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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I am not sure we can take Musk either literally or seriously at this point. While Twitter is not the platform for nuanced discussion of complicated topics, his comments in various media appear to lack even a basic grounding in the topics on which he's opining.

Wealthy people demonstrating a lack of expertise on subjects they are opining on to the point they expose that they absolutely do not deserve the amount of wealth or decision-making power over that wealth ot by extension the people they manage that they have at that time is not a new phenomenon.

Extremely hard to punish without waiting for said individual to self-immolate or die of natural causes preferably due to social and financial self-immolation, though.

However it is true that very few libertarians learned anything since 2016, January 6th 2021, or the low retention of Gab, Parler and most other social media.

It would be hard, but not at all impossible, to take a back-to-basics approach to be an alternative to Twitter:

Literally the bar is 'Don't be Gab, Parler or Truth Social and have a narrow feature set that is more focused than the competitors rather than shooting for the moon as an entire platform at once'

You don't have to beat or even threaten Twitter the first five years or so and staying off the news could be a good thing. Appearing boring and inoffensive, but inclusive and welcoming rather than trendy outrage could eventually catch on with people who have actual money. Just not fuck-you money.

 

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- Something causes the deal to fall apart. Possibly Elon deliberately does controversial stuff, which results in the shareholders rejecting the sale.

Apparently openly insulting Vijaya Gadde the day after Politico reported she was emotional about what the purchase of the company meant for it and her team's future hasn't already triggered a flurry of news stories that the deal is off.

If that hasn't done it then it's basically impossible for him to trigger the $1B breakup fee because that ship has sailed and it's impossible for the man to shut the fuck up.

 

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Look. I don't care if he buys it. I just want him to be truthful about the why.

You aren't buying a company 'to restore free speech'. He sees profit, plain and simple. His desire to take it private even supports that. So why not just say it rather than continue with this free speech crap.

He's also being a little dickish about how he's going about this.

Musk being a disingenuous sociopath using the words 'free speech' is not a new phenomenon.

We already know that raining even thinly cloaked invective about Elon 'Pedo Guy' Musk is going to be a moderation team offense right after the deal closes even if it's an ambiguous statement of sarcasm making fun if his previous abuse rather than fact.

His actual feelings about his libertarian take on freedom of speech are genuine, the problem is he simply is a hypocrite. This is not a new problem among 1%ers.

 

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So given that Musk has already violated the terms of the acquisition agreement, do we think the board is still going to take the ludicrously over-valued payday, or will they drag this out to the last day and go "Oh, my goodness, you appear to have violated the terms of the agreement. We'll be leaving now, with that one billion you owe us. Ta ta, darling!"?

It would be better if the shareholders suddenly had spines and a fit of self-righteous indignation but it's unlikely that will happen.

Twitter is however reporting on and admitting account closures and reduced follower counts for high profile users across the board that vastly outnumber the conservative political profiles follower count increases.

Given what Gab, Parler and Truth Social look like in terms of total users I wouldn't exactly blame the shareholders for making all of this Musk's problem because Twitter still has a long way to fall before becoming a ghost town.

There are users such as George Takei pledging to remain against an uptick of intolerant or illiberal voices but those individuals are nobly wasting their time. Leaving after the deal closure with YouTube videos explaining why would have a vastly more profound effect.

(For those who missed it, the reason why would be Musk being a demonstrable hypocrite on his free-speech-as-applied-to-private-platforms principles.)

 

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He has been studying Donald Trumps playbook.
I sadly believe that he'll run for President in 2024...

If you're American, are you really this ignorant about basic citizenship or are you proposing he can lawsuit his way through a plainly stated constitutional amendment?

The man was born in South Africa. You can't naturalize your way into the Presidency without having at least one American parent.

"The president and vice president must be a natural-born citizen of the United States, at least 35 years old, and have been a resident of the United States of America for at least 14 years."

"If only one parent was a U.S. citizen, that parent must have resided in the U.S. for at least ten years before your birth. At least five of those years must have been after that parent reached the age of 16. With a parent thus qualified, you acquired U.S. citizenship at birth, but with conditions for keeping it."

"A person born abroad in wedlock to two U.S. citizen parents acquires U.S. citizenship at birth under section 301(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), if at least one of the parents had a residence in the United States or one of its outlying possessions prior to the person's birth."

If you aren't foreign this is shit you're required to know upon graduating high school.