Elon Musk, Twitter’s next owner, provides his definition of “free speech”

rcduke

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"The extreme antibody reaction from those who fear free speech says it all," Musk wrote on Tuesday.

We don't fear free speech. We worked with social media to shut down incineraty, hateful, racist comments. We got tech companies to moderate their sites to prevent people from being harassed, regardless of the reason. Anyone who isn't a white male will feel the hatred and vitriol of the right-wing who thinks anyone who doesn't support the current agenda is evil.

We don't fear free speech. We will stand up to you Elon. You've taken sides with Trump, and regardless of your electric vehicle and space flight efforts, that does not absolve you of your wrongs.
 
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Hooray Freeze Peach.

Spam is not illegal
Bots are not illegal
Russian disinformation is not illegal
Racial slurs are not illegal
Rants targeting transgender persons are not illegal.
Gross memes to dehumanize the targets of right wing hate aren't illegal.
Demanding that minorities go back to "their own countries" aren't illegal.
Falsehoods aren't illegal (except in very narrow circumstances).

The vast majority of what is on 4chan is also not illegal it is just gross and disgusting.


Also "Musk recently suggested he would defy governments that demand speech restrictions" seems to be incompatible with "free speech is simply that which matches the law". I mean this is Trumper level doublespeak and lack of basic logic here which I guess is the whole point. Musk wants to be the new darling of the alt-right to stroke his insatiable ego and narcissism.
 
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Dhalgren

Ars Scholae Palatinae
825
what I constantly miss in this discussion, is his statement that "everybody is going to be a registered user" (or something in that direction) -> Which I, as a European, interpret as "no anonimous bullshit allowed".

When that's a fact, people will automatically be responsible for their "free speech".
How well does that work on Facebook?
 
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ip_what

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All the libertarian freeze peach assholes might wanna read this:

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (whom you often misquote), A Clash of Two Systems.

Relevant quotes:

"The problem posed by a benign system like ours is its transparency, which causes perceptional distortions: Tocqueville understood that equality seems all the stronger when it is reduced; similarly, a system seems all the more dysfunctional when it is transparent. Hence my attacks on someone like Edward Snowden and his acolytes, who exploit this paradox to attack the West for the benefit of Russian plotters."

"Pseudo-Libertarianism Inviting Tyranny
I have trouble with many people, often naive libertarians, who think I’m like them because they like my books. But some of these want to destroy our system rather than improve it: many are full of resentment.
They do not realize that the alternative to our messy system is tyranny: a mafia-don like state (Lybia today, Lebanon during the civil war) or an autocracy. And these idiots call themselves libertarian!
This is the case of Snowden and his followers. He is an impostor. If I told you about an organization in Ryad that defends women in France against male oppression, you would laugh at me. Well, Snowden claims to defend the Americans against Google’s tyranny while operating from … Moscow!"

"On Twitter, I ended up noticing that in this naive libertarian or rather, pseudo-libertarian, ecosystem, which includes bitcoin enthusiasts, people who, like Snowden, see Covid-19 as a pretext for some dark entity to exert control over the population. This even includes anti-vaccine activists. We are at the very heart of disinformation: the goal of the Russian Disinformation Program here is to create mistrust between citizens and authorities, and to exploit everything that can bring dissension."

"It is still disturbing that libertarians come to defend an autocrat!
Libertarians are controlled by Russia because in general, they are naive people who only have first-order thoughts — they do not know how to consider the consequences of certain actions. This is what distinguishes them from classic liberals."
 
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MightyPez

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1,476
what I constantly miss in this discussion, is his statement that "everybody is going to be a registered user" (or something in that direction) -> Which I, as a European, interpret as "no anonimous bullshit allowed".

When that's a fact, people will automatically be responsible for their "free speech".

Which doesn't matter in the slightest. Facebook has a real name policy. Nextdoor has a real name policy. These are arguably some of the most toxic major social media platforms available.
 
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256 (265 / -9)

willyu34

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1,415
If free speech could be "fixed" just because one guy gets to decided on everything, instead of a bunch of investors + vague content moderation rules... you are gravely mistaken.

In the end, as a Canadian watching on the sideline, I don't think I'll ever fully understand US citizens' fetish obsession on "free", "free speech", "freedom". It' just as foreign to me as the fetish on guns... honestly... weird.

But as neighbors, of course we care about our brothers/sisters down south, so I can only say, "Godspeed folks, Godspeed."
 
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PentyPesu

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In another tweet after completing his deal with the Twitter board, Musk wrote that "Truth Social is currently beating Twitter & TikTok on the Apple Store,"
And while that sounds amazing to someone who is dumb, Truth Social is estimated to have barely more than a half million daily active users. Twitter has more than 200 million DAUs as of Q4 of last year with TikTok at around 50 million in the US alone.
 
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199 (206 / -7)
what I constantly miss in this discussion, is his statement that "everybody is going to be a registered user" (or something in that direction) -> Which I, as a European, interpret as "no anonimous bullshit allowed".

When that's a fact, people will automatically be responsible for their "free speech".
How well does that work on Facebook?
Not at all, TBH.
So, you've got a point here.
 
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99 (104 / -5)

Statistical

Ars Legatus Legionis
54,769
what I constantly miss in this discussion, is his statement that "everybody is going to be a registered user" (or something in that direction) -> Which I, as a European, interpret as "no anonimous bullshit allowed".

When that's a fact, people will automatically be responsible for their "free speech".

Which doesn't matter in the slightest. Facebook has a real name policy. Nextdoor has a real name policy. These are arguably some of the most toxic major social media platforms available.

Yeah Trump lets the bigots out of the closet (or at least pour gasoline on that trend). They are proud to be bigots. They want you to know. They want to get in your face. Real ID works both ways. It means the bigots have the names of the targets of their hate.
 
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fritterVII

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It's weird to me that everyone spends so much time analyzing what Musk means by "free speech" when he's been completely up front about it the entire time - he wants to be able to say whatever he wants and not suffer any consequences. It's an awesome policy if you're a billionaire with near-infinite resources and an army of sycophants, not so great if, say, you're a trans person who has to constantly justify your existence to two million "debate me bro" alt-righters.
 
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watermeloncup

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what a destructive asshole.

With any luck, he'll tank tesla stock, run up a bunch of legal bills, have to pay a $1B breakup fee, and go back to playing with himself in one of his boring holes...

My hope is that this tanks hard enough that he's sidelined in Tesla. Probably not likely, but it would be great to see Tesla run by a non-idiot.
 
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Kara Swisher on Elon Musk: 🤔

FRXVZSAVEAEe7aj.png

The idea that people working on important things can't be bad people has to be the dumbest logical leap ever.

The Nazis had lots of very smart people working on ways to destroy the armies of the free world and cover all of Europe and probably Africa in a genocidal dark age.

So one might want to remind her that the stereotypical example of fascism in the 20th century even had people working on such important things as <gasp> rockets.
 
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363 (390 / -27)
Hooray Freeze Peach.

Spam is not illegal
Bots are not illegal
Russian disinformation is not illegal
Racial slurs are not illegal
Rants targeting transgender persons are not illegal.
Gross memes about Muslims or minorities aren't illegal.

The vast majority of what is on 4chan is also not illegal it is just gross and disgusting.


Also "Musk recently suggested he would defy governments that demand speech restrictions" seems to be incompatible with "free speech is simply that which matches the law". I mean this is Trumper level doublespeak and lack of basic logic here which I guess is the whole point. Musk wants to be the new darling of the alt-right to stroke his insatiable ego and narcissism.

The cool thing about Twitter is that you don't need to follow people who post such things if you don't like them. Your unstated premise is that such content is persuasive and enjoys popular support, so this speech should be contained to decrease the likelihood of these things achieving political traction.

I don't follow Musk at all and that stupid asshole still shows up in my Twitter feed thanks to their bullshit trending algorithm.
 
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205 (217 / -12)

rcduke

Ars Tribunus Militum
2,172
Subscriptor++
If free speech could be "fixed" just because one guy gets to decided on everything, instead of a bunch of investors + vague content moderation rules... you are gravely mistaken.

In the end, as a Canadian watching on the sideline, I don't think I'll ever fully understand US citizens' fetish obsession on "free", "free speech", "freedom". It' just as foreign to me as the fetish on guns... honestly... weird.

But as neighbors, of course we care about our brothers/sisters down south, so I can only say, "Godspeed folks, Godspeed."

It has to do with the right wing feeling like they're being oppressed for the first time in their lives. They dont understand it's the same thing as walking into a bar and insulting the woman then complaining then they get the shit kicked out of them by the bouncer. They feel like they should be able to say whatever they want whenever they want.

Too bad they've oppressed (and continue to oppress) women, minorities, LGBTQ people, children, etc.... Shoe's on the other foot and they don't like it so the right just gets their wealthiest person to buy Twitter to change it.
 
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138 (153 / -15)