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

 

[odikweos]

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.

That seems untrue. The guy could be in any number of industries, but is in the stuff that he finds interesting. I mean look at Bezos - online marketplaces are pretty boring stuff, but they are a decent way to become dementedly rich. I don't actually see how he's going to make a profit off Twitter - he's loading up a giant amount of debt for the leveraged takeover, and that usually massively depresses profit in order to achieve control. It's not like Twitter has assets he's going to raid, or prices he can jack up.

There's no reason to take the statements about free speech at anything but face value -- there is a massive disagreement here about what the principle (vs the legalisms) of free speech really mean, and this is another experiment in that disagreement.

 

[odikweos]

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).

Bots are not speech. They are an algorithm. Twitter can, and will, still ban bots.

And it continues to amaze me how much spam, disinformation, slurs, gross memes, and falsehoods I see posted on Twitter everyday without the accounts being banned. But let's get one thing straight. Spam, to an extent, has been being regulated by Congress. Because it can be harassment or it can disrupt normal activity.

But I will say this to all the 'big names' that whine about free speech: be ready. The same controls that moderate your speech moderate every one else's.

Why arent bots speech? Serious question, btw. Saying algorithm seems to be a bit simplistic, after all they dont create themselves.

If companies can be ruled by the Supreme Court to have free speech why wouldnt a bot deployed by a company be part of free speech?

Well, pretty obviously, the Supreme Court is dead wrong and in need of legislative correction - and bots aren't people. Don't confuse law and principle.

 

[odikweos]

"That which is the law..."

... begs the question - which country's laws? All of them at once? Or is Twitter going to pioneer an algorithm that automatically geo-blocks Twitter posts based on content that violates the laws in China, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Russia, and the dozens of other countries that restrict speech in various conflicting ways?

I remember the sheer amount of collective brainpower that went into microanalysis of every pronouncement of the Orange Disaster, to literally no useful effect ever, despite the tenacity of the analyzers. People like that don't use words in a way that is worth over-analyzing. When the Fed makes a statement, you micro-analyze because every word has been carefully weighed. Musk just spews whatever is top of mind. Taking it too seriously is a waste of time and energy.

It misses the point - he is conveying emotion with words, trying to inspire, etc. It's a habitual thing for people like that, and as long as you view their words through the proper lens, what they're doing is at least sensible.

 

[odikweos]

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).

Bots are not speech. They are an algorithm. Twitter can, and will, still ban bots.

And it continues to amaze me how much spam, disinformation, slurs, gross memes, and falsehoods I see posted on Twitter everyday without the accounts being banned. But let's get one thing straight. Spam, to an extent, has been being regulated by Congress. Because it can be harassment or it can disrupt normal activity.

But I will say this to all the 'big names' that whine about free speech: be ready. The same controls that moderate your speech moderate every one else's.

Why arent bots speech? Serious question, btw. Saying algorithm seems to be a bit simplistic, after all they dont create themselves.

If companies can be ruled by the Supreme Court to have free speech why wouldnt a bot deployed by a company be part of free speech?

Well, pretty obviously, the Supreme Court is dead wrong and in need of legislative correction - and bots aren't people. Don't confuse law and principle.

Gets rather relevant what the law is when the guy we are talking about says that he only cares what the law says.

And to that point, if Musk rewrites the ToS of Twitter to reflect that he might end up with being sued for breaching his own ToS if he doesnt allow bots which are not illegal in themselves. Spam can be, of course.

Well, in a separate post I argue you should not take the words of a person who operates like Musk too literally.

Bots can be kicked off Twitter, regardless of "legality", and that's exactly what I hope for here. A community of 200m people who are actually people is a different beast than one where, idk, 20m of them are actually robots spewing programming.

 

[odikweos]

All the libertarian freeze peach assholes might wanna read this:

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (whom you often misquote), A Clash of Two Systems.

Relevant quotes:

"The problem posed by a benign system like ours is its transparency, which causes perceptional distortions: Tocqueville understood that equality seems all the stronger when it is reduced; similarly, a system seems all the more dysfunctional when it is transparent. Hence my attacks on someone like Edward Snowden and his acolytes, who exploit this paradox to attack the West for the benefit of Russian plotters."

"Pseudo-Libertarianism Inviting Tyranny
I have trouble with many people, often naive libertarians, who think I’m like them because they like my books. But some of these want to destroy our system rather than improve it: many are full of resentment.
They do not realize that the alternative to our messy system is tyranny: a mafia-don like state (Lybia today, Lebanon during the civil war) or an autocracy. And these idiots call themselves libertarian!
This is the case of Snowden and his followers. He is an impostor. If I told you about an organization in Ryad that defends women in France against male oppression, you would laugh at me. Well, Snowden claims to defend the Americans against Google’s tyranny while operating from … Moscow!"

"On Twitter, I ended up noticing that in this naive libertarian or rather, pseudo-libertarian, ecosystem, which includes bitcoin enthusiasts, people who, like Snowden, see Covid-19 as a pretext for some dark entity to exert control over the population. This even includes anti-vaccine activists. We are at the very heart of disinformation: the goal of the Russian Disinformation Program here is to create mistrust between citizens and authorities, and to exploit everything that can bring dissension."

"It is still disturbing that libertarians come to defend an autocrat!
Libertarians are controlled by Russia because in general, they are naive people who only have first-order thoughts — they do not know how to consider the consequences of certain actions. This is what distinguishes them from classic liberals."

Free Speech requires responsibility of thought.

I agree, but a good argument requires precision. Lumping in Snowden with Antivaxxers and in the next step with Russia itself is neither helpfull nor sincere. Thanks for reminding me again not to read Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

Anyone can be wrong (and I also think Taleb is wrong here, despite understanding where he's coming from - I think he's making a deal with the devil in that argument) - but missing out on what he has to say is a big mistake. Far and away one of the most original, interesting minds alive today.

 

[odikweos]

Gotta say that unlike the usual - this comments section has been great. Several thought provoking points of view I hadn't considered, and elaborations of ones I have of value - and collegial. Let's keep that up?

 

[odikweos]

It's almost a rule of thumb that cultural conservatives pine for a time period 40-60 years before present - a time when they were either sheltered children or just before their birth. It's the time period when they were too young and too ignorant to know about things like Jim Crow and the House Un-American Activities Committee and redlining and Henry Kissinger and so on. Of course it's the time they think was simple and idyllic and full of promise, because they had no concept of the complexity of the world.

And they managed to isolate themselves from the complexity of the world for long enough that they now feel entitled to a lack of it.

Yeah, that's basically the point Jon Stewart makes. He has Conservative talking heads mention when they think America was at its peak, then points out that they were literally children at the time and brings in someone who was an adult (or at least old enough to be aware) to talk about what living in that time was like.

And to a degree, I can see how that happens. What I truly don't understand is the inability to recognize that their childhood view of the time period is simply inaccurate. You can present them all of the historical information that you want and they'll just dig their heels in. Hell, they'll call your information "revisionism" just because it doesn't match their personal experience of the time. It's so frustrating. I don't get how someone can go through life like that without having the revelation that they're an ignoramus.

Pick any time period people pine for and plenty of things sucked then just like they suck now. They just sucked in different ways.

Actually, I'd fairly confidently say that they probably sucked more than they do now, just not in ways that affected the person pining for it. And more secretly (or rather, quietly, because no one really cared).

Yeah... as hard as it may be to believe right now, this is arguably the best time to be alive in human history.

Especially if you're a woman, LGBTQ person, or member of a minority ethnic group. Even with the many problems and regressions there's been incredibly few times in history where these groups have been as free as they are now. Which is why we're seeing such a vicious white/far-right backlash.

* At least in developed countries, developing countries are all over the place in these aspects.

It's definitely the best time to be alive regardless of your identity. Never before have we had any real prospect of extending our lifespans beyond the fourscore and ten.. basically as long as we don't kill ourselves off, the future is incomparably more desirable than the present or past in the most fundamental sense.

 

[odikweos]

It's definitely the best time to be alive regardless of your identity. Never before have we had any real prospect of extending our lifespans beyond the fourscore and ten.. basically as long as we don't kill ourselves off, the future is incomparably more desirable than the present or past in the most fundamental sense.

I actually see life extension as more dystopian than anything. Almost certainly it will only be accessible to the richest of the rich. Can you imagine a world where Rupert Murdoch doesn't eventually die?

Giving up on that dream just because there are downsides is the worst form of nihilism - if you want to do that, it's your choice. We didn't stay in the caves because "only the rich will have houses"..

 

[odikweos]

For some, billionaires whining about how unfair the world is, is "relatable". I, uh, disagree. But for the right wing - which is all about grievance, it resolves two conflicting thoughts: Everything sucks, and why don't we got nothin - vs and intense desire to idolize shiny objects that proceed to fleece them so they got nothin. Viola: The shiny object that has endless grievance. Yay!!!

Sure beats thinking.

Musk sure puts the "idiot" in idiot savant. Feeling his apartheid roots maybe?

It would be pretty hard to imagine him growing up in that environment and being free of its biases. And the culture of his companies lends a lot of weight to the idea that he's a racist, crypto- or otherwise. Not ideal in the world's richest and arguably most powerful single human, but this is where we are.

 

[odikweos]

Free speech for me, not for thee!

...has been the norm everywhere in all of human history.

FTFY

 

[odikweos]

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.

1. getting along with people in your tribe (at church, in the forums, your guild playing games, at school)
2. wanting things to be "normal"
3. poor critical thinking skills
4. distraction - having a life! there are other things than the minutiae of the latest news item
..the list goes on.

Applies equally to all political/moral persuasions, though it's scientific fact that liberals tend to be a little more open minded and ready to change their minds in the face of evidence. A little.

The expectation that people will process difficult information well is hopelessly unrealistic - and so any system that relies on that expectation is doomed.