Musk asks if Apple “hates free speech” because it cut Twitter ad spending

Musk: Apple threatened to pull Twitter from iOS and "mostly stopped advertising."

See full article...

 

[terrydactyl]

Breaking news: Elon Musk leads leveraged buyout of Blackberry

In fact, I could see Musk hiring some cheap Android maker, slap a Twitter logo on it, and announce to his fans "LOOK what I created!"

 

[AmanoJyaku]

Standard disclaimer: Musk is a douche, clearly is talking out his ass as per usual, etc. I literally am at the point of being a little embarrassed to drive a Tesla at times because people might see me (a pasty white dude) and think I even remotely support the views and behaviors of such a colossally arrogant shithead. I just like EVs because I'm a nerd and wanna help in some way fight climate change, and Tesla until recently was the only option I could afford that had the range I wanted. TL,DR: please do not read any Musk apologism into the paragraphs below.

That said I do think there's a little nugget of truth in his bullshit that those of us who lean more left easily overlook: big tech companies control the platforms on which massive amounts of our public discourse happen. Argue if you want that people should leave those platforms but I don't think it's a reasonable solution to ask non-technical folks to all sign up for a decentralized system like Mastodon. Twitter/Facebook/et al work for the vast majority of those users because the bar to entry is low and you're immediately able to connect with any other user, no fragmentation.

So given that these platforms (which are essentially the new public square) are all controlled by massive tech companies, and given what (I suspect) most of us commenting on Ars tend to feel about large corporations and techbros...we should be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Just because Elon is basically parroting right-wing nonsense here doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned about the core idea behind this idiotic tweet. Personally, I'm genuinely worried that what can be used constructively to censor mis/disinformation could be used in the future to censor actual truth, and it's all controlled by whomever currently runs/owns these mega-corporations.

When I first came across this post, I reflexively down voted because of the disclaimer and stopped reading there. Disclaimers like these are a sign the author knows the remainder of the post is fundamentally flawed. Now that I've had a chance to read it, it is indeed fundamentally flawed.

First, private platforms are not public squares. I've said before Ars could mandate all posts end in "nya!", and not doing so could be subject to a ban, nya! All of us understand this, or should, nya!

However, we live in a symbiotic relationship with these services. They rely on us just as much as we rely on them. And as we're seeing on Twitter, there are limits to what they can allow or ban. Twitter is currently trending towards allowing too much, and as a result it's losing advertisers and members. Twitter can allow alt-right nonsense, and it will shrink until it's forgotten just like all the other "free speech" havens. Conversely, there will be an exodus if Twitter is found to be censoring the truth.

Your concerns are unwarranted. Unless you live in China.

 

[Oldmanalex]

So the moron is going completely megalomaniac now? As he runs Twatter into the ground or below if he can use the Boring company, I doubt that Apple, or more especially Tim Cook, are going to give a rat's patootie. He actually has a company to run, and should devote a little more time to righting the Twitship, and a little less to public self-fellation demonstrations.

 

[mckorr]

What is wrong with these PayPal people? They seem to think facism is libertarian.

Libertarian is the grift that finances fascism.

 

[johnsonwax]

Re: Apple being forced to carry Twitter, absolutely not and I think that's what a lot of people are reacting to in my comment. I'm saying the core idea, that social media platforms and their algorithms are dangerously unregulated, has been proven true by those company's failure to contain Covid/election misinformation. In fact their algorithms were shown to have actually fed people those posts more than others. I don't trust big tech even though I work in slightly smaller, slightly better regulated tech (think big telco) and the FAANGs have made it clear they're more interested in making money than any ethical considerations. They know they'll be still be around making money if, god forbid, fascism wins in the US.

Your argument doesn't align with observation. Apple and Google were the ones that kicked Parler out of their app stores because users of the platform were literally calling for the execution of the Vice President.

Fascism is not compatible with profits. Big 'L' Liberalism is entirely based on democracy and capitalism. The fascists are more upset with the FAANGs than they are with any other corporations, and the FAANGs have more experience dealing with fascist nation states than almost any other corporations outside of oil companies (they fucking LOVE those guys). Apple and Google and Facebook have at least had to navigate the politics of nation states attacking and doxxing political dissidents around the world. Twitter used to block the kinds of actions recently seen by Chinese government authorities against the protest movement coming out of China in the last week - but they don't any more. I think it's pretty obvious to anyone watching whether or not this 'look the other way to fascism' move is going to be a profitable one for Twitter.

 

[Deleted member 92645]

I guarantee you it does not cost 30% of every app.

And why it's a problem, and most importantly why should I care?

 

[Snark218]

No disagreement here on the core idea that they shouldn't be our primary public squares or that we should have a robust connected civil life. I'm arguing that they have preempted that civic connectedness. As long as that's what we have to live with, these platforms need to be treated with the same concern. Control of that type of thing can change as political power shifts, and that's what I believe I'm rightfully worried about. If you read some of my other replies I will happily admit my worry is informed by the experience I had growing up among the same far-right people who are frothing at the mouth to control public discussion a la Desantis/Florida and the Don't Say Gay law.

You seem to accept this as a fait accompli. I do not.

 

[Chemical Tribe]

It's absurd at this point. Nothing in my comment argued in favor of him.

but you showed worry about that public square called twitter

I'm worried that control of these platforms can change with political winds and that I think we should put actual, sane, non-fascist-backed laws in place that require accountability from these companies before the next big election that could flip the country for the MAGA/christofascist crowd. There are many replies to me that put all kinds of arguments in my mouth that I never said.

Spoiler alert, this already happened without any need for any law changes (and for that matter, twitter was always a far right retreat, just made even worse since musk took over).

1st amendment swings both ways bud.

 

[Seraphiel]

It's not that he doesn't know what "free speech" actually means.

It's that he's willfully misrepresenting it like he does with everything else in service of self-promotion.

Don't assume he's just an idiot when we also have plenty of evidence that he's a lying, fraudulent opportunist.

 

[TheWerewolf]

Apple hates Musk's idea of free speech in exactly the same way I hate going for a walk down the middle of a four lane highway and being told "You must hate cars."

Considering Musk himself can't actually abide truly "free" speech by banning people that criticise him too directly, it's kind of a hollow "threat".

 

[johnsonwax]

I guarantee you it does not cost 30% of every app.

94% of all apps on the App Store are free (like Twitters, for example!). So Apple is taking a 30% cut of 6% of all downloads. Roughly 2% of all downloads are paying for the entire store. That sounds pretty damn efficient, actually.

Without saying it, your argument is that Apple should switch from a commission to a retail model. The real thing you're upset about is that 6% of apps are socializing the other 94%. Ok. So Apple buys the apps from the developers wholesale, and charges $0.02 (2% of a $1 app) + transaction costs. Now, Apple's size means that their flat transaction cost is estimated at about $0.09, so you need to pay $0.11 per download. That also would include $0.11 for security patches and free updates since they too use bandwidth. That way Apple could cut their commission to 2% + $0.09 for paid apps.

That sound like a better system? No? Describe a better system to us. Actually think about it before answering.

 

[JojoNoNo]

I guess I support whatever ya'll want me to support

Blah blah blah. No one needs this vacuous platitude.

despite explaining over and over and over how I'm fucking scared of the same christofascists and straight-up-vanilla-fascists that I bet almost everyone in this comment thread is also worried about, and that I think their "concern" over the supposed anti-conservative bias in the very platforms that constantly feed them pro-far-right content is nothing but a precursor to legitimately terrifying laws they will pass if we don't take back the talking points Elon so egregiously co-opts in this tweet and fucking goddamn DO SOMETHING before we no longer have the power to do so and people who think like him DO.

Giving in to fascism is not the way you stamp out fascism. Acting as if falsehoods are truths is not how you defend the truth. Not sure why you are so surprised by people pointing out that appeasement of fascists and Neo-Nazis is a terrible idea.

I know this is an overused trope, but we had World War II precisely because your idea that fascism should be accommodated was a resounding failure.

 

[johnsonwax]

The app store is also a huge selling point for Apple.

No, the app store is a huge selling point for Twitter. That's why Musk is upset his free website might not remain on the App Store - because the app store is a better point of access for users than twitter.com is.

This was made super obvious when Epic pulled Fortnite from the Play store to be an EGS exclusive and when sales weren't there because nobody could find the fucking EGS, Epic went back onto Play and broke the Play TOS which got them kicked off by Google.

The store has immeasurable value to developers because the idea of a single storefront that lists everything (like Amazon) and has a uniform buy/install/update system is incredibly appealing to consumers.

 

[Chemical Tribe]

If you re-read my original comment you won't find me saying that I agree with Elon that Apple is wrong for pulling ads. I'm happy they are.

My replies have nothing to do with that.

This is about having legal controls in place around the algorithms that make these platforms such breeding grounds for misinformation and hatred, before we potentially lose control of our ability to do so. I'm not arguing for Elon's idea, I'm arguing that we do not shrug off the entire thing because he wants to misuse it in stupid tweets like this. It's not the far-right's idea unless we cede it to them.

Dude, you literally are arguing about the first amendment. Guess what, the gov can't control Twitter's algorithm. All it can do is hold them accountable for breaking copyright, CSAM, or stuff like that. Gab, Parler, Truth Social and twitter are free to spread as much bull shit as they want. The supreme court literally said you can lie all you want and that's fair game, because they can't and won't put themselves in the position of who is saying the truth.

There isn't anything you can do about that, period.

 

[Chemical Tribe]

We don't deal with subtleties here.
Please understand.

Who's "we" here?

Take your stupid strawman and shove it.

 

[stk5]

Musk wrote on Friday that he would "make an alternative phone" if Apple and Google kick Twitter off their app stores.

Could there be an emptier threat? Is he next going to threaten to found SealandX and say he’ll impose massive tariffs on Apple and Google when they sell him their products?

 

[johnsonwax]

They're not. Musk was also complaining about the 30% cut for IAP.

Yes, quite the principled stand - the guy who made his initial fortune on PayPal complaining about payment processors taking a cut.

So he's upset that he wanted to implement a new pay service so rapidly that he had to rely on existing payment processors, and now has to pay them, rather than develop an in-house one with the developers that he just fired? Why should anyone listen to that argument?

 

[AmanoJyaku]

How do ya'll not see that proclaiming that Twitter/Facebook/et al aren't actually relevant to public discourse means nothing to the millions of people who use them and will use the next big social media platform that comes along? Social media isn't going away and the regulation surrounding them, which I explicitly discussed in my first post, is going to be important. I just want to have non-crazy people writing those laws in case political winds change.

What regulation are you talking about? Not Elon's fears, but actual, concrete proposals.

 

[JojoNoNo]

How do ya'll not see that proclaiming that Twitter/Facebook/et al aren't actually relevant to public discourse means nothing to the millions of people who use them and will use the next big social media platform that comes along?

Who exactly has ever stated that Twitter or Facebook have no relevance to discourse? Exact names and quotes please as this reeks of straw.

That they are important places to discuss things does not make them a public square. You're falsely conflating concepts.

 

[Rachelhikes]

Deleted as not relevant.

 

[JonnyOneNote]

No, Elon, it's you. You're such a dweeb, so worried about whether the Captain of the Football Team is going to ask you or Peggy Sue to the Big Homecoming Dance! Either that or you're the bastard off-spring of dumpTruck, and obviously that apple isn't falling from that tree.
What a mensch.

 

[Chemical Tribe]

I'm standing my ground on this one: It's not his idea to own, and it's an important one that will shape free speech in America. I firmly believe Elon is right about that core concept even while also thinking he's a shithead.

Does not compute

He's just the latest guy pandering to the people who want that free speech controlled not for the benefit of our civil discourse, but to suppress those they view as the enemy. It's the classic techbro libertarian slant on free speech attached to a man-child who has billions to buy one of the biggest social media platforms in the world.

There is no kernel of truth here. You cannot say one part of a sentence a person says is right when that opinion is NOT in any way, as you even admit, is held by Musk.

I mean, you are literally making the most obtuse argument to make the smallest of smallest points that has nothing to do with what's going on here. No one here is impressed or swayed by that, and thus fully so, are calling you on your terrible posts.

 

[Seferino]

“I want to make money on another company’s products and infrastructure that they actively develop and maintain, and they want a CUT?? How selfish can they be?”

Now that explains everything!
He thought that Twitter was an open-source project he could safely raid.

 

[johnsonwax]

My replies have nothing to do with that.

Dude, you literally are arguing about the first amendment. Guess what, the gov can't control Twitter's algorithm. All it can do is hold them accountable for breaking copyright, CSAM, or stuff like that. Gab, Parler, Truth Social and twitter are free to spread as much bull shit as they want. The supreme court literally said you can lie all you want and that's fair game, because they can't and won't put themselves in the position of who is saying the truth.

There isn't anything you can do about that, period.

Well, sorta.

The things you describe are correct, but a huge problem that platform moderation is trying to address is harassment, threats of violence, fraud, etc. Things that are actual crimes but are enabled in such high volume due to the reach and ease of access of social media that law enforcement can't possibly enforce those laws.

That creates a real social problem - how do you reel in this level of law breaking without a truly massive expansion of the police/legal state because of the cost of enforcement of laws. Even imposing civil fines is functionally impossible.

The state has no recourse other than rely on these platforms doing this work on their behalf. Now, they could make changes to 230 to add some degree of civil liability on platforms for not acting as proxies for the state on this kind of stuff. There are other contexts in which this happens - universities enforce immigration policy and there are SEVERE financial consequences for fucking that up, for instance. Employers using E-Verify, etc. Right now it's an entirely voluntary system, but that can change without violating the first amendment. It doesn't block nazis who say nazi things, but it does block nazis who make death threats (which in my experience is all nazis).

The government can rein in some kinds of misinformation by mandating that content platforms identify specific misinformation and tag it with a government approved correction. That's not violating the first amendment rights of the person spreading the disinformation. It's not a broad solution because it needs to identify specific kinds of misinformation and have a specific response to that (any mention of Ivermectin gets a FDA notification beneath it, for instance).

 

[JojoNoNo]

Wait, so you're actually supporting Musk's free-speech-absolutism stance that says the real fascists are the ones who want any control on speech? Cause I don't know how many more times I can explain my point that I think his take on things is nonsense that conveniently ignores the hatred and bigotry that sprouts up whenever you take such a stance. See the current state of Twitter after he fired most of the moderators. We control free speech all the time for the sake of having a civil society. Libertarian views of free speech don't work for the same reason libertarian takes on pollution don't result in clean air and water.

No, I do not support Musk's view of what free speech is. Is your post some sort of weird attempt at gaslighting me? I'm not sure exactly how you could have come to this ludicrous claim otherwise. And you continue to wonder why people find your posts disingenuous?

And that's not a vacuous platitude. The replies to my post are full of people ignoring what I wrote in favor of whatever statement I didn't say that they want to shoot down. Just because the right wing in this country whines about non-existent suppression of their speech doesn't mean we have to act as if it can't possibly happen. That's just childish and reactionary, and it could actually happen to us non-shitheads if political winds change. I think it's perfectly in the realm of democratic government to put policies in place that keeps misinformation and hate speech that actually ends up stoking real-world violence from spreading too widely.

Who is stating that people should do nothing to stand up against the rise of far-right fascism? And why do you keep holding yourself up as if you are the only one who is pointing out its rise. You have a pretty arrogant view of yourself.

You seem to have missed it but one of the central planks of the Democrats' election campaigns during this year's midterm was that democracy was on the ballot and needed to be protected against rise of far-right MAGA fascism. President Biden made multiple speeches about this throughout the year. Maybe you were living in a cave at the time? Because despite what you think of yourself, you aren't some sort of lone seer pointing out something no one else is.

 

[nimelennar]

there's a little nugget of truth in his bullshit that those of us who lean more left easily overlook: big tech companies control the platforms on which massive amounts of our public discourse happen

So, what do you suggest we do about it?

Dismantle capitalism? I'm sure you'll find some support in here; there are some dyed-in-the-wool anarcho-communists here. But probably not much support.

Dismantle the freedom of association and freedom of speech of corporations, so that they're not allowed to censor their users' speech? I find it hard to believe that would make it past even the liberals on SCOTUS, let alone the pro-corporate conservatives who voted for Citizens United. And, right now, we're seeing just a sliver of what that kind of future would look like as Musk guts his content moderation teams and lets all of the banned people back aboard, and it's not a pretty future.

I don't think anyone here would argue that having to lobby advertisers to exert leverage on social media companies to clean them up is any sort of ideal. But if you have a better solution than that, what is it?

 

[wastrel]

Musk uses the "freeze peach" version.

Tastes great after whirled peas.

 

[multimediavt]

You don't get 250B$ by being dumb or do you..

You get $250 billion by being fortunate (lucky). Those that say otherwise are completely unaware of how fortunate their lives have been.

 

[Seferino]

A little bit from column A and a little bit from column B.

What’s concerning is just how many people don’t understand the concept of freedom of speech and happily gobble up this kind of bs from the likes of Musk and GOP politicians. I am not sure if the schools, or the parents are a problem, or maybe all of the above. The reality is that this constant shouting about freedom of speech and twisting its meaning has the potential to truly destroy the concept in the US.

I would rephrase this: by now, Musk is a GOP politician. He has successfully absorbed all the traits of Donald Trump and proves to be just as good. While this crowd (including myself) finds him laughable and stupid, the other side of the aisle has started to hero worship him.

I agree with you that this constant shouting is extremely dangerous. Sadly, it works.

 

[johnsonwax]

Apple seems to have grossed somewhere north of $15B total from the app store in 2021 (excluding payments to developers). Apple' store has about 3.5M apps, so the average take per app is about $400 a year, which often covers multiple releases of an app. I daresay that Apple might process 15M app releases a year, so the take per app release is about $100. I'm sure it is a profitable business, but costs can pile up if any manual validation of a release is required, as well as developer and customer support, so it might not be AS profitable as it might at first appear.

And what that has to do with "free speech", I have no idea.

It's not the 3.5M apps. It's the 35 billion annual downloads, so about $0.40 per download. I have no idea how representative my personal phone is, but looking back at the last week, my phone is doing about 10 updates per day out of about 150 apps on the phone (I need to do some housekeeping, apparently) which implies maybe 5% of apps update daily? So 35 billion initial downloads leads to 1.75 billion updates daily, or about 640 billion updates per year. So order of magnitude Apple is collecting about $0.02 per download (that's me rounding down at every step as well).

None of this sounds outrageous. There are almost no businesses that can operate averaging $0.40 per transaction. And Apple is taking considerable future risk with this business model because they are providing free updates to users seemingly indefinitely. I bought Minecraft 11 years ago and have gotten however many free updates Microsoft wants to push out there. They can't exceed more than 1 per couple of days because Apple's ability to review and process them doesn't go faster than that, but Apple has agreed to provide that infrastructure free of charge after the initial purchase is made. 30% of an Office 365 subscription sounds like a lot of money, but Apple is providing my subscription with free updates even though my 365 sub didn't go through Apple. They never got a penny of that sub commission, and have been providing updates for what, 8 years? And those are big updates.

 

[ranthog]

So, what do you suggest we do about it?

Dismantle capitalism? I'm sure you'll find some support in here; there are some dyed-in-the-wool anarcho-communists here. But probably not much support.

Dismantle the freedom of association and freedom of speech of corporations, so that they're not allowed to censor their users' speech? I find it hard to believe that would make it past even the liberals on SCOTUS, let alone the pro-corporate conservatives who voted for Citizens United. And, right now, we're seeing just a sliver of what that kind of future would look like as Musk guts his content moderation teams and lets all of the banned people back aboard, and it's not a pretty future.

I don't think anyone here would argue that having to lobby advertisers to exert leverage on social media companies to clean them up is any sort of ideal. But if you have a better solution than that, what is it?

4 of the 9 justices in a recent case were in their dissent willing to rule on the merits of a case here and now when they were only reviewing an order staying a law. The actual merits of the case were never presented to the court nor were they the subject of the matter at hand.

Assuming the court is going to follow the law is not a good one right now. At least 4 of them have no regard even for judicial procedure.

 

[ranthog]

It's not the 3.5M apps. It's the 35 billion annual downloads, so about $0.40 per download. I have no idea how representative my personal phone is, but looking back at the last week, my phone is doing about 10 updates per day out of about 150 apps on the phone (I need to do some housekeeping, apparently) which implies maybe 5% of apps update daily? So 35 billion initial downloads leads to 1.75 billion updates daily, or about 640 billion updates per year. So order of magnitude Apple is collecting about $0.02 per download (that's me rounding down at every step as well).

None of this sounds outrageous. There are almost no businesses that can operate averaging $0.40 per transaction. And Apple is taking considerable future risk with this business model because they are providing free updates to users seemingly indefinitely. I bought Minecraft 11 years ago and have gotten however many free updates Microsoft wants to push out there. They can't exceed more than 1 per couple of days because Apple's ability to review and process them doesn't go faster than that, but Apple has agreed to provide that infrastructure free of charge after the initial purchase is made. 30% of an Office 365 subscription sounds like a lot of money, but Apple is providing my subscription with free updates even though my 365 sub didn't go through Apple. They never got a penny of that sub commission, and have been providing updates for what, 8 years? And those are big updates.

Except of course you can survive and make huge profits off of very small margins per transacation when you have high volume and low cost transactions.