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

 

[Celery Man]

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.

If any brown M&M's are found in the Twitter HQ then the contract could be in violation

Buried amongst dozens of points in Van Halen's rider was an odd stipulation that there were to be no brown M&M's candies in the backstage area. If any brown M&M's were found backstage, the band could cancel the entire concert at the full expense of the promoter.

I've covered this before, but the reason those riders are in there is because it's a quick and easy way for the band's manager to walk into a venue and tell if the event planner read the whole contract. It's why they always bury it somewhere in the middle of the contract. If they don't see a bowl of M&Ms or there are brown ones in there, they know the person likely didn't read the contract and so they should start checking other things, such as those affecting the band's safety, and deciding if they want to go ahead with the performance.

Also worth noting Van Halen’s tour at the time was unprecedentedly large, with pyrotechnics and heavy stage rigging. If they messed up the M&Ms thing, the band couldn’t trust they didn’t mess up the fireworks or rigging or something that could be extremely dangerous or fatal.

 

[Celery Man]

I didn't read through every comment, sorry if this point has been made already.

Without excusing all the bad things Elon Musk has done, I'd like to posit the following scenarios:

How would a smart person go about making Twitter grow? One path would be to open the platform to trolls and scammers, and peddlers of woo by refusing to moderate. Would that really work? Has it worked anywhere, including truly extremist sites?

Another way would be to get people foaming at the mouth by pretending that Twitter will radically change its policies. Encourage the fighting by dropping hints that a certain former President will soon be back. Give vague reassurances to their stoke their fears.

Remember that episode of South Park where the Devil fought Jesus? I'm looking for Elon to exit Twitter with several $100M in profits in the next year or two. After making essentially no changes at all to their moderation policies.

1. No. Because all decent people leave or never join and then the trolls, ect, have no one left to troll.

Yep, and that's why all the "non-woke" Twitter wannabes will always be in distant second place or worse. Prominent conservatives like Ted Cruz routinely used to post to Twitter about how they were gonna leave Twitter to go to Parler. Then never did...

It's almost like "woke" is a made up boogeyman that really means "people now acknowledge people we don't like as valid, and we get called out when we say something offensive". If it were really the plague they claim it is, they wouldn't have a choice in leaving- they'd be kicked off. After all, that's what they keep saying isn't it? That the "woke left" is banning them left and right and "cancelling" them? And yet, they're still on Twitter complaining about it...

These people have spent all of America’s history being able to say whatever they want, about anything, to anyone, whenever they want.

Anything less than that is a horrible “woke” affront to everything they hold dear…

 

[Celery Man]

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.

 

[Celery Man]

I didn't read through every comment, sorry if this point has been made already.

Without excusing all the bad things Elon Musk has done, I'd like to posit the following scenarios:

How would a smart person go about making Twitter grow? One path would be to open the platform to trolls and scammers, and peddlers of woo by refusing to moderate. Would that really work? Has it worked anywhere, including truly extremist sites?

Another way would be to get people foaming at the mouth by pretending that Twitter will radically change its policies. Encourage the fighting by dropping hints that a certain former President will soon be back. Give vague reassurances to their stoke their fears.

Remember that episode of South Park where the Devil fought Jesus? I'm looking for Elon to exit Twitter with several $100M in profits in the next year or two. After making essentially no changes at all to their moderation policies.

1. No. Because all decent people leave or never join and then the trolls, ect, have no one left to troll.

Yep, and that's why all the "non-woke" Twitter wannabes will always be in distant second place or worse. Prominent conservatives like Ted Cruz routinely used to post to Twitter about how they were gonna leave Twitter to go to Parler. Then never did...

It's almost like "woke" is a made up boogeyman that really means "people now acknowledge people we don't like as valid, and we get called out when we say something offensive". If it were really the plague they claim it is, they wouldn't have a choice in leaving- they'd be kicked off. After all, that's what they keep saying isn't it? That the "woke left" is banning them left and right and "cancelling" them? And yet, they're still on Twitter complaining about it...

My neighbor is a full-fledged red-hat, and chose to tell me "You Democrats are destroying the country" after I said "Good morning" to him while walking my kid to school. Emphasis: he chose to engage while my kid was with me.

I said "We can disagree without being assholes. Or, at least, I can."

I will continue to say good morning to him, while knowing it is quite possible I will wind up elbow-hooking him.

The ol' "kill 'em with kindness" tact At the least you're showing your kid how an adult responds to such situations.

 

[Celery Man]

Musk is spread too thin now. Should not have squandered billions on this stupid platform that people shouldn't even use because like all of the other "social media" platforms, it is inevitably compromised by thought police who think they hold a higher moral standard. He should stay focused on Tesla & Space X. It might be his downfall.

You're half right. The downfall part, I mean.

But a lot of the "inevitably compromised by thought police who think they hold a higher moral standard"? They *do* have the moral high ground.

Nazis are evil. I don't say that about much -- a lot of what's called evil is actually just callous indifference, but "Jews will not replace us" isn't a position where there's compromise to be had. If we split the difference between genocide and civil rights, we end up at mere murder. Stochastic terrorism is a thing -- remember the pizza place the guy literally shot, because people lied about there being a satanic pedophile ring operation?

Moderating slurs and lies off your platform is a pretty reasonable thing to do -- because, if you haven't ever visited 4chan or 8kun, you should.* They're what you end up with "it isn't illegal, so we won't moderate it" as your moderation police.

*You really should. Go visit 4chan at least once, then come back and say 'Yeah, Twitter should be more like those folks." That's bonkers. Like, spend... twenty minutes, visit a few different threads. Hell, go post something supportive of gay or trans rights anonymously, then come back and see the kind of replies that gets when there's no moderator.

I don't use any of them and never will. I talk to people I actually know. I love starting arguments --in real life, with people I know, in a friendly spirit. This spirit has been banished online.

That’s cool, but the bigger issue here is that certain topics aren’t just things to have debates about; LGBTQA+ rights, the harassment of marginalized groups, etc., are very real and potentially life and death subjects to the people they refer to.

Just remember that while these subjects can be argued about, there are real human beings behind them.

 

[Celery Man]

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.

One of the best parts IMO is that the odds of any particular human on the planet dying from violence is the lowest it's ever been... probably ever.

 

[Celery Man]

This Tweet aged well...

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/999385249720057856

I’ve never stopped a union vote nor removed a union. UAW abandoned this factory. Tesla arrived & gave people back their jobs. They haven’t forgotten UAW betrayed them. That’s why UAW can’t even get people to attend a free BBQ, let alone enough sigs for a vote.

 

[Celery Man]

Can Musk make it any more obvious that this is completely political and which side he will tilt "free speech":

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1521183425914417158

"Same org that covered up Hunter Biden laptop story..."

Lol WTF does that tweet even mean. It reads like word salad.

That’s mania for you. You can probably track Elon’s episodes by his Tweets…

 

[Celery Man]

Can Musk make it any more obvious that this is completely political and which side he will tilt "free speech":

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1521183425914417158

"Same org that covered up Hunter Biden laptop story..."

Lol WTF does that tweet even mean. It reads like word salad.

Elon petulantly lashing out because MSNBC hurt his feelings (calling him petulant), so he's condemning their sin of not magnifying GOP conspiracy theories.

Is there some kind of psychological dynamic at work where being criticized makes a certain type of asshole flip conservative? Like, just spitballing here, but does a tendency toward Type B personality disorders and enough wealth to fear its loss just prime a certain type of guy to go full Republican when broadly criticized or even questioned?

Sort of.

Like Trump, Musk likes it when people lavish praise on him. Unlike Trump, Musk has actual accomplishments, but the result is the same.

The left's praise for Musk is conditional, as is the left's praise for most people. When Musk started showing his ass, the left praised him less and less. But the right loves people that the left dislikes, so they started praising him. So he started adopting their positions.

Of course, as an ultra-wealthy person, going full conservative was really only a matter of time. Fiscal conservatives can always be lured in by the promises of social conservatives.

Musk also has a healthy savior complex, which is partly why he gets so upset about any negative coverage of him or his companies.

 

[Celery Man]

"Only I have the brains to rule Lylat!"

If only life was as simple as doing a barrel roll…

 

[Celery Man]

We’ve got some chicken sausages and green beans frying up right now. Not the fanciest meal but hot damn do those sausages smell good.

 

[Celery Man]

Speaking only for myself: allowing others to confront the speech is not unchecked speech. I still believe that direct confrontation of the speech is the best method to confronting hate.

Here's the beauty of reality. We don't have to "believe" things. We have evidence for things.

And the reality is this: direct confrontation of bigots by those they are bigoted against doesn't work. The latter requires the victims of bigotry to basically be attacked and just take it. The latter legitimizes the "debate" by having it actually happen and being required to take it seriously (notably their opposition does not take it seriously). And as long as the point remains "debatable", then people think that it is a legitimate question (the bigots won just by having the debate happen).

That's not a thing I "believe". That is what has been proven time and again.

Are people on 4chan or 8kun being deradicalized from bigotry? No. Why not? They're "free speech" platforms; people can say whatever bigoted or anti-bigoted thing they want. If your method worked, then those sites would be perfect breeding grounds for deradicalization. But they're not.

Until your "beliefs" can explain this objective reality, you will find these "beliefs" to be a hard sell. A hypothesis that predicts X, but then not-X is found in reality, is a bad hypothesis.

You have been asked many times before to provide evidence for your "beliefs", and you cannot. You simply choose to believe them based on... well, this is what you must believe to be true in order to be a free speech absolutist. Well, OK, but you have no right to tell those of us with actual evidence on our side that we're wrong.

I also believe that banning it entrenches it.

Again, you can believe things. But reality tells a different story. Deplatforming works. Deplatforming of hateful bastards allows minoritized people to participate on platforms. Deplatforming of hateful bastards allows minoritized people to interact with normal people, getting them used to speaking with and interacting with them without constantly having to deal with bigotry and hate. Deplatforming fascists makes it harder for fascists to convert others. And so forth.

Yes, no bigots are convinced by being deplatformed. But they're bigots; most of them didn't reason themselves into their bigotry, so there was never any reasoning them out of their bigotry.

And, again, there are types of speech that are not protected. Such as calls for race wars, direct threats against people, and doxxing people, even Justices of the US Supreme Court, the insurrection of Jan 6, 2020, etc. Nor is that a comprehensive list.

Do you honestly think that Elon fucking Musk would prohibit such speech? Maybe direct threats, but I highly doubt he'd do anything about the stuff leading to the insurrection, including what Trump and his ilk were saying and doing.

The problem is that you think these people are acting in good faith. They're not. They're fascists. For them, "free speech" is when they get to talk and their enemies are silent. Any claims to the contrary are merely to get their foot in the door.

You don't know them. Not the people. The leaders, true. The people they're a different animal. They feel ignored (flyover country), denigrated (deplorables) and dismissed. They've turned to the only leaders talking to them. It's how Hitler came to power. Lenin. Mao. bin Laden. History is full of such examples.

But you don't want to hear this. So you won't. And this will just go on.

I know them. I live in a big square state that is largely red except for where most of the people live, in a little blue corner of a city that's about as big as a city can get and stay red. So these people are absolutely fucking everywhere around me. They're not ignored; they're given much more attention than their lack of actual policy ideas or vision merits. They're denigrated, but largely because they say and do deplorable things. And they're not dismissed, because while they're about a quarter of the population, they hold at least 45% of the political power.

But feeling ignored, denigrated, and dismissed is not why the supporters of Trump, Putin, Hitler, or any other fascist came to support them. That's completely ahistorical, because those who are actually ignored, denigrated, and dismissed - gay, trans, minorities, workers, immigrants - tend to recognize that conservative politics holds nothing for them but further victimization . You know who supports fascists? Middle-class professionals, business owners, your rock-ribbed Chamber of Commerce types who feel that the economic and social standing they feel they're entitled to is under threat. That's reflected in Trump voter demographics, too; very white, generally rural or suburban, not generally college educated but quite high income, and from areas suffering from social and economic decline, high rates of drug overdose, and high wealth disparity. They don't feel dismissed and denigrated, they feel threatened because society has decided to give people not like them the privilege and consideration to which they consider themselves uniquely entitled.

Yep... for a quarter of a millennium while males in this country have been able to loudly voice their opinions, on everything, to anyone, whenever they want. Anything less than that is censorship, etc., in their minds.

 

[Celery Man]

Wanting to debate things with every side implies there's a compromise to be had. Some things can't be compromised on. A good thought experiment is to consider, say, the Holocaust. What's a good compromise there? Only a million people killed? A hundred thousand? A thousand?

 

[Celery Man]

Whelp, the cuntwaffle has shown his hand, and it's as bad as we feared! The rat has shown his true colors as a proto fascist libertarian dictator sycophant!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... f720e9c86c

And there it is.

Fuck you, Elon Musk.

 

[Celery Man]

Thanks Elon... now I've got to either throw the Ashlee Vance book in the back of the closet, or make a special section on my bookshelf for "biographies of fascists". Which would have one book in it.

 

[Celery Man]

Whelp, the cuntwaffle has shown his hand, and it's as bad as we feared! The rat has shown his true colors as a proto fascist libertarian dictator sycophant!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... f720e9c86c

I think that was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country,

Oh, yeah. They weren't alienated at all when they stormed the Capitol. That's a totally normal thing for them to have done.

and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice,

The problem is that he wasn't deplatformed enough (especially by the Republican Party), and what Musk takes from this is that deplatforming him at all was a bad idea?

I fucking hate this idea that millionaires and billionaires can be "deplatformed" in any sense of the word. They're wealthy, and usually famous as well. They put out a press release or issue a statement, people are going to listen and the media will cover it.

 

[Celery Man]

Assuming someone owes you something because you responded to their post on a message board is like cleaning someone's car windows without asking and then demanding payment.

 

[Celery Man]

I'm amazed how much the quality of this thread improved the moment I blocked a handful of malicious spambot accounts. It's like uprooting some weeds and finding a living city!

Keep up these substantive discussions, folks, they're important.

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