Musk’s Faulty Vision Of ‘Free Speech’ Is Driving Speech Off ExTwitter
from the that's-not-how-free-speech-works dept
I mean, it’s not like we didn’t warn Elon Musk. Free speech is not about creating a single private space where everyone gets to speak, because that doesn’t support free speech. It enables the worst of society to browbeat, harass, and abuse anyone they dislike, creating a total garbage dump that drives people away and silences them.
That’s not free speech. It limits free speech.
In my mind, there are two key aspects to free speech: underlying protocols that are not privately controlled that allow people to speak (but which enable others to build curation/moderation tools on top of them) and a near total limit on the government’s ability to suppress speech.
ExTwitter had a chance to be a leader in this, back when Jack Dorsey endorsed the protocol approach and helped get the Bluesky project off the ground. But Elon killed that also. And now his confusion over all of this is driving speech off of ExTwitter, rather than enabling more of it.
We’ve already talked about how advertisers are bailing on ExTwitter, and this accelerates every time Elon says something hateful, bigoted, or ignorant. Yesterday he added to this by not just tweeting (and later deleting) a Pizzagate meme (that also misunderstands the fact that Michael Scott of The Office is the joke), but one based on an outright fabricated NY Post headline that never existed, falsely claiming that the person who debunked Pizzagate (which was actually debunked by many, many people because it was a delusional nonsense conspiracy theory) was just sentenced to jail for child sexual abuse material. Except, none of that was true.
And people wonder why advertisers are bailing.
But it’s not just the advertisers. We’ve highlighted in the past how traffic appears to be significantly down as well, and now it’s being reported that many of the companies that have pulled their advertisements have just stopped using the platform altogether.
… people familiar with the social media strategies of Paramount and WBD confirmed under the condition of anonymity that it’s no coincidence: the companies have made the active decision to stop posting under certain handles on X due to concerns, including brand safety.
The blackout on X extends beyond these companies’ corporate accounts, in some cases. For instance, the most high profile accounts affiliated with Disney have gone dark on X, such as @StarWars, @Pixar, and @MarvelStudios, which were previously posting multiple times a day on the platform to their millions of followers. Instead, these brands have switched over to the Meta-owned rival Threads, where they have started actively posting.
For instance, when“The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” on Monday shared the news that host Stephen Colbert would be off the air this week due to appendicitis, the program did so on Threads. Prior to Musk’s backing of an antisemitic post, Colbert’s show, however, was primarily active on X, regularly posting videos and other content. Now, the inverse is true.
The article lists many other companies that aren’t just pulling ads but stopping tweeting altogether. And that’s not getting into the many individuals, including some big names, who have gone silent as well.
What kind of “free speech” is it when you drive everyone away?
Filed Under: advertisers, bigotry, conspiracy theories, elon musk, free speech, pizzagate, tweeting
Companies: disney, twitter, warner bros. discovery, x
Comments on “Musk’s Faulty Vision Of ‘Free Speech’ Is Driving Speech Off ExTwitter”
It’s the kind of “free speech” that turns a social media service into a Nazi bar. Given his recent support for the Pizzagate “theory”, I’d say that Elon welcomes that kind of speech more than he welcomes speech that shittalks his right-wing acquaintances and their personal grievances.
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As fun as it is to parrot the Nazi bar analogy in every thread about Musk, it isn’t really a necessary analogy given that we have real websites — that everyone is aware of — to compare Xitter to instead.
Musk wants Xitter to be 4chan, and it’s becoming more 4chan-like every day. And, not shockingly, none of these businesses are interested in advertising on 4chan, which is why they already don’t.
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And 4chan was created from the dregs of the SomethingAwful Forums.
Which… also turned out to be mostly Nazis.
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I played games with them. I don’t know what Something Awful is like since it’s behind a paywall. The Goons I played with were very critical of a rival outfit at the time for having a seemingly right wing guy in charge of it (rumor was that it was a recruiting tool for Stormfront but I am not sure if that is accurate), so I don’t think this characterization is correct.
I think instead it’s a large enough internet community that long predated Trumpism that was probably schismed to some degree. The Goon outfit in the game I played with them was horrendously prone to schism, with it splitting into two smaller factions who did not like each other at all a few months after I started playing with them, along with another group that was neutral. I’m not sure what the cause of the schism was about as it was on the Something Awful forums, but at points one of the complaints I heard directed at a rival group was that one of the most prominent members was a Trumpy idiot.
So, I’d presume without paying money to check that it’s not as you say unless the Goons who were critical of the right wing were driven away.
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what they meant is that 4chan was established by people who were too repulsive for Something Awful and made outcasts
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4chan is the superior website anyway.
It’s funny how even the people that care a lot more about rockets than Elmo’s other BS start to go “Hey, what if someone else from the company but him talked about how Starship’s second flight went?”
“many of the companies … have just stopped using the platform altogether”
Now we’re talking, this kind of action along with journalists and journals who still promote the platform following suit is what it will take to send it to oblivion.
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Guess They're Not Dead Yet
Much more recently than the September prognostication that X-Twitter might be losing traffic, 4 days ago X-Twitter celebrated their surpassing of Facebook and Instagram.
Maybe someday X-Twitter will undergo a management change. But for now, Mike looks like one of those guys waving around a handmade “Doomsday – Repent now!” sign. It turns out that supporting free speech increases organic traffic, compared to enforcing politically correct speech codes.
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Lol. ExTwitter absolutely did not surpass FB or Instagram. How gullible are you?
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MAGA-level gullible.
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https://moneywise.com/investing/stocks/elon-musk-just-posted-a-laughing-emoji-after-x-surpassed-instagram-facebook-in-driving-traffic-is-it-time-to-sell-meta
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LOL!!!
Maybe you should read the damn article before spewing your garbage.
It DOES NOT SAY X/TWITTER SURPASSED Instagram & Facebook traffic!
It’s always amazing to me how easy it is to debunk your posts.
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Christ, you’re thick.
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“leading in traffic generation via Google’s top 100 organic search results”
That… does not mean that exTwitter “surpassed Instagram and FB” it’s creating a narrowly constrained set (the top 100 organic Google search results) and saying that Twitter was a getting more traffic than FB and Instagram, which… isn’t a surprise given that Google doesn’t scan Instagram/FB nearly as much as it does ExTwitter, which is much more public.
You’re looking at a narrow, meaningless slice of things.
Also, there’s no source data on the original claims anyway.
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And brave Sir Koby who had his arse handed to him ran away…
Re: Re: Re:3
That is indeed the way this guy operates, and why these people rarely supply citations when asked. If you can pin them down on any claim, it’s usually either completely made up or easily debunked, so they’ll usually say “do your own research” (which usually means “do the same Google search I did and believe the first result that agrees”) and run away.
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One interpretation of that might be that Twitter search & browsing is so broken that Google is necessary to navigate the site.
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Lmfao dipshit.
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Why would you use a search engine to navigate a social media site, anyways? And Facebook has a lot more pages that are not intended to be indexed at all.
Basically, that’s a bad metric for measuring success.
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According to who: the guy who let a user who posted CSAM back onto Twitter or a news outlet willing to kiss his ass without asking if he’d cleaned it lately?
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“X-Twitter celebrated their surpassing of Facebook and Instagram.”
… in bigotry – yes I believe this is true.
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And Mike didn’t even mention that Musk cured cancer throughout the world all by himself and saved a bus full of elderly folks from driving off a cliff into an orphanage full of developmentally disabled children with newly adopted puppies and a database full of NFTs and cryptocurrency wallet keys! Such bias from Techdirt here…
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[citation needed]
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Since Musk doesn’t support free speech at all, that certainly explains why traffic has dropped so precipitously on the platform.
Free speech
I quit the site a while ago and everything that has happened since then confirms that decision. And for me at least, the toxic smell of “X” has spread to other Musk efforts for example Tesla. At this point Tesla is off the list of cars I’d consider buying because of what he’s done and is doing to what was a great web resource before he took it over.
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Aww, poor widdle baby, do you need your nappy changed?
Because that’s what you sound like, a little screaming child that just shit his pants.
Or a fascist who loves censorship.
Seriously, Twitter was DYING before Musk took over. It’s rebounded well.
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If by “rebounding well”, you mean “scaring away billion-dollar brands because the man who owns it is a moron who lets bigots overrun the platform because they kiss his ass”, then yes, Twitter is “rebounding well”.
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[Projects facts not in evidence]
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Ah the joy of denying reality.
This time the canard that Musk is not to blame for Twitter dying but the people from which he bought Twitter.
Oh yeah pre-Musk Twitter was doing so much dying that it had $1 billion to $2 billion cash on hand and a before government fines modest profit of $100 million to $200 million. A profit that due to the improving business model looked to be sustained (meaning net positive over the lifetime of Twitter in 5 to 10 years).
But I totally get it. Elon is Perfect™ so it can’t be his decisions that cost Twitter 60% income (That is before this brouhaha Twitter income was about $2 billion), nor that his latest antics dropped another $450 million (based on a $75 million increased loss for November & December 2023). And seeing that Elon is Perfect™ that $1.5 billion in extra costs (that was $1.3 billion but Elon in all his Perfection™ didn’t go for fixed rate loans) isn’t his fault either. Nor will the fines that will start coming in at the end of 2024/early 2025 because Elon ordered that government oversight and regulation was to be ignored his fault. Musk is also not responsible for the judgments against Twitter, for ignoring obligations as ordered by Musk, that will start trickling in if Twitter hasn’t gone into receivership by then.
The kind of “free speech” that hurts like the truth… when it’s remodeled to be acknowledged by a less-than-20-IQ without fearing to damage his brain by using it.
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What utter nonsense again from Techdirt
I used to be an avid reader of Techdirt. Then Trump got elected and it turned into a glorified TDS group hate site. Now it should be renamed to “IHATEELONMUSK.COM” with the frequent rants, now including antisemitism, about Elon Musk. It sounds like Techdirt staff are simply mentally ill and jealous that Elon Musk has never even heard of the aptly named Techdirt
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Has anyone told Elmo that our laws say he is not allowed to be president? Because he sure is acting like he is running for president.
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So you’re saying you’ve known this site wasn’t for you back in 2016, but now seven years later, you’re still coming back and wasting your time not just to read but to complain…? At this point, anything negative here is on you. You don’t have to visit, read, or comment. Stop telling on yourself.
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You don’t have to tell us why you are leaving. It’s not a law or anything. You can just leave. Also try not to suck elons dick on the way out.
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No you didn’t.
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[Projects facts contrary to evidence]
For the marketplace of ideas to function, people with diverse viewpoints must feel welcome to contribute and discuss. Twitter/X has shunned this goal by embracing and emboldening neo-Nazis, creating a culture that pushes others (especially moderates) away from the platform. Instead of using moderation policy, Twitter gently pushes away opposing viewpoints by creating a culture that is unwelcoming for anyone who isn’t a neo-Nazi or someone who is sympathetic toward them. It’s preemptive censorship.
(It is not possible for a social media platform to serve as a “town square” or true marketplace of ideas. When ownership of Twitter changed hands, Elon threw any semblance of being a marketplace of ideas out the window.)
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Re: What nonsense
Neo-nazi’s on Twitter X? Just read most of the garbage being posted by liberals and Democrats on X supporting Hamas terrorist groups. Nothing says I’m a liberal Democrat like saying free speech is only free speech if it’s controlled so only those whose speech I agree with is posted. Go post on X now
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Are you, like so many republicans, having difficulties attracting women? You know there might be a reason for that.
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Nothing says you can’t refute an argument like having to bring up someone else’s conduct and pretend that makes the original conduct you can’t refute defensible.
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Ten minutes ago you said you were leaving.
So why are you still here?
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He did leave…for a whole 10 odd minutes. That’s about six years in his reality.
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Oh, they have a moderation policy. Someone gets too loud/annoying for the neo-nazi base and Elon actively kicks them off the platform. You regularly get people banned for having a mass right-wing report party targeting them, too. It’s not just people leaving the platform willingly that’s cutting down on speech there, they’re actively pruning it themselves.
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But not necessarily on the same platform. If you can publish your ideas where anybody interested in them can read them you are part of the market place. Twitter is still part of the market, while more reasonable people are finding other place via which to publish their Ideas.
The right wing ideology that they can speak and publish on whatever platform they wish to use, and crying censorship when banned from platforms is not them wishing to participate in the market place of ideas, but rather trying to ensure that their ideas are the only ones available in the market place, which is the opposite of free speech.
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Honestly Bluesky is also pretty bad this way, just in the other direction. Politely posting a mild political opinion that diverges from the predominant orthodoxy, or asking a question that outs one as not a fully faithful believer in that orthodoxy, leads to dogpiling, name-calling, and blocking and seldomly a well thought out response.
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We can only have a “free marketplace of ideas” by restricting ideas.
Orwell warned about this.
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That sounds like Musk’s logic regarding Twitter.
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Tell me you’ve never heard of the Paradox of Tolerance without telling me you’ve never heard of the Paradox of Tolerance.
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The least restricted way of doing things is never the best way. It’s why we have things like safety regulations. The nett result of having no restrictions is less of what we actually want. It’s a concept most people come to understand once they reach adulthood and spend some time out in the real world.
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That’s very, very rarely true.
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The least restricted way of stopping crime is for the police to shoot anyone accused of a crime. Tell me with a straight face that “shoot first, ask questions never” is the absolute best way of stopping crime.
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Well THAT isn’t true, generally speaking confiscating the right to life is about as restrictive as you can get.
Classic Stone non sequitur. You sometimes say truly random shit and think it will fly, huh? Put some thought in next time.
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And yet, if you want those who are tasked with stopping crime to do that with the least amount of restrictions, giving them the ability to kill people who are mere suspects is the absolute least restrictive way to stop crime. After all, who’s going to commit any kind of crime if the punishment is on-the-spot state-sponsored execution?
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Yeah, no, “least restrictions” did not mean, does not mean, “least restrictions on the cops”. The cops are one of the methods of implementing restrictions.
Jesus wtf.
Re: Re: Re:6
You disagreed with the notion that the least restrictive way of doing things is often not the best way of doing things. I posited that the least restrictive way of stopping crime is “allow cops to shoot anyone suspected of committing a crime”. In the idea I presented, “least restrictive” refers to the police and the limits placed on their power by the law. To remove those limits is to remove restrictions that are meant to keep them from abusing their power. Your inability to comprehend an argument isn’t my problem, Mr. Revenge Porn.
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I’d suggest the least restrictive way to eliminate crime would be to eliminate the laws. If nothing is illegal, then no more crime.
Of course that creates all sorts of other problems, but whatever. I suppose that would still mean that the cops could shoot anyone they want.
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Well, eliminating the law against shooting cops would mean among other things, that cops would be allowed to shoot cops, and you might thus give people an incentive to join the police force. The resulting police force would bear disturbing similarities to the world of the Ring of the Nibelungs … the tale of a world spinning out of control …
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Stephen for the love of God, stop feeding this troll. His only goal is to pollute the conversation on this site. Flag and move on.
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Really? Like, almost never? Well then…
Lets have no restrictions on how construction sites operate. We’ll build faster then right?
Let’s have no restrictions on how food is produced. We’ll have more food then right?
Let’s have no restrictions on how cars are mass-produced. They’ll be faster and cheaper then right?
You are not a serious person.
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This is not what anyone said.
The issue is simply that if you allow those who harass, abuse, and bully those into silence (something you’re super familiar with, right? https://www.thecut.com/2016/12/oregon-man-sentenced-to-jail-under-revenge-porn-law.html ) then you’re not creating a marketplace of ideas.
The issue is that any marketplace has rules, and those who break them are asked to find somewhere else to go. And that’s what people are saying here. For any conversation to exist, there need to be some basic rules, and those who follow can be expelled from those particular converstions.
This is why I support the protocol approach. Let people speak, but that doesn’t mean they get to be part of conversations where they break the rules.
That way, you open up space for everyone to actually participate, and not be bullied, harassed, threatened, and silenced like you did when you uploaded sex tapes of your ex to pornographic sites.
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I can verify that from my experience of actual markets in the South Pacific. Where buyers and sellers are mutually respectful, things get bought and sold. Where they aren’t, there is no market.
That’s the case whether you have five or twenty women with fruit and vegetables from their home gardens spread on sheets before buyers wandering around; fifteen fishermen with crabs and fish on benches for buyers to look at and discuss prices; three men with pigs they’ve caught discussing prices with buyers; etc.
Markets can be noisy or quiet. But without mutual respect, they can’t exist.
It’s the cloud. Feel free to shout.
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I can see elmo screaming at the clouds
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Your vision of "free speech" is faulty
No, “censorship isn’t free speech”, seriously that’s the dumbest thing. And no, its not any better when you call it “moderation” or “trust and safety” or whatever else.
Nor has twitter become some hatespeech hellscape (despite hatespeech absolutely being free speech) that’s just made up nonsense. This is part of why media matters absolutely should be sued. Maybe TD should be added to it. (just kidding, you’re not big enough to matter)
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You: Censorship isn’t free speech
Also you: YOu should be sued until you stop speaking.
Censorship: “hey, FBI here, this guy is instructing people to break the law”
Not censorship: “Under threat of force and seizure of your assests from the US government, stop talking”
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Well that’s just a bunch of strawmen tied together.
Defamation law is not the government regulating speech, it is private parties suing each other for damages over willful lies. The two things weren’t even thought of as related at all before Sullivan, which was rank judicial activism.
Very, very little of what the FBI asked SM to censor was “instructions to break the law”.
Unless you’re trying to claim a defamation suite is “the US gov seizing assets” (it is not, and is nothing even like that) I have no idea when you think I claimed such a thing wouldn’t be censorship.
You can’t “refute” an argument by citing wholly imaginary counter-cases. They don’t exist.
That was some dumbshit.
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The government is involved thanks to the courts. Defamation law is a regulation on speech, albeit one that is solved by civil courts rather than criminal courts.
And you can’t refer to moderation as “censorship” and have anyone take you seriously unless you can prove that the government coerced a site, service, or platform into silencing certain kinds of speech. Last I checked, Donald Trump was asking for that.
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Re: Re: Re:2
Yeah, no, that’s not how that works. A landlord might enlist the police in evicting a tenant but it still has nothing to do with the takings clause. You’re stretching a tangential involvement to make a point that doesn’t exist.
A private party is suing another for real damages. It’s fundamentally the same as suing over a car accident, you’re just trying to recover the cost.
I expect anyone who understands the fffing definitions take me seriously, cuz that is what those words mean.
Please get this through your thick head: There is nothing about the word “censorship” that means it must be done by the government. The 1A bans censorship by government, that’s it. That in no way means that censorship doesn’t exist in other contexts (and it most certainly does).
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A government employee decides whether a defamation case actually involves an act of defamation. That’s how defamation lawsuits work.
And yet, here you are, being clowned on by me. You want me to send you a rubber nose to go with your big rubber shoes and white facepaint?
You’re right, there isn’t. But you’re the one out here talking about government-sponsored censorship, so if you’re gonna make the claim, you can either back it up or get used to being called Bozo.
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Re: Re: Re:4
No, actually, it’s usually a jury.
How the FUCK can you guys get this this wrong? (not that that it’s suddenly a government fine when a judge decides, it’s just a suite between private parties)
I am? Cuz you don’t understand what the fucking words mean? Hot take.
Yeah man. Cuz the government went and sponsered some fucken cesnorship. This has been documented to hell and back (in court even).
That doesn’t mean I’m never concerned about the censorship that ISN’T government sponsored tho. (sometimes I am and sometimes I’m not, it depends on what and why, of course)
I have no idea how you’re this confused.
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Who are paid by the government to do so. And they only do so when paid by the government for it and take direction only from the government. And their verdict can be overturned by government employees.
I’m sorry, but this looks like a distinction without a meaningful difference.
Any suit necessarily is government action, regardless of the two parties. Who do you expect to enforce the ruling?
Moreover, the rules being sued in accordance with are established solely by the government.
Saying it’s “just a suit between private parties” as though that changes anything is nonsensical. It still involves the government having some final say, making it government action.
No, it wasn’t. At best, the courts assert that the allegations may be censorship, as this is on a motion to dismiss. And the documents don’t support the claims. It’s also currently under review at the Supreme Court.
Re: Re: Re:3
So actually it’s just the word you’re obsessed with, not the real world consequences of speech limitations enacted (or not) by different parties or under different circumstances.
You are not a serious person…
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Re: Re: Re:4
Yeah, you’re not a serious person.
Words have meanings, and you guys constantly trying to change the meaning of the words is part of the game.
Seriously, that was just a dumb ducking thing to say.
Re: Re: Re:5
hello revenge porn enjoyer
Re: Re: Re:5
…projected nobody literate, ever.
Re: Re: Re:5
Said the guy who tried to change the definition of “doxxing”.
Re: Re: Re:5
That’s a bold claim groomer (coz that’s a just a generic right wing insult now right? It doesn’t actually mean anything).
Words also have context, and censorship is a word almost exclusively associated, negatively, with the actions of governments, state media and parties with the capacity to cause actual harm. Calling moderation on a privately-owned SM site censorship is hyperbolic nonsense that nearly always comes from people butthurt about not being able to abuse and harass people online. You’re not being preventing from posting elsewhere so it’s a grotesque abuse of a word that should be reserved for situations more serious that your hurt fee-fees.
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Your comment history in a nutshell.
You do know it’s government employees that decide defamation cases, right? Or did you drop out of school before you got to the three branches of government?
Especially since the FBI didn’t ask SM to censor anything.
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Re: Re: Re:2
Actually, no, it’s usually (not always) a jury that decides.
Fuck, you’re dumb.
….except for those hundreds of thousands of emails documenting them asking for EXACTLY that? DAFUQ?
I mean, you can argue that it didn’t violate the 1A (no, you can’t really) but they very obviously asked.
Re: Re: Re:3
Except it’s almost always a judge that decides. Read section 21 of the Defamation Act of 2005.
Fuck, you’re dumb.
Cite an email that has the FBI asked/telling SM to censor content.
Hint: you can’t.
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I already debunked this a few weeks ago, and yet you repeat it.
Schenk (which happened decades prior to NYT v. Sullivan) made it clear that defamation was a 1st Amendment issue.
Why do you continue to lie so boldly when it’s so easy to prove you wrong?
I asked you last time to point to a SINGLE lawyer saying that defamation is not a 1st Amendment issue and you could not.
So come on. Point to a single lawyer who says what you’re saying. Go ahead. I waited quite a while on that last post. I’ll keep waiting.
Because you and I both know that (1) you can’t because (2) you’re wrong and (3) it’s embarrassing for you.
Re: Re: Re:2
To be fair, the only First Amendment issue with which Matt has first-hand experience is revenge porn—and that didn’t exactly go well for him. 😆
Re: Re: Re:3
Nah, he also has experience with disrupting peaceful transfers of power violently.
In his mind, that’s also a form of expression.
It is also very telling that he does not understand anything that isn’t a violent threat.
Re: Re: Re:2
Mike, be very careful pushing Matthew into having to use more than two brain cells. The result could be disastrous and messy as his head might do a Cronenberg.
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Re: Re: Re:2
“Debunked” does not mean “Masnick said some stuff”. A lot of what you say is wrong, some is actual lies.
Schenk in no way was a defamation case, you actual moron. Are you just wholesale making shit up now? Kinda hard to relate defamation and the 1A in a case that involves no defamation.
And my answer stands: all of them prior to Sullivan. That was when the (fantastical judicial activism) idea of relating the two came to be. Your nonsensical goalpost demand is irrelevant.
“The two things weren’t even thought of as related at all before Sullivan”
That statement is 100% true, and you have done nothing to refute it.
You think I should be the one who is embarrassed here? At least I didn’t try to claim Schenk was a defamation case.
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It’s easy to pretend your bullshit hasn’t been debunked if you’re arguing disingenuously and don’t care about the truth. You don’t read up on why you’re wrong. You ignore provided citations. You double down when proven wrong and just stick your fingers in your ears when someone else is talking. It doesn’t matter if you’ve seen or believed what was said. Your bullshit has been debunked day after day after day here.
Re: Re: Re:3
Isn’t it fantastic that law doesn’t evolve and change, and the interpretation of the constitution hasn’t changed one bit through case-law either.
Do you also rape your female slaves after whipping their husbands to the bone for not working themselves to death?
You are one stupid fucker.
Re: Re: Re:3
Prove it.
Re: Re: Re:4
The funny thing about his less than stellar reasoning is that the issue decided in the Sullivan case would never have arisen unless there were lawyers who thought otherwise. His “all of them” is on par for his constant and stupid blustering that has no relevance to factual reality.
Re: Re: Re:2
And here is a thing: Defamation judgements are enforced. They aren’t enforced by randos.
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Re: Re: Re:3
So? So the fuck what?!? All sorts of judgements of violations between private parties, damages, and other tort laws are enforced by government.
Fucking NDAs are enforced by courts and cops. NDAs have nothing to do with the 1A.
This is fucking kindergarten reasoning at work, damn.
Re: Re: Re:4
An agreement that one person will give up their right to speak about a given subject absolutely has to do with the First Amendment. Say what you want about the legalities of NDAs, but they sure as hell do infringe upon someone’s right to speak freely.
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One does not actually need evidence in order to sue, however attorneys may balk at bullshitting the court because it is their license to practice on the line, not some idiot evidence lacking client that wants to sue.
Elmo wants to loosen our libel laws, presumably because he knows his present legal positions are shit. I doubt he has much loyalty left in his followers, they seem to be jumping ship like rats. Those that remain must be dumber than a rat.
Re:
Elon Musk filing a lawsuit against Media Matters for saying things about him that he thinks are mean but are otherwise true isn’t only a SLAPP—it’s a metaphorical slap to the face of the concept of free speech. But sure, keep telling me how Media Matters is an enemy of free speech for practicing its own right to free speech in a way where Musk can’t sue them for defamation without being laughed out of court. I’m not ever going to buy it, but you’re free to keep selling it until someone dumber than you does.
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Re: Re:
Except that they are not true. Media matters actually lied. I’ve honestly only been skimming Masnick’s articles on the subject but if he’s claiming otherwise he’s lying too (which really isn’t surprising)
That’s the whole thing. That’s how defamation lawsuits work. Truth is an absolute defense. There’s usually several barriers besides proving the defendant lied, but they have to have lied for the suite to have a chance and Media Matters absolutely did.
Re: Re: Re:
Re: Re: Re:
[big citation needed]
Re: Re: Re:2
You’d sooner win the national lottery than getting a factual citation form Bratty Matty.
Re: Re: Re:
X’s lawsuit does not claim they lied.
X did not sue for defamation.
You should tell X’s lawyers, because the lawsuit neither claims defamation, nor says that Media Matters lied. It actually confirms that what they said happened, happened.
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Re: Re: Re:2
Of course they did, it’s a defamation law suit.
You really should stop believing shit Masnick tells you.
Re: Re: Re:3
Prove it.
Re: Re: Re:4
It’s a defamatory lawsuit.
Re: Re: Re:3
It is not difficult to look at the case.
There are three claims. None of them are defamation.
You look very foolish.
Re: Re: Re:3
Tell me, did you bother to read the lawsuit? None of the causes of action say anything about defamation (or false light, for that matter).
I don’t need to rely on Mike at all here; the lawsuit is right there, so I read it for myself. If he had lied, it would’ve been an incredibly dumb thing to lie about since it doesn’t help his case at all and would be trivial to refute if false. However, as far as I can tell, he did not lie. No one here is basing this solely off of what Mike is saying.
Can you point to the part of the lawsuit that says that Media Matters lied, or where the lawsuit includes “defamation” as a cause of action?
Re: Re: Re:
Then why doesn’t the lawsuit filed by Twitter claim that Media Matters printed falsehoods?
Then why doesn’t the lawsuit filed by Twitter make a claim of defamation against Media Matters?
Re:
Moderation is free speech when it’s a platform deciding what speech it will host. Otherwise, you’d be forcing speech on a private entity and that’s not free as in freedom. That’s authoritarianism. The same applies whether it’s forcing a newspaper to run an article it doesn’t agree with or a random blog by one obscure guy that no one reads.
Lack of moderation ruins communities such that only the most hateful and trollish people stick around because they don’t care about the quality of interactions. You drive away regular users.
Some of what is referred to as hate speech is actually threats of violence which are not free speech and are not protected by the First Amendment or case law.
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Re: Re:
You mean “censorship”, and no, it absolutely isn’t. It’s just legal censorship cuz it’s a private company doing it.
“Some”? You haven’t offered any evidence that’s true but unless ALL the “hatespeech” is actual credible threats (it can’t just be general wishes of harm) that’s not even relevant, at all, and obviously you know it is not.
So why bother even bother mentioning it? To cloud the issue, obviously. This is laughably transparent.
Re: Re: Re:
No, they don’t.
Yes, it is.
If I own and operate a social media service that’s open to the public, and I choose to bar the posting of any content that glorifies Nazism and its adherents, how does that decision prevent anyone from exercising their freedom to post that content literally anywhere else?
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Re: Re: Re:2
OK? That’s censorship. It’s absolutory legal, and most people probably agree good and justified, but it’s still censorship.
….it doesn’t, but that also has NOTHING to do with the definition of “censorship”. This word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
Seriosuly, stop fucking pretending “Censorship” means this whole other thing. It’s just a strawman with extra steps.
Re: Re: Re:3
No, Matthew, social norms are not censorship.
No matter how much you claim they are when they’re not on your side.
If you want a place where posting of antiSemitic nonsense, Qanon stochastic terrorism and white supremacy is the norm, might I suggest… Stormfront? Or most of the Christian places on the Internet?
If you still don’t know what I’m talking about, go ask your FBI handler what that means.
Re: Re: Re:3
It isn’t, and I’ll explain why.
Consider the following: If I own a social media service, I am effectively operating a mall where every account is a store. (Don’t bother citing Pruneyard here because social media services don’t have the kinds of public spaces that are covered by Pruneyard.) Every “store” is free to “sell” whatever “product” it wants—i.e., every account can post whatever speech it wants—so long as it acts within the rules set by the “mall” (and U.S. law). So if my “mall” bans the posting of pro-Nazi content, that doesn’t prevent any “store” from leaving my “mall”, going to another “mall” (or making its own standalone “storefront” [website]), and “selling its product” there. No one’s freedom is infringed upon by that rule because the people who open “stores” in my “mall” agreed to follow the rules I set out when I offered space in my “mall”. No one’s rights are infringed upon because anyone who doesn’t like those rules can go somewhere else and I can’t stop them from doing that in any way.
To make a long analogy short (too late): I can’t censor anyone if I can’t prevent them from speaking their mind anywhere outside of property I control, and I can’t do that unless I either use the government (via lawsuits or police action) or acts of actual physical violence to enforce my desire to censor. My property, my rules—and if you don’t like those rules, you can leave and go find a place where rules about supporting Nazis are less stringent. I suggest Twitter.
It does, because censorship is about infringing upon one’s right to express themselves. A decision by a social media service to ban certain kinds of speech only bans that speech on that service; it doesn’t stop current or former users of that service from posting speech that would get them banned from that service anywhere else. Arguing that losing the privilege of posting on Twitter or Mastodon or any other social media service is “censorship” is an attempt to argue that someone has the imagined right of “free reach”, and a lot of commenters here (myself included) have torn that argument to shreds plenty of times, so it will do you no good here.
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Re: Re: Re:4
Censorship is the act of the censor, silencing speech based on viewpoint on platforms the censor controls. The ability of the silenced to speak elsewhere is irrelevant.
Re: Re: Re:5
..lie nobody mentally competent, ever.
Re: Re: Re:5
Hi, Hyman! Supported any CSAM distributors today?
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Re: Re: Re:6
It’s particularly interesting that you say this now, when Israel is showing pictures and videos of what the Palestinian terrorists did to Israelis. I’m sure woke filth like you is masturbating over the piles of Jewish corpses, but the intent of showing atrocities unfiltered is to raise awareness of what happened among people unlike you who will be unhappy about it. And that might be the same reason that someone chooses to show an example of child pornography.
Re: Re: Re:7
Pictures depicting the horrors of war, no matter how gruesome or horrifying, are legal to distribute. (The morality thereof is another question.) CSAM, which depicts the sexual abuse of children, is illegal to both create and distribute. Your support for the creation and distribution of CSAM amounts to support for the sexual abuse of children—which is also illegal.
Keep throwing out ad homs and strawmen if you like, Hyman Rosen, but you’re the only person on this web site who has ever openly, explicitly, and voluntarily expressed support for the creation and distribution of CSAM. Even dipshits like Matthew Bennett, Koby, and LostInLodos have never gone that far. If you’re only pretending to be a pedophile enabler for the purposes of trolling, you’re long past the point of anyone taking you seriously if you now try to defend your trolling with “I was only joking about being a fan of child rape”.
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Re: Re: Re:8
The person who posted that image did not create it. He showed an existing image. Doing something illegal in the furtherance of good social policy is known as civil disobedience. It is a common tactic, also used by woke filth like you to promote evil, such as supporting “mostly peaceful” rioters, looters, and arsonists who cannot stand to see Black criminals killed while they are committing their crimes.
Re: Re: Re:9
Irrelevant. The creation and distribution of CSAM is illegal…
…and nobody needs to create or distribute more CSAM to make it even more illegal or draw any more attention to the issue of child sex abuse.
Seriously, Hyman Rosen, you’re a step away from sounding like you’re openly advocating for giving adults the right to rape children. What the actual fuck is wrong with you.
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Re: Re: Re:10
There are crazed people, such as the believers in Pizzagate, who think that insufficient attention is being paid to such cases when they are committed by Democrats, or perhaps by married gay men who adopt children.
Your own opinion that there does not need to be more attention drawn to the problem is not binding on anyone else. You don’t get to control what other people should be concerned about our what actions they take to express their concern.
Seriously, Stephen T. Stone, you trying to divert attention away from child pornography means that you are a step away from advocating for its production to be legal.
Re: Re: Re:11
And look what happened with that: A man shot up a pizza joint over a deranged conspiracy theory that only gullible fools and Trumpists (whoops, tautology!) would ever believe. Also: Funny how you single out Democrats and gay men but avoid mentioning the Catholic and Southern Baptist Churches, both of which went to great lengths to cover up decades of systemic child abuse. No case of child sexual abuse should ever be ignored, and you’re doing an awful lot of ignoring child sexual abuse from your “side”.
How much more attention needs to be drawn to the issue of child sexual abuse that isn’t already paid to it? Hell, Hyman, your potshot at gay men up there is 100% reminiscient of the kind of blood libel that queer people have faced for decades from bigots like you. You’re not drawing attention to anything but your own bigotry.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahahaha oh my god you’re so fucking stupid
Thanks for proving that every accusation is a confession when it comes from right-wing pricks like you. I have never in my life advocated or argued for decriminalizing or even legalizing either pedophilia or the creation/distribution of CSAM. You’re the one who has done that, Hyman Rosen—and that fact should get your ass put on a government watchlist at a bare minimum.
Re: Re: Re:11 Holy F***ing Projection, Batman!
Says the guy who thinks illegally posting CSAM is acceptable “civil disobedience.” You’ve literally already done in this very thread what you’re accusing someone else of.
Re: Re: Re:11
Something that Stephen, to my knowledge, has never done except to the extent where it is off-topic. I genuinely have no idea why you think that’s an impression that anyone could get from anything he has said or done at all, but it’s objectively and demonstrably false.
Re: Re: Re:12
Everyone knows that only priests want child pornography. The people on f-list who want to fuck kindergarteners don’t count. Not at all. They’re probably all straight Christians who want to make us asshole fuckers look bad.
Re: Re: Re:5
“Censorship is the act of the censor, silencing speech based on viewpoint on platforms the censor controls. The ability of the silenced to speak elsewhere is irrelevant.”
Using this definition, why is Elmo censoring posts on Xtwitter while simultaneously claiming Xtwitter is the epitome of Free Speech?
Re: Re: Re:6
Because he’s an inconsistent and impulsive maniac?
Re: Re: Re:5
Like I said, you’re just obsessed with a word and completely unable or unwilling to see the differences between wildly different situations. You claim to be smart but we can all see you really struggling with this.
Re: Re: Re:4
The illiterate “moderation is censorship because it suppresses speech!” lie originates solely from both entitlement and irrationality.
Let’s say a person’s unrestricted ability to speak is defined as a baseline “speech value” of 1.0.
By being offered the privilege of borrowing another’s speech platform a speaker can, let’s say, expamd their speech value to 5x. Have multiple platforms open? Let’s say your speech value is 25x.
The entitled and irrational believe that any withdrawal of these conditional privileges whatsoever (e.g. A platform saying “You broke our rules so you’re no longer allowed on our private property.”) so as to bring one’s current speech value value under this maximum potential, even say 24x, is “suppression” of speech.
In reality, free speech remains fully intact and unsuppressed until it drops below that baseline value of 1.0 (i.e. the government saying “You are not allowed to say this anywhere.)
Matthew, Koby, Benjamin, BDAC, etc. lying that moderation is censorship is a malicious, disingenuous twisting of language that misleadingly conflates loss of privileges with loss of a hallucinatory “right to post” the sole intent behind which being to support the loss of the actual Constitutional and free speech rights held by platforms.
It is impossible to truthfully claim to support free speech rights while simultaneously opposing moderation.
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Re: Re: Re:4
I don’t know what to tell you other than you have no idea what “censorship” means.
This is utterly incorrect. This is simply not part of the definition, I have shown you the definition, it doesn’t include this, nor suggest this, and yet you keep on pretending it means this, presumably because it makes things easier for you to frame politically.
This is not what the word means and you are using it incorrectly on purpose, please stop. Masnick also plays this game and it’s super dumb, it delegitimizes everything you say on the subject.
Re: Re: Re:5
How does my telling a visitor in my home who shittalks my family to get out of my house qualify as “censorship”? And how is that any different from a social media service telling a user who violates the rules to get off that service?
You keep pretending that losing the privilege of speaking on a platform you don’t own is “censorship”. Your argument has no basis in reality because nobody is owed the use of someone else’s private property as a platform for their speech. My argument is based on the fact that losing the privilege of posting on a single platform doesn’t prevent someone from posting on any other platform—an argument, by the way, which is more factual and logical than yours.
Make me, bitch. 🙃
Re: Re: Re:5
…a claim immediately proven to be projection by the drivel following it.
Re: Re: Re:5
I think we’ve found your problem. Definitions are descriptive observations by their writers of how they perceive a word has been used. They are not prescriptive linguistic edicts from the gods of speech dictating how a word must be used, nor are they explanations of what the word has meant in every context in which it has ever been used.
That you’re unaware of this explains so much about why you’re awful at arguing. You think everyone else has to use your intended meaning or else they’re using a word wrong. But understanding other people seems to be your greatest weakness. If you had more interest, understanding, and empathy for other people, you wouldn’t be arguing these absurd positions in the first place.
Re: Re: Re:6
This is a very common problem in my experience.
Re: Re: Re:
An argument that is made by people who have no interest in actual free speech, but rather in forcing everybody else to agree with them,.
Re: Re: Re: Be careful what you wish for.
Hey you might get your wish of having Elmo crash on your couch since he’s gonna be homeless at the rate he’s going.
Re: Re: Re:2
More likely that a suddenly rich butler will gracious let him stay in their posh houses, the ones that were once owned by Musk..
Re: Re: Re:
I mean moderation and it absolutely is free speech to moderate. If I were a guest in your home and I started writing things on a white board in your home that you didn’t want me to write, you could absolutely tell me to leave and erase the white board. You’re free to not host my speech. That’s free speech.
Oh, well if a stranger on the internet hasn’t offered a citation yet, it must not be true!
That you aren’t familiar with what is and isn’t protected by the First Amendment already indicates how little you know what you’re talking about. You definitely shouldn’t be forced to do even the slightest amount of research to find out more on the topic!
Oh, well if not all of it is credible threats, then the “hate speech” that does actually qualify as credible threats (or, you know, defamation or incitement or fighting words or fraud, etc.) is perfectly okay! Except it’s not. It’s absolutely relevant. If you just lump a bunch of different types of speech together, it’s highly relevant which specific types are legally protected.
Ironically, I was mentioning it to clarify your use of a vague term like “hate speech” and your reckless use of the all-inclusive modifier “absolutely.” It’s highly relevant to point out your use of “absolutely” was incorrect.
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Re: Re: Re:2
Look, man, I’m just gonna address the whole thing right here: all your definitions are wrong, which means all your ideas are wrong. Pretty much every fucking idea I’ve ever seen you utter beyond “it should be OK to be gay”, is wrong.
“Moderation”, if it involves removing speech, making it much harder to hear/read, absolutely is censorship per definition. Censorship though, can be good or bad (I lean towards bad, most cases, but sure, ban your swastikas if it makes you feel better, certainly have no problem with censoring kiddie porn, etc.) but it remains censorship regardless of whether you agree with it or not.
Censorship by the government, on the other hand, we have very strong proscriptions against, because it turns out just finding whatever excuse you want to ban speech (Obscenity, hatespeech, heresy, treason, whatever) is very easily turned into a method to ban whoever disagrees with you and outlaw dissent. We’ve seen this like, a billion times. Liberals are very good at doing it, right now. Just because you happen to agree with the politics of those using excuses to squash dissent at this moment doesn’t make it good, in fact doesn’t stop it from being quite dangerous. This is WHY the 1A is such an important thing, and in fact something no other country really follows. (China claims they have free speech! So does the UK.).
Oh, and btw, several government agencies spent a lot of time and money “strongly suggesting” to ban some speech. Something that looks pretty clearly like just violating the 1A, but with extra steps.
Oh, credible threats? That had absolutely nothing to do with anything. There is a very specific carve out for that. (really, cuz it’s the promise of violence) So ok, We’re not talking about that. But you really wish we were. It’s just a dodge, another moving of the goal posts.
All your ideas are fucking bad Stephen, and in some ways I’m fucking disappointed you don’t understand why.
Re: Re: Re:3
FYI, Matt: That wasn’t my post. If it were, I’d have claimed it.
No, it isn’t. Moderation is about a single platform choosing what speech it will or won’t host and enforcing that decision. Nothing about that decision prevents anyone from posting their speech on any other platform. A Nazi who wants to post “Hitler Did Nothing Wrong” memes can do it on any platform that will allow it; a single platform refusing to allow it is not “censorship” unless you believe in the right of “free reach”, which is not a serious concept and has no basis in the law (including judicial precedent).
Are you really angling to be the second person in Techdirt comments to openly support the creation and distribution of CSAM? Because, uh…wow, that’s certainly a position you can take.
Two things.
And if I (or anyone else) were advocating for the Biden administration to use the force of law as a way of quashing offensive/objectionable speech on social media, you might have a point. That said: I’ve taken issue in the past with liberals/progressives/left-wingers trying to use the gears of government as a means of censorship. I’m all for social media services voluntarily choosing to refuse hosting racial slurs, queerphobia, pornography, and other potentially objectionable but otherwise legal speech. But you’ll never catch me asking for the government to force those decisions upon any such service—and if I ever do that, you can assume either that I’m out of my mind or someone has hacked into my Techdirt account.
Twitter refused to listen to those suggestions more than half the time, as the so-called Twitter Files proved. And even those suggestions effectively said “do whatever you want about this, including nothing at all”, which is not even close to the kind of coercion that was central to Bantam Books v. Sullivan.
Re: Re: Re:3
As Stephen pointed out, you’re responding to the wrong person. I wrote that. Not him. You look silly here pretending you understand the context of the comments and you’re just ad homineming the wrong person.
This is the loosest and most useless meaning for the word censorship. The “per definition” part is also useless because there are multiple definitions of word, language is not prescriptive by nature, and you as one rando on the internet don’t get to dictate to others which definition they use.
Free (as in freedom) speech involves the equality of all speakers. It involves not just being free to speak, but also free not to speak, free not to host the speech of others that you don’t agree with. Ergo, a private platform has the free speech right to refuse to host the speech of those with whom they disagree. Free speech on a private platform is not a right nor guaranteed anymore than it is in someone else’s house, so whining about moderation as censorship on private platforms is like complaining there are no birds flying at the bottom of the ocean.
Which shows your bias because conservatives like Trump and Musk have often notably called for loosening libel laws so they could more easily suppress the free speech of others use the courts of the government.
Who says I agree with the politics of liberals? Oh wait, you still think I’m Stephen. Woops!
The 1st Amendment protects the right of private platforms to moderate…
Telling Twitter that people are violating Twitter’s rules without telling Twitter to ban those people isn’t “strongly suggesting” anything. But people actually disenfranchising others by spreading fraudulent voter misinformation is actually illegal.
It does though. You brought up hate speech. What some people say is 1st Amendment-protected hate speech is actually credible threats which aren’t protected by the 1st Amendment. Hate speech is a very loose term, which I why I typically recommend not using it.
So you just agreed that it isn’t protected by the 1st Amendment, so not all hate speech is free speech protected by the 1st Amendment, so now you’re contradicting your original statement. You could have just led with that and not wasted your time embarrassing yourself talking to the wrong person.
Stephen does a great job at tearing apart your bullshit. I love that you’re both so irate and unobservant that you’re shadowboxing with strawmen. It follows the patterns of all your other disingenuous and ill-conceived arguments.
Re: Re: Re:
The difference between moderation and censorship is the word that follows “you cant say that”; moderation follows it with here, while censorship follows it with anywhere. Being banned from say Twitter is moderation, being dragged through the courts so you are silenced is censorship, and is being practiced by Musk against media matters.
Re: Re:
“Moderation is free speech when it’s a platform deciding what speech it will host. Otherwise, you’d be forcing speech on a private entity and that’s not free as in freedom. That’s authoritarianism. The same applies whether it’s forcing a newspaper to run an article it doesn’t agree with or a random blog by one obscure guy that no one reads.“
This is technically what Texas and Florida got sued for, in cases soon to be decided by the Supreme Court. Both states passed laws that effectively compel speech from social media platforms by limiting their ability to take down content that violates the platforms’ terms of service. Both laws were clearly designed to prevent RWers from being “censored” (i.e., having posts spreading lies, disinformation, bigotry and threats removed).
Re:
Did Elmo ever let you suck it?
Re:
It’s inarguable that unrestricted speech on SM platforms results in fewer people speaking on the platform, because the noisy deplorables (yeah I went there) drive people away. So what’s more important to you; unrestricted speech or more people participating in speech? I’d argue that latter is actually beneficial to society and the hoping for the former is just naive and unrealistic.
It’s almost like the concepts of moderation, trust and safety are new to you, as opposed to fairly basic and desirable human behaviors. Applying them to social media doesn’t change that.
I can only assume you think that way because the hate speech is not being directed at you. If you weren’t so self-centred you’d understand that your lived experience is different to others. And whether or not hate speech should be considered free speech, most people don’t want a SM site full of it, so they (and advertisers) will leave. If you want another 4chan, just be honest and say that.
So YOU should be able to say anything you want but anybody who says stuff you don’t like, even if factually correct, should get sued. Can you even try to justify that hypocritical nonsense?
“Free speech absolutism” is by its very nature a naïve concept that I don’t see ever truly working out in practice. I think this would be best explained through an allegory.
Imagine you are a homeowner with a front yard that your neighbors and passers-by can easily see. You decide to install a flagpole there and fly a flag. What flag you fly is ultimately irrelevant. Now let’s imagine one of two scenarios.
Scenario 1: It is illegal to fly that flag.
Please disregard things like the First Amendment for the purposes of this allegory. If the state catches you flying the flag, you will be punished. Maybe you’re fined for each day the flag is up, maybe the flag is confiscated, maybe you’re even imprisoned. Whatever the case, unless the flag is never brought to the state’s attention, there is a cost that you will bear for flying it. Maybe you think the cost is worth it, in which case you continue flying the flag. I can’t exactly prove that anyone reading this comment is willing to defy the law no matter how harsh the punishment, but I suspect most of us would have a breaking point.
Scenario 2: It is legal to fly the flag, but your neighbors harass you for it.
For reasons that are irrelevant, your neighbors take issue with the flag. Since the law permits the flag, they decide to instead impose their own cost on you. They harass you when they see you in public, they “forget” to clean up after their dogs when walking them by your property, they blast loud music when you’re trying to concentrate or sleep… Their behavior, while infuriating, is always either within the confines of the law or something that it would be next to impossible to get them punished for. You could move, but that’s expensive and a hassle. Maybe you just put up with it because flying the flag is worth it. However, I’m once again inclined to question just how willing we are to put up with such treatment.
In both scenarios, there is nothing stopping you from continuing your behavior, but there is also a cost imposed on you for doing it. That one is imposed by the state and the other imposed by fellow civilians is a meaningless difference. I know from my experience as a forum admin that there are some people who are willing to continue breaking the rules no matter how often they’re punished for it. Lifetime ban? They’ll just use an alt. IP ban? Proxy. They only stop when the cost of their behavior ceases to be worth it to them. The same holds true for people who leave a site because they no longer feel welcome there; the cost–imposed by other users–ceases to be worth it to them.
“Free speech absolutism,” if taken as a sincere goal rather than code for “rules for thee but not for me,” is akin to “Can’t we all just get along?” It sounds lovely, but it’s just not realistic.
What kind of “free speech” is it when you drive everyone away?
The only kind ‘free speech absolutists’ ever seem to actually care about: ‘I can say whatever I want without consequence. You are free to speak only so long as I agree with what you’re saying’.
Elon’s having a bit of a tantrum and hissy fit:
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4334276-musk-tells-companies-pulling-ads-from-x-go-f-yourself/
Re: 'Consequences for my actions?! That's blackmail!'
Well I’m sure being publicly told to fuck off since he doesn’t want their money will do worlds of good to get companies to come back and keep companies there.
Gotta love the petulant dishonesty of framing ‘we don’t want our brands to be associated with such horrible content/people’ as ‘blackmailing’ Elon/Twitter.
Re:
The deluded moron actually believes people will boycott Disney if his company goes down the xitter.
Re: Re:
The kind of idiots who would are probably already doing it because of “wokeness” like casting a Black woman to play Ariel in the live-action Little Mermaid remake.
Re:
That’ll generate more revenue for sure!
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Twitter is better than ever.
Mike is just mad that Elon fired the censorship team that suppressed political views that Mike doesn’t like.
Re:
You’re entitled to your opinion, but it’s only correct if you support the kind of speech that is making advertisers bail and brands stop posting on Twitter. Is pro-Nazi speech something you support, anon?
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Re: Re:
Firstly, mentally-ill Stone, there are no “Nazi[s]” in 2023. You’re (literally) hysterical.
Secondly, as a crypto-fascist myself, were there an actual “Nazi” movement in late-2023, of course I would support publication of pro-“Nazi” speech. Idiot.
Re: Re: Re:
You need to learn some reading comprehension. “Pro-Nazi” ≠ “Nazi”. You can support a movement that died out a long time ago.
But at any rate, many people use “Nazi” to refer to people who wave the Nazi flag or support Nazi or neo-Nazi ideals. You’re being needlessly pedantic here.
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Re: Re: Re:2
Woke filth also screech “Nazi” against viewpoints that are true but that they dislike, such as the fact that Black people murder each other in numbers far disproportionate to their share of the population, or the fact that men can never be women. Oddly enough, they do not screech “Nazi” at Palestinian terrorists who rape, murder, and kidnap Jews, but do screech “Nazi” at Jews themselves.
Re: Re: Re:3
You got anything other than bigotry and right-wing stupidity, both of which likely came from a religious homeschool education that had no actual oversight into whether you were learning anything instead of being indoctrinated by right-wing religious fuckwits who think doing anything other than reading the Bible is a crime against both man and God?
Re: Re: Re:3
Yeah, those hallucinations sure are idiots.
Re: Re: Re:3
Which is irrelevant here. You said:
I was responding to that assertion. Not to some assertion that Stephen was using it to refer to people who don’t fit the definition I mentioned or something like that; the assertion that no one exists today that could be called a “Nazi”.
That some people are careless with their terminology doesn’t mean the term is always used carelessly, and it certainly doesn’t mean it no longer meaningfully refers to anyone today.
Once again, your strawman is bad, and you should feel bad for repeating this term that trans people don’t argue with. But I digress.
Some on the far left do, yes, and that is problematic. It’s just not material to this discussion.
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The first two things you quote are by different people. The first is mine, the second is not. If you would like a more sure way to know what I say, I suggest you ask the site owner to stop sending my posts to moderation, and then I could post the same things as I do now but signed in.
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“Tell the owner of the joint to stop making the conversations better by subjecting my trolling to additional steps!”
“Free” speech absolutism at it’s finest. The over-developed sense of entitlement is like icing on a mud pie.
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Pro-nazi, hate speech, antisemitism, CSAM… anyone who says that Twitter is ‘better than ever’ after Elon took over is, whether they realize it or not admitting to some pretty unpleasant things about their character and the sort of content they like seeing more of.
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You realize that’s complete made up, right? Seriously?
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No, advertisers and brands leaving the platform is completely factual, as is the spike in hateful speech.
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What’s “complete[ly] made up”? Could you be a bit more specific?
That advertisers are pulling ads from appearing on Twitter at all? No, that’s completely factual. You may not like it, or you may think it’s not an important issue, but it is true.
That ads from these companies were seen to appear next to pro-Nazi content? That, too, is factual. Media Matters isn’t the only one who found it, and it’s easy to verify. Plus, neither Musk nor his lawyers even dispute that it happens; they just attempt to downplay it.
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FTFY
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Promoting child pornographers and banning antifascists: “better than ever”. Pedocon theory undefeated.
Mr I'm going bankrupt and proud of it
Just caught another piece with quotes from Elmo The White Pasty Boy with incredibly thin skin. His entire Fuck NYT, and on was a delight.
Now, I used to think he was smart-ish. But he gleefully disavowed me of that mistake. My slight research into his actual background vs the claims he makes about said background were – shall we say, clarifying.
He’s spreadsheet jockey. That’s pretty much it. He reads a lot, but he never learned what the college classes would teach during lectures. The spectrum is a funny thing, but add that to a man stuck in his 13yo asshole mode forever and Elmo is just a jerk.
Someone (here?) mentioned the way he’s been brandishing Bankruptcy about of late he must be thinking that is where ExTwitter is headed. And blaming the advertisers for him trashing a decent product used world wide – yeah. 13yo brat.
“I won’t be blackmailed by advertisers”
Well, you can go bankrupt then. Fine with 80% of your old user base. And probably 80% of the current ones.
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That’s an extremely charitable take on him, considering that he never even attended his university classes.
Or that his code was so bad his EMPLOYEES at what would become Paypal had to work overtime to fix Emerald Space Karen’s code.
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No, that would imply competence in several fields he’s failed at. He’s just another narcissistic con artist who managed to ride high on other peoples money seeded by a privileged start.
He just managed to get involved with people who could deliver on what he tried to promise while working on ideas important enough to do so, until he went for something trivial that gave everyone a direct view on who he really was. People would put up with him when he was promising revolutions in transport and space travel, not so much when he just wants to chat with other edgelords.
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Nice Orwellian thoughts, Mansich.
“That’s not free speech. It limits free speech.”
As 4Chan correctly points out the only way left wing ideologies can thrive is through heavy moderation. Right-wing ideologies and ideas thrive with less moderation since people have to actually prove that their position is better.
You know, the “free market of ideas”.
BTW, Reddit is what you want with the heavy moderation and it’s been dying since 2020. In fact, even the users have noticed “Hey, does it seem like Reddit is dead these days? There’s hardly any engagement on the front page.”
All because of censorship.
Which, of course, is something you support.
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Except no, they don’t. They thrive on platforms with less moderation because those platforms allow bigots and shitheads to troll with abandon, so decent people with any actual sense abandon ship. 4chan is a vile shitpit of right-wing extremism precisely because it’s chased off pretty much anyone who isn’t a right-wing chud by letting those chuds take over the site. It’s hard to have an actual argument about whose policies are best when one “side” is practically non-existent and the other side (which is bigoted in multiple ways) runs the joint. I mean, why do you think “leftists” aren’t on Truth Social? Because it sure as shit ain’t about whether they could find right-wingers to argue with.
“Kill every Palestinian, even the children” is an idea. That doesn’t mean it deserves to be taken seriously—or that a platform should be required to host it, even out of some ridiculous-ass “obligation” to be a so-called champion of free speech.
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It worked in Hiroshima.
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Hiroshima was also a military target.
This isn’t to downplay the fact that a fucking nuke was used on civilians.
But the use of civilians as a shield against military offensives isn’t a new idea.
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Hey chucklefuck.
One of the big rules of 4chan is that you don’t take 4chan seriously at all.
Once you do, you reveal yourself to be even dumber than the troll who probably made that shit up on the spot.
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That doesn’t fit into their “free market of ideas” which mostly consists of ideological masturbatory sessions by impotents, because being ridiculed and told to fuck off with their stupidity makes them seriously angry and even more stupid.
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4chan was never about bullshit Nazism until the Stormfronters moved in.
And no one ever took anything 4chan said seriously to begin with, not even its community.
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Which just goes to prove that they make everything shittier for everyone.
4chan was never about bullshit Nazism until the Stormfronters moved in.
And no one ever took anything 4chan said seriously to begin with, not even its community.
So it is
Clearly it’s not “everyone”. Many millions still use the platform. Most of which are the Nazi boogeymen.
The big focus appears mostly on the “value” and how much it decreased. But as a private company there is no need to drive or derive value. They can operate at a loss if they so choose.
For me the interest in all this safe space stuff. When did we grow so weakened that we need safe spaces. If you don’t like someone, block them.
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Most or which are not