joining us from london we have quinn mckew, executive director at article 19.los angeles we have ramesh srinivasan, professor of information studies at the university of california, los angeles . and also from london charles arthur, journalist specialising in technology and social media. a very warm welcome to all of you. quinn, let's start with you. why has twitter accepted elon musk's offer in just a few days ago the board unanimously agreed not to let the takeover go through? quinn: i think maybe some people who are more inclined on the business side can speak to that relatively well. it is clear that the offer that was ultimately made exceeded the share price of twitter such that it was a very attractive bit. even after twitter had put in a poison pill notoriously just last week. laura: do you agree it was just an offer that was too good to refuse in the end? charles: it was interesting that twitter was due to produce its first-quarter results this tuesday, some feel that with the general slowdown with the world economy things were not looking so good and t