Elon’s Definition Of ‘Free Speech Absolutist’ Allows Censorship In India, That Twitter Used To Fight
from the but-not-for-those-people dept
As you’ll recall, Elon Musk claims to be a “free speech absolutist” but his definition of free speech… is not free speech supportive at all. It’s the opposite.
Saying that free speech means “that which matches the law” means that when you have an oppressive, censorial government, they can suppress speech all you want, and Musk will support it. We’ve pointed this out many times, especially with regards to India.
As you’ll recall, the Modi regime has been especially authoritarian and suppressive of critics. The Modi government demanded Twitter silence certain critical accounts and even threatened to jail employees if the company didn’t obey. Twitter fought back, leading to its offices being raided by law enforcement. Finally, last year, Twitter filed a lawsuit to try to stop the Indian government from censoring content on the platform.
This was during the period of time where Elon had signed a binding agreement to buy Twitter, but was having extremely cold feet about it. A true “free speech absolutist” might have cheered on this legal action by Twitter, fighting for free speech. Instead, in court documents, he complained about Twitter taking this action, worrying that it would hurt revenue in India.
So, it should be little surprise that now that Musk is in control, when Modi came calling, asking him to ban various journalists and critics, the new “free speech supporting” Twitter gladly blocked the accounts in question, as seen in this report from the always excellent Rest of World site.
The blocked Twitter accounts include those belonging to journalists Pieter Friedrich, Sandeep Singh, Kamaldeep Singh Brar, and Gagandeep Singh; Canadian politician Jagmeet Singh and poet Rupi Kaur; and pro-Khalistan member of parliament Simranjit Singh Mann. A number of these accounts, which include prominent Sikh voices in the diaspora, were putting out credible information amid the current turmoil in Punjab.
How very free speechy.
And, yes, people are noticing that Musk is full of shit and old Twitter supported free speech:
“[Twitter CEO Elon] Musk has been quite categorical [in talking about] ‘free speech’ but laws of the land apply, [and] there is a clear contradiction in the statement,” Prateek Waghre, policy director at digital rights advocacy group Internet Freedom Foundation, told Rest of World.
Twitter is the only social media platform to have ever pushed back against similar demands in the past, Waghre noted. “Earlier, it does seem that Twitter did at least push back against some requests [for accounts to be taken down],” he said, adding that there’s no clarity on how many such requests Twitter complied with versus the number it rejected.
Rest of World reports that one of the blocked journalists told them that they received no notification or warning from Twitter that this was happening:
One of the journalists whose account remains inaccessible in India told Rest of World they never received a notification from Twitter informing them of the impending block. “If I tweeted anything that was fake or rumor or hate speech, then the proper case should be registered against me,” they said, requesting anonymity as they didn’t want to publicly comment on an ongoing issue. “Otherwise, the account should be restored with an apology from the government.”
Contrast this to how the old regime handled nearly identical issues:
In June 2022, Mohammed Zubair, the founder of Indian fact-checking site Alt News, received an email from Twitter after one of his tweets was flagged by the Delhi Police for violating the Information Technology Act, 2000. However, not only was this tweet not taken down, Twitter’s email read that it “strongly believes in defending and respecting the voice of our users.”
While it seems pretty clear that when Elon Musk talks about being a “free speech absolutist” he really means only for his own speech, and those of his close friends or those who agree with him, this just seems like yet another data point.
Still, I eagerly await the “Twitter Files” from Matt Taibbi revealing the internal debate on how to deal with these demands from the Indian government. I’m sure they’ll be coming any day now. Any day.
Filed Under: censorship, criticism, elon musk, free speech, government demands, india, narendra modi
Companies: twitter
Comments on “Elon’s Definition Of ‘Free Speech Absolutist’ Allows Censorship In India, That Twitter Used To Fight”
I can’t wait to see the Musk stans twist themselves into pretzels while trying to justify this bullshit. 🍿
Re:
Eh. I assume it’ll look pretty similar to all the other times they’ve twisted themselves into pretzels while trying to justify his bullshit.
I’ve seen that show before, and the writing is terrible.
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Re:
Kinda easy actually….this is not Musk’s bullshit, and has nothing to do with Musk, at all.
Old Twitter banned a bunch of accounts, sued over it. (one of several suits), actually.) Still had to ban the accounts.
Those lawsuits are still going, btw, it’s not like Musk had his lawyers make a motion to dismiss or anything.
Under New Twitter the Modi gov makes the exact same demands, and all the same things happen. There’s no difference here, at all. Lawsuit is still in the courts.
The insinuation that this is somehow worse, or different under Musk is completely made up by Masnick. Musk is in fact continuing the legal fight to stop this.
Usually when Masnick lies like this there’s some grain of truth that he can twist and prod to make it seem like what he’s saying is true, and you idiots lap it up, but this time he just made it up completely out of thin air and you guys are still lapping it up.
oh it gets worse: Twitter Blocks Pakistani Govt’s acccount for viewing in India
The only thing “free” about Elon is how freely he lies about everything he either has attained or stands for.
you think facebook’s myanmar handling was bad? hoo boy, elmo’s gonna try to speedrun it.
i thought the laws of the land in the US regarding free speech say a platform can moderate however it sees fit.
Weird.
Re:
Different countries, different laws.
Twitter has the option:
* cooperate with the laws of that country
* contest government requests to the extent their legal system allows
* take their app and go home.
The third option sounds simple, right? Just ignore the government, have no physical presence in the country, etc. On the one hand, said government can force ISPs (etc) who can’t simply pull up stakes to block your traffic. On the other hand, VPNs exist. On the gripping hand, the government has the nuclear option: take down the internet. And the Modi government has not been shy about doing just that thing.
Re: Re:
Whoosh.
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Re: Re:
funnily enough, I was thinking the same thing with the EU. Just pull out, be a US company only.
Re: Re:
If I was Modi, I’d just charge the CEO of Twitter with a made-up crime, and abuse extradition treaties or bully Interpol into arresting them.
Hey, if America can do it to Assange…
(And I’ve got zero sympathy for Assange.)
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There’s no law against being a hypocritical piece of shit. This post is merely pointing out that Musk is one.
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Why do you people never see the difference between “they can’t do that” and “they really shouldn’t do that, here’s my exercise in free speech criticising them”.
If someone points out you’re being stupid, it doesn’t mean they think you should be blocked from whatever activity you’re doing, it just means they think you’re stupid.
Re: Re:
Hell, even in the context of moderation, very few mods will try to kick you out if you’re breaking the rules. This is not to say they won’t eventually, but most mods tend to give people a few chances to prove they weren’t acting in a malicious manner.
Those that do usually tend to not stay in power for long.
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Not (Just) Musk
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/10/technology/india-twitter.html
This is February 2021, well before Musk bought the company.
We know that you liked the woke ideological censorship that the old management of Twitter provided for you, and you hate that Musk has taken that away, but posting endless numbers of disparaging articles about Musk isn’t going to being that censorship back.
Those accounts aren’t blocked in the US, by the way, so you can search for Punjab on Twitter and read as much as you like. It’s the usual ethnic partisan yelling and screaming and accusing each other of being criminals and terrorists.
Re:
Dishonest much?
The very next paragraph after your quote gives more context:
TL;DR: Musk’s Twitter just rolled over where they before tried to engage with different governments and their demands to ban accounts.
Plus, you know, every statistic available on Twitters prior moderation shows you are full of shit. Being an asshole isn’t a viewpoint even if you wish it to be so.
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Re: Re:
Well that’s not true, at all. Musk is pursuing all the same lawsuits that were started before. The legal options for the moment have been exhausted.
'Government censorship is terrible! ... when I don't agree with it.'
This from the same person and platform that’s been whining up a storm about how terrible having the US government telling Twitter what content to pull down is(despite no evidence so far demonstrating that), why it’s almost enough to make you think that his objections are purely dishonest theater having nothing to do with ‘free speech’ and everything to do with whether he agrees with the speech in question
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Re: Mike Masnicks double standard
The US government asks the twitter to ban journalists:
The US has laws that prevent censorship, but India and China do not, Musk’s views about “consent of the governed” is not inconsistent, his company has to comply with the laws just as much as government actors have to.
Re: Re:
“The US government asks the twitter to ban journalists:”
and an example of this is: ..fill in the blank ..
“The US has laws that prevent censorship”
and an example of this is: ..fill in the blank ..
(do not say 1st amendment, that stops the government)
The Playbook
I’m sure I missed one or two, feel free to add to the list. Can’t wait to see which version shows up first!
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Huh, you just found the source code to Matthew M Bennett’s brain just lying around on an unencrypted server like that?
Re: Re:
Quick, post it to Github!
Re: Re: Re:
And Sourceforge!
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You’re missing a lot, but that might just be due to some self-inflicted hits from your mallet.
Twitter is dying. Musk could have done literally nothing, and both it and he would have been better off. His accusations were bunk, after people looked at those files, it was ridiculously clear that there was no merit to his claims, and now he’s committing the very things he accused Twitter of doing. In every accusation, a confession. How is that for projecting?
Who wants a car floating around in space? That is literally a waste. He junked a functional car in the worst, most expensive and dangerous way possible. This is not an achievement worthy of praise or respect.
Even if someone was skilled in launching rockets (Let’s not make the mistake of giving him all the credit for the work of the employees at SpaceX), that does not make them skilled in understanding human nature. Or in understanding how social platforms work. Or operating a server (beyond ripping all the cables out of it while it’s running). Or how to create or at least stick to a policy.
His “self-driving” cars don’t drive themselves. They get into accidents because he’s encouraging bad behavior on the part of drivers who want to be literally asleep behind the wheel on a freeway by pushing untested and unproven tech on an unsuspecting populace. Because he’s cutting corners in rushing a product to market. For profit.
Honestly, Musk has done some things that are so monumentally dumb, it doesn’t require rocket science to know they are disastrous. Sometimes in order to know, we just have to have seen it played out over and over again by other fools in the social space. Of course, someone so blind with fanaticism as you never bothered (and will never bother) to learn.
Re: Re:
Uh…
So Violet Aubergine is simply mimicking one of the nastier harassers the comment section is plagued with…
Re: Re: Re:
Oh my gosh, you’re so right, it was so on point with how nonsensical they are, I couldn’t even tell it was just pointing out how ridiculous they sound!
Apologies to Violet Aubergine, your accuracy is uncanny.
Re: Re: Re:
Have we collectively fallen victim to Poe’s Law?
Re: Re: Re:2
I was mocking people who whiteknight Musk. Apologies for forgetting Poe’s Law and not labelling such antics as an attempt at comedy. Also realized after posting I wasn’t logged in so people couldn’t see my comment history and easily come to the conclusion I was mocking Muskovites.
Re: Re:
I think you may have missed the humor there…
I’m not one to leap to Elon’s defence but this is a bit of a weird hit. How was this expensive or dangerous given this was a test flight that was happening with or without the car and would’ve had a different mass simulator if it didn’t?
Re: Re: Re:
Even if the joke sailed over, I get what he’s putting down. Wasting an object that people could’ve used, and expensive to make, for a relatively minor publicity stunt was a red flag in retrospect.
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Re: Re: Re:2
It was easily worth many times it’s cost in marketing. There was basically no reason NOT to do it.
Good business decisions are a “red flag” to you? Interesting.
Re: Re: Re:3
“There was basically no reason NOT to do it.”
Juvenile logic.
“Good business decisions”
Nothin’ personal ..
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Re: Re: Re:4
Sure buddy. Cost v Benefit is TOTALLY juvenile.
Re: Re: Re:5
Not sure how you get from:
– “There was basically no reason NOT to do it.”
To:
– “Cost v Benefit”
There are plenty of reasons not to do things, ignore them at your own peril. Problem is, your ignorance can be problematic for others. Your lack of concern is noted.
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Re: Re: Re:6
That’s sad, actually.
Really, you can’t relate those two concepts? (Actually I’d argue they’re the same concept.)
Try.
Re: Re: Re:7
“Really, you can’t relate those two concepts? (Actually I’d argue they’re the same concept.)”
Perhaps you could spare a few moments out of your obviously busy schedule solving the world’s problems from a keyboard to explain your logical progression from “it is possible” to “it’s a good idea”.
From your prior machinations, I can only conclude that your approach to decision making entails something like,
If it puts money in my pocket then why not, no concern for the obvious ramifications.
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead is a phrase most commonly associated with naval warfare, not day to day business, especially when it is other peoples money.
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Re: Re: Re:8
Well I definitely didn’t say that. Not sure if you’re strawmanning or if your reading comp is that bad.
The cost of the car was negligible, basically zero compared to the overall cost of the launch. The benefits by comparison were very large (all marketing) equivalent to probably many thousands of times the cost of the car. (I have no idea how much, just that it is “a LOT”)
Cost can be other monetary, of course, which brings me to this curious statement:
I have no idea what you think is “obvious” or not, but there are no *ramifications” If you think there are, you have no idea how anything works and should sit down and be quiet. The car (what’s left of it) is currently in orbit around the sun (not Earth) and is effectively another (small) asteroid. I say “what’s left of it” because it is slowly disintegrating in strong UV radiation and after a few decades only the steel chassis and other metals (maybe the glass) will still be around. Certainly nothing organic (including plastic) nor volatiles. There’s no “environment” to save out there. There are no consequences to this at all.
Yeah, so cost (anyway you want to define it) is very, very low, and the benefit is significant. No reason not to do it. Might even say stupid not to do it.
Look, I seen a lot of that in this thread, just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it was dumb.
Re: Re: Re:2
I admit it, yes, the joke sailed over my head like a car in a rocket. 😛
Also, it may be a weird quibble to make; the matter of wastefulness and expense is a weak objection to using a roadster as a mass simulator (after all, it’s his car to send up!) Sometimes it’s reasonable to celebrate unique achievements just because it broadens the imagination, never mind the expense.
Personally, my biggest objection about it is… not much was said about what precautions were taken with the car to make it space-ready/safe, if anything. It certainly wasn’t the kind of thing Musk ever asked for permission or advice from any existing space agencies. I am not yet convinced there was a sufficiently thorough plan, but I do welcome any reassurance on the matter.
As opposed to an inert mass, a roadster has many, many components that probably should have been sterilized (just like every space probe being sent toward anything of interest) to prevent contamination of any object it could possibly collide with. Also, any exotic or unusual materials making up the bodywork, the motors, the batteries, the electronics, the interior, all of that may degrade and break off in unexpected ways under stresses a car is not designed for. But hey, the point of that stunt is not about trying to be extra careful or responsible or to consider the possible harmful consequences, it’s about trying to score extra publicity and internet points.
Re: Re: Re:3
God, you’re on a roll. You have ZERO knowledge as to what safety steps were taken, or what vehicle parts were removed prior to launch, but here you are crying about it.
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Re: Re: Re:3
God, fucking none of that is true, amazing. It IS an inert mass. It’s not being sent anywhere. Nothing needed to be sterilized. Nothing broke off and it would not matter if it did.
None of your objections even make sense, and you are “not yet convinced there was a sufficiently thorough plan”??? Really? HOW THE FUCK WOULD YOU KNOW?
Re: Re: Re:3
Sir, take a moment to breathe.
We’re not all unfriendly beasts, and while this is one of the oddest points to debate on, I assure you, we are not all that vicious.
Just watch out for the trolls though, they’re not interested in debate or have a conversation about the perils of sending a thing to space cleanly.
Re: Re:
Re: Re:
I was mocking Musk fanatics. Apologies, I thought the title The Playbook would explain that but I forgot about Poe’s Law and how Trump has murdered satire.
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Re: Re: Re:
Oh, no, liberals killed satire. We used to joke that a failed male athlete could just claim to be a woman and win medals. Now that’s literally true.
Re: Re: Re:2
Soo…reality killed satire. Not liberals.
Re: Re: Re:3
Reality and America’s 74million strong White supremacist problem, if we’re gonna split hairs.
Worse than government censorship
Note that Elon does not say that he is merely supporting any government attack on free speech, he actually states:
So the level of censorship that he is ok with is “everything the government wants and then quite a bit”.
Re: 'Twitter Files? Claims of government coercion? Not ringing any bells.'
So the level of censorship that he is ok with is “everything the government wants and then quite a bit”.
Unless it’s targeting speech he agrees with or believes he would benefit from objecting to it’s removal in which case all of a sudden he becomes super concerned about ‘free speech’ and ‘government censorship’.
Re: what's "the" government?
There are many governments in the world, and many if not most have little respect for free speech. Muskrat is gonna have fun jumping thru hoops to satisfy all the censorship required all around the world.
Re: Re:
Good thing Elon has a track record for simping for authcap governments then.
All it takes is grovelling at their feet, which, sadly, Elon has done before, and will do again.
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Re: Re:
OK, and what do you think the other option is, exactly?
Re: Re: 'Heel! Fetch! Roll over! Good boy.'
Muskrat is gonna have fun jumping thru hoops to satisfy all the censorship required all around the world.
I wouldn’t say that, it’s not that hard to just do whatever those in power tell you, the only problems that might come up is if one government demands that a piece of content is pulled while another demands it stay up.
Musk's definition
Free Speech: “You’re free to say anyt…whatever I think you should be allowed to say.”
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Re:
Yeah, so think about that. Cuz on twitter and FB you have NOT been able to say whatever is legal to say.
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Hey! You found something legitimate to criticize Musk about!
Well, not really. Because Old Twitter DID block a bunch of people at the Indian government’s demand. And lawsuit is STILL going. I’m all about being belligerent towards government but unless you actually want to sacrifice all your Indian personnel to jail there’s only so much you can do.
He was arguing that Twitter’s valuation had gone down and he should be paying less, you ass, not that actually disagreed with the decision on a personal level. Holy shit you’re just mischaracterizing shit just left and right.
You gonna pull some “Since 2018 Twitter has had 15 profitable quarters, compared to 4 unprofitable quarters.” (folks, they lost $1B+ the last 10 years) type shit here? How many more ways can you come up with to distort and lie?
“Gladly”. They said that? “Yay, we’re super happy to be doing this!”? Or did they do it because they had no other fucking option, even leaving a notice making it clear that this was at the Indian government’s demand? You ass
That lawsuit against the Modi government is still ongoing, dumbass. If Musk really was all happy to do bad government’s censoring he could have withdrawn the lawsuit. He didn’t. There’s nothing else to do. Unless you just wanted to pull out of the country and ignore them offshore, but companies never do that.
This isn’t even about Musk, at all, you twit Nothing about this situation changed cuz Musk took over. It’s just you being a little shit cuz your favorite dystopian censorship regime got shut down.
Speaking of which…I see you had Yoel Roth write an article? The guy who aided and abetted the gov censorship by proxy scheme? Are you guys buds now? That might explain the outrageous gaslighting, misleading spin, and outright lies you keep on telling to defend Old Twitter (like weirdly cherry-picking financial data to pretend they weren’t losing money) and trash talk Musk.
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Die mad.
Die mad.
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Whoops, this was supposed to’ve been in reply to Bennett’s rant.
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Re: Re:
A lot of effort to say nothing interesting.
You first.
the Muskrat strikes again
In addition to not understanding Twitter’s business model before paying $44B for it, Muskrat doesn’t know that “free speech” doesn’t exist in many countries and depending on how absolutist you are, it doesn’t exist in most countries. Even “civilized” countries have rules like, you can’t be a holocaust denier.
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Considering he actually lied about… I dunno, everything he’s ever done, him not understanding a thing about free speech, programming, the current crop of AI and even civility seems on par for the man who appears to think reality runs off Cold War scifi, racism and his own ego.
Re: Re:
.. and this is the richest person in the known world.
Some think that having large amounts of money means that person is smart, I think Elon proves this theory is incorrect. Not to mention clown cars full of other such folk.
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Re:
If the government can regulate speech, it’s not a civilized country.
Yeah, I’m aware the list that leaves. I said what I said.
Re: Re:
Well, it’s certainly widely conceded that the U.S. isn’t civilized.
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Re: Re: Re:
Incorrect
Re: Re: Re:2
I mean, even you just said so.
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Re: Re: Re:3
incorrect
Re: Re: Re:4
I see that alleged physics degree from l’Acadamie d’YouTube never taught you even basic if-then logic. You asserted that if a country regulates speech, it’s not civilized. The U.S. regulates speech; ergo, you believe it isn’t civilized.
If you Musk
It’s only free speech if you par for it.
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