Elon Musk to join Twitter’s board of directors • Hacker News Board

Re: Elon Musk to join Twitter’s board of directors

#21

Post by carlycue » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 2:10 PM UTC

Elon Musk is this generations Steve Jobs. He has an enormous amount of influence with people 30 and under. His opinion of Apple will most likely sour when the Apple car comes out. If he really wanted, he probably could single-handedly bring Android closer to iOS in the US by changing his phone to Android and tweeting about it. I am not kidding. People worship Elon.

Re: Elon Musk to join Twitter’s board of directors

#22

Post by jdrc » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 2:11 PM UTC

Elon's twitter account is his most valuable asset, and responsible for much of the rest

Re: Elon Musk to join Twitter’s board of directors

#23

Post by nonameiguess » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 2:12 PM UTC

cloutchaser wrote: post #4

jdrc wrote: post #2

Quoted post unavailable.

This seems like a silly post on first reading, but actually thinking about it, that would mean the first amendment actually applies to Twitter right? In which case it would actually mean government can't interfere with it? It's an interesting mind exercise. What happens with blatant spamming, or bots, is the government allowed to interfere with those? Or does the 1st amendment block that too?

The government already owns a support foundation for publicly-owned broadcasters (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation_for_Public_Broadca...). Nothing about the 1st Amendment seems to prevent these broadcasters from restricting access to their airwaves. Anyone with a camera or mic can't just walk into a PBS studio and start transmitting whatever message they want. The Public Broadcasting Act of 1972 that created the CPB does stipulate that it has to be objective and balanced when dealing with controversial subjects, but it doesn't say every single person with a voice, no matter what they want to say, needs to be allowed to speak.

I aint no lawyer, of course, but this doesn't seem inconsistent with other arenas of free speech. Even literal public squares don't have infinite space. If some group tried to go occupy a government-owned park with a few thousand people more or less permanently, preventing anyone else from ever getting access, that would be illegal. Rationing and rate-limiting are not censorship, though presumably at least some people subject to it will probably try to say they are.