441–450 of 1001 posts
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.
I have to admit: I hope this happens mostly for the entertainment value. Also, I think that this business of shutting down opinions of people we dislike or disagree with is really bad for society long term. I think Musk might stop that.
Given how he responds to employees at his companies exercising their free speech rights, you may be disappointed.
It’s interesting to contextualize this with a regular persons life. This amount will present about 1/7 of his net worth. However unlike a traditional purchase this will be n investment and depending on how it goes, he can get even more money. If an average person had a max net worth of 3 million this would be like them deciding to buy a 400K investment property, or a laundry mat. That aside, this is also a great exam…
If he's so rich and smart, just make a better Twitter and people will flock to it, right? I mean, I thought he's for the invisible hand of the market yadda yadda yadda.
I suspect most of the commenters supporting the right of a private company to moderate content is completely contingent on what those moderation policies are. Commenters feign holding an absolute position but would certainly balk if the moderation ever turned against them and the idea they support. If you believe on principle, the right of private companies to moderate content, then you must support all kinds of absu…
I have to admit: I hope this happens mostly for the entertainment value. Also, I think that this business of shutting down opinions of people we dislike or disagree with is really bad for society long term. I think Musk might stop that.
Twitter should be nationalized. No man should control such a large medium
I suspect most of the commenters supporting the right of a private company to moderate content is completely contingent on what those moderation policies are. Commenters feign holding an absolute position but would certainly balk if the moderation ever turned against them and the idea they support. If you believe on principle, the right of private companies to moderate content, then you must support all kinds of absu…
I think saying that, on principle, companies should not moderate content at all is equally absurd as it would allow malware, CP, abusive content, and spam to run rampant. All we're really arguing about here is to what extent do we want these platforms to moderate content. Should they be limited to only removing illegal content? What's the line on "illegal" (no company could afford to consult lawyers for every post they remove)? What about spam, which is not necessarily illegal but disruptive to the service?
I suspect most of the commenters supporting the right of a private company to moderate content is completely contingent on what those moderation policies are. Commenters feign holding an absolute position but would certainly balk if the moderation ever turned against them and the idea they support. If you believe on principle, the right of private companies to moderate content, then you must support all kinds of absu…
Of course it is. Reading "Rules for Radicals" helps calm the nerves when you see previously anti-governance "anarchists" cheering for governments and private corporations. You make your enemies play by their own rules, then disregard the rules when they're no longer useful to you.
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…
When I post on HN anything about Trump or vaccines, HN doesn't add a note to my post informing readers about the 'correct' view on the problem. HN does restrict personal insults, and does it consistently for all sides of the conversation. That is fair moderation. Because it is fair, I don't feel that my (or anyone) right for free speech is limited here. The spirit of free speech principle is not violated.
Twitter, on the other hand, was applying their rules very selectively, discrediting views that they consider 'incorrect' with various notices, and blocking or restricting users with political views they don't like. That's suppression.
Of course, Twitter, like other plaftorms, DOES have the right to run their platform as they see fit, private company and all, but here comes another facet of this problem: everything can formally be a private platform, yet everything can be run by the government. It is not a hypothetical situation, in Russia every remaining media source is directly or indirectly controlled by the government. Putin's best friend, an oligarch, owns all social networks in Russia, and can just shut down any user that tries to oppose the war. No, not censorship, free enterprises.
It is a known fact that oligarchy can merge with the government very closely, and do become a de-facto cernsorship arm of the ruling party, while formally retaining their rights to block anyone who's views they don't like. This is not a theoretical problem and this is what happening now.
So the free world is not facing a difficult problem, how to balance the possibility (and dire necessity!) of having a public discourse on painful problems faced by the society with the rights of the commercial platforms that this discourse takes place on. I'd prefer Twitter to be politically neutral than trying to actively taking one side. That would be better for them, for their users, and basically for everybody. And it is actually fully within their rights.