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> boy is Elon the wrong person to own a platform that should respect free speech and be neutral Given twitter has not respected free speech, and Elon has no tr

> boy is Elon the wrong person to own a platform that should respect free speech and be neutral Given twitter has not respected free speech, and Elon has no track record (AFAIK) of thwarting free speech, what makes him so wrong?

jsemrau 5y ago
I just leave this here. https://www.businessinsider.com/free-speech-absolutist-elon-musk-censors-employees-critics-2022-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/free-speech-absolutist-elon-...
acallan 5y ago
Do you have any examples of Twitter arresting or imprisoning people for speech, or acquiescing to government censorship? Perhaps you are instead to moderating their private platform and enforcing community guidelines? I understand the latter can be annoying, but it is a mistake to conflate the two, as free speech is something very special and important and in the US is in fact codified into the Bill of Rights. TL;DR free speech is between you and the government, not between you and someone else or some other company.
- rmbyrro 5y ago
  They claim to be a platform, not publishers, so they shouldn't be able to invoke publisher rights and be the judge of what can or cannot be published. Let the government do this mediation. Twitter should let people ask a judge to issue content take downs based on the law and just comply with it.
  - acallan 5y ago
    There is simply no meaningful legal distinction between the two in this context. See https://twitter.com/badsec230takes https://twitter.com/badsec230takes
  - pjc50 5y ago
    "Twitter is _not allowed_ to remove porn, spam, doxxing, or death threats without a court order (of what jurisdiction?)" would immediately collapse into goatse chaos.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - kylecordes 5y ago
      It's shocking how many otherwise smart people are naïve about this. Even those who have been around the Internet long enough to know full well what happens with any text box (or worse, image upload) offered.
    - rmbyrro 5y ago
      These are real issues, but I don't think we need to give Twitter full power as arbiter of society's speech in order to curb them.
- ramblerman 5y ago
  > but it is a mistake to conflate the two That's up for debate. Modern communication is so monopolized by twitter/FB that the argument of "they are a private company" no longer holds. We can bemoan Russian interference in the elections all we want. But the power Twitter/FB hold is far more impactful on domestic and international democracy than any russian agent every could be.
- LewisVerstappen 5y ago
  > TL;DR free speech is between you and the government, not between you and someone else or some other company. Yes, everyone knows that. It's a bit different though when you have massive social media platforms that have monopolies over public discourse.
  - acallan 5y ago
    Imagine a scenario where Twitter and Facebook lose their ability to unconditionally moderate the content of their platforms. Presumably they would need to check with government censors first? Again, I understand how annoying moderation can be! I just don't understand the alternative and I do not see how this alternative is not a huge violation of the First Amendment — this would precisely be the government telling private companies what they can and cannot publish.
    - LewisVerstappen 5y ago
      > I just don't understand the alternative Well, one alternative would be that they have to decouple their front-end and back-end and provide open APIs to their backend (posts/tweets, friends lists, etc.). Facebook/Twitter can moderate/censor whatever they want on their own front-ends, but they can't remove anything from the backend. People/companies can build alternative front-end apps that access the fb/twitter graphs and censor in a different way - so that users have an alternative.
      - pjc50 5y ago
        See above: _not allowed_ to remove porn, spam, doxxing, or death threats without a court order (of what jurisdiction?) => immediate chaos (Note that FOSTA/SESTA already imposes a proactive legal obligation to censor within the US, and overrides s230)
  - ascendantlogic 5y ago
    > It's a bit different though No, it's not. If you want corporations to be beholden to the first amendment then pass laws saying that private companies can no longer moderate their platforms, full stop.
- pjc50 5y ago
  Twitter complies with e.g. German government censorship of Nazis: https://twitter.com/antumbral/status/876843545100824576?lang=en https://twitter.com/antumbral/status/876843545100824576?lang... (the term gets thrown around a lot, and has been devalued into meaninglessness by the Russian government, but it does have a legal meaning in Germany and France)
  - throwaway0x7E6 5y ago
    >by the Russian government really now?
    - pjc50 5y ago
      Yes, their "denazification of Ukraine" propaganda, expanding from the presence of some far-right militia activity in some places to justifying the mass murder of civilians. That and its excessive use on social media renders "Nazi" mostly useless as a descriptor, outside of those groups that explicitly and deliberately reference Nazi symbology and ideology.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > expanding from the presence of some far-right militia activity in some places Note: smaller than that of the same ideological but different geopolitical alignment that Russia has been sponsoring for years (Azov exists, but it's smaller than Sparta) in the same conflict.
      - throwaway0x7E6 5y ago
        I didn't mean the russian propaganda. I meant the western media that had branded anyone with the most milquetoast traditional views as nazis for the past 7 years. The fucking canadian truckers were branded as fascists, for fuck's sake. did NSDAP protest against COVID-19 vaccine mandates too? >some far-right militia activity in some places FYI, those guy with wolfsangel and black sun insignias and swastika tattoos are not a militia but a legitimate unit of Ukraine's national guard https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/sonnenrad https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/sonnen... https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/wolfsangel https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/wolfsa...
- Eddy_Viscosity2 5y ago
  Free speech in terms of the first amendment is about government censorship, but in todays society with only a handful of giant media and tech companies controlling the vast majority of information flow, then free speech takes on a the second meaning about corporate or private censorship. It may not be illegal, but that doesn't mean its ok. And for the record, I do no support completely unmoderated media - that would be a nightmare. Free speech in both forms are, and will always be, very tricky things to deal with.
  - Jcowell 5y ago
    Should it? Should free speech be extended beyond the bounds of government and if so doesn’t that contradict its original meaning by making the government restrict who should and shouldn’t provide uncensored free speech?
    - Eddy_Viscosity2 5y ago
      I said it was tricky. But, for example, there could be stronger laws against media which contains objectively provable lies.
    - acallan 5y ago
      > there could be stronger laws against media which contains objectively provable lies this is a clear violation of the First Amendment, which makes it legal to publish lies.
      - Eddy_Viscosity2 5y ago
        What about slander and libel laws or laws about claims made in advertisements?
      - acallan 5y ago
        > What about slander and libel laws or laws about claims made in advertisements? Yep — here we're getting into Prior Restraint. It's both against the law to restrain free speech such as lies, but as you rightly point out, this speech can have other legal consequences.
- aaaaaaaaata 5y ago
  This is not only repetitive, but anti-human pedantry. Tell them to call it freedom of expression if you're so inclined, and keep supporting their fight for it. Anything less is detracting from their point, seemingly intentionally.
  - acallan 5y ago
    My position is that the moderation and content policies ("community guidelines") that private companies and individuals have is also a form of expression. For example, this explains the legality of op/ed pages of newspapers publishing the viewpoints which they choose to, and omitting others. You could sue Fox News or Twitter for censoring or omitting your viewpoint, but this case would not and, in my opinion, should not, be successful.
    - HereIGoAgain 5y ago
      But how much, if at all, should a public company, without a single owner actually have. And if so, who should decide what the stances are? I mean the very people that now suddenly defend "private" property rights are generally the same who argue against personhood for corporations outright and in total.
- throwaway0x7E6 5y ago
  nobody is accusing twitter of violating the 1A
- namelessoracle 5y ago
  When major corporations stop receiving billions of dollars of my taxes and special legislation and other carve outs and also don't openly court being agents of political parties then i can start treating the difference seriously.
Eddy_Viscosity2 5y ago
That whole "pedo guy" episode really showed us that Elon is just a another narcissistic bully who only really cares about anything up to the point that its about him.
- jokethrowaway 5y ago
  He won that cause. "Pedo guy" is not defamation, just an insult barked back at someone who told him to stick a submarine where the sun doesn't shine. Not the classiest response, but nothing to cry about. Considering we're talking about someone who's footing the bill to make significant innovation in multiple sectors, I still view him favourably. I disagree with him politically on a few topics and agree on others. I hope it's not going to be like DuckDuckGo, which started like a service against Google biased / curated results and ended up manually hiding what they deemed russian propaganda during the latest war, effectively doing what Google was doing.
  - bambax 5y ago
    He insulted that man because he cast a shadow on his own useless and clueless "efforts" to help. But Musk wasn't helping, just doing cheap PR; the insulted man was actually helping. That's despicable. He's an evil narcissist and a dangerous person.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      "He's an evil narcissist and a dangerous person. " This absolutist and judgmental attitude is what makes social networks hell. I wonder what your worst moment was and whether it happened offline or online, and how would you like to be judged for it by others. Too many people cosplay the Old Testament God.
      - bambax 5y ago
        > worst moment It was not just a "moment"; he could have said that he misspoke and that he was sorry. But he persisted, and put up a nonsensical defense where he said "pedo" was a kind of nice nickname in his home country in his youth (which nobody corroborated). He showed that what he wants is eradicate opponents and will stop at nothing. That's probably what has brought him where he is. But we don't have to respect it.

jsemrau 5y ago

I just leave this here. https://www.businessinsider.com/free-speech-absolutist-elon-musk-censors-employees-critics-2022-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/free-speech-absolutist-elon-...

acallan 5y ago

Do you have any examples of Twitter arresting or imprisoning people for speech, or acquiescing to government censorship? Perhaps you are instead to moderating their private platform and enforcing community guidelines? I understand the latter can be annoying, but it is a mistake to conflate the two, as free speech is something very special and important and in the US is in fact codified into the Bill of Rights. TL;DR free speech is between you and the government, not between you and someone else or some other company.

rmbyrro 5y ago
They claim to be a platform, not publishers, so they shouldn't be able to invoke publisher rights and be the judge of what can or cannot be published. Let the government do this mediation. Twitter should let people ask a judge to issue content take downs based on the law and just comply with it.
- acallan 5y ago
  There is simply no meaningful legal distinction between the two in this context. See https://twitter.com/badsec230takes https://twitter.com/badsec230takes
- pjc50 5y ago
  "Twitter is _not allowed_ to remove porn, spam, doxxing, or death threats without a court order (of what jurisdiction?)" would immediately collapse into goatse chaos.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - kylecordes 5y ago
    It's shocking how many otherwise smart people are naïve about this. Even those who have been around the Internet long enough to know full well what happens with any text box (or worse, image upload) offered.
  - rmbyrro 5y ago
    These are real issues, but I don't think we need to give Twitter full power as arbiter of society's speech in order to curb them.
ramblerman 5y ago
> but it is a mistake to conflate the two That's up for debate. Modern communication is so monopolized by twitter/FB that the argument of "they are a private company" no longer holds. We can bemoan Russian interference in the elections all we want. But the power Twitter/FB hold is far more impactful on domestic and international democracy than any russian agent every could be.
LewisVerstappen 5y ago
> TL;DR free speech is between you and the government, not between you and someone else or some other company. Yes, everyone knows that. It's a bit different though when you have massive social media platforms that have monopolies over public discourse.
- acallan 5y ago
  Imagine a scenario where Twitter and Facebook lose their ability to unconditionally moderate the content of their platforms. Presumably they would need to check with government censors first? Again, I understand how annoying moderation can be! I just don't understand the alternative and I do not see how this alternative is not a huge violation of the First Amendment — this would precisely be the government telling private companies what they can and cannot publish.
  - LewisVerstappen 5y ago
    > I just don't understand the alternative Well, one alternative would be that they have to decouple their front-end and back-end and provide open APIs to their backend (posts/tweets, friends lists, etc.). Facebook/Twitter can moderate/censor whatever they want on their own front-ends, but they can't remove anything from the backend. People/companies can build alternative front-end apps that access the fb/twitter graphs and censor in a different way - so that users have an alternative.
    - pjc50 5y ago
      See above: _not allowed_ to remove porn, spam, doxxing, or death threats without a court order (of what jurisdiction?) => immediate chaos (Note that FOSTA/SESTA already imposes a proactive legal obligation to censor within the US, and overrides s230)
- ascendantlogic 5y ago
  > It's a bit different though No, it's not. If you want corporations to be beholden to the first amendment then pass laws saying that private companies can no longer moderate their platforms, full stop.
pjc50 5y ago
Twitter complies with e.g. German government censorship of Nazis: https://twitter.com/antumbral/status/876843545100824576?lang=en https://twitter.com/antumbral/status/876843545100824576?lang... (the term gets thrown around a lot, and has been devalued into meaninglessness by the Russian government, but it does have a legal meaning in Germany and France)
- throwaway0x7E6 5y ago
  >by the Russian government really now?
  - pjc50 5y ago
    Yes, their "denazification of Ukraine" propaganda, expanding from the presence of some far-right militia activity in some places to justifying the mass murder of civilians. That and its excessive use on social media renders "Nazi" mostly useless as a descriptor, outside of those groups that explicitly and deliberately reference Nazi symbology and ideology.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > expanding from the presence of some far-right militia activity in some places Note: smaller than that of the same ideological but different geopolitical alignment that Russia has been sponsoring for years (Azov exists, but it's smaller than Sparta) in the same conflict.
    - throwaway0x7E6 5y ago
      I didn't mean the russian propaganda. I meant the western media that had branded anyone with the most milquetoast traditional views as nazis for the past 7 years. The fucking canadian truckers were branded as fascists, for fuck's sake. did NSDAP protest against COVID-19 vaccine mandates too? >some far-right militia activity in some places FYI, those guy with wolfsangel and black sun insignias and swastika tattoos are not a militia but a legitimate unit of Ukraine's national guard https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/sonnenrad https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/sonnen... https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/wolfsangel https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/wolfsa...
Eddy_Viscosity2 5y ago
Free speech in terms of the first amendment is about government censorship, but in todays society with only a handful of giant media and tech companies controlling the vast majority of information flow, then free speech takes on a the second meaning about corporate or private censorship. It may not be illegal, but that doesn't mean its ok. And for the record, I do no support completely unmoderated media - that would be a nightmare. Free speech in both forms are, and will always be, very tricky things to deal with.
- Jcowell 5y ago
  Should it? Should free speech be extended beyond the bounds of government and if so doesn’t that contradict its original meaning by making the government restrict who should and shouldn’t provide uncensored free speech?
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 5y ago
    I said it was tricky. But, for example, there could be stronger laws against media which contains objectively provable lies.
  - acallan 5y ago
    > there could be stronger laws against media which contains objectively provable lies this is a clear violation of the First Amendment, which makes it legal to publish lies.
    - Eddy_Viscosity2 5y ago
      What about slander and libel laws or laws about claims made in advertisements?
    - acallan 5y ago
      > What about slander and libel laws or laws about claims made in advertisements? Yep — here we're getting into Prior Restraint. It's both against the law to restrain free speech such as lies, but as you rightly point out, this speech can have other legal consequences.
aaaaaaaaata 5y ago
This is not only repetitive, but anti-human pedantry. Tell them to call it freedom of expression if you're so inclined, and keep supporting their fight for it. Anything less is detracting from their point, seemingly intentionally.
- acallan 5y ago
  My position is that the moderation and content policies ("community guidelines") that private companies and individuals have is also a form of expression. For example, this explains the legality of op/ed pages of newspapers publishing the viewpoints which they choose to, and omitting others. You could sue Fox News or Twitter for censoring or omitting your viewpoint, but this case would not and, in my opinion, should not, be successful.
  - HereIGoAgain 5y ago
    But how much, if at all, should a public company, without a single owner actually have. And if so, who should decide what the stances are? I mean the very people that now suddenly defend "private" property rights are generally the same who argue against personhood for corporations outright and in total.
throwaway0x7E6 5y ago
nobody is accusing twitter of violating the 1A
namelessoracle 5y ago
When major corporations stop receiving billions of dollars of my taxes and special legislation and other carve outs and also don't openly court being agents of political parties then i can start treating the difference seriously.

Eddy_Viscosity2 5y ago

That whole "pedo guy" episode really showed us that Elon is just a another narcissistic bully who only really cares about anything up to the point that its about him.

jokethrowaway 5y ago
He won that cause. "Pedo guy" is not defamation, just an insult barked back at someone who told him to stick a submarine where the sun doesn't shine. Not the classiest response, but nothing to cry about. Considering we're talking about someone who's footing the bill to make significant innovation in multiple sectors, I still view him favourably. I disagree with him politically on a few topics and agree on others. I hope it's not going to be like DuckDuckGo, which started like a service against Google biased / curated results and ended up manually hiding what they deemed russian propaganda during the latest war, effectively doing what Google was doing.
- bambax 5y ago
  He insulted that man because he cast a shadow on his own useless and clueless "efforts" to help. But Musk wasn't helping, just doing cheap PR; the insulted man was actually helping. That's despicable. He's an evil narcissist and a dangerous person.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    "He's an evil narcissist and a dangerous person. " This absolutist and judgmental attitude is what makes social networks hell. I wonder what your worst moment was and whether it happened offline or online, and how would you like to be judged for it by others. Too many people cosplay the Old Testament God.
    - bambax 5y ago
      > worst moment It was not just a "moment"; he could have said that he misspoke and that he was sorry. But he persisted, and put up a nonsensical defense where he said "pedo" was a kind of nice nickname in his home country in his youth (which nobody corroborated). He showed that what he wants is eradicate opponents and will stop at nothing. That's probably what has brought him where he is. But we don't have to respect it.