked to fintwit community.

Thank you to everyone for making fintwit such an enjoyable experience. Let me share my journey here in a short thread.
2/7 I started lurking at fintwit since mid-2019 and by the end of '19, I wished I were part of this cool little community on twitter.

So when the pandemic hit, I wrote this mega thread on $AMZN hoping I would get some traction. I didn't. It got <50 likes

3/7 I still kept writing, hoping something would stick.

And it did. Everything changed when Paul Graham retweeted this $FB thread. Followers increased from 500 to 2.5k in 1 day.

A few days later, I RT that $AMZN thread again. This time, 3 PMs DMed me.

Read 7 tweets
26 Dec 20
1/ Thread: You are not a lottery ticket

Peter Thiel is a contrarian. In 2013, he spoke in SXSW pushing against the conventional wisdom of luck’s outsized role.
2/ I like Thiel’s ideas not because I fully agree with them, but because he consistently pushes against ideas that seem settled.

Peter showed a simple 2x2 framework to make his case.

Are we optimistic/pessimistic about the future?
Is the future determinate or indeterminate?
3/ Optimists think about the promises of the future whereas pessimists deeply fear the future.

If the future is determinate, you should have strong conviction. If it is not, you should heavily diversify.
Read 18 tweets

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