The Flat Earth Society

Other Discussion Boards => Philosophy, Religion & Society => Topic started by: Roundy on December 16, 2022, 05:14:43 PM

Title: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: Roundy on December 16, 2022, 05:14:43 PM
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/16/tech/musk-censors-press/index.html

Elon Musk cares very passionately about free speech. Just as long as he agrees with what you say. Another lousy Republican hypocrite. He's made Twitter a cesspool.
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: Rushy on December 16, 2022, 05:15:55 PM
If you don't like it, start your own social network, sweaty.
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: Pete Svarrior on December 16, 2022, 05:55:23 PM
I strongly recommend https://twitterisgoinggreat.com/ for all your Twitter news
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: honk on December 16, 2022, 07:34:02 PM
If you don't like it, start your own social network, sweaty.

There is no conflict between recognizing that Musk has the legal right to ban anyone he wants to and also that he's a huge hypocrite for disregarding his previous assertions that only outright illegal speech would be banned.
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: Rushy on December 16, 2022, 08:31:38 PM
If you don't like it, start your own social network, sweaty.

There is no conflict between recognizing that Musk has the legal right to ban anyone he wants to and also that he's a huge hypocrite for disregarding his previous assertions that only outright illegal speech would be banned.

And yet, Twitter randomly banning people It Doesn't Like wasn't really a problem when Musk wasn't the one doing it. It's only now that it generates headlines on other sites. Musk being a hypocrite is only tangential to the actual problem people are having with Twitter. More importantly, had he not become a hypocrite and Twitter turned into a pool of slurs, people like yourself and Roundy would be crying about it anyway, so what's the point? Either he keeps free speech (and he gets hate for it) or he changes his mind and walks it back (and he gets hate for it).

My only concern is that Musk is falling into the trap of actually caring what people on Twitter think, which is made all the worse by the fact that he owns the website.
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: Roundy on December 16, 2022, 10:19:47 PM
If you don't like it, start your own social network, sweaty.

There is no conflict between recognizing that Musk has the legal right to ban anyone he wants to and also that he's a huge hypocrite for disregarding his previous assertions that only outright illegal speech would be banned.

And yet, Twitter randomly banning people It Doesn't Like wasn't really a problem when Musk wasn't the one doing it. It's only now that it generates headlines on other sites. Musk being a hypocrite is only tangential to the actual problem people are having with Twitter. More importantly, had he not become a hypocrite and Twitter turned into a pool of slurs, people like yourself and Roundy would be crying about it anyway, so what's the point? Either he keeps free speech (and he gets hate for it) or he changes his mind and walks it back (and he gets hate for it).

My only concern is that Musk is falling into the trap of actually caring what people on Twitter think, which is made all the worse by the fact that he owns the website.

Saying that Twitter is now a cesspool was editorializing, for sure. Pointing out Musk's hypocrisy in this matter is a valid criticism that stands on it's own merit. Ideally Twitter probably shouldn't be banning anyone whose posts aren't dangerous or illegal. But saying you're setting out to save free speech and then controlling what people are allowed to say is kinda heinous, and should be called out.
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: Rama Set on December 16, 2022, 10:41:11 PM
Musk is still maintaining that Twitter honours free speech while banning people for what he claims is doxxing, while he actually has been doxxing people as recently as this week. It’s a shit show that Twitter could not have pulled off in their wildest imaginings.
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: Lord Dave on December 16, 2022, 11:00:05 PM
Considering Trump is spouting the same hypocracy, I'm wondering if this is just how Rich Assholes are.
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: Rama Set on December 16, 2022, 11:02:28 PM
Considering Trump is spouting the same hypocracy, I'm wondering if this is just how Rich Assholes are.

You wonder?
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: Lord Dave on December 16, 2022, 11:07:41 PM
Considering Trump is spouting the same hypocracy, I'm wondering if this is just how Rich Assholes are.

You wonder?
I don't follow enough rich assholes to make a conclusion.
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: honk on December 17, 2022, 03:34:32 AM
And yet, Twitter randomly banning people It Doesn't Like wasn't really a problem when Musk wasn't the one doing it. It's only now that it generates headlines on other sites.

You're taking a lot for granted here, and you'll have to be more specific if you're trying to make a tu quoque argument. It's safe to say, however, that pre-Musk Twitter did not have an similar figure at the top regularly making unilateral decisions about who to ban and what new rules to suddenly invent, and therefore can't meaningfully be seen as equivalent.

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Musk being a hypocrite is only tangential to the actual problem people are having with Twitter. More importantly, had he not become a hypocrite and Twitter turned into a pool of slurs, people like yourself and Roundy would be crying about it anyway, so what's the point? Either he keeps free speech (and he gets hate for it) or he changes his mind and walks it back (and he gets hate for it).

Sorry, are you conceding that Musk doesn't actually care about free speech, and that his big justification for what he's doing to Twitter is complete bullshit? That's what this post seems to imply. I mean, it's fantastic if you are, because it'll save us some time. Musk himself and his thousands of devoted fans are still pretending that he's being totally neutral and objective.

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My only concern is that Musk is falling into the trap of actually caring what people on Twitter think, which is made all the worse by the fact that he owns the website.

You clearly don't know anything about Musk if you think that this is anything new for him. He's been desperate for popularity for years.
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: Rushy on December 17, 2022, 04:19:37 PM
It's safe to say, however, that pre-Musk Twitter did not have an similar figure at the top regularly making unilateral decisions about who to ban and what new rules to suddenly invent, and therefore can't meaningfully be seen as equivalent.

It literally did and his name was Yoel.

Sorry, are you conceding that Musk doesn't actually care about free speech, and that his big justification for what he's doing to Twitter is complete bullshit? That's what this post seems to imply. I mean, it's fantastic if you are, because it'll save us some time. Musk himself and his thousands of devoted fans are still pretending that he's being totally neutral and objective.

No one actually believes in free speech. It's a made up idealistic gibberish concept, like communism or a perfect circle. It's not real. It doesn't exist in reality. Everyone has some "I believe in free speech... but". Pointing out that people don't believe it (like Musk) makes for plain boring intellectual circlejerking.

You clearly don't know anything about Musk if you think that this is anything new for him. He's been desperate for popularity for years.

How about you respond to things I say and not the things you prefer I say.
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: Tom Bishop on December 17, 2022, 05:45:14 PM
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/16/tech/musk-censors-press/index.html

Elon Musk cares very passionately about free speech. Just as long as he agrees with what you say. Another lousy Republican hypocrite. He's made Twitter a cesspool.

Maybe you should build your own Twitter.

(https://i.imgur.com/r9KODTC.jpg)
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: crutonius on December 17, 2022, 07:34:38 PM
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/16/tech/musk-censors-press/index.html

Elon Musk cares very passionately about free speech. Just as long as he agrees with what you say. Another lousy Republican hypocrite. He's made Twitter a cesspool.

Maybe you should build your own Twitter.

(https://i.imgur.com/r9KODTC.jpg)

Was this your opinion before Elon took over as well as now?
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: honk on December 18, 2022, 12:19:06 AM
It literally did and his name was Yoel.

There is no evidence of that. Even Musk's much-hyped "Twitter Files" supposedly bringing Twitter's terrible corruption and liberal bias to light showed Yoel Roth participating in discussions with other Twitter employees where they eventually decided how to handle certain situations. Completely different from Musk's unilateral decision-making.

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No one actually believes in free speech. It's a made up idealistic gibberish concept, like communism or a perfect circle. It's not real. It doesn't exist in reality. Everyone has some "I believe in free speech... but". Pointing out that people don't believe it (like Musk) makes for plain boring intellectual circlejerking.

Right, so you agree with me on this subject, and yet your issue lies not with the person falsely claiming to be a free speech purist and using that as the justification for what he's doing, but with the people (correctly) pointing out that he's a lying hypocrite. Interesting take, I guess.

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How about you respond to things I say and not the things you prefer I say.

I am. You saying that he's "falling into the trap" implies that it's something that hasn't happened yet or is only just beginning to happen, rather than something that already happened years ago. This isn't a deep psychological dive on my part. Musk wears his insecurities and his desperate need to be praised and seen as cool on his sleeve, and anyone can confirm it for themselves by looking at Musk's Twitter feed, which is mostly him sharing high-fives with bottom-feeding right-wing grifters.
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: Rushy on December 19, 2022, 08:46:24 PM
There is no evidence of that. Even Musk's much-hyped "Twitter Files" supposedly bringing Twitter's terrible corruption and liberal bias to light showed Yoel Roth participating in discussions with other Twitter employees where they eventually decided how to handle certain situations. Completely different from Musk's unilateral decision-making.

People who manipulate media organizations usually aren't so brazen about it. Musk's mistake is going so mask-off about the whole thing instead of the usual covers loved universally by other media organizations.

Right, so you agree with me on this subject, and yet your issue lies not with the person falsely claiming to be a free speech purist and using that as the justification for what he's doing, but with the people (correctly) pointing out that he's a lying hypocrite. Interesting take, I guess.

My problem is that people who are upset about the "hypocrite" meme aren't actually believers in free speech. They don't care about the core issue one way or another. In other words, why does it matter that Elon is a hypocrite if the outcome is the same either way? Why bother complaining about it at all and take up space on this forum?

I am. You saying that he's "falling into the trap" implies that it's something that hasn't happened yet or is only just beginning to happen, rather than something that already happened years ago. This isn't a deep psychological dive on my part. Musk wears his insecurities and his desperate need to be praised and seen as cool on his sleeve, and anyone can confirm it for themselves by looking at Musk's Twitter feed, which is mostly him sharing high-fives with bottom-feeding right-wing grifters.

If Musk was really the popularity desperate guy you make him out to be, he'd be a generic liberal (like all the other celebrities seeking nothing but popularity). Any person with access to google would know that demographically, the West is mostly left-leaning. Why pander to the right if he's so desperate to be popular? Your line of thinking doesn't make much sense.
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: Rama Set on December 19, 2022, 09:10:29 PM
You don’t need to be a free speech absolutist to think Musk is a hypocritical fuckwad.
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: Lord Dave on December 19, 2022, 09:20:31 PM
If Musk was really the popularity desperate guy you make him out to be, he'd be a generic liberal (like all the other celebrities seeking nothing but popularity). Any person with access to google would know that demographically, the West is mostly left-leaning. Why pander to the right if he's so desperate to be popular? Your line of thinking doesn't make much sense.
I have a theory about this: Conformaty.
The left is more diverse and, by its defintion, less conformist.  The right is more structured, more ... traditional.  Less accepting of variation.  This is why there's 5 major news networks on the left and 1 on the right.  So in theory once you get enough onboard, you can get most of them onboard.  Instead of having fractures and subgroups and having to try to appease the various groups.  But on the Right, all you need to do is make the most crazy people happy and you should be good to go.
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: WTF_Seriously on December 19, 2022, 10:22:35 PM
But on the Right, all you need to do is make the most crazy people happy and you should be good to go.

Why do you think Trump ran as a republican?
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: Lord Dave on December 20, 2022, 10:22:32 PM
CNN: After Twitter users voted to oust Elon Musk as CEO, he wants to change how polls work.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/20/tech/elon-musk-twitter-polls

Summary:
"You know... After people voted to have me leave twitter, I think we should make policy polls votable only by people who pay for twitter."
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: Roundy on December 20, 2022, 11:43:22 PM
CNN: After Twitter users voted to oust Elon Musk as CEO, he wants to change how polls work.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/20/tech/elon-musk-twitter-polls

Summary:
"You know... After people voted to have me leave twitter, I think we should make policy polls votable only by people who pay for twitter."

Democracy Capitalism in action.
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: honk on December 22, 2022, 05:30:24 AM
People who manipulate media organizations usually aren't so brazen about it.

...then how do you know that Roth used to unilaterally control Twitter similar to how Musk does now?

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My problem is that people who are upset about the "hypocrite" meme aren't actually believers in free speech. They don't care about the core issue one way or another. In other words, why does it matter that Elon is a hypocrite if the outcome is the same either way? Why bother complaining about it at all and take up space on this forum?

As far as this discussion on this forum goes, I don't have a problem with regarding the subject as settled and moving on. I just don't think that it's irrelevant or unimportant that Musk's supposed big justification for what he's doing is a lie. I think he'd lose a lot of support if he admitted that his primary motivation is personal rather than ideological, and that he just wants to be able to remove posts and ban people that he doesn't like.

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If Musk was really the popularity desperate guy you make him out to be, he'd be a generic liberal (like all the other celebrities seeking nothing but popularity). Any person with access to google would know that demographically, the West is mostly left-leaning. Why pander to the right if he's so desperate to be popular? Your line of thinking doesn't make much sense.

Musk panders to the right for the same reason that Donald Trump, Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, James O'Keefe, Jordan Peterson, Mike Cernovich, Tim Pool, Steven Crowder, Candace Owens, Charlie Kirk, Michael Knowles, and pretty much any other high-profile political grifter panders to the right - there's no market for transparent grifting posing as political commentary on the left. If Shapiro had tried to cater to the left, he would have been quickly exposed as an idiot and broadly rejected - only an audience of conservatives would see him as an intellectual and idolize him. If Cernovich had tried to cater to the left, he would have been quickly exposed as a boorish creep and broadly rejected - only an audience of conservatives would see him as a manly stud and idolize him. Likewise, Musk had no hope of ever being a progressive hero, as his long record of deliberately flouting corporate regulations and mistreating his workers would have told against him all too clearly. Only conservatives would idolize an exploitative billionaire like him. I also suspect that only conservatives would be gullible enough to buy into Musk's carefully cultivated myth of how he's a modern-day Thomas Edison, a brilliant scientist-inventor who's personally paving the way to a golden future through his keen scientific mind and many wonderful inventions, rather than the more mundane reality of Musk not really being a scientist or an inventor at all, but a businessman who made a fortune (with the advantage of starting out with a sizable inheritance) through making the right corporate investments and acquisitions. The only thing Musk has in common with Edison is his habit of taking credit for other people's work.
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: Lord Dave on December 22, 2022, 06:02:05 AM
I also suspect that only conservatives would be gullible enough to buy into Musk's carefully cultivated myth of how he's a modern-day Thomas Edison, a brilliant scientist-inventor who's personally paving the way to a golden future through his keen scientific mind and many wonderful inventions, rather than the more mundane reality of Musk not really being a scientist or an inventor at all, but a businessman who made a fortune (with the advantage of starting out with a sizable inheritance) through making the right corporate investments and acquisitions. The only thing Musk has in common with Edison is his habit of taking credit for other people's work.
I thought thats what Edison was: a business man who didn't (or barely) invented anything, then spent his time discrediting his rivals because he was a huge asshole.
Like the time he told the US Navy that Radar was stupid.  Or the time he used AC current on stray animals (he paid kids to find) to kill them publically as a way to show how bad AC was and how safe DC was.


Seriously, Musk is pretty damn close to a modern day Edison.  Including the whole myth about how great they are.
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: AATW on December 22, 2022, 05:57:27 PM
No one actually believes in free speech. It's a made up idealistic gibberish concept, like communism or a perfect circle. It's not real. It doesn't exist in reality. Everyone has some "I believe in free speech... but". Pointing out that people don't believe it (like Musk) makes for plain boring intellectual circlejerking.
People do believe in free speech, but free speech doesn’t mean you can literally say anything you like. The classic “shouting FIRE in a crowded theatre”. That isn’t covered by free speech for the obvious reason that you could cause a panic which could harm people (unless there actually is a fire of course). Free speech means you should be free to express differing opinions without censure. Yes, there is a “but”, the but is about saying things which could harm others. There are obvious grey areas here. If a social media platform decides to censure disinformation then that makes them the arbiter of truth, which is problematic. But it’s also problematic if someone posts something about how drinking bleach will stop you getting Covid.

TL;DR, I don’t think this is a simple issue, but if you’re going to buy Twitter and bang on about how you want it to become a bastion of free speech then it’s not a good look to ban the accounts of a load of journalists who have criticised you. (I believe these accounts have now been reinstated)
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: honk on December 23, 2022, 05:42:53 AM
No one actually believes in free speech. It's a made up idealistic gibberish concept, like communism or a perfect circle. It's not real. It doesn't exist in reality. Everyone has some "I believe in free speech... but". Pointing out that people don't believe it (like Musk) makes for plain boring intellectual circlejerking.
People do believe in free speech, but free speech doesn’t mean you can literally say anything you like...

While I understand where you're coming from, you're making an entirely unnecessary concession here. There is no conflict between freedom of speech as a general concept and privately-owned websites having and enforcing rules about what you can or can't say on their platforms. Twitter has never needed to "justify" how enforcing its rules fits into the broader scope of free speech any more than you would need to justify your decision to walk away from a random asshole bothering you on the street. For that matter, no reputable website relying on user-generated content, let alone a for-profit one, would ever limit its rules to simply be no more than the scope of the law. That's how you end up with another /b/. It was ludicrous that Musk would ever think it was a good idea for Twitter, and it's even more ridiculous that so many people agreed with him.
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: Rama Set on December 23, 2022, 07:54:26 PM
Proof being how quickly he walked back his tolerance for unmoderated content on Twitter. He is very quickly understanding that Twitter’s previous management wasn’t just evilly trying to push their woke agenda.
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: honk on November 20, 2023, 04:00:51 AM
In the latest update to this story, Musk is now fighting for free speech by suing (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1725771191644758037) the media organization Media Matters for America for...uh...accurately reporting that ads for mainstream brands are appearing alongside Nazi garbage and other hate speech that Twitter now allows. You might wonder exactly how you can sue over a story that is in fact true, but you have to bear in mind that Musk personally hated this story, and it led to a lot of lost ad revenue for him as corporations immediately began abandoning his website, so surely that tips the scales a bit. And besides, Media Matters made alternate accounts! And repeatedly refreshed their page! Those things are illegal, right?
Title: Re: Free Speech Warrior Elon Musk
Post by: Tom Bishop on November 20, 2023, 06:20:39 AM
Without X Argentina's new president would probably have been heavily demoted by Twitter's previous owners and we would never have been blessed with his wonderful words of wisdom.

https://twitter.com/KingsleyCortes/status/1726384074942493035