How to buy a social network, with Tumblr CEO Matt Mullenweg

Decoder with Nilay Patel

Vox Media Podcast Network

Technology, Business

4.3 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 13 December 2022

⏱️ 104 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We have to talk about Twitter, right? Elon Musk bought it. He’s making all these changes, and he’s realizing that content moderation decisions are quite complicated, especially when the stakes are high. But talking about Twitter in a vacuum seems wrong. There are lots of other social networks and community-based products, and they all have basically the same problems: some technical (you have to run the service), some political (you have to comply with various laws and platform regulations around the world), and some social (you have to get millions of users to post for free while making sure what they post is good stuff and not bad stuff). So, we’re doing something a little different this week. First, I’m talking to Matt Mullenweg, who is the CEO of Automattic, which owns WordPress, the blog hosting platform, and Tumblr, the social network, which he purchased from Verizon in 2019. Then, Verge deputy editor Alex Heath and I are going to break down a bunch of what Matt told me and apply it to Twitter to see what we can learn. Okay, Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Tumblr, followed by Alex Heath. Here we go. Links: How WordPress and Tumblr are keeping the internet weird GPL - General Public License Verizon is selling Tumblr to WordPress’ owner Kanye West suspended from Twitter after posting a swastika ‘Martin Scorsese’s lost film’ Goncharov (1973), explained Yahoo acquires Tumblr in $1.1 billion cash deal, promises 'not to screw it up' Verizon is selling Tumblr to WordPress’ owner Turnaround Definition Welcome to Tumblr. Now Go Away. Work With Us / Twitter – Automattic Tumblr will sell you two useless blue check marks for $8 Elon Musk is laying off even more Twitter workers Welcome to hell, Elon Why “Go Nuts, Show Nuts” Doesn't Work in 2022 How America turned against the First Amendment About – SHOSHANA ZUBOFF A Framework for Moderation First Amendment - Freedom of Religion, Speech, Press, Assembly, and Petition | Constitution Center America’s Favorite Flimsy Pretext for Limiting Free Speech Brandenburg v. Ohio Elon Musk says Tim Cook told him Apple ‘never considered’ removing Twitter - The Verge The Twitter Files - Matt Taibbi Elon Musk’s promised Twitter exposé on the Hunter Biden story is a flop that doxxed multiple people Twitter Blue is back, letting you buy a blue checkmark again Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23270126 Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. It was produced by Creighton DeSimone and Jackie McDermott and it was edited by Callie Wright. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Director is Eleanor Donovan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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0:51.2	This episode is sponsored by Code Commons, an original podcast from Red Hat. Post-Burf Sutter
0:56.5	is a Red Hatter and Life-Long Developer Advocate and Community Organizer. In each episode,
1:02.0	Burfs sits down with experienced technologists from across the industry to trade stories
1:07.1	and talk about what they've learned from their experiences. Hopefully, you'll be able to
1:12.1	pick up some helpful knowledge too, because there's a lot of work required to bring a project
1:17.2	from Whiteboard to development and none of us can do it alone.
1:21.6	Those are available anywhere you listen to podcasts and at Red Hat.com slash code comments podcast.
1:28.0	Search for code comments in your podcast player. Thanks to code comments for their support.
1:32.5	Hello and welcome to Decoder. I'm Neil Apatel, Editor in Chief of the Virgin and Decoder
1:38.2	is my show about big ideas and other pros. So we have to talk about Twitter, right? Elon Musk
1:44.8	bought it. He's making these changes. He's taking this tiresome right away. He'll turn.
1:49.7	He's publishing all these internal conversations about content moderation, which mostly reveal
1:54.4	the content moderation decisions are quite complicated, especially when stakes are high,
	...

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