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

Amid Twitter buyout, Musk says free speech is simply "that which matches the law."

Read the whole story

 

[mg224]

I think the most appropriate quote that comes to mind, reading Elon’s quotes is “the stupid, it burns!”

Ok, so what that Truth Social is getting more downloads than Twitter from an AppStore - Twitter’s been around for years, and the well of potential new users is quite small. Jeez, how did this guy make money again?

 

[Dzov]

I don't follow Musk at all and that stupid asshole still shows up in my Twitter feed thanks to their bullshit trending algorithm.

Controlling what people view will go incredibly far in shaping public opinion. This may be another Rupert Murdoch media empire in the making.

 

[gsgrego]

Meanwhile musk is encouraging racist and sexist attacks on the twitter board members/staff.

 

[Deleted member 388703]

Some of us have the mental capacity acknowledge the difference between having the right to do a thing, and doing the right thing. Thus, we support the free-speech-protecting constitutional right of moderation and oppose promoting fascism and bigotry.


Others will go "Hurr durr where's your support for corporate righs now that Elon is in charge you hippocrats!"


See dvorak's idiocy just above for an example of the latter.

 

[Rick C.]

He may have already screwed up the terms of the agreement. He just bad mouthed two Twitter lawyers, something that was expressively forbidden in the contract. The story is breaking.

 

[PentyPesu]

Allow fundamentalist Christian bakers to refuse to make cakes with gay wedding celebratory messages.

Mandate that social media companies aren’t allowed to remove messages from people they disagree with.

Pick one.

False dilemma. I choose allowing social media companies to moderate what is on their platforms and am all for making discrimination based on someone being LGBT illegal. No different to the fact that I'm also all for racial discrimination being illegal, but believe Twitter can moderate posts and ban users.

 

[ChadD]

Umm OK, so can we make it that the law that free speech does not protect lies , and the law stops spam.

Then I can kind get behind his rather simplistic definition

I am all for opinion , just long as it's not a flat out lie

People are free and have a right to be wrong.

I know that sounds painful... but people are allowed to have any opinion they like, even if they are factually incorrect. That goes for all political or religious leanings... even morons that liked GOT season 8.

Private citizens can post all the factually incorrect crap they like.... news organizations journalists politicians sure should be held to different standards.

 

[Statistical]

I think the most appropriate quote that comes to mind, reading Elon’s quotes is “the stupid, it burns!”

Ok, so what that Truth Social is getting more downloads than Twitter from an AppStore - Twitter’s been around for years, and the well of potential new users is quite small. Jeez, how did this guy make money again?

It is shitposting to the lulz. It is clear Musk wants to be the new hero of the alt-right. That just requires saying the right things even if you know a 3rd grader could spot the logical fallacy.

 

[Fancy Internet Person]

So... how, exactly, does he think the previous owners of Twitter broke the law?

He's saying that since Naziism and bigoted speech isn't illegal in the US, Twitter was wrong to ban Nazis and bigots.

 

[Timoo]

Some people will do or say just about anything for that next serotonin hit.

When you cultivate a personality that lacks any introspection, all you have is external validation to rely upon. If someone pats you on the head for being just a little hateful, and others call you out for it, you lean into being shitty because it’s easier than looking inward at yourself and judging yourself. All of those memes about how criticizing someone for a shitty idea makes them more beholden to it aren’t entirely wrong, but they miss the point: it’s the fault of the person so easily mislead.

I honestly doubt Elon Musk started here. But he clearly craves attention and praise and he’s more likely to get that by yielding to shitty people than he is to being decent. Being decent is hard. Being decent requires you to reassess and judge yourself, and accept that maybe while you thought you were being decent, your standard isn’t high enough.

For some, that’s too hard. So it’s the easy path: find people who will validate you being shitty…and drag you deeper into it.

A little philosophical. I like it!

I honestly doubt Elon Musk started here. But he clearly craves attention and praise and he’s more likely to get that by yielding to shitty people than he is to being decent. Being decent is hard. Being decent requires you to reassess and judge yourself, and accept that maybe while you thought you were being decent, your standard isn’t high enough.

Being decent is on everyone's radar.
And for most, it is on the radar of "once I am [something]".

That craving for attention, for immediate gratification, kills most of the bright ideas people have. Truely bright I mean. Not just commercially bright. Because that's not bright, that's enrichment. Not in the metaphysical way, but in your bank account...

 

[HiredGoons]

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.

So you think all the women who receive rape and death threats are following all those people harassing them?

Threats are obviously illegal, but let me remind you that freedom of speech doesn't guarantee that people won't be upset at your speech and harass you for it.

And yet people still continue to issue them against other Twitter users. And there's no reason to believe Elon is gonna crack down on them based on his vapid statements.

Also, the only thing illegal, at least in the US, are credible threats. Good luck convincing law enforcement that every such message is such a thing.

Right wing assholes are already using the news as an opportunity to reactivate their accounts and say Elon unbanned them.

 

[heartburnkid]

Guy who canceled a customer's Tesla order because "he was rude" has thoughts on censorship at a private non-governmental business.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... rs-model-x

Doesn't your side always remind us that freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences?

Isn't the entire reason for Elon's purchase of Twitter that he couldn't handle the consequences of his actions?

Literally the whole idea that Elon puts forward is that speech should be allowed without consequence no matter what. Clearly that no longer applies when he's the subject of that speech.

 

[Fancy Internet Person]

Meanwhile musk is encouraging racist and sexist attacks on the twitter board members/staff.

If he talks like a duck and walks like a duck...

Musk has been clear about what he is.

 

[watermeloncup]

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.

So you think all the women who receive rape and death threats are following all those people harassing them?

Threats are obviously illegal, but let me remind you that freedom of speech doesn't guarantee that people won't be upset at your speech and harass you for it.

And yet people still continue to issue them against other Twitter users. And there's no reason to believe Elon is gonna crack down on them based on his vapid statements.

Also, the only thing illegal, at least in the US, are credible threats. Good luck convincing law enforcement that every such message is such a thing.

Doxing is also generally legal in most countries as long as the information wasn't stolen and there are no credible threats. So is harassment and brigading (including based solely on race/gender/sexuality/religion), again as long as there are no credible threats.

 

[gsgrego]

He may have already screwed up the terms of the agreement. He just bad mouthed two Twitter lawyers, something that was expressively forbidden in the contract. The story is breaking.

I think more worrying is what this means for workers. Nothing like what might be your new boss getting thousands of people to attack you because they call you out on twitter, the same thing you develop/work for.

 

[jbode]

To repeat - if this is what Musk truly envisions, then within a year after acquisition Twitter will be solely populated by bots, trolls, grifters, cryptids, and Trump; everyone else will have left for less toxic waters.

Good luck with the ad revenue. 

 

[ridgeguy]

Kara Swisher on Elon Musk:

a) He doesn't have to be silly or fascist to do harm to others. He just has to be fallible.

b) The combination of instant world-wide communications, Twitter's ability to influence people at huge scale, and Musk's insensitivity to economic constraints means even honest errors can do lots of harm very fast.

So many think that wealth equals smarts or wisdom. Even at $267B net worth, I guarantee he's not more than twice as smart as any ARS readers. He's just far, far more enabled.

 

[HiredGoons]

Is everybody on here against free speech that is defined by the law assuming, Elon means United States?

Who knows? If you live in the US then that responsibility falls to Twitter's US branch, but if you're outside the US it falls to their Ireland office.

 

[gsgrego]

Is everybody on here against free speech that is defined by the law assuming, Elon means United States?

Define what the law is? And remember that the "law" means musk can call you a pedo, but if you call him one he will sue your ass into oblivion.

 

[Fancy Internet Person]

To repeat - if this is what Musk truly envisions, then within a year after acquisition Twitter will be solely populated by bots, trolls, grifters, cryptids, and Trump; everyone else will have left for less toxic waters.

Good luck with the ad revenue. 

Twitter has been part of unionization campaigns at Amazon and Starbucks.

Musk would rather destroy Twitter than work with his employees exercising their collective bargaining rights.

 

[wk_]

Caling people you don't like "pedo-guy" is also not ilegal as proven by Elon Musk. So my first tweet will be "Elon Musk is a pedo-guy". And you will be welcome to retweet it.

This entire thing is yet another example of socially incompetent techie believing he can fix some social problem singlehandedly. I.e. a subclass of Dunning-Kruger effect.

 

[heartburnkid]

Guy who canceled a customer's Tesla order because "he was rude" has thoughts on censorship at a private non-governmental business.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... rs-model-x

Not to defend Musk, but free speech is not freedom from consequences. Inviting criticism and then punishing for it is immoral but not inconsistent.

My head will short circuit, so I'll say this in the most civil and nice way possible before that happens: freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences is the whole goddamn point. The entire rallying cry for "free speech" by Musk, Trump, and their ilk is them railing against the consequences of what they said.

Like... I legit never thought I would see "free speech is not freedom from consequences" being unironically used in defense of Musk. Jfc.

Hardly a defence. I take it, you agree with the argument but are indignant that it was used to argue with someone criticizing Musk. Maybe try not to be so tribal?

The tribalist is the one who ignores the hypocrisy of someone who claims to be a "free speech advocate" in the sense that free speech should not have any such consequences, and then visits consequences on someone who directs their speech towards him.

 

[watermeloncup]

He may have already screwed up the terms of the agreement. He just bad mouthed two Twitter lawyers, something that was expressively forbidden in the contract. The story is breaking.

Christ, how do you get that far in life while having the self-control of a 13 year old edgelord. It's just fucking embarrassing.

 

[3force]

Guy who canceled a customer's Tesla order because "he was rude" has thoughts on censorship at a private non-governmental business.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... rs-model-x

Doesn't your side always remind us that freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences?

So which is it? Should the consequences apply or not? Because if they should apply, then accept the consequences and stop bitching about censorship and cancel culture and all that other hogwash.

I have less than zero respect for the modern right wing, like ya'all don't even have the conviction to pick your principles and stand by them, you literally change your stance at the drop of a hat based on what suits you best at any given moment in time. Like pre-Trump era Republicans and conservatives, even if I disagreed with them, at the very least there was a sense that they were sticking up for what they believed in, no matter how much I found it abhorrent or disagreeable. Post-Trump right wingers? You don't even pretend to have principles, you just say whatever is necessary to make your absolutely lunatic and bullshit points.

At least have the fucking decency to pick a lane and then stick to it.

 

[mg224]

Just a reminder about this champion of free speech:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/03/tech ... cking.html

Summary ‘here’s some money to shut up’.

Edit: and as a reminder, as the owner of the company who wants to apply the letter of the 1st amendment, he can and should ban that account by his own logic.

 

[ip_what]

I occasionally climb on my hobby horse and shout into the void that all major social media companies are doing moderation wrong. They’re doing it wrong because they’re built and run by programmers who have been trained to solve problems programmatically.

So all major social media platforms look at content moderation as a problem in want of an algorithmic solution. So we get lots of bickering about whether the algorithm favors conservatives or liberals. And insane policy documents that try to apply finer and finer grained generally applicable rules that are impossible to apply to a huge swath of gray area.

What everyone seems to have failed to realize is that while the platform is tech, what happens on it is social. It needs social solutions, not technical ones. Replace the 80-page moderation guidance with the rule that works at every decent corner bar.

Don’t be a dick.

And yeah, there’s a volume problem, and yeah, there’s a role for AI to play in making first cut determinations. But when I’m the benevolent despot of all social media, the way I fix it is to build teams headed by of people with decent judgment and good values and let them exercise human judgment on what content says an what content goes. Have reporting chains and appeals/second looks and all that, but learn to live with the fact that ultimately any tricky moderation decision is a gut call. Train the AIs on those moderation decisions.

I’m sure that costs more. But if any of these guys running social media cared about the communities they’re hosting they’d make the investment.

Elon might be second only to Zuck in least likely to understand that this is really about people.

 

[Timoo]

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.

Yes, you are right. I come from Europe, living an incredibly priviliged life (without the money). These kinds of thoughts never cross my mind, because I do not get confronted with it.

Legally, that would not be allowed (to use one's name to stalk). But you're right. These creeps are faster than law enforcement.

 

[HiredGoons]

He may have already screwed up the terms of the agreement. He just bad mouthed two Twitter lawyers, something that was expressively forbidden in the contract. The story is breaking.

Christ, how do you get that far in life while having the self-control of a 13 year old edgelord. It's just fucking embarrassing.

When you're rich you get as many do-overs as you want.

 

[gsgrego]

Some of us have the mental capacity acknowledge the difference between having the right to do a thing, and doing the right thing. Thus, we support the free-speech-protecting constitutional right of moderation and oppose promoting fascism and bigotry.


Others will go "Hurr durr where's your support for corporate righs now that Elon is in charge you hippocrats!"


See brain-dead poster dvorak just above for an example of the latter.

Do you ever come out of your hole to do anything but take potshots at other people? Yeah, I know...constructive, nuanced dialogue with a modicum of intelligence is hard for you, judging by your colorful comment history on this site.

Ya mean like say... republicans? Who have made racism, sexism,. fascism, and bigotry and hate and their right to insult everyone constantly the only job they do in government?

 

[graylshaped]

The EU and many other countries do not consider unfettered freeze peach acceptable under law.

If his target for unleashing bullshit is the US, then let's consider that accordingly.

 

[hestermofet]

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 minorities aren't illegal.
Demands 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.

Can we stop calling it the “alt-right”? It’s just “the right” now, as racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and sexism are part and parcel of mainstream conservative orthodoxy now. The days of traditional right wing figures like William F. Buckley are now long gone, and Trump is the mainstream.

 

[FohENG]

Musk wrote that Truth Social "exists because Twitter censored free speech.“


Bullshit. Truth Social exists because far-right whack jobs are mad their lies/misinformation/hate speech was getting fact-checked and flagged/deleted.

You should try to post something negative about Trump on Truth Social or Parler and watch how fast it gets deleted. Or ask Devin Nunes Cow what happened when she tried to create an account.

“Free speech for me, but not for thee” is the Republican motto.

 

[Deleted member 545801]

He may have already screwed up the terms of the agreement. He just bad mouthed two Twitter lawyers, something that was expressively forbidden in the contract. The story is breaking.

Christ, how do you get that far in life while having the self-control of a 13 year old edgelord. It's just fucking embarrassing.

Lots and lots of apartheid money and other people doing the real work for you.