6 ms·

My understanding of the issue from afar, and watching 5 min from a Musk interview: Musk/X is for free speech, but also for following the local laws. In Brazil a

My understanding of the issue from afar, and watching 5 min from a Musk interview: Musk/X is for free speech, but also for following the local laws. In Brazil apparently the law against free speech was not clear enough. But now after 3 weeks I guess the Brazil law/stance has become more clear, no reason for Musk/X to fight for free speech if Brazil does not want it.

arlcode 2y ago
I rather suspect that he saw bad numbers and didn't get the public support he was expecting/hoping for to challenge the law. Probably Brazil can live without Twitter better than Twitter without Brazil
- alephnerd 2y ago
  > Probably Brazil can live without Twitter better than Twitter without Brazil Yep. Meta's WhatsApp is the critical social media app in Brazil (and most large countries excluding US, Canada, China, Thailand, SK, JP, and Vietnam)
  - bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
    It's not "critical". If Whatsapp vanished tomorrow it would get replaced by the next one so fast it would make your head spin. Not saying I can guess which one it would be, but one would win and people would carrying on with their lives just fine.
    - vitorgrs 2y ago
      Hm. Super true, but at the same time, it would annoy a lot of people, and there would be a social pressure to unlock WhatsApp. That's not the case with X. Isn't like X (or previously Twitter) ever had the amount of users that WhatsApp have in Brazil. If I recall, X have 20 million monthly active users, and yet it was the 4 or 5 country where X had most users. But for Brazil size, this is very ridiculous, WhatsApp have 170 million users in Brazil. This just shows how Twitter/X is small compared to other networks. It was always a small social network with relevant people.
curiousgal 2y ago
> Musk, free speech Now that's an oxymoron.
- yndoendo 2y ago
  People often rather live in a world they believe in versus the one that really exists. Think the term is Cognitive Distortions. Reality, Musk's X-Twitter free speech policy is about his personal tastes.[1] [2] My personal taste, I cannot support anyone that willfully pushes miss-information nor narratives that detract words and statements from their actual meanings. Miss-information, tell a lie long enough people will believe it. This how conversion therapy works and the movie "But I'm a Cheerleader" highlights this farce. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/29/x-caught-blocking-links-to-npr-claiming-the-news-site-may-be-unsafe/ https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/29/x-caught-blocking-links-to... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2023/07/02/elon-musk-deems-cis-a-twitter-slurheres-why-its-is-so-polarizing/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2023/07/02/elon-mus...
  - empiricus 2y ago
    But who decides what is information and what is miss-information? This is the riddle of free speech.
    - yndoendo 2y ago
      Riddle of free speech? Doesn't a Venn diagram of free speech include information and miss-information? I never said free speech does not include miss-information. What is Information and what is Miss-information? Example: "Vaccines make people autistic." Is that information or miss-information? If vaccines did make people autistic then anyone who was given a vaccine would be autistic. This means all US military personal are autistic because they must be vaccinated to remain in service. Yet 100% of them are not autistic, nor are all the individuals that received a cold, flu, and COVID vaccines. What about a politician making the statement, "I know more about the Middle East than anyone else.". Wouldn't know nuances about cultural slang and difference in regional dialects be a requirement to make that statement true? Wouldn't that persona also need to know Arabic and Hebrew with the ability to pick truthful declarations over sarcasm? With more context, that statement was made by a US politician. Let's re-phrase that statement, "I know more about computers than anyone else.", which defines no one in the world! Even the smartest people that know a lot about computers cannot possibly know everything. How would you decided if "Vaccines make people autistic.", that a politician is truthful when saying "I know more about the Middle East than anyone else.", and the person next to you saying "I know more about computers than anyone else." are information or miss-information? To re-phrase my personal statement, I do not respect those that push miss-information.
thrance 2y ago
Are we still pretending Musk fights for free speech? He had no problems abiding by India's or Turkey's censoring laws. Brazil made it pretty clear what they wanted, but Musk had some petty beef with the Brazilian judge in charge of the operation (cue the ai image he posted of that judge behind bars), and so refused to comply.
- master_crab 2y ago
  How dare the Brazilians enforce their sovereignty. That clearly isn't free speech! /s I suspect the lack of full throated public support from Brazilians for Musk is telling. They may not fully agree with the ruling but they also don't think Musk is playing altruistically.
snypher 2y ago
>for free speech, but also for following the local laws Pretty difficult to pick a lane it seems.
- aeternum 2y ago
  It is difficult. Perhaps a better question: How does the X policy compare to that of other social networks?
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    Why? The other social networks aren't acting like free speech crusaders. X has decided to set its own standard of its own volition.
- uxp100 2y ago
  I think as much speech as is allowed within local laws is a coherent position. (Obviously not the one Elon holds, exactly)
  - bravetraveler 2y ago
    Absolutely, free speech [within the confines of the law] :) Principals are based in legality, I see. /s I'm just being difficult, find it kind of funny posturing
fabioyy 2y ago
[flagged]
- Arainach 2y ago
  The ruling was reviewed and upheld by an entire panel. The law is very clear, and X was very clearly violating it. Multiple laws, even, as it's also legally required to have a representative in the company.
bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
> Musk/X is for free speech Can you say "cisgender" on Twitter now, or is it still banned?
dancemethis 2y ago
It's really interesting how the _only_ free speech being cared about in this context is specifically the freedom to spread blatantly false information. It's not even stuff that can hide behind plausible deniability, really. And the specific freedom to defend and spread nazi speak. Which, in Brazil, in paper is a crime. It's never freedom of speech with a goal other than actively desiring and justifying to hurt others, of belittling and bullying others. Quite amusing.
matheusmoreira 2y ago
> In Brazil apparently the law against free speech was not clear enough. Our constitution is ABSOLUTELY clear on this matter. > Any and all censorship of a political, ideological and artistic nature is forbidden 1. The accounts that this judge is after were engaging in political speech. 2. A government official ordering these political accounts blocked and their political posts deleted matches the "any and all censorship of political nature" clause. 3. The order is therefore unconstitutional. As you can see, it's a very simple argument. There should have never have been an order for Musk to defy to begin with. The problem is that the constitution doesn't matter. He's a judge of the supreme court. There's no court above him to countermand him. So he does whatever he wants. It doesn't matter what the law says because the truth is whatever he writes on a piece of paper becomes law.
chipdart 2y ago
> Musk/X is for free speech, but also for following the local laws. I find it very hard to entertain the idea that there are people out there in this day and age who still believe that the likes of Elon Musk supports free speech, even remotely. He has a track record of arbitrarily banning users from Twitter for asking him inconvenient answers, and he supported authoritarian governments banning opposition parties from national elections with bullshit excuses like either all posts or some posts would be "throttled" (aka censored) in countries like Turkey, and given the choice he prefered to censor some posts/users instead of all posts/users. But when a country with a leftist government asked Twitter to appoint a legal representative to process lawful requests regarding people planning a right-wing coup, Elon Musk went to the extreme of even pulling all corporate presence from the country to avoid complying. Who still believes this is a free speech issue?

arlcode 2y ago

I rather suspect that he saw bad numbers and didn't get the public support he was expecting/hoping for to challenge the law. Probably Brazil can live without Twitter better than Twitter without Brazil

alephnerd 2y ago
> Probably Brazil can live without Twitter better than Twitter without Brazil Yep. Meta's WhatsApp is the critical social media app in Brazil (and most large countries excluding US, Canada, China, Thailand, SK, JP, and Vietnam)
- bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
  It's not "critical". If Whatsapp vanished tomorrow it would get replaced by the next one so fast it would make your head spin. Not saying I can guess which one it would be, but one would win and people would carrying on with their lives just fine.
  - vitorgrs 2y ago
    Hm. Super true, but at the same time, it would annoy a lot of people, and there would be a social pressure to unlock WhatsApp. That's not the case with X. Isn't like X (or previously Twitter) ever had the amount of users that WhatsApp have in Brazil. If I recall, X have 20 million monthly active users, and yet it was the 4 or 5 country where X had most users. But for Brazil size, this is very ridiculous, WhatsApp have 170 million users in Brazil. This just shows how Twitter/X is small compared to other networks. It was always a small social network with relevant people.

curiousgal 2y ago

> Musk, free speech Now that's an oxymoron.

yndoendo 2y ago
People often rather live in a world they believe in versus the one that really exists. Think the term is Cognitive Distortions. Reality, Musk's X-Twitter free speech policy is about his personal tastes.[1] [2] My personal taste, I cannot support anyone that willfully pushes miss-information nor narratives that detract words and statements from their actual meanings. Miss-information, tell a lie long enough people will believe it. This how conversion therapy works and the movie "But I'm a Cheerleader" highlights this farce. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/29/x-caught-blocking-links-to-npr-claiming-the-news-site-may-be-unsafe/ https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/29/x-caught-blocking-links-to... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2023/07/02/elon-musk-deems-cis-a-twitter-slurheres-why-its-is-so-polarizing/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2023/07/02/elon-mus...
- empiricus 2y ago
  But who decides what is information and what is miss-information? This is the riddle of free speech.
  - yndoendo 2y ago
    Riddle of free speech? Doesn't a Venn diagram of free speech include information and miss-information? I never said free speech does not include miss-information. What is Information and what is Miss-information? Example: "Vaccines make people autistic." Is that information or miss-information? If vaccines did make people autistic then anyone who was given a vaccine would be autistic. This means all US military personal are autistic because they must be vaccinated to remain in service. Yet 100% of them are not autistic, nor are all the individuals that received a cold, flu, and COVID vaccines. What about a politician making the statement, "I know more about the Middle East than anyone else.". Wouldn't know nuances about cultural slang and difference in regional dialects be a requirement to make that statement true? Wouldn't that persona also need to know Arabic and Hebrew with the ability to pick truthful declarations over sarcasm? With more context, that statement was made by a US politician. Let's re-phrase that statement, "I know more about computers than anyone else.", which defines no one in the world! Even the smartest people that know a lot about computers cannot possibly know everything. How would you decided if "Vaccines make people autistic.", that a politician is truthful when saying "I know more about the Middle East than anyone else.", and the person next to you saying "I know more about computers than anyone else." are information or miss-information? To re-phrase my personal statement, I do not respect those that push miss-information.

thrance 2y ago

Are we still pretending Musk fights for free speech? He had no problems abiding by India's or Turkey's censoring laws. Brazil made it pretty clear what they wanted, but Musk had some petty beef with the Brazilian judge in charge of the operation (cue the ai image he posted of that judge behind bars), and so refused to comply.

master_crab 2y ago
How dare the Brazilians enforce their sovereignty. That clearly isn't free speech! /s I suspect the lack of full throated public support from Brazilians for Musk is telling. They may not fully agree with the ruling but they also don't think Musk is playing altruistically.

snypher 2y ago

>for free speech, but also for following the local laws Pretty difficult to pick a lane it seems.

aeternum 2y ago
It is difficult. Perhaps a better question: How does the X policy compare to that of other social networks?
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  Why? The other social networks aren't acting like free speech crusaders. X has decided to set its own standard of its own volition.
uxp100 2y ago
I think as much speech as is allowed within local laws is a coherent position. (Obviously not the one Elon holds, exactly)
- bravetraveler 2y ago
  Absolutely, free speech [within the confines of the law] :) Principals are based in legality, I see. /s I'm just being difficult, find it kind of funny posturing

fabioyy 2y ago

[flagged]

Arainach 2y ago
The ruling was reviewed and upheld by an entire panel. The law is very clear, and X was very clearly violating it. Multiple laws, even, as it's also legally required to have a representative in the company.

bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago

> Musk/X is for free speech Can you say "cisgender" on Twitter now, or is it still banned?

dancemethis 2y ago

It's really interesting how the _only_ free speech being cared about in this context is specifically the freedom to spread blatantly false information. It's not even stuff that can hide behind plausible deniability, really. And the specific freedom to defend and spread nazi speak. Which, in Brazil, in paper is a crime. It's never freedom of speech with a goal other than actively desiring and justifying to hurt others, of belittling and bullying others. Quite amusing.

matheusmoreira 2y ago

> In Brazil apparently the law against free speech was not clear enough. Our constitution is ABSOLUTELY clear on this matter. > Any and all censorship of a political, ideological and artistic nature is forbidden 1. The accounts that this judge is after were engaging in political speech. 2. A government official ordering these political accounts blocked and their political posts deleted matches the "any and all censorship of political nature" clause. 3. The order is therefore unconstitutional. As you can see, it's a very simple argument. There should have never have been an order for Musk to defy to begin with. The problem is that the constitution doesn't matter. He's a judge of the supreme court. There's no court above him to countermand him. So he does whatever he wants. It doesn't matter what the law says because the truth is whatever he writes on a piece of paper becomes law.

chipdart 2y ago

> Musk/X is for free speech, but also for following the local laws. I find it very hard to entertain the idea that there are people out there in this day and age who still believe that the likes of Elon Musk supports free speech, even remotely. He has a track record of arbitrarily banning users from Twitter for asking him inconvenient answers, and he supported authoritarian governments banning opposition parties from national elections with bullshit excuses like either all posts or some posts would be "throttled" (aka censored) in countries like Turkey, and given the choice he prefered to censor some posts/users instead of all posts/users. But when a country with a leftist government asked Twitter to appoint a legal representative to process lawful requests regarding people planning a right-wing coup, Elon Musk went to the extreme of even pulling all corporate presence from the country to avoid complying. Who still believes this is a free speech issue?