6 ms·

Good for Elon, at least he has the courage to stand by his beliefs and ideals enough to actually try allowing as much free speech as possible. We'll see how we

Good for Elon, at least he has the courage to stand by his beliefs and ideals enough to actually try allowing as much free speech as possible. We'll see how well it works out long term. My personal experience with Twitter hasn't changed significantly since Elon took over. I think rather than having opaque moderation, Community Notes / Birdwatch does a much better job at calling out bad posts. Rather than trying to sweep bad content under the rug, we confront it and call out any inaccuracies. The real power of Community Notes is that anyone can get called out. Even Elon's own posts have gotten Community Notes a couple times.

workingdog 3y ago
The Community Notes are generally trustworthy. They've given me reasons to change my perceptions as I know they're not one-sided.
pupppet 3y ago
> The real power of Community Notes is that anyone can get called out. Even Elon's own posts have gotten Community Notes a couple times. And promptly pointed out how community notes are being gamed when this happens. Call me crazy but I don’t think the guy who routinely converses with Nazis will be applying his “free speech absolutist” ideals uniformly.
- asguy 3y ago
  > the guy who routinely converses with Nazis Elon routinely converses with Nazis? Which ones?
root_axis 3y ago
> at least he has the courage to stand by his beliefs and ideals enough to actually try allowing as much free speech as possible. I see this sentiment a lot, but how do you reconcile that with his explicitly anti-free speech behavior. Censoring links for people he doesn't like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33991136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33991136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35565359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35565359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34035149 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34035149 Censoring links to competitor websites https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35482222 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35482222 Banning ads that disagree with his personal politics https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36916334 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36916334 and many other examples.
- simonw 3y ago
  That time he banned all links to all Mastodon instances was a particularly egregious example of that. He backed down after some very prominent people made it clear that this was a laughably poor move.
- bitshiftfaced 3y ago
  I'm not the parent poster. But someone can appreciate aspects of Musk's business decisions while simultaneously agreeing with you that there are counterexamples and may dislike those. I don't understand why that would be difficult to reconcile. Real life is cloudy and murky, and that doesn't mean people can't acknowledge the times someone gets it right.
  - root_axis 3y ago
    The comment I replied to stated that Elon is courageously adhering to his principles of free speech, but the examples I have provided directly contradict that sentiment. It's clear that Elon is ok with repeatedly disregarding his stated principles if it suits his personal or political agenda. As the owner of Twitter, that's entirely his prerogative, but I don't see how one can reconcile his stated values with his actual behavior.
    - Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
      I think the OC might win this on a technicality which is that he said 'his principles of free speech' instead of just 'principles of free speech'. That 'his' qualifier indicates the specific principles belonging to Elon Musk which evidence proves to be along the lines of 'allowing speech I like, censoring speech I don't like'.
    - bitshiftfaced 3y ago
      My understanding was that the GP poster was making the point that Musk is allowing free speech even when he knows that people will criticize him when people post the kind of things that's mentioned in the article (the potential blowback of which is probably why you don't see these kind of decisions on most social media sites anymore). Wasn't that what GP was saying was courageous? I agree that it's not courageous to limit speech in some of the examples you posted. Probably at least some would make the case that he's courageous in general when it comes to free speech on Twitter and that he's also a flawed human being.

workingdog 3y ago

The Community Notes are generally trustworthy. They've given me reasons to change my perceptions as I know they're not one-sided.

pupppet 3y ago

> The real power of Community Notes is that anyone can get called out. Even Elon's own posts have gotten Community Notes a couple times. And promptly pointed out how community notes are being gamed when this happens. Call me crazy but I don’t think the guy who routinely converses with Nazis will be applying his “free speech absolutist” ideals uniformly.

asguy 3y ago
> the guy who routinely converses with Nazis Elon routinely converses with Nazis? Which ones?

root_axis 3y ago

> at least he has the courage to stand by his beliefs and ideals enough to actually try allowing as much free speech as possible. I see this sentiment a lot, but how do you reconcile that with his explicitly anti-free speech behavior. Censoring links for people he doesn't like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33991136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33991136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35565359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35565359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34035149 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34035149 Censoring links to competitor websites https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35482222 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35482222 Banning ads that disagree with his personal politics https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36916334 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36916334 and many other examples.

simonw 3y ago
That time he banned all links to all Mastodon instances was a particularly egregious example of that. He backed down after some very prominent people made it clear that this was a laughably poor move.
bitshiftfaced 3y ago
I'm not the parent poster. But someone can appreciate aspects of Musk's business decisions while simultaneously agreeing with you that there are counterexamples and may dislike those. I don't understand why that would be difficult to reconcile. Real life is cloudy and murky, and that doesn't mean people can't acknowledge the times someone gets it right.
- root_axis 3y ago
  The comment I replied to stated that Elon is courageously adhering to his principles of free speech, but the examples I have provided directly contradict that sentiment. It's clear that Elon is ok with repeatedly disregarding his stated principles if it suits his personal or political agenda. As the owner of Twitter, that's entirely his prerogative, but I don't see how one can reconcile his stated values with his actual behavior.
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
    I think the OC might win this on a technicality which is that he said 'his principles of free speech' instead of just 'principles of free speech'. That 'his' qualifier indicates the specific principles belonging to Elon Musk which evidence proves to be along the lines of 'allowing speech I like, censoring speech I don't like'.
  - bitshiftfaced 3y ago
    My understanding was that the GP poster was making the point that Musk is allowing free speech even when he knows that people will criticize him when people post the kind of things that's mentioned in the article (the potential blowback of which is probably why you don't see these kind of decisions on most social media sites anymore). Wasn't that what GP was saying was courageous? I agree that it's not courageous to limit speech in some of the examples you posted. Probably at least some would make the case that he's courageous in general when it comes to free speech on Twitter and that he's also a flawed human being.