Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 1001 posts

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#291

Post by rjzzleep »

542458 wrote: post #126

As somebody from the first world who has had the experience of moderating Internet forums… free speech in the sense of “the government generally shouldn’t control people’s speech, with limited exceptions” is good and necessary. Free speech in the sense of “everybody should be forced to platform every idea” is silly IMO. Left alone user content rapidly devolves into the most low-effort salient content - flame wars, po…

There is a fairly interesting documentary of what Denmark thinks of free speech. To an extent where politicians are protected from setting the Quran on fire, full well knowing that it is designed to incite hatred. I don't know what the danish voice on silencing dissenting eastern perspectives on the war in Ukraine is, but the EU citizens seem to be themselves cheering on censorship more and more these days.

The documentary itself is quite interesting in my opinion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sM8p7hnprM

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#292

Post by Mezzie »

542458 wrote: post #126

As somebody from the first world who has had the experience of moderating Internet forums… free speech in the sense of “the government generally shouldn’t control people’s speech, with limited exceptions” is good and necessary. Free speech in the sense of “everybody should be forced to platform every idea” is silly IMO. Left alone user content rapidly devolves into the most low-effort salient content - flame wars, po…

I generally agree with you, but one thing that's been making me extremely uncomfortable lately (since 2016) is the attacking of alternate platforms/communities that are built. Back in The Day(TM), when people had issues with mod/admin decisions and they couldn't be resolved, they'd just spin off a new commmunity/chatroom/forum/etc. Some people would move, some would stay in both, and we'd wait to see if the disagreeing faction was large enough to sustain itself. If so, you'd just end up with 2/3 places to go to talk about X instead of 1.

Now it's more common to try to get 'bad' platforms dehosted altogether (e.g. Parler/Gab), subreddits try to get their 'alternatives' banned, and any company/group that challenges a big group is going to be bought out or otherwise dealt with. (See: FB's gobbling of companies to try to keep people in their garden instead of letting people chose which gardens they enjoy.)

We used to have the opportunity to walk into the woods and make our own playground. Now people will follow you and attack you for that. THAT'S the problem. Also we're becoming really fond of demanding community loyalty. HN doesn't have this problem (which is one reason I show up), but on other social media sites, it can be, for instance, forbidden to link to/talk about certain other sites. For example, on Reddit, it's common to ban people for posting in the 'wrong' Reddits, and on Twitter finding out somebody participates somewhere 'bad' is practically open season.

I should be able to go on HN and /b/, provided I follow my host's rules. I should also be able to set up my OWN site and explicitly say it's because I disagree with - say - HN's moderation policies without worrying about the site being attacked.

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#293

Post by mollusk_bound »

542458 wrote: post #126

As somebody from the first world who has had the experience of moderating Internet forums… free speech in the sense of “the government generally shouldn’t control people’s speech, with limited exceptions” is good and necessary. Free speech in the sense of “everybody should be forced to platform every idea” is silly IMO. Left alone user content rapidly devolves into the most low-effort salient content - flame wars, po…

It's frustrating that this topic keeps being discussed as if there are only two options. Why not provide each individual users with powerful tools that let them specify the type of content they want to see and when. They can have a large amount of presets and with a single button click users can change what they'll be seeing or they can spend some time and modify it to their liking. People can also share the filters they created. Even better create an open API and let companies compete with each other over who provides the best filters.

Moderation is important, but why leave it up to executives at these massive companies to decide what is acceptable and what isn't. Let each user decide for themselves.

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#294

Post by Spooky23 »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #105

From observing various internet forums, including this one, I noticed that people from the "first world" countries don't know the value of free speech and often take it for granted. Sometimes even coming to such views as "free speech is dangerous" and that "we should limit free speech" (by blocking the views I don't like). Understand this: limits on free speech are far more dangerous to society than allowing fringe e…

There’s a difference between free speech and access to global loudspeaker. You don’t have freedom to get maximum engagement.

Twitter and Facebook are dangerous because they allow anything that gets them money. Political campaigns and foreign influence campaigns wield armies of bots to spew bullshit.

People of more libertarian bent tend to focus on some idealized vision of free speech. When those platforms enable fascists to overthrow democratic governments, you’ve won the battle and lost the war.

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#295

Post by 300bps »

542458 wrote: post #126

As somebody from the first world who has had the experience of moderating Internet forums… free speech in the sense of “the government generally shouldn’t control people’s speech, with limited exceptions” is good and necessary. Free speech in the sense of “everybody should be forced to platform every idea” is silly IMO. Left alone user content rapidly devolves into the most low-effort salient content - flame wars, po…

Internet forum moderation is nothing like government censorship.

If you don’t like a forum’s moderation policies, you can go to another forum.

If you run afoul of your government’s censorship, they can jail you or even end your life.

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#296

Post by JoeNr76 »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #105

From observing various internet forums, including this one, I noticed that people from the "first world" countries don't know the value of free speech and often take it for granted. Sometimes even coming to such views as "free speech is dangerous" and that "we should limit free speech" (by blocking the views I don't like). Understand this: limits on free speech are far more dangerous to society than allowing fringe e…

Limits on free speech by government is dangerous. Private companies enforcing rules you have agreed to when you became a member, is something completely different.

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#297

Post by [deleted] »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #105

From observing various internet forums, including this one, I noticed that people from the "first world" countries don't know the value of free speech and often take it for granted. Sometimes even coming to such views as "free speech is dangerous" and that "we should limit free speech" (by blocking the views I don't like). Understand this: limits on free speech are far more dangerous to society than allowing fringe e…

[deleted]

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#298

Post by ComradePhil »

cs702 wrote: post #263

OK. I'm a huge admirer of everything Musk has a accomplished, but... W.T.F.? Taking on Twitter will not only be a huge amount of work, it is likely consume a ridiculous amount of talent -- which could be focused instead on building next-generation humanoid robots, electric vehicles, energy solutions, reusable spaceships, and space stations. Musk has a long history of taking on more than it's humanly possible, but so…

> it is likely consume a ridiculous amount of talent

He has indicated that he'll fire most of the employees[1]. In practice, I think he'll move the talent pool whose job is to optimize ad delivery at Twitter to Tesla/SpaceX/OpenAI etc... and make Twitter paid for by the users, not by the advertisers [2].

[1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1512974273606045702?ref_...

[2] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1512964005060657156?s=21...

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#299

Post by [deleted] »

542458 wrote: post #126

As somebody from the first world who has had the experience of moderating Internet forums… free speech in the sense of “the government generally shouldn’t control people’s speech, with limited exceptions” is good and necessary. Free speech in the sense of “everybody should be forced to platform every idea” is silly IMO. Left alone user content rapidly devolves into the most low-effort salient content - flame wars, po…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN