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

 

[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.

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

 

[HiredGoons]

I remember people saying "Give Trump a chance", and I did. It didn't take long for his true colors to show.

I expect Twitter to be free speech as much as I expect Fox News to be Fair and Balanced. Hopefully I'm wrong.

We all knew what Trump was about before he ran for POTUS. Some people either liked what they saw or chose to ignore it because they thought it would hurt the libs.

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[HiredGoons]

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?

Yes, which is why we see nothing wrong with users being moderated and banned. Elon is the one being pointed out as a hypocrite. That's quite clear unless one is being intentionally dense.

No one is being dense. We understand very clearly that when Musk touts freedom of speech it will whichever speech he deems is worthy of publication as the new owner of the platform. We know that very well, that's why the liberals are having the meltdown they're having.

So you admit that Musk is a hypocrite. Thanks for playing.

 

[HiredGoons]

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". As well as companies, which -absurdidly- are considered "people" as well, in USA law.

Generally, the greatest peddlers of misinformation, bullshit, and hate on Twitter have been verified users posting under their real names - see, for example, Alex Jones and Donald Trump. While mandatory verified accounts might slightly improve the Twitter-cesspool problem, it certainly isn't going to fix it.

Companies are legal persons under the laws of virtually every country in the world, including all EU member states, so not sure what you're trying to get at with your last comment.

Mandatory verified accounts will be great for Cambridge Analytica part 2 and optimizing your gerrymander maps.

If it ever gets to that point I'll just delete my Twitter. Twitter needs me a lot more than I need it.

 

[HiredGoons]

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.

Society has always largely self policed speech to a higher degree than the government. The first amendment LIMITS THE GOVERNMENT. The entire idea being government restrictions should be limited in scope.

Elon Musk saying all speech except what is prohibited by the government is allowed on their platform is very much a change in the social contract.

If you don't believe me go to your local VFW branch wearing a nazi uniform and saying Heil Hitler (all 100% legal activities when it comes to restrictions by the government).

Nuance can exist in the world one can believe both of these statements at the same time
1) The government having more power to restrict speech is dangerous.
2) Elon Musk turning twitter into 4chan is gross and not good for society.

The post I was replying to was about changing the laws around speech presumably to allow government to punish entities like Twitter.

When you're Ron DeSantis you can just make laws as you want to punish corporations for speech you don't like.

 

[HiredGoons]

I wonder what f he’s going to ban the kid who posts his private jet flights.

Can't. It's public data

Now, if that kid is data mining to specifically target flights carrying his kids etc & put them in harm's way, then he will be legally liable

Likewise, if he tracks private flights carrying a delegation to Ukraine & posts that, then there may be some legal liability in that

Edit:

I think the POTUS flights are the only ones that I know of, where you can be prosecuted for tracking it
(I may be wrong about this one)

Passenger manifests are typically private, so you're not going to be able to target individuals without some real hacking. Same thing with POTUS flight logs.

 

[HiredGoons]

Brilliant!

The Biden administration is going after Musk, but as long as he is following the law they really can't do anything - and as a private company he has soooo much power to fight back now!

Brilliant and makes me more of a fanboy! <3

Apartheid Senpai will never acknowledge you.

 

[HiredGoons]

Maximum free speech will alienate some people. Twitter is already a service showing quite a bit of trash content (and a bad user experience). There's always a tipping point from where things will go downhill.

If you want "maximum free speech" you can just go to 4chan.

 

[HiredGoons]

Just to signed up to say this The blind hatred to Elon of many readers of Ars is astonish! That so many curse words being used is the indication that snowflakes are not rational

Apartheid senpai will never acknowledge you.

 

[HiredGoons]

Thankyou Mr Musk for freeing Twitter so that freedom of expression can be you know expressed for everyone, not just the snowflakes. Now time to cleanse the ranks of Twitter employees who do not agree with freedom of expression for everyone. Start with that lawyer Indian chick who thinks she is American NOT.

Clearly from your statement, "freedom of expression" is the freedom to freely state racist and sexist messages without repercussions.

What is really stupid about people like you is you think Musk actually cares about fascists like you. He doesn't. He bought Twitter for his own goals, and they have nothing to do with your racist agenda. You will find out sooner or later.

The fact that racist and sexist messages are what most people consider to be the worst examples of things that might be posted is an interesting testament to how well current moderation systems work. Ask some of the poor sods who have taken jobs as moderators for Twitter, Facebook, and other sites about some of the worst things they've seen. I'm sure they'd consider it a vacation if all they had to deal with was racist and sexist messages.

Just wait until someone decides to start distributing uber violent snuff porn or kiddie porn so disgusting even the average kiddie porn aficionado would think it goes too far. There's those videos of people being beheaded or brutally murdered in some other way. Things that will mentally scar you for life once you see them. It may not be legal in the US, but can you say it's illegal in every place Twitter operates?

The UK has even stricter pornography laws than the United States and Twitter's international office is based in ireland.

 

[HiredGoons]

I'm not sure he needs them though - he has more than enough brainwashed followers who seem to think he's a real-world Tony Stark.

I've said it before and I'll say it again; he's just a more successful Justin Hammer at best.

Yep. Perfect analogy.

Given Justin Hammer's utter incompetence at providing useful tech, wouldn't Obadiah Stane be a better fit?

Hammer was an egotistical cockwomble with a massive chip on his shoulder whose tech worked about as well as FSD does.

Imagine if you ordered Justin Hammer from Wish. That's Elon Musk.

 

[HiredGoons]

Everyone knows it's the purple one!

I have two and a half degrees myself, and I will stand by red being the best tasting until I die.

Wait, I missed something. If we are talking M&Ms, everyone knows the green ones are the best.

Only if they have the sexy boots.

 

[HiredGoons]

This is a very convenient stance for him to take... basically what he is saying is "In the US I will let anyone Tweet anything they want, because if that isn't what the people wanted the laws would be different!" I am sure it has nothing to do with the SEC... what he is also saying is "In China, where free-speech isn't a thing, I can restrict what people say on Twitter because if the people of China wanted it any other way they would vote to make it so!" I am sure it has nothing to do with Tesla plant's in China that need to continue to operate and can't do so if China decides what Musk allows and says is inconvenient for them. Hypocrisy at it's finest under the guise of the enlightened tech bro.

The law in every country is a lower bound on what appears on Twitter (companies cannot really fight governments - eventually governments have the power to cut them off at the ISP level - see the threats to Telegram in a democracy like Germany). I think what Musk is acknowleding is that Twitter cannot lower that bound but he doesn't want to voluntarily increase it by filtering more posts or users based on commercial reasons, public policy, thread of consumer boycotts etc.

So he wants the law to be a hard constraint: anything that's not illegal can be posted.

I am not sure this is desirable or feasible but it surely is simple and it's much easier for a privately-held firm to implement than a publicly traded firm.

Here's the thing: Tons of stuff that is terrible isn't illegal. And if you have a site where that terrible stuff is being posted day in and day out, most people are no longer going to want to go to that site. As I've said multiple times on this topic: You either choose to make your site a welcoming place for diverse people including marginalized groups and tell the Nazis they are not welcome, or you make your site a welcoming place for the Nazis, and have them tell everyone else to fuck off.

The counterfactual for this is that Twitter and many other social media outlets grew via incredibly light moderation and only instituted heavy moderation once they became mature, low-growth companies.

The focus on moderation only became a burning issue society-wide after Trump successfully used social media to get elected.

There is no heavy moderation of twitter today.

Objectively, there are more moderation categories/things against the rules on Twitter today than there were in 2015.

If they're not enforced or only enforced selectively then does it really count?

 

[HiredGoons]

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.

I think the real question will be if it is "free speech" for all, or only those that Musk and his ilk agree with?

I think we all know the answer.

 

[HiredGoons]

He said he is buying Coca Cola next and putting cocaine back in it. Now the libs have a reason to support him too.

No we don't. (Also... "libs"? Really? Grow up.)

Relax, why so serious?. You guys may have lost Twitter but still have Reddit and FB to go virtue signal on.

I'm curious. What is the one thing you are most excited about being allowed to do on Twitter under Musk that you aren't now "because of the libs"?

Speak freely without being censored or be jumped on by oversensitive morons?

I'm sorry to hear that you can't handle criticism. Perhaps the internet is not for you.

 

[HiredGoons]

A lot of people got banned. Some like Pewdiepie got their account back but again, being censored over a tiny spicy comment is stupid and not democratic at all.

I don't think you actually understand what Democracy really is. True Democracy is when you're on a pirate ship, and the crew holds a vote to have you walk the plank because they're sick of your shit.

 

[HiredGoons]

A lot of people got banned. Some like Pewdiepie got their account back but again, being censored over a tiny spicy comment is stupid and not democratic at all.

Banned for doing what?

And you didn't answer the question why "oversensitive morons" don't have the right to free speech as well.

Never said they didn't, what I did say is that they shouldn't have the right to have others banned over anything they find offensive.

Why not? That's how Democracy works.

 

[HiredGoons]

But you don't care about democracy, only security. And sadly, you need protection from words, so you're security needs are gigantic.

It would help if you would cite specific examples of things you want to say but feel you can't. You have yet to do so.

Or you could just continue to act like a third-rate Citizen Smith if you want. Your call.

Well, the Hunter Biden laptop comes to mind.

It's really sad that this is the only thing that you people can even think of and it's such a shitty example anyway.

 

[HiredGoons]

But you don't care about democracy, only security. And sadly, you need protection from words, so you're security needs are gigantic.

It would help if you would cite specific examples of things you want to say but feel you can't. You have yet to do so.

Or you could just continue to act like a third-rate Citizen Smith if you want. Your call.

Well, the Hunter Biden laptop comes to mind.

It's really sad that this is the only thing that you people can even think of and it's such a shitty example anyway.

I find it amazing that you can dismiss something so outrageous so easily. You are not a serious person.

The burden of proof is on you muppets. Something that's claimed without evidence can be dismissed without argument.

 

[HiredGoons]

Without evidence!

Do you even have an original thought in your head? Who gives a shit about Hunter's laptop when it's such an obvious fake?

 

[HiredGoons]

That was just an example of a joke comment being censored, it doesn't make me pro ISIS in any way, trying to corner me with that pointless argument is comically sad.

Well you haven't given any other examples yet, so that leaves me to judge your argument on the basis of you being upset that Twitter wasn't letting ISIS members post propaganda.

That's it, apparently. That's the one thing you can think of that you wish you could post on Twitter and can't, is pro-ISIS sympathies.

Weird.

Meghan Murphy, a Canadian feminist writer and journalist. She was banned from Twitter for tweeting against transgender people, all she said is "Men aren't women".

So you just want to misgender people? Stop hiding behind what other people are banned for and use your own words.

 

[HiredGoons]

Let me reword that for you. "It's not transphobic to deny the existence of a made up gender"

Honestly I'd have a lot more respect for you lot if you just stopped being coy about what you meant. Instead you're all cowards.

 

[HiredGoons]

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

The DOJ is using emails on the laptop as part of an investigation into Hunter Biden creating a backchannel for cash to access Joe Biden.

If you think that is trivial, you are willing to believe anything and don't care about democracy.

The NY Times did no such thing, and the Post is Russian propaganda.

 

[HiredGoons]

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.

I bet even more than 16% would have changed their vote if they knew Biden was part of an international conspiracy to steal conservative children and harvest their blood so that wealthy Jews can live forever.

But he's not, and they didn't.

Dumb.

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.

All that grandstanding about free speech sure went out the window really fast.

 

[HiredGoons]

Without evidence!

Do you even have an original thought in your head? Who gives a shit about Hunter's laptop when it's such an obvious fake?

Actually, while the chain of custody is definitely a mess, I never really saw anything indicating that it wasn't really his laptop. The real problem is that even when you assume it's real, literally the only piece of anything they can offer as evidence of wrongdoing (aside from just shouting Hunter Biden's Laptop! over and over as though owning a laptop is a crime) is the following chain of events.
1) Someone who isn't Hunter Biden contacts him asking him to influence his father in Burisma's favor.
2) Literally no communication from Hunter back towards them as far as I've ever seen them offer.
3) The Obama administration, in cooperation with the entire EU, gets the notoriously corrupt pro Burisma prosecutor removed, which is basically the opposite result of what Burisma was asking for.

If literally the best and only thing they can offer is "Someone tried to influence the Bidens and they showed they were immune to it" then I can't believe they'd actually fake that.

I didn't see anything to indicate it was his, or any evidence that Joe Biden did anything illegal, so honestly I don't give a shit.

 

[HiredGoons]

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

The DOJ is using emails on the laptop as part of an investigation into Hunter Biden creating a backchannel for cash to access Joe Biden.

If you think that is trivial, you are willing to believe anything and don't care about democracy.

Yes, it is an actual laptop. Its ownership by Hunter Biden is considerably more problematic. Similarly, some (but not all) of the emails do appear to have come from Biden, but given the provenance of the laptop, they may have been planted there.

So maybe stop acting like a partisan idiot and think for yourself.

At the very least it's the disk image of a laptop's hard drive. Who knows if anyone's even seen the alleged laptop.

 

[HiredGoons]

[Post quoting an obvious troll who's been deleted removed, let's not give the tantrums attention please]

 

[HiredGoons]

It's not transphobic though.

Actually, it is, it's textbook. And it's not welcome in our forum. You can think whatever you like, speak your mind on things, and if it's against our guidelines we'll show you the door. Twitter can do that too, as can any other website. How they choose to enforce their own rules is their business, how Elon will change things is his, but as long as I have a say in it here I won't tolerate that kind of bigotry.

Couldn't care less who you voted for in the last election, what kind of milk or nut juice you put on your cereal, if your hair is blue or you're totally bald, if you like cats or dogs or can't stand pets.

But in our forum you will respect people's basic humanity. Straight, gay, trans, non-binary, whatever works for you, it's okay here. If you can't handle that then you're welcome to go away.

Please note that the guy you just banned just registered a new account here and admitted it. Terminate with prejudice.

memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=853348

Probably best to report him or Aurich might not see your reply.

 

[HiredGoons]

I do like the idea of confirming that the account is an actual human being. Bots and sock puppets need to go.

Bots and sock puppets arent banned by law and if Musk claims that Twitters policy will be to only moderate whats not legal he'll be violating his own ToS if he bothers to have one, that is. Its all speech, after all.

Also the idea that bot operators couldn't just use a "verified" account for the bot to post is a pretty obvious weakness. Likewise does anyone think a Russian troll farm couldn't get 10,000 verified identities to use as their disinformation campaign.

The NFT shills have showed that it's pretty trivial to hijack legitimate accounts and make retrieving them almost a herculean feat.

 

[HiredGoons]

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.

 

[HiredGoons]

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

All media, from the lowliest town newspaper to the globe-spanning empires, all of them review stories to see if they're fit for publication. They all have their own criteria, but they're generally looking for something that will play well to their viewers, is ideally true and won't cause repercussions to their company. They look for red flags that indicate a story should be shelved and maybe investigated a bit further before publishing.

All of them do it. Every single one.

The story about the laptop has so many red flags that even I can see it from the other side of the planet, and I'm not even trying to be interested in it. The first most obvious problem is that there's no unarguable provenance for the thing. It could have been owned by a politician's son, or maybe not. There's no record of where it went, who held it and the story that it was dropped off for repair and forgotten about seems strange to me (who forgets a laptop that they care enough to drop in for repair?)

It's a story that any news media would be very concerned with, especially right before an election. Get it wrong and there could be serious consequences. Better to spike it for now, look for confirmation and publish if facts are established.

That the story never made it into news media outside of a very small number of opinion pieces indicates that it's not a real story.

Occam's razor tends to cut away any other explanation. Every media outlet would dearly love a scoop like that, but it had to be bulletproof. Twitter could refuse to carry the story, but that wouldn't stop Fox News from putting it to air in their actual news pieces (and not the entertainment pieces that pretend to be opeds but for which Fox' own lawyers argued are too unbelievable to be taken seriously).

Any argument that this story was suppressed by Twitter needs to take in the same refusal to publish of every real news organisation, many of whom skew right and all of whom would profit greatly from publication. Again, the only reason they would all refuse to publish is that it's just not believable, the facts aren't shown and it looks like a clumsy political operation that will cause any publisher a lot of legal trouble down the line.

I noticed that as soon as reputable agencies started shooting down the laptop story, the conservative angle changed from "We have this weird laptop story that's obviously a hitpiece" to "Why is the mainstream media trying to censor this shitty hitpiece about a fake laptop?" It didn't pick up any traction until it stopped being about the laptop itself and about why the story was being quote "censored" unquote.