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

 

[woodelf]

If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people.

from https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746 :

«When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organised interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favour policy change, they generally do not get it.»

So all Musk has done is prove that he's either woefully out of touch with reality (and doesn't follow politics and polisci), or that he is among those economic elites who does get listened to by legislators.

 

[woodelf]

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.

"persuasive" and "enjoys popular support" doesn't mean "true" or "good" or "valuable" or "factual" or "will improve society if it gains political traction".

Also, the semi-mythical "marketplace of ideas" doesn't actually work unless everyone, or at least the vast majority, are interested in and able to reason through things and change their ideology and worldview to fit new facts, instead of ignoring any facts that challenge their ideology.

 

[woodelf]

16% of those who voted for Biden would have changed their vote if they knew his son was running a cash for access scheme to profit off his fathers connections.

I'm very glad trump lost, but that shit totally changed the outcome.

I got what I wanted because Biden won, but I am troubled by how it happened.

You misspelled "believed". As in "...would have changed their vote if they believed his son was...". Nobody* knows that Hunter Biden was "running a cash for access scheme", nor that the laptop in question is actually his, nor that if it is his that it substantiates that accusation.

And how many of those voters who wouldn't've voted for Biden because his son is alleged to have profited off of Joe Biden's political career, were then asked if they were aware that several of Trump's kids, and Trump himself, have been actually shown (with actual evidence that we can all inspect and argue about) to have profited at least 100x as much as Hunter (who isn't POTUS and isn't in office and doesn't work for the government) is alleged to have profited, and that Trump's profiteering was actual government corruption and possibly bribery, rather than corporate-world shenanigans? And how that would impact their vote?

If 8% of voters would change their vote because it's possible that a relative of one of the candidates might have profited off of the candidate being in a powerful position (without even any allegations, let alone proof, that it led to government corruption or the candidate benefiting), what % would change their vote shown evidence that the other candidate had definitely profited in a corrupt way from being in office?

* ok, if it's true, then presumably Hunter and whoever he was talking to knows it, and it's possible that the federal investigators that now have the laptop know it. But none of the voters surveyed could possibly know any such thing.

 

[woodelf]

You know, there is a whole social project to tend to poor nazis like you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EI6mfwLMwdc

You have called me a nazi twice, go fuck yourself you ignorant punter.

You have a lot of fucking nerve throwing that around. You should be banned.

If the shoe fits, wear it.

How dare you. To you a nazi is a label you toss around as if it has no significance.

It is disgraceful.

But what about "free speech"? I should be able to call you a Nazi, and rightfully so, no problem and you have to be okay with it!

But it is despicable of you to call people nazi's, just like it is despicable for trolls to harrass trans individuals.

OK, so it's despicable. What should we do about it?

 

[woodelf]

I'm still hoping we can get a prohibition on any further discussion of a certain politician's son's laptop. Many reputable journalists, and even some less reputable, have looked at it and decided they don't want to touch it with a stolen 10ft pole because it's so comically farcical.

I kind of like the laptop, because it's a good indicator as to the person's intelligence.

The nytimes and the post both have published the laptop is authentic.

Have they? Link the article, and point out the exact sentence where they say the laptop itself is authentic.

Link also where they validate the answers to all these questions:

Is it confirmed that the computer with that serial number belonged to Hunter Biden?
Is is confirmed that he flew to NY during the time specified as when he dropped it off?
Is it confirmed that he visited the repair shop in question?
Is it confirmed that the hard drive was installed on the computer confirmed to belong to Hunter Biden?
Is it confirmed that the copy of the hard drive was/is a perfect reproduction of the computer at that date?
Is it confirmed that some emails are from Hunter Biden?
Is it confirmed that ALL emails are from Hunter Biden?
Is it confirmed that at no point in time was the computer connected to the internet?
Is it confirmed that the hard drive/copy was inaccessible to anyone before it was given to Rudy Giuliani?
Is it confirmed that no changes were made to the hard drive/ copy after it was in Giuliani’s care?
Is it confirmed that the emails confirmed to be from Hunter Biden contain proof of illegal actions?
Is it confirmed that Joe Biden was involved in any of the confirmed illegal actions?
Is it confirmed that Joe Biden has prevented an investigation into his son?

Also, New York Post is not a reliable source, and that analysis predates the Hunter Biden nonsense, so it reporting something doesn't add any weight to it's truth value.

----
Obviously, part of our problem is predispositions and the inclination to seek out info that confirms our preconceptions. But exchanges like this make me wonder how much of it is poor information literacy? That is, how many people fall for things like the Hunter laptop BS because they want it to be true, and how many people fall for it because they simply lack the skills to analyze it (or the training to even think to analyze it), and it is published in what to them is a "reputable" news source (because, again, lacking the training to question the source, or the skills to do so effectively)? Because I suspect the 8% of the electorate who say they would've reconsidered their 2020 POTUS vote if they had "known" about it aren't ideologues who wanted it to be true—if they were, surely they would've already been voting for Trump. And probably would've been seeking out news sources that were reporting on it, and therefore been aware of it before the survey, not to mention before the election.

 

[woodelf]

Also, a ton of the insults on this board are actually frat boy style bullying, which is quite weird.

I thought that was the kind of off-limits shit that we're all worried about dominating twitter?

If you have been a victim of frat-boy bulling here on Ars, you should report the comments in question to the moderator so that the posters in question can be investigated and if necessary banned.

I don't know that you're going to get a very sympathetic reception after the clown show you've put on in this thread though.

Ya know. There is just something great about a "free speech " person whining about how his feelings are hurt by others speech.

I'm not whining about my feeling, I'm pointing out hypocrisy.

I was a little offended by being called a nazi because I find that really offensive. But whatever.

That's not "pointing out hypocrisy"; that's concern trolling. You're trying to call out people for violating a principle you've said repeatedly you don't believe in. If you don't believe there should be restrictions on free speech, then don't complain when people say horrible things to and about you. If you think there should be some limits (like, say, that whatever they're saying should have factual basis), then you actually are for moderation and limits on speech, so you need to change your stated position. Argue for the positions you actually believe; don't pretend to argue for positions that you don't believe.

Also, deliberately violating one's own principles to make a point—as several people appear to be doing to you—isn't really hypocrisy. It would be hypocrisy if these people didn't repeatedly acknowledge that what they're doing isn't what they truly believe, or if they (almost) never practiced what they preached, even when they were being sincere.

 

[woodelf]

I'm opposed to censorship of what is called fake news or disinformation.

All that other moderation shit is probably fine, maybe even a good idea. I'm a little leery about it still, but since it is a private platform I have to agree it's not really my concern.

But to re-iterate my actual concern, it is the decision that something is fake news and then censoring a news site. In my opinion that is way out of line. Twitter has the power to make shit disappear. Sure that sounds terrific when its the NY Post and the story seems like horseshit, but how many political reversals before you regret your apathy?

I can tell you how many, 1.

So if you can think past next Thursday, you might sense a threat lurking in the background of corporate censorship.

You're operating under a massive misperception here. You think this is about "news I agree with" vs "news I don't like"—your line about "political reversals" and your hypothetical counter-example about DeSantis make that clear. That is the argument people who are upset about Twitter blocking the Hunter laptop talk are making. But that doesn't automatically mean that people who are ok with it being blocked are also making the same argument, but in reverse.

The actual argument on "the other side" isn't about preferring leftish-/progressive-biased news to rightish-/reactionary-biased news, nor is it about preferring news that shows leftish/progressive people and ideas in a good light to news that shows rightish/reactionary people and ideas in a good light. That's not the ideology at work when supporting Twitter's decision to throttle, and later block, the Hunter laptop stories. The ideology that supports that is about reliable journalism and factual info vs disinformation.

And I know you missed this distinction because your DeSantis hypothetical neglected to mention the truth value of the story. You didn't specify whether the hypothetical DeSantis bribery story was provably false, extremely dubious, probably true, or proven true. Because you think this is about political partisanship or political ideology. It's not. It's about information literacy and journalism.

And to give you my answer to that question: if it's the same kind of hole-riddled story-spinning as the Hunter laptop, yes, I'd prefer that social media platforms don't actively promote it, and take steps to actively stop its promotion. If it actually has solid evidence, I'd be upset if it was throttled or blocked. But if it is solid journalism, then it's not an equivalent to the Hunter laptop story. Because the measure of equivalence isn't "is it political?"; the measure of equivalence is "is it unfounded?"

 

[woodelf]

Maybe he's transphobic because he kind of looks like someone in the middle of transitioning. Sort of like Trump Jr's fiancé. Wouldn't change my opinion of them in the slightest if they were, might actually improve it to be honest -- especially for Trump Jr -- but there's plenty of perfectly legitimate reasons to dislike them that have nothing to do with their appearance.

Transphobic jokes to make fun of someone who's transphobic is a really shitty take.

You missed the point completely. Retrospectively I can see how it would be an easy mistake to make, but if you look a bit closer I say how it would raise my opinion of Trump Jr if he were dating a trans woman. We can talk about how enlightened we are, and how things shouldn't matter, but when faced with a situation where someone you're dating tells you they are trans... many of us would probably fail that challenge. Which just means we still have work to do before our actions are fully in line with our words. We are currently living in a transitional age. A few generations from now people probably won't even think twice about it, but basically all of us alive now straddle the period between complete rejection of the idea and complete acceptance. We were socialized with the idea that these things are wrong, and have since taken the conscious choice to reject that idea, but it's not that simple to fully internalize a new idea. It will be a constant effort probably for the rest of our lives.

...or you could've said "yeah, looking back at what I wrote, I intended to reinforce my pro-trans point, but I did it badly and ended up echoing anti-trans language. My bad. It's clear that even those of us who are trying to do better still fail sometimes. I'm sorry. I guess I need to keep working at this."

 

[woodelf]

"Free Speech" isn't just about the speaker, it's really about the listener. Free speech is my God-given right to determine what is fact, opinion, hearsay or just bullshit. Anyone can say whatever they want and all you idiots can argue yourselves in circles over what is and isn't, (or what "is" even means) but at the end of the day none of you or the people you believe be it Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Elon Musk or ANYONE has the right to tell me that 2+2 doesn't equal 4.

Not sold on your definition, but that's also not the concern with Musk changing Twitter's moderation policies. In fact, you've got it exactly backwards. Musk is arguing that everyone has the right to tell you that 2+2≠4. You're arguing it, too—that's what «anyone can say whatever they want» means.

Meanwhile, Twitter's current moderation policies are precisely based on the principle that people aren't allowed to tell you that 2+2=banana—they make mistakes and don't always live up to that principle, but that's what they're aiming for.

 

[woodelf]

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).

So make them illegal by forcing politicians to change the law instead of private companies to support a political agenda.

Except for spam (which is commercial speech and this easier to regulate), it's nearly impossible to make any of those categories of speech illegal, due to the First Amendment. People have tried, for most of them.

As for passing a Constitutional Amendment... Yeah, good luck with that. I doubt you could even get enough support in both houses of Congress and in enough states, to pass something simple like an enforcement mechanism for the Emoluments Clause (which, as Trump demonstrated, is sorely needed, as he was able to ignore it without any penalty).

Don't be so blithe about Constitutional Amendments being unreachable. You only need the support of enough states. State legislatures can call for a constitutional convention and then ratify amendments without Congress, and we're very close to having the necessary 3/4 of states with the necessary GOP control to pull it off.

 

[woodelf]

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).

So make them illegal by forcing politicians to change the law instead of private companies to support a political agenda.

Except for spam (which is commercial speech and this easier to regulate), it's nearly impossible to make any of those categories of speech illegal, due to the First Amendment. People have tried, for most of them.

As for passing a Constitutional Amendment... Yeah, good luck with that. I doubt you could even get enough support in both houses of Congress and in enough states, to pass something simple like an enforcement mechanism for the Emoluments Clause (which, as Trump demonstrated, is sorely needed, as he was able to ignore it without any penalty).

Don't be so blithe about Constitutional Amendments being unreachable. You only need the support of enough states. State legislatures can call for a constitutional convention and then ratify amendments without Congress, and we're very close to having the necessary 3/4 of states with the necessary GOP control to pull it off.

That's something of an exaggeration.

Assuming that ratification of a constitutional amendment doesn't require gubernatorial sign-off, Republicans have full control of 28 state legislatures.

That's only 56%; they're ten states short of having enough control to unilaterally pass an amendment. Say they get the three split states, Alaska, Nebraska, and Minnesota, to get them to 31; can you credibly name seven Democratically-controlled states that are in danger of flipping to have Republican control of both houses, to get them the rest of the way there?

My bad—when conservatives first started making serious noises about a new constitutional convention, the GOP had more control. And I hadn't updated my mental data. After the 2016 elections, they had control of 31 legislatures, and one house in 7 more. And actually, it was 32 (plus 7 halves), because NE's legislature is officially nonpartisan but is pretty clearly controlled by GOPs. Looking at the trends at the time, the idea of them gaining complete control of 2 more of those 7 looked pretty plausible. And if all 7 of the partially-controlled went GOP, there's your 3/4ths.

Things have gotten slightly better on this front. But unfortunately who controls state legislatures tends to have as much or more to do with gerrymandering than with voter demographics, so I don't think we're out of the woods yet.

 

[woodelf]

In plain English, wokes want the ability for themselves to proverbially shit on the floor, but not for anyone else.

Remember kids, with the right, it is always -- ALWAYS -- projection.

How many tweets calling for genociding or kneecapping a certain group of people (other than "white people" and "white men") were made and stayed up?

I don't know. But since you apparently do, why don't you tell us? I mean, you do have hard data, collected with a solid methodology to prevent sampling bias, and reviewed by a third party to be sure your analysis isn't producing misleading conclusions, right? You're not just asking rhetorical questions to redirect the conversation because you don't actually have any data to back up your assertions, are you?

 

[woodelf]

One cannot put a price on the outrage, the woke outrage on display in this Arstechnica forum. It’s epic and I must say quite enjoyable to read.
Musk lives rent free in the minds of these woke people.

It was fun seeing these people go from "no private platform is obligated to host your speech, biatch!" to "whaaa! a private platform is getting a new owner and the new owner will make changes to what they host that I don't like!" practically overnight.

Personally, I don't think Elon Musk will allow people to proverbially shit on the floor (like 4chan does for example). After all, Twitter has to make money to pay back the leveraged buyout loans, which means it has to remain attractive to advertisers. I'd be more worried about what will happen during the transition period (considering Twitter has already gone into "code freeze").

The real reason the wokes are annoyed so much is that they want the ability for them to say everything they want on Twitter (up to and including stating that "all they want for Christmas is white genocide" or stating they have the urge to "kneecap white men") while everyone else must be subjected to much higher scrutiny (reaching censorship levels).

The kind of "moderation" we get on Ars is a good indicator of what those people mean by "moderation". For example, yesterday I was banned from Ars for posting "stupid meme images", despite the fact other users are allowed post equally stupid My Little Pony meme images on nearly every thread. When I contacted the mods about it, they said the pony memes were "grandfathered in".

In plain English, wokes want the ability for themselves to proverbially shit on the floor, but not for anyone else. Elon Musk has promised to keep everyone to the same standards, and unsurprisingly the wokes are losing their minds.

Two quick things: first, did you actually read the article you linked to about "white genocide," which is not actually a thing outside of racist fever dreams? Because the professor was poking fun at a thing that the alt-right believes to be happening, which isn't actually happening. You know that, right? That "white genocide" complaints come from racists, unable to accept a world where they're not the majority, not in charge, and not socially acceptable any longer, right?

Ah... yes, the Schrödinger joker, aka posting vile stuff and then maybe say it's a joke depending on how people react.

Schrödinger's joke is a real thing, but it takes some contextual analysis to identify it. Good evidence for it: the statement in question is in close alignment with other things they have said, particularly things that the have insisted were not jokes.

This professor apparently has a lengthy track record of being against white supremacy and for multiculturalism and cultural understanding, and seems to be BIPOC—what's your evidence that they were serious when promoting a white supremacist fantasy?

 

[woodelf]

"I love being a notorious pest because it validates me."

If what I said back then is so stupid, Chemical Tribe wouldn't have it living in their head rent-free and feel the urge to mention it literally every time they see my username (even in unrelated discussions about video codecs).

Oh. You're confusing "memorable" with "correct".

It could just as easily be "wow! I still can't get over just how wrong that person was—I mean just amazingly, stupefyingly, colossally wrong. Every time I see their name, all I can think about is 'how can anyone be that wrong?!'"

 

[woodelf]

One cannot put a price on the outrage, the woke outrage on display in this Arstechnica forum. It’s epic and I must say quite enjoyable to read.
Musk lives rent free in the minds of these woke people.

It was fun seeing these people go from "no private platform is obligated to host your speech, biatch!" to "whaaa! a private platform is getting a new owner and the new owner will make changes to what they host that I don't like!" practically overnight.

Personally, I don't think Elon Musk will allow people to proverbially shit on the floor (like 4chan does for example). After all, Twitter has to make money to pay back the leveraged buyout loans, which means it has to remain attractive to advertisers. I'd be more worried about what will happen during the transition period (considering Twitter has already gone into "code freeze").

The real reason the wokes are annoyed so much is that they want the ability for them to say everything they want on Twitter (up to and including stating that "all they want for Christmas is white genocide" or stating they have the urge to "kneecap white men") while everyone else must be subjected to much higher scrutiny (reaching censorship levels).

The kind of "moderation" we get on Ars is a good indicator of what those people mean by "moderation". For example, yesterday I was banned from Ars for posting "stupid meme images", despite the fact other users are allowed post equally stupid My Little Pony meme images on nearly every thread. When I contacted the mods about it, they said the pony memes were "grandfathered in".

In plain English, wokes want the ability for themselves to proverbially shit on the floor, but not for anyone else. Elon Musk has promised to keep everyone to the same standards, and unsurprisingly the wokes are losing their minds.

Do you expect anyone to take you seriously when you say stupid shit like "the wokes"? Also Elon has been clear, if it's legal then its fine. Which is the same policy 8chan has, a place that has turned out just great.

So the question everyone has been asking is this: What can't you say on Twitter now that you really want to say?

Kashmir citizens could look forwards to their posts on being attacked by India were pruned in a pretty timely matter.

If you suggested therapeutics over vaccination you could look forwards to an account suspension or ban. Moreover suggesting that a person didn't need a vaccine immediately after becoming sick also earned you the same treatment.

The Unity Party was banned from Twitter in 2020.

The covid therapeutics nonsense was largely junk science people plugging drugs that didn't work or that bleach shit. The rest of it is outside the United States and won't be protected by the Musk owned twitter, because he's also said he's complying with the laws of other countries too.

You're calling Peter McCullough a junk scientist?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_A._McCullough

As someone else pointed out, that's pretty much what the article you linked to says.

But, also, I want to address an important misconception here: "doctor" is not a subset of "scientist". Most doctors don't do research. Most doctors don't really use the scientific method in their day-to-day work. Yes, science underpins medicine, and (hopefully) underpins everything they do when treating patients. Yes, most doctors are using deductive reasoning when diagnosing people, and are hopefully using Bayesian analysis and similar when deciding on treatment plans. But there's a lot more to science than that, and, trust me, even many very good doctors are lousy scientists, and would be lousy researchers. In some cases for very good reasons, like wanting to provide the best possible care for their patients, right now, rather than trialing various treatments in the hopes that other patients in the (distant) future can get even better treatments.

Regardless, getting through medical school, and even being good at providing medical care, don't require being good at the scientific method. Plus, there are all the doctors who are merely "adequate". And then there are the doctors who are simply behind the times on the latest (and not-so-latest) research.

I've worked very closely with doctors and other medical staff for a dozen years, so I wasn't at all surprised during the pandemic that a whole lot of doctors were making national news for their unscientific, and sometimes anti-scientific, responses. Because doctors are not scientists. And the provision of medical care is not the practice of science—it is the application of the results of the practice of science. Also, don't underestimate the power of God syndrome among especially very skilled doctors to convince them that when they say one thing and all the scientific research says another, it is that all the researchers are wrong. I don't have inside knowledge of this [edit: "this" is "the specific doctors making disprovable statements about covid-19"], but for a lot of the doctors like McCullough who made the news for contrarian views during the pandemic, it sure looks like this is a case of them being certain that they were right, and the "scientists in the lab" would eventually "catch up" to their "brilliance" and figure out exactly how the doctor was right all along. Probably reinforced with a dose of "well, none of my patients on hydroxychloroquine have died", or similar non-scientific nonsense.