This is exactly why individuals should not be allowed to have tens (let alone hundreds!) of billions of dollars in wealth - they become all-powerful and too easily subvert the will of the people. They become their own ruling class, which is unacceptable in a functioning democracy.
Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private
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Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private
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Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private
#313From 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…
This is quite patronizing to people in "first world" countries.
If there is no limit to free speech is it not possible that lies and falsehoods are so potent that spreading them leads to an authoritarian fascist police state?
There is a line that has to be drawn, for me it is solidly on the free-speech end of the scale, but absolutely not "unlimited".
I hope enough people will recognize when an idea is moving a society from democracy to autocracy and in this case all options to stop the autocrat should be used, including shutting down their ideas.
Trump walked very close to the line with his big lie on the legitimacy of the last US presidential election.
Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private
#314From 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…
Also understand this: Free Speech Absolutism is as stupid as any other form of absolutism.
Absolutism, almost without exception, is an oversimplification. It's easy and facile to defend, but also wrong, in that absolutism by definition ignores all edge cases.
And some of those edge cases can have extremely severe consequences, effectively crashing the system and killing large numbers of people.
YES — the constraints on the ways in which govt can limit free speech should themselves be extremely constrained, precisely because the dangers of government constraints rapidly escalate.
Yet the dangers of disinformation, algorithmically amplified to maximize 'engagement' are also to the level where the system can be crashed and result in mass killings.
The effects of both can be seen from Russia this week. Their massive disinformation campaigns and combined with effective near-total suppression of free speech has 60% to 80% support and almost total suppression of dissent [0][1]. The result here is hundreds of millions of people supporting a genocide in their neighboring country.
Yet completely free access to all media, and not only speech but amplified media platforms can also bring down democracies. The spread of Russian disinformation specifically to increase polarization in democracies is working. It already converted Hungary to an authoritarian state, and France is now very close to falling to an authoritarian party...
The ability to deliberately manipulate the public conversation with tens of thousands of fake accounts is not free speech, it is freely amplified lies [2].
The real problem is that if free speech is converted to free amplification of whatever disinformation any authoritarian state thinks is in its interest, the result will be not more free speech, but the end of democracy and imposition of a far tighter regime on free speech.
Again, look at Hungary - they had an open democracy, and free speech resulted in divisions, and an authoritarian took over. Now, free speech is severely curtailed in order to keep the authoritarian in power.
Is the solution to curtail free speech at the outset? Maybe a little, something like the old Equal Time requirements for broadcast TV, or on social media, accurate identification of the source.
Probably more important and effective than curtailing free speech is to actively and in real-time counter the disinformation. This actually worked in the Ukraine war, as Russian disinformation efforts were countered and called out as the lies that they were within hours, which denied the Russians the cover they had when such pretexts went unchallenged in 2014 as Crimea was invaded.
So, yes speech must be biased very strongly towards the FREE end, but requiring a private platform to amplify any particular speech is just as un-free. If you want an amplified platform for your views that most consider abhorrent, you are FREE to make your own competing platform.
[0] https://www.israelhayom.com/2022/03/11/russian-campaign-depi...
[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-05/russian-support-for-p...
[2] https://theconversation.com/russian-embassy-in-canada-weapon...
EDIT: Additionally, it is not exactly a secret that Russia is running bot factories - it is openly mentioned on their mass media [3].
It is not individual speech that needs to be controlled, it is amplified govt and corporate speech abusing the agora that needs to be controlled.
We must understand the difference and apply different rules & repsonses.
[3] https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/151442262800988160...
Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private
#315He actually dismissed Twitter’s management so I am guessing they’re slated to be demoted or fired if he takes over. Should they sell? I mean it’s such a bizarrely undervalued company. It’s like buying a plot of land on fifth avenue that’s owned by a convenience store and the store owner wants to charge for a skyscraper market rate.
Twitter's management has no say in whether or not they sell, except insofar as they get to vote with their shares like any other investor.
Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private
#316This seems like a win/win. If Elon takes over Twitter and fixes it, we get free speech there (plus, product innovation!). If Elon is rejected, battle lines clearly drawn and hopefully many alternative platforms (innovating on product as well as terms of service; enjoy tankie-twitter!). This is like the great unbundling of Craigslist, probably created 100x consumer surplus over a decade.
Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private
#317This is exactly why individuals should not be allowed to have tens (let alone hundreds!) of billions of dollars in wealth - they become all-powerful and too easily subvert the will of the people. They become their own ruling class, which is unacceptable in a functioning democracy.
That, or they piss it away on vanity projects like this and level themselves downwards in the process.
Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private
#318I don't have an opinion over the consequences for politics over this, I'm just excited over the potential shakedown of the social media landscape that I grew to despise. Musk is an activist, can make it or break it. He is absolutely right over its enormous potential, all the problems it has - as a business or ones it creates for the society - can be solved. Free speech absolutism is possible and is beneficial once yo…
> Free speech absolutism is possible and is beneficial ..
We (the internet) tried that with 8chan. Things kept escalating to the point where a bunch of people got murdered in a synagogue. Condoning violent echo chambers will always ALWAYS lead to significant violence.
Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private
#319As 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…
> Left alone user content rapidly devolves into the most low-effort salient content - flame wars, political proselytizing and porn, mostly.
Polemics, porn, and politics
Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private
#320From 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…
We already have limitations on free speech in the "first world".
Ask somebody involved in a merger how "free" their speech is.
Or somebody involved in a court case.
At issue is what we choose to protect from harmful lies.
Wealthy people with good access to lawyers can sue for defamation. A courtroom is protected by perjury laws. Business is protected from fraud.
And yet the tools to fight the COVID pandemic are beneath protection? Minorities are beneath protection?
Look at the Americans -- half the country still thinks the election was stolen, and the only people facing consequences for that are the ones who lied about Dominion Voting Solutions because there a business had standing to show damages.
Free speech online has been tried, the end result is 4chan, which gave way to Qanon. When fascism takes hold in the first world, it will be "free speech" without any protection of truth that ushered it there.