after so many years of explaining to people online that you have freedom of speech, but other people don't have to amplify it if they don't want to, or listen to it if they don't want to.... I'm delighted to see a post outlining it so very well, and pointing out the entitled assumptions of those who imagine their use of platforms and reach to audiences is somehow legally protected.
The other ridiculous misuse commonly made of the First Amendment in America is even worse-- the one where people imagine their right to SAY stupid stuff somehow equates to BEING "right" if you are American, and sufficiently stubborn. I can't count the times I've heard someone use his freedom of speech as a last ditch "reason" he's not absolutely wrong about something..... because if he can say it, and he's American, how can he be WRONG???
is extremely well illustrated by his comment recently that he didn't believe the consent decree his company operates under applies because the agreement to obey that decree was made "under duress".
(picks jaw up from floor)
He is conflating law enforcement and government regulatory supervision with FREE CONTRACTUAL NEGOTIATIONS, as though governments and laws have NO authority over Twitter and cannot REQUIRE they do anything in order to be allowed to stay in business.
In other words, Musk has declared he and his company to be supremely outside ANY accountability and will do only as they please. His position implied here is that the company is supposedly bound ONLY by commitments "freely agreed to without a threat of negative consequences".
It's a billionaire's attitude, no question, but an uniquely naive and clueless one! And even more so when one realizes that even those "freely made" agreements cannot be policed by ANYONE, as far as Musk is concerned, other than.... himself.
Showing off how far down the right wing billionaire delusion hole he's fallen, Musk has just blamed the loss of ad revenues on imaginary "activist organized boycotts" pressuring companies to leave Twitter.... and threatened to SUE the imaginary leftist activist boycott organizers allegedly responsible for all those companies' business decisions. He said this IN A MEETING WIT ADVERTISERS, all of whom will know they aren't being menaced by shadowy woke groups, but are instead motivated by their lack of confidence in Twitter as a "brand safe" platform for their company's ads.
And to top it off, Musk then himself THREATENED advertisers by saying he intended to "name and shame" any who LEFT TWITTER-- because they all "ought to" keep supporting his mania for making his toy public square suit his desires better?
He's actually talking TO advertisers who are the revenue sources of the platform as though it's appropriate for him to PUNISH them if they don't obey him?! While also telling them obvious untruths, like his claim that content moderation has NOT changed... even though EVERYONE MODERATING content has been fired or quit the company rather than submit to Musk's "hardcore" loyalty checks and exorbitant demands to make his bad ideas work as though they were good ones.
It's all VERY Trumpish, sadly. Saddest is that so many people who aren't stupid cherish an illusory picture of Musk, whose wealthy apartheid background (and its associated assumptions of superiority) has really come out in middle age. He's been lucky, and broken a lot of laws and gotten away with it, but he thinks being rich means he must really be a genius. Besides, he still owes me several hundred bucks Paypal held up pending "proof" it wasn't some sort of shady money... a practice that meant the funds would somehow belong to Paypal unless you could extract it from their clutches. I wonder how may others he stole from that way?
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so happy to read this
after so many years of explaining to people online that you have freedom of speech, but other people don't have to amplify it if they don't want to, or listen to it if they don't want to.... I'm delighted to see a post outlining it so very well, and pointing out the entitled assumptions of those who imagine their use of platforms and reach to audiences is somehow legally protected. The other ridiculous misuse commonly made of the First Amendment in America is even worse-- the one where people imagine their right to SAY stupid stuff somehow equates to BEING "right" if you are American, and sufficiently stubborn. I can't count the times I've heard someone use his freedom of speech as a last ditch "reason" he's not absolutely wrong about something..... because if he can say it, and he's American, how can he be WRONG???
Musk's jawdropping cluelessness
is extremely well illustrated by his comment recently that he didn't believe the consent decree his company operates under applies because the agreement to obey that decree was made "under duress". (picks jaw up from floor) He is conflating law enforcement and government regulatory supervision with FREE CONTRACTUAL NEGOTIATIONS, as though governments and laws have NO authority over Twitter and cannot REQUIRE they do anything in order to be allowed to stay in business. In other words, Musk has declared he and his company to be supremely outside ANY accountability and will do only as they please. His position implied here is that the company is supposedly bound ONLY by commitments "freely agreed to without a threat of negative consequences". It's a billionaire's attitude, no question, but an uniquely naive and clueless one! And even more so when one realizes that even those "freely made" agreements cannot be policed by ANYONE, as far as Musk is concerned, other than.... himself.
Hey, REPACKAGE!
Showing off how far down the right wing billionaire delusion hole he's fallen, Musk has just blamed the loss of ad revenues on imaginary "activist organized boycotts" pressuring companies to leave Twitter.... and threatened to SUE the imaginary leftist activist boycott organizers allegedly responsible for all those companies' business decisions. He said this IN A MEETING WIT ADVERTISERS, all of whom will know they aren't being menaced by shadowy woke groups, but are instead motivated by their lack of confidence in Twitter as a "brand safe" platform for their company's ads. And to top it off, Musk then himself THREATENED advertisers by saying he intended to "name and shame" any who LEFT TWITTER-- because they all "ought to" keep supporting his mania for making his toy public square suit his desires better? He's actually talking TO advertisers who are the revenue sources of the platform as though it's appropriate for him to PUNISH them if they don't obey him?! While also telling them obvious untruths, like his claim that content moderation has NOT changed... even though EVERYONE MODERATING content has been fired or quit the company rather than submit to Musk's "hardcore" loyalty checks and exorbitant demands to make his bad ideas work as though they were good ones. It's all VERY Trumpish, sadly. Saddest is that so many people who aren't stupid cherish an illusory picture of Musk, whose wealthy apartheid background (and its associated assumptions of superiority) has really come out in middle age. He's been lucky, and broken a lot of laws and gotten away with it, but he thinks being rich means he must really be a genius. Besides, he still owes me several hundred bucks Paypal held up pending "proof" it wasn't some sort of shady money... a practice that meant the funds would somehow belong to Paypal unless you could extract it from their clutches. I wonder how may others he stole from that way?