41–50 of 855 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Citation needed. I know tons of people who have chosen to leave Twitter since Elon took over
Objectively, if Twitter is banned in your country, you were not given a choice in the matter.
One of the linked articles said it boiled down to X being ordered to censor political opponents of those in power. They chose not to. I’m glad. Now, traffic is going to Bluesky. I wonder if this means that Bluesky has or will be offered the same choice. We might see what the character of that organization is by what choice they make.
Did you miss the whole part where these "policial opponents" attempted a coup against the democratically elected president?
This was discussed at length only two days ago. If you disagree with this, just refer to this comment thread:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41387024
My account is rate limited to ~5 posts/hour so I don't plan on recreating that thread here.
It saddens me the Brasil banned X because of racism, anti-semitism and hate-speech. But X is still not banned in the west. At some point we have to come to this realization in the west that absolutism is never the answer. Free speech is good upto certain extent, the way it was at Twitter before the rich and powerful took over. Moreover, it is content moderation and it doesn't have anything to do with free speech.
If I were to follow the same logic as these judges, I would call for your comment to be deleted and for your account to be suspended. After all, you committed the crime of spreading "disinformation" and "misinformation". You were wrong on the internet.
Rejoice, for I do not agree with their logic. You can be wrong on the internet all you want, and I will not call for your censorship. For I believe that is a fundamentally immoral thing to do.
Several folks in Brazil had much to choose from out of Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky as alternatives to Twitter / X. Now that X got banned in Brazil and to potentially lose over 100M+ users we are starting to see which platforms they are choosing to sign up to. So far, Bluesky is seeing a surge in user registrations after the invite system was lifted a year ago. I would expect Threads to also see a surge in registrat…
Threads has too big of an image problem to overcome. No one wants Instagram for Twitter.
Bluesky is the only platform currently that has a chance, but it’s an under funded, tiny team who can’t ship on time. Bluesky will see a surge in registrations but no change in DAU as they still haven’t supported video, so no one will stay on the site.
It saddens me the Brasil banned X because of racism, anti-semitism and hate-speech. But X is still not banned in the west. At some point we have to come to this realization in the west that absolutism is never the answer. Free speech is good upto certain extent, the way it was at Twitter before the rich and powerful took over. Moreover, it is content moderation and it doesn't have anything to do with free speech.
The government in Brazil does not like X because users are critizing the government.
Unfortunately Brazil is barely a democracy and it’s infested with little potentates.
They will ban Bluesky too if it gets too popular .
It saddens me the Brasil banned X because of racism, anti-semitism and hate-speech. But X is still not banned in the west. At some point we have to come to this realization in the west that absolutism is never the answer. Free speech is good upto certain extent, the way it was at Twitter before the rich and powerful took over. Moreover, it is content moderation and it doesn't have anything to do with free speech.
From what I've read, that was not exactly what's happening with Elon Musk's Twitter in Brasil.
From what I've gathered, Brasil informed Elon Musk's Twitter that in order to comply with Brasil's law regarding disinformation, libel, and propaganda, they had to appoint a legal representative to be contacted by Brasil's judicial system to address reports of illegal activity. In response, Elon Musk basically ordered Twitter to dissolve all of its corporate presence in Brasil to retaliate against the demand, thinking that without a legal presence in the country that Twitter would magically become immune to Brasil's jurisdiction.
Except that Brasil's judicial system does have some tools and the means to prosecute uncooperative entities, particularly private individuals who hide behind corporate structures. Consequently, Brasil not only blocked Elon Musk's Twitter from Brasil due to Elon Musk's purposely uncooperative attitude but also has the legal means to go after the private individuals behind the decision to antagonize Brasil. Consequently, they enforced the consequences of Elon Musk's actions to Elon Musk's property in Brasil, such as Starlink.
Overall, this case is only orthogonally related to free speech. At it's core there's only one thing: Elon Musk making ill-advised decisions (reportedly against legal advise from his own legal representatives and in opposition to the actions of his legal representatives) and is now fabricating stories to distract people from the fact that all he is experiencing is the consequences of his own actions, which would be extremely easily avoided if he just listened to his own lawyers.
It saddens me the Brasil banned X because of racism, anti-semitism and hate-speech. But X is still not banned in the west. At some point we have to come to this realization in the west that absolutism is never the answer. Free speech is good upto certain extent, the way it was at Twitter before the rich and powerful took over. Moreover, it is content moderation and it doesn't have anything to do with free speech.
Until you own speech is banned right? We are the "good ones" after all.
It saddens me the Brasil banned X because of racism, anti-semitism and hate-speech. But X is still not banned in the west. At some point we have to come to this realization in the west that absolutism is never the answer. Free speech is good upto certain extent, the way it was at Twitter before the rich and powerful took over. Moreover, it is content moderation and it doesn't have anything to do with free speech.
You can’t be so naive that you think this has anything to do with the reasons you listed. The government in Brazil does not like X because users are critizing the government. Unfortunately Brazil is barely a democracy and it’s infested with little potentates.
This baseless personal assertion does not pass the smell test. I'm going to explain to you why.
Elon Musk's Twitter is happily censoring opposition of totalitarian dictatorships such as Turkey's Erdogan regime, and the only remark that Elon Musk published regarding censoring Turk opposition parties is that Elon Musk's Twitter would risk being removed from Turkey. Elon Musk, when he caved to Erdogan's demands to censor his opposition, famously said
> “Did your brain fall out of your head, Yglesias? The choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets. Which one do you want?”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/05/twitter-musk-censors...
So for Turkey's totalitarian dictatorship Elon Musk finds it acceptable to censor opposition by arguing bullshit like "either we show some content or no content", but for Brasil's democratic regime, which barely managed to fend off a fascist military coup, when they request Elon Musk's Twitter to appoint a legal representative to handle requests... That's suddenly unacceptable?
Bullshit.
It saddens me the Brasil banned X because of racism, anti-semitism and hate-speech. But X is still not banned in the west. At some point we have to come to this realization in the west that absolutism is never the answer. Free speech is good upto certain extent, the way it was at Twitter before the rich and powerful took over. Moreover, it is content moderation and it doesn't have anything to do with free speech.
> Free speech is good upto certain extent Up to the extent that you agree with it?
That's the norm in Elon Musk's Twitter. Since his takeover, content like white supremacy, antisemitism, and industrial state-level propaganda operations from fascist and totalitarian regimes is perfectly ok to publish on that platform. Criticism of Elon Musk or fascist regimes, however, is completely different.
Elon Musk's Twitter was also caught hardcoding censorship and throttling of both pro-Ukraine discussions and users who published pro-Ukraine content. Russian bots however have free reign.
More importantly, Elon Musk's Twitter is finding itself in trouble in Brasil not because of censorship, but because Elon Musk made it his point to go to great extents to avoid even appointing a legal representative to handle complains of illegal activity. This isn't even about censorship, but complying with basic legal requirements. It's like bitching that having to pay taxes is persecuting based on free speech just because you refuse to even file a form.