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

 

[D10genes]

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.

 

[watermeloncup]

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.

 

[RobBiddle]

The Chinese Communist Party approves this definition of "Free Speech".

 

[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.

 

[Teletype]

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.

I can't even. What the fuck does "destroying the country" even mean? How fucking fragile do you think the USA is if it's being "destroyed" by wind turbines and parental leave and anti-discrimination laws, or any of the 1,000 things that liberal/Democrats support?

Are your gay neighbors destroying the country because they cook meth in the garage and sacrifice virgins in the back yard, or because they got married?

I would genuinely like to know that guy's answer. WTF was done to you buddy? Did somebody take a Greenpeace flag, break into your house and sodomize you with the flagpole? Or are you just having a panic attack cause that's what Fucker Carlson told you is gonna happen?

 

[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.

 

[Crielan]

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.

Can we settle this with one big final debate? All participants must have a Master's degree and graduated Summa cum laude. We can call it the Master-Debates.

Winners get a custom tailored white jacket.

 

[Deleted member 388703]

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…

Bingo. They've used their social power to silence people for generations, and now they're scared because they don't hold the social power anymore. Or at least, they no longer have a monopoly on it.

Another obvious tell is how many Conservatives reference the 50s as America's "Golden Age". Notably, a time when most of them were children (Jon Stewart has a funny bit about that), and a time when you very much could be arrested and rounded up for saying the wrong things or simply not acting the right way. Though, in my experience, few of these people have even heard of the House Un-American Activities Committee. They never think about what was happening during the Red Scare when people were outed as "Commies" because it didn't and wouldn't happen to them. It only happened to people they didn't like, so it was fine. Or just as bad, it wasn't even on their radar because they have a bubble of awareness approximately 10 ft wide.

Once again, it's just projection. They're scared of these things because of what they would do if they had the power and they can't comprehend that other people aren't the same way. They see it as fundamental human nature.

If they see the '50s as so great, then why don't they want to return to the America-greatening 30% corporate and 42% tax on the 1%, hmmm?

 

[Deleted member 388703]

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.

Yes, "counterfactual" certainly accurately describes your fantasy there.

 

[ZippyPeanut]

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.

I can't even. What the fuck does "destroying the country" even mean? How fucking fragile do you think the USA is if it's being "destroyed" by wind turbines and parental leave and anti-discrimination laws, or any of the 1,000 things that liberal/Democrats support?

Are your gay neighbors destroying the country because they cook meth in the garage and sacrifice virgins in the back yard, or because they got married?

I would genuinely like to know that guy's answer. WTF was done to you buddy? Did somebody take a Greenpeace flag, break into your house and sodomize you with the flagpole? Or are you just having a panic attack cause that's what Fucker Carlson told you is gonna happen?

SOCIALIST!

 

[Git-stompa]

Stop caring. Just quit Twitter people.

It’s always been a reskinned, crappy AOL chat room anyways that mines your data while you scream about pointless shit to celebrities.

Go to Mastodon.

Soon as the right has no liberals or lefties to fight with they’ll leave.

 

[Hapticz]

everyone needs to calm down. or else all your 'inalienable rights' will be forfeited in absentia (or something like that?), and without your implied permission........

;-))

/S

democracy isn't going to simply go up in smoke, as fragile as truths seem to be held by many, even peace loving asshats rely upon it for hubris and easy targets.

 

[fractl]

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.

I can't even. What the fuck does "destroying the country" even mean? How fucking fragile do you think the USA is if it's being "destroyed" by wind turbines and parental leave and anti-discrimination laws, or any of the 1,000 things that liberal/Democrats support?

Are your gay neighbors destroying the country because they cook meth in the garage and sacrifice virgins in the back yard, or because they got married?

I would genuinely like to know that guy's answer. WTF was done to you buddy? Did somebody take a Greenpeace flag, break into your house and sodomize you with the flagpole? Or are you just having a panic attack cause that's what Fucker Carlson told you is gonna happen?

Which televangelist said that Katrina was God’s wrath over support for gays? Some people actually believe that garbage.

 

[arsisloam]

Our govt is literally controlled by oligarchs like Musk. Our laws are pre-written by cadres of corporate lawyers who then hand them directly to lawmakers to pass. The US govt is mostly, if not wholly, captured by a kleptocracy. All this points to a major flaw in Musk's reasoning that if people want more censorship they will pass laws to enforce it. He knows better.

Retracted bc I didn't read closely enough. -_-

 

[watermeloncup]

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?

 

[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.

 

[Deleted member 817175]

Especially when a few weeks later, Joe Biden reached out to then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko asking him to remove the prosecutor that was involved in the Burisma investigation.

I love how you try to frame this as something Joe did by himself, instead of it being a Governmental decision that had the backing of the entire EU behind it.

Wasn't the whole reason the whole EU backed it was because he was known to be corrupt and pro-Burisma and hindering the investigation, so removing him was what Burisma did not want?

We're talking about people who (say they) believe that Antifa tried to storm the Capitol to prevent the Congress from certifying Joe Biden as president, so it's possible these people aren't playing with a full deck when analyzing minutiae of Ukrainian politics.

 

[Deleted member 817175]

The worst is blanket bans on supporting designated dangerous individuals or organizations. It's a politically driven process that excuses US warcrimes but punishes support for non-aligned movements.

Groups such as? ISIS?

The rule is selectively used against pro-Palestinian groups, among many others.

This began with your statement that Twitter is increasing the number of things it moderates.

Now you're complaining it doesn't moderate enough.

 

[techchimp]

In another tweet after completing his deal with the Twitter board, Musk wrote that "Truth Social is currently beating Twitter & TikTok on the Apple Store,"

And while that sounds amazing to someone who is dumb, Truth Social is estimated to have barely more than a half million daily active users. Twitter has more than 200 million DAUs as of Q4 of last year with TikTok at around 50 million in the US alone.

Not to mention Truth Social moderates any comments it doesn't like. Try posting the election wasn't stolen and Trump lost.

 

[Git-stompa]

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

This is the flimsiest thing I have ever seen as an argument.

If I am to take this seriously, you expect that something this trifling is useful in arguing Elon Musk is hypocritical about free speech?

Fired an employee for the employees speech about FSD/car AI posted to YouTube.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

Especially when a few weeks later, Joe Biden reached out to then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko asking him to remove the prosecutor that was involved in the Burisma investigation.

I love how you try to frame this as something Joe did by himself, instead of it being a Governmental decision that had the backing of the entire EU behind it.

Wasn't the whole reason the whole EU backed it was because he was known to be corrupt and pro-Burisma and hindering the investigation, so removing him was what Burisma did not want?

Yep.

 

[CrustaceanSoup]

In another tweet after completing his deal with the Twitter board, Musk wrote that "Truth Social is currently beating Twitter & TikTok on the Apple Store,"

And while that sounds amazing to someone who is dumb, Truth Social is estimated to have barely more than a half million daily active users. Twitter has more than 200 million DAUs as of Q4 of last year with TikTok at around 50 million in the US alone.

Well... yeah.

Most anyone who wants to use Twitter or TikTok already has it. Almost all daily downloads will be due to device repacements.

Truth Social downloads are going to be mostly interested-but-don't-have-it downloads.

Measuring the usefulness of a site based on its mobile app downloads is measuring something useless.

Wasn't Parler at the top of the downloads for a day or two way back? Looks like yes: https://fortune.com/2020/11/09/parler-c ... oaded-app/

And how many active users does it have now?

 

[GreyAreaUK]

In another tweet after completing his deal with the Twitter board, Musk wrote that "Truth Social is currently beating Twitter & TikTok on the Apple Store,"

And while that sounds amazing to someone who is dumb, Truth Social is estimated to have barely more than a half million daily active users. Twitter has more than 200 million DAUs as of Q4 of last year with TikTok at around 50 million in the US alone.

Well... yeah.

Most anyone who wants to use Twitter or TikTok already has it. Almost all daily downloads will be due to device repacements.

Truth Social downloads are going to be mostly interested-but-don't-have-it downloads.

Measuring the usefulness of a site based on its mobile app downloads is measuring something useless.

Wasn't Parler at the top of the downloads for a day or two way back? Looks like yes: https://fortune.com/2020/11/09/parler-c ... oaded-app/

And how many active users does it have now?

Dozens.

 

[ripvlan]

Does Musk buying Twitter allow him to side-step the SEC? Since he owns it, are "his" tweets simply "his speech" from "his megaphone ?"

At the same time, he can't allow all Alternate Facts to flood the system. Well, he could. But I think the system would become a cesspool and cause many to disengage. Or the fighting would burn it down.

Sincerely, Good luck to him. While Twitter is talked about a lot in the news, as a percentage of the online population, few people use it. So finding a way to expand viewership is one nut he needs to crack.

 

[Deleted member 388703]

Reality Check: Twitter Actually Was Already Doing Most Of The Things Musk Claims He Wants The Company To Do (But Better)

 

[The Dark]

In another tweet after completing his deal with the Twitter board, Musk wrote that "Truth Social is currently beating Twitter & TikTok on the Apple Store,"

And while that sounds amazing to someone who is dumb, Truth Social is estimated to have barely more than a half million daily active users. Twitter has more than 200 million DAUs as of Q4 of last year with TikTok at around 50 million in the US alone.

Well... yeah.

Most anyone who wants to use Twitter or TikTok already has it. Almost all daily downloads will be due to device repacements.

Truth Social downloads are going to be mostly interested-but-don't-have-it downloads.

Measuring the usefulness of a site based on its mobile app downloads is measuring something useless.

Wasn't Parler at the top of the downloads for a day or two way back? Looks like yes: https://fortune.com/2020/11/09/parler-c ... oaded-app/

And how many active users does it have now?

Dozens.

What about if you exclude bots?

 

[Statistical]

Does Musk buying Twitter allow him to side-step the SEC? Since he owns it, are "his" tweets simply "his speech" from "his megaphone ?"

No. Litteral speeches using a megaphone would likewise be regulated.

If you are an officer of a publicly traded company there are certain limitations on your speech. Period. He could write it on post it notes and stick them to cars in a parking lot and it would still be regulated speech.

Note there are also regulations for material statements by an officer of a private company but they are a bit looser. Still even there a materially false statement like lying about the financial health of the company is illegal.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

If I am to take this seriously, you expect that something this trifling is useful in arguing Elon Musk is hypocritical about free speech?

You mean, apart from the fact that it conclusively proves he's a hypocrite?

Musk: claims he wants free speech without consequences except where dictated by law.
Also Musk: Cancels a guy's order because guy said mean things about him.

So either he's a hypocrite, or there's some law that says you can't say mean things about him.

Which is it?

 

[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.

 

[gsgrego]

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.

Am I missing something?

 

[3Dziio]

Musk believes not in freedom but freedumb, the latter being espoused by pea brained right wingers and trolls who have no idea of the consequences of the things they seem to desperate to attain...
.
Everyone has predictions on this so here's my $0.02
.
The amount of trolls and bots will rocket, more right wingers will join and fluff up the user numbers for a while
.
Your average Joe or grandma who uses Twitter will become disgusted by it and leave
.
At the same time a lot of Twitter staff will get better offers not working for a troll factory and split
.
The combo of declining users and poor staff to deal with it will tank Twitter stock
.
Zuckerberg will see an opportunity to take over twitters space and exploit it
.
Musk will walk and try and sell off Twitter for pennies on the dollar then do his stupid giggle thing and try and blame others for his F ups

 

[Git-stompa]

everyone needs to calm down. or else all your 'inalienable rights' will be forfeited in absentia (or something like that?), and without your implied permission........

;-))

/S

democracy isn't going to simply go up in smoke, as fragile as truths seem to be held by many, even peace loving asshats rely upon it for hubris and easy targets.

Yeah I mean they didn’t try to overthrow congress to install a President based on misinformation at all recently.

It’s not like terrorists ever used social media networks to recruit people.

I’m very certain that conservatives will be right back to complaining when their tweets don’t appear everywhere and they’ll start accusing musk of having a left wing bias because they don’t understand how computers work.

They did it before.

 

[DimeCadmium]

Somehow everyone (especially Musk himself) seems to miss the fact that Twitter's idea of free speech is (and has been) also "that which matches the law", or very close to it. Unfortunately it is very difficult, outside of a court of law examining a specific instance, to determine the exact boundaries of free speech. In other words, literally impossible at Twitter-scale.

 

[scrimbul]

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.

 

[Hmnhntr]

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.

I can't even. What the fuck does "destroying the country" even mean? How fucking fragile do you think the USA is if it's being "destroyed" by wind turbines and parental leave and anti-discrimination laws, or any of the 1,000 things that liberal/Democrats support?

Are your gay neighbors destroying the country because they cook meth in the garage and sacrifice virgins in the back yard, or because they got married?

I would genuinely like to know that guy's answer. WTF was done to you buddy? Did somebody take a Greenpeace flag, break into your house and sodomize you with the flagpole? Or are you just having a panic attack cause that's what Fucker Carlson told you is gonna happen?

I don't know if these people are just so genuinely brainwashed they think these things will cause the country to dissolve/lose its standing, or if they know they just mean "it won't be the country I want it to be."

 

[s73v3r]

Does Musk buying Twitter allow him to side-step the SEC? Since he owns it, are "his" tweets simply "his speech" from "his megaphone ?"

No. It doesn't matter if he issued a press release through Tesla PR, said it on CNBC, he tweeted it (regardless of who owns Twitter), or shouted it in the town square. Public Statements by company executives are regulated. Period. He cannot say anything that is materially false with regard to the company.

 

[nimelennar]

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.

The problem is, my optimistic guess is that we have a few decades like that left before we enter full-blown climate disaster. And that's my optimistic guess: I've had to sedate my inner pessimist since the Russian invasion of Ukraine started.

 

[Hmnhntr]

If they see the '50s as so great, then why don't they want to return to the America-greatening 30% corporate and 42% tax on the 1%, hmmm?

Umm, ummm....."EFFECTIVE TAX RATES!"

*runs away in a cloud of smoke*

 

[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.