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> Musk thinks it's his job to influence public discourse. To be fair, that is not what he thinks. He is after truth/facts in public discourse without undue pol

> Musk thinks it's his job to influence public discourse. To be fair, that is not what he thinks. He is after truth/facts in public discourse without undue political influence from any political camp or government agency. The reason Democrats are rattled about this is the fact that the left has behaved badly in this regard. It is the reason for which this comment will be mercilessly downvoted and flagged. The truth, sometimes, hurts. And yet, it is the truth. My standard suggestion for anyone who can remain neutral and open-minded is to imagine the opposite scenario. In this case a Twitter and media dominated by right wing politics and influence, from every single employee all the way up to government and universities. That scenario would be just as horrific and undesirable as the current status quo. It is in everyone’s interest that the masses not be subjected to undue influence by any political party, not one. That’s what Musk wants. The fact that he is being vilified is a sad reflection of a simple reality: In politics those purporting to be one thing are often the opposite. People say they are for tolerance, equity, inclusion, fairness, open-mindedness, access, etc., and yet, in real life that’s a lie. The minute someone challenges their ability to own the means of communication and messaging none of those things matter. Remarkable.

Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
> He is after truth/facts in public discourse without undue political influence from any political camp This is what he said he wants, but is not consistent with his actions which is why is he being called out about it or 'vilified'. He also said he wanted to build a hyperloop in california, but it turns out he wasn't being honest about that either. The list goes on.
- robomartin 4y ago
  > This is what he said he wants, but is not consistent with his actions which is why is he being called out about it or 'vilified'. Have you ever run a non-trivial forum? I have, dating back to before the civilian internet was a thing. It isn't easy, at all. It is by now clear that the Twitter innards has some putrid components that must be dealt with. This isn't easy. This isn't clean. This is going to be chaotic, nasty, difficult, controversial, unpleasant and more. The only people complaining about Musk's Twitter path not being nice and linear are those who have never done or attempted to do anything even remotely approximating this level of difficulty. It is also those who refuse to be ideologically consistent and honest, which is the case for the majority of people regardless of their ideological bend. It's just human nature. Some of us are able to step out of such cognitive confinement and make an attempt to see the world with some degree of ideological neutrality. I'll give you a simple example of this. If we found that 98% of <insert large company name> employees anglo white men people would be up in arms about it. And rightly so. Large-scale racial uniformity does not lead to good outcomes. We know that somewhere around 98% of political donations from Twitter employees donated to the Democratic party. Not both parties, a single party. This is no different in terms of bad outcomes from racial uniformity. Ideological uniformity is a component of racism and racist and other behavior. When overwhelming ideological uniformity takes hold of an organization, it becomes, in many forms, racist. For example, if you apply for a job at a Christian organization having come from a university such as Berkeley, chances are you will be very low in the selection set. Apply at an ideologically leftist organization having come from a Christian organization and the outcome will be similar. Don't want to call it "racism"? Fine. Pick a word. Ideological, bigotry comes to mind. Social bigotry has the same component. An organization that is 98% devoid of LGBTQ elements will likely behave in a bigoted way with regards to adding LGBTQ members to their ranks. Everyone will quickly highlight and, in some cases, get angry about such things as racially-uniform and exclusionary organizations. However, when it comes to ideological uniformity, for some reason, people turn their brains down to 0 RPM and stop thinking. Maybe it is that they don't want to admit being wrong. That's very human as well. This is how our universities have hateful become leftist organizations with, in some cases, violently militant professors and students. How is this different from having a 100% white Nazi university. It isn't. It's the same thing along a different vector. The sooner we understand that ideological uniformity --REGARDLESS OF WHICH IDEOLOGY-- is massively bad for society and actively endeavor to not allow it, the sooner we will come to a point where we can start talking to each other again and get valuable things done. Until the, enjoy throwing feces at each other while accomplishing exactly nothing.
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
    If what you said was what he was doing then people would be fine with it. It isn't. There are plenty examples of ideological uniformity on the right in media, politics, and large institutions, but I don't see him (or you) criticizing any of them or calling for change.
    - robomartin 4y ago
      Make a lists of social networks, tv networks and universities. For each list, sort them into three columns based on ideology: Left, independent/balanced, Right. If you were intellectually honest about this, the number of entities on the Left will dwarf those in the other columns. That’s reality. When someone flips through channels on TV and 90% to 99% of the content is ideologically aligned to one side, that is damaging to a society. Your example is nothing less than ridiculous. Use race and gender instead of ideology and it might become obvious to you. For some reason people think of ideology in different terms. There is no difference. You do not want racial domination of institutions (by any race) any more than ideological (by any ideology).
      - Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
        Another possibility here is that you're own perspective may be biased more than you appreciate. 99% of media content is left leaning? Really? You would really have to do some work redefining the left/right spectrum for that to be anything close to true. What about financial institutions, police forces, energy companies and other mega corporations. Where do they list in your rankings? Are you worried about ideological uniformity there and advocate that they work to be more representative of leftist ideals in the same way you want tv networks to do for conservative principles? When employees at starbucks or amazon get harrassed or fired by their employers for engaging in constitutionally protected activities like organizing a union, where was the right in saying that although they may not agree with them that they will defend their rights and that they don't support cancelling people for expressing their ideals. Was the right there on the side of railway workers who keep the economy running supporting their rights to strike or did they try and cancel them by forcefully taking those rights away? Which side was the media on? The gender and race thing gets a lot of air time on Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiros shows, but there is a hell of lot more to the world than that.
orwin 4y ago
I really dislike using left/right in conversations, especially with US residents. Your discourse is typically conservative (and rejoice, even democrats carry the same, and I start to see 'socialists' doing the same, you're ideologically winning!). Group X does this, but groups Y and Z will do that instead! A more post-marxist discourse would be that a system in which a company can become and be treated as the world open forum while depending on advertising will limit freedom of speech and ban more than illegal speech anyway. You can also have a critic of the board composition. Or a critic of what 'diversity' mean in big international companies. Anyway, basic stuff, but thinking of systems rather than people (or group of people) is usually a good thing anyway. That's what scientists do.
jemmyw 4y ago
How can you possibly know what musk wants or thinks? This sounds like what you want, maybe what you want him to want.
- encryptluks2 4y ago
  If you research cults this is what happens.
- robomartin 4y ago
  > How can you possibly know what musk wants or thinks? This sounds like what you want, maybe what you want him to want. I don't know, maybe because he has come out and said it? https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/27/twitter-cannot-become-a-free-for-all-hellscape-musk-tells-advertisers.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/27/twitter-cannot-become-a-free... Quoting: “The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence,” “There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.” How about you take the time to research before belittling people?
  - jemmyw 4y ago
    He's said many things. He's said inconsistent things. For all we know he purchased Twitter just to shutdown that elon jet account. > How about you take the time to research before belittling people? My comment wasn't meant to belittle you or be a personal attack. My wording was borne of frustration. You and I cannot know what Musk thinks or wants. Reading and researching him isn't helpful either, he is a public persona and manages his PR. Not well recently IMO, but previously quite well. That means you absolutely cannot take at face value what he says. I'd say look to his actions, but they are all over the place too. He certainly doesn't seem to be taking Twitter in the direction of brining any kind of union between the left and right, unless his plan is to make a common enemy for everyone. Again, I'm not sure how wise it is to speculate.
    - 4y ago
kgwxd 4y ago
Democrats aren't "rattled" by this in the slightest, it's just an inconvenience to have to find a new platform that hasn't been taken over by a self-proclaimed "open-minded truth seeker" who has thoroughly proven they don't believe a single word they say. On the way out, a bunch are going to mock the hypocrite, it's that simple. We know what actual censorship is. It's being pushed every single day by republican politicians and oligarchs, fighting it takes persistent effort. It takes literally 0 effort to look at history and other parts of the world to clearly see where republican efforts lead. Luckily, since Twitter isn't a military backed government, it will be just a minor inconvenience to fight this time. I think this time it'll actually be better in the long run. Has a real Freenode -> Libera vibe. If you're going to defend a hypocrite, the only way you're not going to get downvoted is to show evidence that the hypocrite is _consistently_ not actually a hypocrite, you can't just provide a few examples where they happen to be sort of right. It has to _far_ outweigh the times they've been an indisputable hypocrite. I'm defending the left and I'm going to get downvoted too, due to my angry, fed up tone. Might even invoke the dang. But the values are consistent: be shitty, get downvoted and/or banned. Defending the right with the most hateful tone possible and throwing in some lie being pushed by the biggest players in the party gets you a better shot at running for public office. I've yet to hear a convincing argument for why I should trust consistent hypocrites and liars over occasional hypocrites and liars.
- robomartin 4y ago
  It isn't about the left or the right. Both sides have demented factions. Dominance of institutions by either side is bad for a society, any society, not just the US. History is full of examples of this. The history of Latin America, in particular, teaches us what can happen with repeating patterns through history. Patterns that we have now imported into the US with gusto. This, based on history, does not end well. As for democrats, or the left, take your pick, it is indisputable that the ideology has dominance over social media, technology, conventional media and educational institutions. This dominance has led to the current status quo, and scenarios such as what is being uncovered at Twitter. This isn't health for society. I have said this multiple times, the opposite (republican/right) would be just as bad. This does not lead to positive outcomes in the long run. And we have to fix it. Not sure how. If we don't, well, look at the history of Latin America to understand the kinds of things that can happen in the US (some of which already have). Perhaps it is the fact that I was educated in multiple countries and cultures that I am able to see through some of the fog that people who have only lived in the US can't seem to be able to cut through. When I talk to people from other nations who live in the US they can't believe what this country has allowed politics to become. Not to go too far, one of my neighbors is from Ukraine. She cannot believe just how far the US has allowed the left to impregnate so many institutions. I have friends from all over Latin America, the Middle East and even Soviet era USSR nations. Same opinion, without fail. Everyone thinks this is incredibly dangerous. Everyone except for Americans who do not know history and have no understanding of other cultures and what they have experienced. I know I am not going to convince anyone here. So be it. Perhaps one day, when things go to shit, people are going to learn the lesson. The hard way, as they say. Sometimes that's the only way people learn. Even worse, China is actively using this to help us destroy ourselves from the inside. It's a remarkable display of strategic stupidity on the part of the US. Brilliant.

Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago

> He is after truth/facts in public discourse without undue political influence from any political camp This is what he said he wants, but is not consistent with his actions which is why is he being called out about it or 'vilified'. He also said he wanted to build a hyperloop in california, but it turns out he wasn't being honest about that either. The list goes on.

robomartin 4y ago
> This is what he said he wants, but is not consistent with his actions which is why is he being called out about it or 'vilified'. Have you ever run a non-trivial forum? I have, dating back to before the civilian internet was a thing. It isn't easy, at all. It is by now clear that the Twitter innards has some putrid components that must be dealt with. This isn't easy. This isn't clean. This is going to be chaotic, nasty, difficult, controversial, unpleasant and more. The only people complaining about Musk's Twitter path not being nice and linear are those who have never done or attempted to do anything even remotely approximating this level of difficulty. It is also those who refuse to be ideologically consistent and honest, which is the case for the majority of people regardless of their ideological bend. It's just human nature. Some of us are able to step out of such cognitive confinement and make an attempt to see the world with some degree of ideological neutrality. I'll give you a simple example of this. If we found that 98% of <insert large company name> employees anglo white men people would be up in arms about it. And rightly so. Large-scale racial uniformity does not lead to good outcomes. We know that somewhere around 98% of political donations from Twitter employees donated to the Democratic party. Not both parties, a single party. This is no different in terms of bad outcomes from racial uniformity. Ideological uniformity is a component of racism and racist and other behavior. When overwhelming ideological uniformity takes hold of an organization, it becomes, in many forms, racist. For example, if you apply for a job at a Christian organization having come from a university such as Berkeley, chances are you will be very low in the selection set. Apply at an ideologically leftist organization having come from a Christian organization and the outcome will be similar. Don't want to call it "racism"? Fine. Pick a word. Ideological, bigotry comes to mind. Social bigotry has the same component. An organization that is 98% devoid of LGBTQ elements will likely behave in a bigoted way with regards to adding LGBTQ members to their ranks. Everyone will quickly highlight and, in some cases, get angry about such things as racially-uniform and exclusionary organizations. However, when it comes to ideological uniformity, for some reason, people turn their brains down to 0 RPM and stop thinking. Maybe it is that they don't want to admit being wrong. That's very human as well. This is how our universities have hateful become leftist organizations with, in some cases, violently militant professors and students. How is this different from having a 100% white Nazi university. It isn't. It's the same thing along a different vector. The sooner we understand that ideological uniformity --REGARDLESS OF WHICH IDEOLOGY-- is massively bad for society and actively endeavor to not allow it, the sooner we will come to a point where we can start talking to each other again and get valuable things done. Until the, enjoy throwing feces at each other while accomplishing exactly nothing.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
  If what you said was what he was doing then people would be fine with it. It isn't. There are plenty examples of ideological uniformity on the right in media, politics, and large institutions, but I don't see him (or you) criticizing any of them or calling for change.
  - robomartin 4y ago
    Make a lists of social networks, tv networks and universities. For each list, sort them into three columns based on ideology: Left, independent/balanced, Right. If you were intellectually honest about this, the number of entities on the Left will dwarf those in the other columns. That’s reality. When someone flips through channels on TV and 90% to 99% of the content is ideologically aligned to one side, that is damaging to a society. Your example is nothing less than ridiculous. Use race and gender instead of ideology and it might become obvious to you. For some reason people think of ideology in different terms. There is no difference. You do not want racial domination of institutions (by any race) any more than ideological (by any ideology).
    - Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
      Another possibility here is that you're own perspective may be biased more than you appreciate. 99% of media content is left leaning? Really? You would really have to do some work redefining the left/right spectrum for that to be anything close to true. What about financial institutions, police forces, energy companies and other mega corporations. Where do they list in your rankings? Are you worried about ideological uniformity there and advocate that they work to be more representative of leftist ideals in the same way you want tv networks to do for conservative principles? When employees at starbucks or amazon get harrassed or fired by their employers for engaging in constitutionally protected activities like organizing a union, where was the right in saying that although they may not agree with them that they will defend their rights and that they don't support cancelling people for expressing their ideals. Was the right there on the side of railway workers who keep the economy running supporting their rights to strike or did they try and cancel them by forcefully taking those rights away? Which side was the media on? The gender and race thing gets a lot of air time on Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiros shows, but there is a hell of lot more to the world than that.

orwin 4y ago

I really dislike using left/right in conversations, especially with US residents. Your discourse is typically conservative (and rejoice, even democrats carry the same, and I start to see 'socialists' doing the same, you're ideologically winning!). Group X does this, but groups Y and Z will do that instead! A more post-marxist discourse would be that a system in which a company can become and be treated as the world open forum while depending on advertising will limit freedom of speech and ban more than illegal speech anyway. You can also have a critic of the board composition. Or a critic of what 'diversity' mean in big international companies. Anyway, basic stuff, but thinking of systems rather than people (or group of people) is usually a good thing anyway. That's what scientists do.

jemmyw 4y ago

How can you possibly know what musk wants or thinks? This sounds like what you want, maybe what you want him to want.

encryptluks2 4y ago
If you research cults this is what happens.
robomartin 4y ago
> How can you possibly know what musk wants or thinks? This sounds like what you want, maybe what you want him to want. I don't know, maybe because he has come out and said it? https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/27/twitter-cannot-become-a-free-for-all-hellscape-musk-tells-advertisers.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/27/twitter-cannot-become-a-free... Quoting: “The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence,” “There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.” How about you take the time to research before belittling people?
- jemmyw 4y ago
  He's said many things. He's said inconsistent things. For all we know he purchased Twitter just to shutdown that elon jet account. > How about you take the time to research before belittling people? My comment wasn't meant to belittle you or be a personal attack. My wording was borne of frustration. You and I cannot know what Musk thinks or wants. Reading and researching him isn't helpful either, he is a public persona and manages his PR. Not well recently IMO, but previously quite well. That means you absolutely cannot take at face value what he says. I'd say look to his actions, but they are all over the place too. He certainly doesn't seem to be taking Twitter in the direction of brining any kind of union between the left and right, unless his plan is to make a common enemy for everyone. Again, I'm not sure how wise it is to speculate.
  - 4y ago

kgwxd 4y ago

Democrats aren't "rattled" by this in the slightest, it's just an inconvenience to have to find a new platform that hasn't been taken over by a self-proclaimed "open-minded truth seeker" who has thoroughly proven they don't believe a single word they say. On the way out, a bunch are going to mock the hypocrite, it's that simple. We know what actual censorship is. It's being pushed every single day by republican politicians and oligarchs, fighting it takes persistent effort. It takes literally 0 effort to look at history and other parts of the world to clearly see where republican efforts lead. Luckily, since Twitter isn't a military backed government, it will be just a minor inconvenience to fight this time. I think this time it'll actually be better in the long run. Has a real Freenode -> Libera vibe. If you're going to defend a hypocrite, the only way you're not going to get downvoted is to show evidence that the hypocrite is _consistently_ not actually a hypocrite, you can't just provide a few examples where they happen to be sort of right. It has to _far_ outweigh the times they've been an indisputable hypocrite. I'm defending the left and I'm going to get downvoted too, due to my angry, fed up tone. Might even invoke the dang. But the values are consistent: be shitty, get downvoted and/or banned. Defending the right with the most hateful tone possible and throwing in some lie being pushed by the biggest players in the party gets you a better shot at running for public office. I've yet to hear a convincing argument for why I should trust consistent hypocrites and liars over occasional hypocrites and liars.

robomartin 4y ago
It isn't about the left or the right. Both sides have demented factions. Dominance of institutions by either side is bad for a society, any society, not just the US. History is full of examples of this. The history of Latin America, in particular, teaches us what can happen with repeating patterns through history. Patterns that we have now imported into the US with gusto. This, based on history, does not end well. As for democrats, or the left, take your pick, it is indisputable that the ideology has dominance over social media, technology, conventional media and educational institutions. This dominance has led to the current status quo, and scenarios such as what is being uncovered at Twitter. This isn't health for society. I have said this multiple times, the opposite (republican/right) would be just as bad. This does not lead to positive outcomes in the long run. And we have to fix it. Not sure how. If we don't, well, look at the history of Latin America to understand the kinds of things that can happen in the US (some of which already have). Perhaps it is the fact that I was educated in multiple countries and cultures that I am able to see through some of the fog that people who have only lived in the US can't seem to be able to cut through. When I talk to people from other nations who live in the US they can't believe what this country has allowed politics to become. Not to go too far, one of my neighbors is from Ukraine. She cannot believe just how far the US has allowed the left to impregnate so many institutions. I have friends from all over Latin America, the Middle East and even Soviet era USSR nations. Same opinion, without fail. Everyone thinks this is incredibly dangerous. Everyone except for Americans who do not know history and have no understanding of other cultures and what they have experienced. I know I am not going to convince anyone here. So be it. Perhaps one day, when things go to shit, people are going to learn the lesson. The hard way, as they say. Sometimes that's the only way people learn. Even worse, China is actively using this to help us destroy ourselves from the inside. It's a remarkable display of strategic stupidity on the part of the US. Brilliant.