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I don't really love the notion of billionaires buying up media; but given how incredibly important twitter has become to media and its influence on democracy an

I don't really love the notion of billionaires buying up media; but given how incredibly important twitter has become to media and its influence on democracy and politics, I think it's a huge improvement that a free speech advocate will be in charge at least. I don't buy that content "moderation" (ahem, or as it should be called, censorship) is desirable when a tech company can silence people that have legit-if-undesirable influence on the world.

mhoad 5y ago
His words might suggest free speech advocate but his actions do not
- xwdv 5y ago
- avs733 5y ago
  Yeah but he’s rich so we are compelled to take him at his word
- overgard 5y ago
  I would think putting up 43 billion of your own dollars to protect free speech is a pretty strong action. Not that I think all his motives are pure; TBH I'd rather some other mechanism of enforcing free speech that doesn't involve the media being the plaything of billionaires. However, given the awful situation right now, I think I'd prefer Musk to the current board.
pavlov 5y ago
The problem with this line of thought is that there are sites like Gab that serve the exact same purpose as Twitter but without content moderation. And the problems there are pretty obvious. How does Musk-Twitter avoid becoming Gab? Or is that actually somehow a desirable outcome?
heavyset_go 5y ago
> I think it's a huge improvement that a free speech advocate will be in charge at least Musk tried to have an employee whistleblower murdered by the police by falsely accusing him of being a mass shooter and having him SWAT'd[1]. That is not something a "free speech advocate" would do if they were sincere about advocating for free speech. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon-musk-tried-to-destroy-tesla-whistleblower-martin-tripp https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon...
- asdf3243245q 5y ago
  I read that article with interest, but there's nothing in there that says "Musk tried to have an employee whistleblower murdered by the police by falsely accusing him of being a mass shooter". It says that Tesla contacted law enforcement about an anonymous tip that the whistleblower was planning a mass shooting. It also says that the whisteblower expressed the opinion that Musk might be the caller.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    From the article: > Tesla fired Tripp on June 19. > The following day, news of the lawsuit hit the internet. Tripp Googled himself and saw a story titled, “Martin Tripp: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know,” which said he lived in a rental apartment in nearby Sparks, Nev. Panicked about who might come find him, he sent an email to Musk. “You have what’s coming to you for the lies you have told to the public and investors,” he wrote. > His former boss, of course, engaged him with gusto. “Threatening me only makes it worse for you,” Musk replied. Later, he wrote: “You should be ashamed of yourself for framing other people. You’re a horrible human being.” > “I NEVER ‘framed’ anyone else or even insinuated anyone else as being involved in my production of documents of your MILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF WASTE, Safety concerns, lying to investors/the WORLD,” Tripp responded. “Putting cars on the road with safety issues is being a horrible human being!” As Martin Tripp was emailing Musk, and Musk was emailing him, Musk made up a story about him coming to Tesla to shoot people: > The anonymous shooting tip was called in to a Tesla call center a few hours later; then Gouthro relayed it to the Storey sheriff’s office. Tesla also printed out a BOLO flyer—short for “be on the lookout”—with Tripp’s smiling face on it and the words “do not allow on property.” > After Gouthro had called the sheriff, he made a second call—to the private investigators he says Tesla kept on retainer, asking them to find Tripp. The PIs found Tripp before the police did, tracking him to the Nugget casino in Reno. Gouthro says his boss told him not to tell the cops that Tesla had Tripp followed. > Meanwhile, Musk emailed a reporter at the Guardian: “I was just told that we received a call at the Gigafactory that he was going to come back and shoot people,” Musk wrote. “I hope you all are safe,” the reporter replied. The call said nothing about a shooter. That was made up wholesale by Tesla and Musk. Higher ups at Tesla told subordinates to call the police with this claim that Musk made to reporters. Tesla refused to let the cops interview or investigate further on the situation, and the sheriff reiterates that the call Tesla claims they got said nothing about a shooter, despite Musk's insistence that he was coming to shoot up the place: > Gerald Antinoro is the sheriff, and he looks the part, dressed in black cowboy boots, a black denim jacket, and black Wranglers, with a pistol on his hip. In an interview in his office months after the incident, he still seems both mystified and amused by the Tesla shooting threat. The sheriff says that when he’d looked into the anonymous call after police confronted Tripp, the threat seemed less threatening than the company made it sound. The caller said Tripp was volatile but didn’t say he was on his way to shoot up the place. “You remember playing telephone as a kid?” Antinoro asks. “It got blown out of proportion.” He dropped the investigation when Tesla declined to make available a colleague of Tripp’s who might have called in the tip. Even after the sheriff told the company that the threat was fake, they continued to insist that Martin Tripp was a mass shooter: > To Antinoro, one of the strangest parts of the situation was that after he told the company the threat was false, it asked him to put out a press release hyping it. He declined, but Tesla publicized the incident anyway. The morning after the threat was debunked, a spokesman texted another reporter: "Yesterday afternoon we received a phone call from a friend of Mr. Tripp telling us that Mr. Tripp would be coming to the Gigafactory to 'shoot the place up.'"
saila 5y ago
There is a 0% chance that all moderation will be removed from Twitter. It would turn into a complete cesspool if that happened and alienate large segments of the user base. So the only question is how the moderation will differ from what they do now. It's easy to say it should be better, which I agree with generally, but it's an extremely hard problem to solve well.
- brailsafe 5y ago
  I agree that there's a 0% chance that 100% of moderation will go away, but isn't it the basic idea of communication that someone will always be alienated? Large segments of any user base are always alienated from things they aren't a part of by necessity.
- overgard 5y ago
  I think there's a real difference between moderation in line with the first amendment (dont make threats or shout fire in a theatre) vs. banning "misinformation". The latter is in the style of "don't question why big pharmaceutical companies don't want studies on cheap generic drugs that could help with covid". The latter gets branded "misinformation" with no real thought put behind it. Questions like that are central to healthy democracy and the current iteration of twitter is more than happy to silence things like that for the wealthy elites.
  - avs733 5y ago
    Twitter is not the government. They are a corporation. Anything they choose to censor (or not) is perfectly in line with the first amendment.
    - overgard 5y ago
      Technically true, but you're missing the point and the heart of the debate. Yes they have legal standing to do this. Is it healthy for society though? A lot of people think not, hence why they're about to be bought and the board is likely to be replaced.
ulkesh 5y ago
> people that have legit-if-undesirable influence on the world You can say Trump. Because that's what this buy-out is about. Musk can call it what he wants (free speech, transparency, etc), but his intention is clear to anyone with a brain -- unbanning Trump. Once that happens, I'll be happily finding myself off of Twitter and any other platform that allows a "legit" (and proven) dangerous lying narcissist to find their way onto my browser again.
- overgard 5y ago
  There are plenty of other people besides Trump that have been banned by twitter. I'm more interested in the people that were silenced for "COVID misinformation" and/or other forms of "misinformation" that turned out not to be misinformation at all but rather just didn't run in line with the mainstream consensus. With regard to Trump though, if half the country is listening to him anyway I want to know what idiotic things he's saying as opposed to just burying my head in the sand. Censorship has never historically worked, and it will continue to not work.
  - mwint 5y ago
    Man, we went through so many cycles of “You (shouldn’t/must) wear (one/two/three) masks because the virus is (not) aerosolized and anyway the vaccine(s) (will be / are / weren’t) effective enough (to keep you off a ventilator / to keep you from having unspecified long term impacts that elude well-designed studies but we’re sure they exist).

mhoad 5y ago

His words might suggest free speech advocate but his actions do not

xwdv 5y ago
avs733 5y ago
Yeah but he’s rich so we are compelled to take him at his word
overgard 5y ago
I would think putting up 43 billion of your own dollars to protect free speech is a pretty strong action. Not that I think all his motives are pure; TBH I'd rather some other mechanism of enforcing free speech that doesn't involve the media being the plaything of billionaires. However, given the awful situation right now, I think I'd prefer Musk to the current board.

pavlov 5y ago

The problem with this line of thought is that there are sites like Gab that serve the exact same purpose as Twitter but without content moderation. And the problems there are pretty obvious. How does Musk-Twitter avoid becoming Gab? Or is that actually somehow a desirable outcome?

heavyset_go 5y ago

> I think it's a huge improvement that a free speech advocate will be in charge at least Musk tried to have an employee whistleblower murdered by the police by falsely accusing him of being a mass shooter and having him SWAT'd[1]. That is not something a "free speech advocate" would do if they were sincere about advocating for free speech. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon-musk-tried-to-destroy-tesla-whistleblower-martin-tripp https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon...

asdf3243245q 5y ago
I read that article with interest, but there's nothing in there that says "Musk tried to have an employee whistleblower murdered by the police by falsely accusing him of being a mass shooter". It says that Tesla contacted law enforcement about an anonymous tip that the whistleblower was planning a mass shooting. It also says that the whisteblower expressed the opinion that Musk might be the caller.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  From the article: > Tesla fired Tripp on June 19. > The following day, news of the lawsuit hit the internet. Tripp Googled himself and saw a story titled, “Martin Tripp: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know,” which said he lived in a rental apartment in nearby Sparks, Nev. Panicked about who might come find him, he sent an email to Musk. “You have what’s coming to you for the lies you have told to the public and investors,” he wrote. > His former boss, of course, engaged him with gusto. “Threatening me only makes it worse for you,” Musk replied. Later, he wrote: “You should be ashamed of yourself for framing other people. You’re a horrible human being.” > “I NEVER ‘framed’ anyone else or even insinuated anyone else as being involved in my production of documents of your MILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF WASTE, Safety concerns, lying to investors/the WORLD,” Tripp responded. “Putting cars on the road with safety issues is being a horrible human being!” As Martin Tripp was emailing Musk, and Musk was emailing him, Musk made up a story about him coming to Tesla to shoot people: > The anonymous shooting tip was called in to a Tesla call center a few hours later; then Gouthro relayed it to the Storey sheriff’s office. Tesla also printed out a BOLO flyer—short for “be on the lookout”—with Tripp’s smiling face on it and the words “do not allow on property.” > After Gouthro had called the sheriff, he made a second call—to the private investigators he says Tesla kept on retainer, asking them to find Tripp. The PIs found Tripp before the police did, tracking him to the Nugget casino in Reno. Gouthro says his boss told him not to tell the cops that Tesla had Tripp followed. > Meanwhile, Musk emailed a reporter at the Guardian: “I was just told that we received a call at the Gigafactory that he was going to come back and shoot people,” Musk wrote. “I hope you all are safe,” the reporter replied. The call said nothing about a shooter. That was made up wholesale by Tesla and Musk. Higher ups at Tesla told subordinates to call the police with this claim that Musk made to reporters. Tesla refused to let the cops interview or investigate further on the situation, and the sheriff reiterates that the call Tesla claims they got said nothing about a shooter, despite Musk's insistence that he was coming to shoot up the place: > Gerald Antinoro is the sheriff, and he looks the part, dressed in black cowboy boots, a black denim jacket, and black Wranglers, with a pistol on his hip. In an interview in his office months after the incident, he still seems both mystified and amused by the Tesla shooting threat. The sheriff says that when he’d looked into the anonymous call after police confronted Tripp, the threat seemed less threatening than the company made it sound. The caller said Tripp was volatile but didn’t say he was on his way to shoot up the place. “You remember playing telephone as a kid?” Antinoro asks. “It got blown out of proportion.” He dropped the investigation when Tesla declined to make available a colleague of Tripp’s who might have called in the tip. Even after the sheriff told the company that the threat was fake, they continued to insist that Martin Tripp was a mass shooter: > To Antinoro, one of the strangest parts of the situation was that after he told the company the threat was false, it asked him to put out a press release hyping it. He declined, but Tesla publicized the incident anyway. The morning after the threat was debunked, a spokesman texted another reporter: "Yesterday afternoon we received a phone call from a friend of Mr. Tripp telling us that Mr. Tripp would be coming to the Gigafactory to 'shoot the place up.'"

saila 5y ago

There is a 0% chance that all moderation will be removed from Twitter. It would turn into a complete cesspool if that happened and alienate large segments of the user base. So the only question is how the moderation will differ from what they do now. It's easy to say it should be better, which I agree with generally, but it's an extremely hard problem to solve well.

brailsafe 5y ago
I agree that there's a 0% chance that 100% of moderation will go away, but isn't it the basic idea of communication that someone will always be alienated? Large segments of any user base are always alienated from things they aren't a part of by necessity.
overgard 5y ago
I think there's a real difference between moderation in line with the first amendment (dont make threats or shout fire in a theatre) vs. banning "misinformation". The latter is in the style of "don't question why big pharmaceutical companies don't want studies on cheap generic drugs that could help with covid". The latter gets branded "misinformation" with no real thought put behind it. Questions like that are central to healthy democracy and the current iteration of twitter is more than happy to silence things like that for the wealthy elites.
- avs733 5y ago
  Twitter is not the government. They are a corporation. Anything they choose to censor (or not) is perfectly in line with the first amendment.
  - overgard 5y ago
    Technically true, but you're missing the point and the heart of the debate. Yes they have legal standing to do this. Is it healthy for society though? A lot of people think not, hence why they're about to be bought and the board is likely to be replaced.

ulkesh 5y ago

> people that have legit-if-undesirable influence on the world You can say Trump. Because that's what this buy-out is about. Musk can call it what he wants (free speech, transparency, etc), but his intention is clear to anyone with a brain -- unbanning Trump. Once that happens, I'll be happily finding myself off of Twitter and any other platform that allows a "legit" (and proven) dangerous lying narcissist to find their way onto my browser again.

overgard 5y ago
There are plenty of other people besides Trump that have been banned by twitter. I'm more interested in the people that were silenced for "COVID misinformation" and/or other forms of "misinformation" that turned out not to be misinformation at all but rather just didn't run in line with the mainstream consensus. With regard to Trump though, if half the country is listening to him anyway I want to know what idiotic things he's saying as opposed to just burying my head in the sand. Censorship has never historically worked, and it will continue to not work.
- mwint 5y ago
  Man, we went through so many cycles of “You (shouldn’t/must) wear (one/two/three) masks because the virus is (not) aerosolized and anyway the vaccine(s) (will be / are / weren’t) effective enough (to keep you off a ventilator / to keep you from having unspecified long term impacts that elude well-designed studies but we’re sure they exist).