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."

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[Statistical]

Sooo, I'm guessing I can just publicly call people pedo's then?

Yes, you can.......and also make sure you can defend yourself against a defamation lawsuit

Which illustrates an injustice. Elon Musk did exactly that and his money allowed him to escape consequences. Someone else does it and their life is ruined. It is yet another brick in building a society where money makes right.

Without moderation on Twitter and with the reach it provides if Elon Musk (or any of your moneyed betters) wanted to ruin your life, endanger your family, or cause emotional distress he could and with effectively zero consequences.

Do you think is a positive improvement for American society?

I mean you are witnessing the slide into neo-feudalism and cheering the entire way. I hate to break it to you but you are one of the serfs not the lords despite whatever you may have told yourself about being a temporarily embarrassed billionaire. Despite all that you vigilantly throw yourself in front of any cristicsm of your lord and savior St Elon.

 

[Deleted member 384195]

You have the same energy when a woman or black person appears in a video game in any meaningful way. lol

 

[Rabbiddog]

Sooo, I'm guessing I can just publicly call people pedo's then?

Yes

But Elon can sue ya for defimation

But ya, your free to say it

Yeah, but it's common phrase where I come from and was meant sarcastically. So it should be fine then.

 

[Dzov]

Spoiler

You have the same energy when a woman or black person appears in a video game in any meaningful way. lol

Don't forget Netflix and their "woke content"!

 

[s73v3r]

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.

You're saying that it was Leslie Jones' fault for saying something which caused a hate brigade to send her rape threats (which, unless they are specific and actionable, ARE NOT ILLEGAL) and to constantly call her an ape (an extremely racist, yet legal, thing to say)?

 

[drewcoo]

> By "free speech," I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law.

Fine. But Twitter is all over the world. So whose law? And if you think that means US law, the EU has something to say, not to mention China, Saudi Arabia, or Israel.

 

[Rachelhikes]

Nazi bar it is then.

 

[ip_what]

You have the same energy when a woman or black person appears in a video game in any meaningful way. lol

Don’t block quote that garbage.

 

[Deleted member 1]

Hopefully his definition is slightly less tolerant of spam than the law, since the public has been asking government to reign it in for decades.

 

[s73v3r]

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 wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.

 

[Statistical]

I was really surprised that he got away very lightly as I expected the damages to be much more substantial

"Got away lightly" he faced ZERO absolute zero consequences. That is like a murderer getting a not guilty verdict and you saying "he got a light punishment".

Yes he had to pay for a legal defense but he has a net worth of $280B. Even $10M on a legal defense would be like the average American household spending $4.32 on a legal defense. That is not hyperbole BTW ($10M * $121,000 / $280,000,000,000).

 

[Bob Dobilina]

Many of us believe that Twitter will devolve into the likes of Parler et. al and this is just a way to have Musk at the center of his own "town square" surrounded by his "fans."

The people who hang out on Parler typically don't drive Tesla's and care much about space. Alienating your customer base isn't a good business practice.

When does fossil fuel friendly TX realize that the guy they are coddling makes cars that don't use gas?

Everything about Musk is schizophrenic.

 

[Urist]

*snip*

You have the same energy when a woman or black person appears in a video game in any meaningful way. lol

That meme captures an astonishing amount of shittyness in a single image: Racism, transphobia, homophobia, antivaxx, 'kys', pro-putin anti-Ukrainian sentiment. Is actually a pretty representative cross section of the type of views folks like "MacBrave" share.

 

[PentyPesu]

You have the same energy when a woman or black person appears in a video game in any meaningful way. lol

Or when grown adults get mad that a black woman would be cast to play a fictional mermaid character in a remake of a children's cartoon.

 

[s73v3r]

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.

It would be great if all that was needed was for people to understand to "not be a dick". Unfortunately, when you scale up populations, having simple rules like that doesn't work. Transphobes will say "I'm not being a dick, I'm simply stating science," (ignoring the fact that their understanding of science is at a kindergarten level). Holocaust deniers will go, "I'm not being a dick, I'm just asking questions." Racists will say, "I'm not being a dick, I'm just citing the statistics." For large groups, you do actually have to spell out rules.

 

[Bob Dobilina]

Elon Musk says free speech up to the point of the law, don't like it, change the law

So we go to change the law. Nope . Can't do that , it as it ifringeses on free speech


See the problem here?

If restrictions on speech were popular, it would be easy to reform the first amendment.

Instead, it's one of the most popular amendments among voters/the American public, and changing it would lead to worse outcomes because it would essentially break up the United States as it exists. The likely end state of armed conflict in the US would probably not be a tolerant progressive society.

Americans who bang on about free speech seem to have no idea what the amendment even says or who it is supposed to protect and from whom.

Certainly no conservative activists seem to be aware, of which Musk is one

Heck their were Canadians on trial in Canada for their actions during the freedom convoy blockades who were claiming that they were expressing their 1st amendment rights.

Nobody has ever accused them of being smart.

They were also saying that the arrests were illegal because they weren't notified of their Miranda rights.

 

[mg224]

Sooo, I'm guessing I can just publicly call people pedo's then?

Yes, you can.......and also make sure you can defend yourself against a defamation lawsuit

Likewise, you can also yell "fire" in a theater & not get to complain if you get trampled on the way out by an angry mob and arrested

Free speech also comes with some obligations to not cause harm

Well, anyone invoking ‘fire in a theatre’ gets an immediate down vote from me. Sadly, I can’t give another for you not understanding that using the (allegedly) well known South African vernacular for a creepy old guy can’t possibly be defamation.

 

[s73v3r]

What I find the most fascinating about the outrage of Elon buying Twitter is how they are somehow holding up the current leadership, the status quo, as some sort of paragon of moderation

Literally nobody is doing that. Twitter's moderation has lots of problems, not the least is consistently ignoring lots of Nazi bullshit. What can be said is that they are miles better than anything Musk will change it to.

Yes, THIS leadership group is so much better.

Than Musk? Absolutely.

 

[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.

It would be great if all that was needed was for people to understand to "not be a dick". Unfortunately, when you scale up populations, having simple rules like that doesn't work. Transphobes will say "I'm not being a dick, I'm simply stating science," (ignoring the fact that their understanding of science is at a kindergarten level). Holocaust deniers will go, "I'm not being a dick, I'm just asking questions." Racists will say, "I'm not being a dick, I'm just citing the statistics." For large groups, you do actually have to spell out rules.

Nah, you just don’t ask the people who are being dicks about whether or not they’re dicks.

More seriously, I get that there are scale problems. And sure, maybe you need some clarifications, but a few years ago Facebooks moderation guidelines leaked, and they were completely idiotic. And not just because it’s Facebook and of course they’re idiotic, but they’re just structurally awful. You can’t meaningfully define every way a human being can be shitty to another human being. You have to accept that it’s a judgment call. And current moderation approaches do their damndest to not acknowledge that.

 

[s73v3r]

It would be fascinating if the content rules, instead of targeting content and ideas, targeted POLITENESS.

That would still upset you, because it is impossible to be transphobic or racist or bigoted while being polite.

 

[andrewb610]

Stapedium’s Free Speech Manifesto

Be kind.
Be tolerant of views you disagree with.
The best answer to bad speech is more good speech.
Anonymous speech is valuable
Deletion and censorship are speech
Self-identified speech (comments, deletions and restores) are more valuable than anonymous speech.
Mass deleting, ads, offtopic posts and spamming are vandalism. These will be moderated without appeal.
No personal attacks. Don't post individual's names with negative comments.


Beat me up. Critique these principals.
Point out the corner cases where it breaks down.
These are the guidelines I use to moderate a discussion board maximizing free expression but minimizing the chance I will get sued.
Tell me how I can improve them and where I went wrong.

—-sam

My biggest critique is that you assume everyone speaking is doing so in good faith. Many are just out there to hurt others and contribute nothing and when it comes to technology, they can easily amplify their hate, disinformation, etc. too much to be tolerable.

I think your Free Speech Manifesto is perfect for the physical town square/public rally but that it does not translate to the internet.

 

[andrewb610]

It would be fascinating if the content rules, instead of targeting content and ideas, targeted POLITENESS.

That would still upset you, because it is impossible to be transphobic or racist or bigoted while being polite.

I mean, they can appear to be polite. Like how executioners are polite to their subjects before throwing the switch (for a very hyperbolic analogy).

 

[Stapedium]

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.

I’m intuitivelybin favor of this. But on reflection, I can’t separate joe-user from journalists.
Journalists shouldn’t be held to an higher or lower standard than anyone else.

 

[hestermofet]

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.

Elon Musk is living proof that meritocracy is a lie, you don’t need talent to be successful, you only need privilege.

 

[wrylachlan]

The speech I want to be legal and the speech I want to be around aren’t the same thing. Good luck building a community where people actually want to be around these rules…

 

[s73v3r]

Elon Musk says free speech up to the point of the law, don't like it, change the law

So we go to change the law. Nope . Can't do that , it as it ifringeses on free speech


See the problem here?

There is also the fact that the "law" means things have to go to court. Person saying a ton of racist shit to someone? Technically not illegal till they go to court and have it decided.

And almost certainly not illegal at all. There is no "right not to be offended". I think a lot of people have begun to think there should be, but as far as I know right now the bar is set at "clear, specific, and credible threat".

And we know that when you call for "everything that's legal", you just want to say the N word and not get kicked.

 

[andrewb610]

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.

But who should be responsible for holding them to those higher standards? And I mean that in the context of principle, not under our current legal landscape. So I'd like to hear your thoughts on that in the context of if you were rewriting the Constitution.

 

[watermeloncup]

It would be fascinating if the content rules, instead of targeting content and ideas, targeted POLITENESS.

That would still upset you, because it is impossible to be transphobic or racist or bigoted while being polite.

I mean, they can appear to be polite. Like how executioners are polite to their subjects before throwing the switch (for a very hyperbolic analogy).

There is a certain type of (mis-)moderation where a bigot politely calls for extermination of a group, then bans people who angrily argue against the bigot. Happens a lot on Facebook.

 

[Deleted member 553147]

This is a fucking horror show and I watched the buyout with amusement. I'm sad that Jack is not involved anymore.
For example, see this later tweet by Musk where he refers to a completely childish meme about banned speech on twitter (from the JRE show). And here Rogan (bear with me) seems completely reasonable and so do Jack + Vijaya. Why isn't banning misgendering fine?

https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status ... 4367856641

That is the longest I’ve ever listened to Joe Rogans podcast. Please don’t ever make me do that again, that was stroke-inducingly horrible.
To save others the horror, I’ll sum up Rogan and his bros’ point: If someone is asking someone they are talking to to please use their preferred gender denominator, they are actually harassing the person they are talking to.

Also, according to Joe, we have absolutely no idea whatsoever about why transgender people have sky high suicide rates - we simply have no idea at all about whether bullying has anything to do with it at all.

My god.

 

[Dzov]

Musk has thoughts

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/151 ... 72325?s=21

LOL. Looking forward to what he would do that would piss off the far right. Not holding my breath though.

 

[GenericAnimeBoy]

In many ways, this feels like yet another instance of 'wealthy white techbro finds out that thing outside their expertise is in fact complex after all'.

This is not even the first time Elon has had such a realization. The man learns things which the rest of us might get from a book in an undergrad level college course by having his companies try to do them at scale, in full view of the public.

To be fair, "$thing is hard" or "$thing is off-putting to investors" are often reasons that companies don't try to do things like, say, build and sell a mass-market EV, or build a re-usable first stage booster for an orbital rocket. Elon's willingness to throw money at those things anyway has moved the vehicle and space launch industries (respectively) off high center.

I think I'm not alone in being skeptical about applying the "just throw money at it" approach to the problem of where to draw the line with moderation in social media, though.

 

[s73v3r]

I took Musk’s meaning to be that he wants to expand free speech on Twitter, to make its policies more permissive especially toward conservatives.

Which means he wants to allow racial slurs, homophobia, transphobia, and other bigotry. Because there was literally nothing in the Twitter ToS that wasn't permissive toward conservatives.

Hence under Musk’s leadership, any tweets in opposition to controls on freedom such as COVID lockdowns and mask mandates probably will no longer get you banned, shadow-banned, or tagged with an advisory warning.

They already fucking didn't!

Also I presume that going forward, any expressions of a lack of confidence in the outcome of the 2020 presidential election won’t get you restricted or banned as they have done in the recent past.

Again, you could do that all the fuck you want.

I don’t accept the premise that statements of opinion are somehow necessarily “misinformation” or “disinformation.”

Too bad. They absolutely can be. I don't care if it's your "opinion", it absolutely can be wrong. There is nothing special about your opinion, snowflake.

Rather, they’re political statements and as such they should no longer be suppressed by political activists within the Twitter hierarchy.

So saying that trans people should not exist is a "political statement" now?