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(FWIW, I've always believed that moderation is a good thing on Twitter, and that free speech absolutism is just not tenable on the platform.)
It's been fascinating to watch this guy come in and absolutely crush any dissenting voices then immediately start restricting speech on the "free speech zone" platform of his.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are restating my argument as using a sonic cannon. That is not what I said. I said: what happens if I shout my speech so as to obscure yours? Given the strawman, I guess that you don't have an answer.
Your argument is, abstractly, "Isn't censorship also speech?" My response is, no, censorship is not covered under free speech. This is a faulty supposition that many people who are generally opposed to free speech hold. Preventing people from hearing someone speak is self-evidently the most anti-free-speech act it is possible for a private individual to do.
That isn't my argument at all. My argument is that for you to stop me from shouting over your speech, you would be limiting my speech. I could argue that I am shouting so that everyone can hear me. I could be shouting important things. Limiting my speech is censorship.
Free speech absolutism is a paradox. The only way to resolve that paradox is to limit speech that limits the fundamental (so-called "God-given") rights of others.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is the sort of damage control id expect to see from someone only peripherally aware of or involved in their businesses accountability or strategic operations. This concern from advertisers has existed far too long for an executive action to have any meaning. the marketing conference call on november 3rd was your red flag where advertisers voiced their displeasure with firin…
Please stop spreading the falsehood that Eli Lilly lost billions because of a fake verified tweet. https://medium.com/@westwise/did-twitter-just-take-8-billion...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Brandenburg test The Brandenburg Test doesn't apply to free speech absolutism.
Elon Musk has already said he supports unrestricted *legal* speech on Twitter, and that individual cultures should decide what that is for themselves, through their local legal system. He's not a "free speech absolutist."
As is the plan to "deboost" negative and hateful tweets - I'll remind the court that when Youtube did the same thing, many people here considered even demonetizing and downranking content to be censorship, and antithetical to free speech.
Here's one example quote from June, 2022:
“I think there’s this big difference between freedom of speech and freedom of reach in that one can, obviously, let’s say in the United States go in the middle of Times Square and pretty much yell anything you want. You’ll annoy the people around you, but you’re kind of allowed to just sort of yell whatever you want in a crowded public place, more or less, apart from 'this is robbery' — probably that would get you in trouble.
“So but then whatever you say, however controversial, does not need to then be broadcast to the whole country. So I think generally the approach of Twitter should be to let people say what they want to do within the bounds of the law, but then limit who sees that...”
Source: https://www.teslarati.com/elon-musk-china-censorship-twitter...
But what does this mean for like, the Babylon Bee or The Lincoln Project? I'd say both of them can be negative at times.
What does it mean for libertarians or anti capitalists who are strongly averse to the way things are run today?
(I deliberately tried to highlight that this sort of change could impact people of various political persuasions, trying to not "pick a favorite" by only showing how this could impact my "team".)
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This is not a solvable problem. There is no algorithmic way to detect speech that needs to be boosted and deboosted on social media because there is no way to actually algorithmically detect what is truthful and what is just manipulative propaganda and marketing.
it isnt about truth or fiction, it is negative/hate tweets. I run a politics forum and the one rule is no insulting other people, groups, or positions. This makes for a very civil, but bland conversation. People engage with negative/hate tweets. I personally like talking politics without insults, but most people are incapable of it. It is easy to detect insults.
I would fully expect the next thing for you to say is "I can program my own Twitter in a week"
Trying to figure out language intent is just the kind of thing an engineer/moderator says is easy and then is in deep water a month later after a phrase that means "you're great" in one language means "you're a donkey's anus" in another.
When you're moderating a small group it can be somewhat easy, everyone tends to speak the same language, and quite often it just falls into a groupthink that excludes situations like this. But when the situation scales you don't just have users that actively want to use the service, you have adversarial users that want to abuse your service and make it hell... and those users can be exceptionally clever.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Elon Musk has already said he supports unrestricted *legal* speech on Twitter, and that individual cultures should decide what that is for themselves, through their local legal system. He's not a "free speech absolutist."
He calls himself a free speech absolutist, and he's already banned parody, racist but legal (in the US) speech and criticism of himself and his technical knowledge - which is more restrictive than Twitter was prior. As is the plan to "deboost" negative and hateful tweets - I'll remind the court that when Youtube did the same thing, many people here considered even demonetizing and downranking content to be censorship…
> By “free speech”, I simply mean that which matches the law.
I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law.
If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect.
Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people.
Source: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519036983137509376
If you want to argue Musk's position on free speech is anything else, "absolute" or otherwise, kindly cite your sources.
Further in the thread he names some banned accounts that will be reinstated. A couple weeks ago, Elon said that Twitter’s content policy (and account reinstatement) would be decided by a moderation council composed of people with diverse views. There have been no reports of this council being formed yet. Edit: why was this post flagged?
And he misspelled two of those three names. And one of those accounts he banned.
So free speech absolutist is starting to adapt rules which are roughly similar to Twitter's current rules. And those rules are existing for a reason, rules don't popup from a thin air. What a surprise... Now he will figure out that the bloat of microservices and employees was there also for a reason.
> those rules are existing for a reason If they had applied the rules consistently, they'd be reasonable enough, but they never did or even particularly tried. I don't have any hope that Elon will, either, though.