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Brazil's X ban is sending lots of people to Bluesky

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Re: Brazil's X ban is sending lots of people to Bluesky

#471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who else is there to blame for Twitter refusing to designate a representative, leading to a ban? I'm sure pre-Musk Twitter wouldn't have lost the entire market in the 7th most populous country.

Better to stand strong in the principles of the 1st amendment than bend the knee to a foreign government. Free speech is the milk of the gods, the US constitution is something to be coveted...

From the Brazilian position, it's better for them not to bend to a foreign non-government organization which has been assisting people trying to overthrow the Brazilian Constitution.

But HN seems to think that Brazilians are NPCs without politics or constitution of their own.

Re: Brazil's X ban is sending lots of people to Bluesky

#472
post #430

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Misinformation has been rampant ever since social media has gained momentum, on both sides of the political aisle. The sad part is that some folks on the left would happily have a site banned now that Musk is a right-wing nut. They don't seem to grasp the implications this would have on free speech once other countries adopt Brazil's model. In their world, it's a 'nothing burger', as they'd been calling 'the twitter…

You guys really buy into this whole Twitter = 'free speech' bs

Re: Brazil's X ban is sending lots of people to Bluesky

#473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at the responses, I can see that people are still viewing this through the limited lens of left vs right. This is of course a thing in that nobody can hide their colors anymore, but I'm specifically talking about the rich now feeling empowered enough that they even have the hubris to challenge governments of the world for their own benefit, and in some cases even build their own empires to escape the limitati…

Free speech is all that matters. Musk is not perfect by any means here but he is better than the rest. He is exporting the 1st amendment to us nations who don't get to experience such freedoms. Which is what Twitter should have been doing, instead of kowtowing to the likes of the German and Saudi govts among others...

Not sure X posture against censure is to be taken seriously though. From Al Jazeera:

> In India, he agreed with an order imposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take down accounts and posts related to a farmers’ protest that swept through the country in February, their demands including guaranteed prices for their produce and debt waivers.

(https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/31/brazil-moves-to-blo...)

Re: Brazil's X ban is sending lots of people to Bluesky

#474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at the responses, I can see that people are still viewing this through the limited lens of left vs right. This is of course a thing in that nobody can hide their colors anymore, but I'm specifically talking about the rich now feeling empowered enough that they even have the hubris to challenge governments of the world for their own benefit, and in some cases even build their own empires to escape the limitati…

Free speech is all that matters. Musk is not perfect by any means here but he is better than the rest. He is exporting the 1st amendment to us nations who don't get to experience such freedoms. Which is what Twitter should have been doing, instead of kowtowing to the likes of the German and Saudi govts among others...

Free speech is a dog whistle. We can't have actual "free speech" in the pure sense of the term (just like we can't have pure democracy) because it would erode public confidence and destroy our democratic nations in the process.

And there are outside actors currently working hard to ensure that this happens, because they want a return to the old imperial world order (where powerful nations capture territory and expand, and weaker nations die at their hands and are colonized).

Re: Brazil's X ban is sending lots of people to Bluesky

#476
post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are the MAU counted for Threads, as the user accounts are the same exact as on Instagram?

The URLs are different (threads.net versus instagram.com). So pretty easy to tell in the analytics which site the user is on.

What about the app? As far as I know, Instagram users were getting Threads notifications inside the app.

Re: Brazil's X ban is sending lots of people to Bluesky

#477
post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people see Musk differently from how he actually is. Or at least how he sees himself. He has always said, for many years, that he got into SpaceX to work towards the goal of making humans a multiplanetary species, and he got into electric cars to work towards the goal of having a sustainable energy society. I think he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society, an…

> I think he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society The issue is that many people who feel this way (seemingly Musk included) swing to the other extreme and embrace policy positions that only serve to further support and entrench systemic racism. I'm not always comfortable with the methods and rhetoric of some social justice advocates, but I'm not going to present tha…

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Re: Brazil's X ban is sending lots of people to Bluesky

#478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people see Musk differently from how he actually is. Or at least how he sees himself. He has always said, for many years, that he got into SpaceX to work towards the goal of making humans a multiplanetary species, and he got into electric cars to work towards the goal of having a sustainable energy society. I think he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society, an…

> he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society Sure. I don't think he's a hypocrite. He has , however, hyper fixated on a topic that's in vogue in tech circles but totally irrelevant elsewhere. Unlike in technology, where one can credibly fail upwards, doing that in politics comes at the cost of influence. And in this block order we're seeing, tangibly, the consequences…

The reason I don't move to the USA is because of woke people, scary numbers of mental health and crime.

The reason I moved country is because woke politics is making life worse. Crime is through the roof, kids can't go out in the cities by themselves because it's too dangerous. They started doing mandatory "gender identity" education in school, teaching crap to my kids.

I'm still in Europe and observing a progressive decline so I'm ready to move to Asia, the Caribbean, South America (Argentina maybe?) or maybe switch to the enemy and go to Russia or China, depending on how the situation evolves.

Dictatorship for dictatorship, I just want a low tax, safe place and governments to bother me as little as possible.

Re: Brazil's X ban is sending lots of people to Bluesky

#479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but once people mess up and choose the wrong thing it’s very hard to go back. There are plenty of examples of countries where bad actors have taken over all institutions and what then? There are not takesies backsies

Do you consider anti-government Chinese people, such as Falun Gong members or general pro-democracy activists to be bad actors and that censoring their speech is important to protect institutions from them? I'm trying to point out that you can't simply decide who's good and who's bad. Censorship entrenches whoever happens to be in power regardless of their merits. Maybe you think democracy is the important part and a…

That's a very black and white view of ways of restricting speech. Aside from the US most democracies have some sort of limits to free speech and not all of them have turned into autocracies. To counter your argument, absolute freedom of speech allows whoever controls the media to create narratives and manipulate public opinion without consequences

Re: Brazil's X ban is sending lots of people to Bluesky

#480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a business continuity plan, not some altruistic gesture. Why is there someone always making this comment every time a company or someone rich does something good for a bunch of people? There's no such thing as altruism, with humans it's all self-interest, and that's good actually. Might as well point out that the water is wet. So why make this comment?

Altruism exists. Maybe you haven't seen it yet, but it really does. I made the comment, because parent suggested that starlink did something for the citizens in general. That's not correct. The good they did was incidental to preserving customers until they can start charging again. And specifically I mentioned that, because the good part gets played up as some kind of freedom stance by many people online... but it's…

> Altruism exists

It doesn't scale though. You end up in a position where you can afford to do something like that if you behave altruistically.

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