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Crow thread: Elon Musk has owned Twitter for one year now

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Raonak

Banned
Walking on eggshells makes you dishonest and duplicitous, make you hide yourself from others and usually pretend that you too are virtuous because that's what the stifling authoritarian environment requires of you. Humans aren't perfect, they say stupid shit they don't mean when they get mad, they make mistakes, they have a weird sense of humor and so on, forcing them to hide themselves in fear of repercussions from a cult that denies reality doesn't solve anything, is not organic and at the end of the day makes people more contrarian and hateful, which it did

Humans aren't perfect. They say stupid shit and make mistakes....

Which is exactly why they shouldn't be protected when they say dumb/hateful/incorrect things.

This whole "saying anything you want and face no consequences" is not organic,
the fundamnetal lack of accountability makes people hold more and more extremist and bullshit views,
which gets engagement and boosted because of how stupid it is.

It ends up with people getting a very distorted view of the world where everyone seems like a massive asshole.
 

Sonik

Member
This whole "saying anything you want and face no consequences" is not organic,
the fundamnetal lack of accountability makes people hold more and more extremist and bullshit views,

There is accountability, it changes other people's opinion about you but that's as far as it should go. You don't even understand what you're arguing for here, extending that "logic" to real life you're basically saying that we should force people to not speak because it could offends some.

Yes but enough about Elon

Elon might often act like a spoiled child towards his enemies but he never (extremely rarely? don't know) goes as far to invent reasons to censor them like the cult did for years. They actually censored an active president, please don't compare the two, it's just sad
 
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Rran

Member
Free speech does not mean no one can tell you to leave or have you removed from the premises for what you say. It never has. If I go into a place of business I dont own, say a bunch of heinous, hateful crap and the owner wants me gone, guess what? They can call the cops and I will be removed.
The comic acts like "freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences" is some kind of revelation rather than an extremely commonly-accepted idea. Everyone knows this already, and the comic is arguing against a strawman. As if a bunch of people are shouting, "Hey, I called my boss a butthole and he fired me! What about my freedom of speech!?"

It's not unusual for people to get in trouble for unpopular ideas. But the comic conflates unpopular with hateful (or as he puts it, "your bullshit"). The issue is in whether or not it's fair to lose your job for having the wrong political opinion. And no, I don't mean crazy fringe beliefs like bringing back slavery. I'm talking about being a Trump supporter, being opposed how we handle trans issues, being pro-life, wanting tighter immigration policies, and any other traditionally right-wing viewpoints people might have that are super unpopular online (but common in the real world). That's what I mean about the comic lacking nuance; it rolls any position it disagrees with under "bullshit," thereby flattening the topic and taking any semblance of a rational discussion out of the picture.
 
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Doomtrain

Gold Member
Reminder for anyone seriously arguing that free speech is bad: protecting unpopular speech is important, even if you disagree with it. Why? Here are some historical examples of speech that was unpopular and was initially shouted down:

  • Giving women the right to vote
  • Ending slavery
  • Allowing gay people to get married
  • Addressing climate change

Essentially every progressive cause was considered unknown and unpopular when it first started. Without free speech, those ideas could never have gained traction and eventually taken hold in the wider public consciousness. Does free speech also mean some assholes get to say dumb shit? Undoubtedly, and we should feel free to push back on them -- on a personal, individual level. Is it necessary for positive societal change and progress? Yes, absolutely yes, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

"So why don't we protect 'good' free speech and disallow 'bad' free speech?" Because "good" and "bad" are in the eye of the beholder, and unequivocally equating "your own personal ideas" to "good" and everyone else's ideas to "bad" is childish narcissism. Who decides which is which? Pretty sweet gig if you can get it, I guess.
 

DeafTourette

Perpetually Offended
Free Speech means exactly that... freedom of speech. Some people DO, unfortunately, think that free speech means you can say anything with no consequences. There are limits on Free Speech from a legal perspective... and SOMEWHAT limits in a gen pop perspective... meaning if I don't want to listen to your speech, I can leave. I don't have to listen to it.

If an employer gets wind of an employee's racist/anti-semitic/islamophobic rantings (like from a viral video)... they're free to part with that employee and their free speech.

But we can't limit speech because we don't like it. I'm free to block (online) someone who says things I find objectionable. I think if someone is saying things that are harmful to the public like inciting a riot or something, I think it's ok for them to be pulled off the platform (whichever platform it is).
 

Toons

Member
The comic acts like "freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences" is some kind of revelation rather than an extremely commonly-accepted idea. Everyone knows this already, and the comic is arguing against a strawman. As if a bunch of people are shouting, "Hey, I called my boss a butthole and he fired me! What about my freedom of speech!?"

You have people calling Twitter banning users posting hateful rhetoric a violation of free speech, and that Musk taking it over is a win for free speech. That displays quite plainly that they actually don't understand it already. because Twitter banning you isnt a violation of your free speech.

It's not unusual for people to get in trouble for unpopular ideas. But the comic conflates unpopular with hateful (or as he puts it, "your bullshit"). The issue is in whether or not it's fair to lose your job for having the wrong political opinion. And no, I don't mean crazy fringe beliefs like bringing back slavery. I'm talking about being a Trump supporter, being opposed how we handle trans issues, being pro-life, wanting tighter immigration policies, and any other traditionally right-wing viewpoints people might have that are super unpopular online (but common in the real world). That's what I mean about the comic lacking nuance; it rolls any position it disagrees with under "bullshit," thereby flattening the topic and taking any semblance of a rational discussion out of the picture.

No one has lost their job for being a Trump supporter by itself. And if they have, guess snd it wasn't in an at will employment state, there's a legal issue there.

The comic doesn't make any statement about what YOU ARE saying. The comic is saying that it doesn't matter what you are saying, being removed from a premises for your speech is not a violation of your rights. Thst is the first, and ONLY claim it makes. And you conflating this with CONSEQUENCES of your speech is again displaying you dont understand the topic of the comic.

It says nothing about employment clauses or at will working situations or office politics. That generally falls under the company yo deal with in an individual basis.

And, like I said before it never stops at "we should have tighter immigration" or "im opposed to how we handle gender dysphoria". It never stops there. It ALWAYS goes into hateful BS, racist BS, or generalizations abut entire swaths of people.
 
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Toons

Member
Elon might often act like a spoiled child towards his enemies but he never (extremely rarely? don't know) goes as far to invent reasons to censor them like the cult did for years. They actually censored an active president, please don't compare the two, it's just sad

Didn't he say anyone who said the term "cis" would get banned?

Being banned from Twitter isn't censorship. You dont have freedom of expression of Twitter. You just exchanged a consistent terms of service to "however Elon feels about something today" and as can be seen with his flip flopping on Alex Jones, his whims are far from consistent.

Its regulation, not censorship. And his regulations are performance at best.
 

Sonik

Member
Didn't he say anyone who said the term "cis" would get banned?

Being banned from Twitter isn't censorship. You dont have freedom of expression of Twitter. You just exchanged a consistent terms of service to "however Elon feels about something today" and as can be seen with his flip flopping on Alex Jones, his whims are far from consistent.

Its regulation, not censorship. And his regulations are performance at best.

Like I said, spoiled child, yet it was never actually enforced. On the other hand old Twitter pretended to be the adult in the room using corporate speak to justify itself while censoring the population en masse to enforce the cult's narrative. I'm not the least bit surprised you value words over actions though
 

FunkMiller

Member
Apple could X from the App Store due to Alex Jones being unbanned:

The InfoWars app is still banned from the App Store.

They take 30% of anything TwitteX earns via the app store.

I won't hold my breath on this one.
 

YCoCg

Gold Member
Elon might often act like a spoiled child towards his enemies but he never (extremely rarely? don't know) goes as far to invent reasons to censor them like the cult did for years.
Unless it makes him look bad, then he just rigs it so it can't be done to him anymore (articles, community Notes, etc)
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
They take 30% of anything TwitteX earns via the app store.

I won't hold my breath on this one.
I don’t think they’ll drop X over this, but what X earns them is a tiny drop in the bucket for Apple.

Whatever Twitter Blue is called now isn’t exactly a resounding success.
 
Congrats to Musk for massively overpaying for something and then tanking a ton of the value. Truly a genius businessman.

It will always be Twitter and X is dumb as fuck. I will give props for the community notes feature though, which I am a huge fan of and I think is very important for all social media sites. And I love nothing more than seeing Musk himself or some politician hit with a correction note.
 

A federal judge ruled to allow a class-action lawsuit over the acquisition of Twitter to proceed against Elon Musk Monday, reasoning that Musk’s false tweets, his own recklessness, and a comment featuring a poop emoji may well have constituted securities fraud

A group of investor plaintiffs sued Musk for securities fraud alleging that Musk lied about the number of spam accounts on Twitter as part of a plan to drive down the company’s stock price and manipulate the terms of his acquisition. Musk bought the social media platform, which he has since renamed X, for $54.20 per share — but only after Twitter sued Musk to force the deal through.

In the days before Musk’s $44 billion purchase of the social media platform in October 2022, he posted a series of tweets that plaintiffs say were a deliberate manipulation of the company’s stock. The tweets were a series of statements indicating that Twitter had more fake or “bot” accounts — and therefore less actual users — than had been previously estimated.

💩💩💩💩💩💩 Great job muskrat. He'll probably get off though, billionaire life.
 
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IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Congrats to Musk for massively overpaying for something and then tanking a ton of the value. Truly a genius businessman.

It will always be Twitter and X is dumb as fuck. I will give props for the community notes feature though, which I am a huge fan of and I think is very important for all social media sites. And I love nothing more than seeing Musk himself or some politician hit with a correction note.
He didn’t create that feature it was already out and just called something else lol
 
Unless it makes him look bad, then he just rigs it so it can't be done to him anymore (articles, community Notes, etc)

For all the people saying Musk made it so no one could label his posts with community notes, either he quickly reversed that decision, or that was a lie that people believed and never was true.




The note in question: "This feature has been available in Microsoft Word since at least 2020 and has to be turned on manually."

It's good to have context, and Musk deserves to have his statements questioned as much as anyone on the platform. I'm glad to see this can still happen.

Being banned from Twitter isn't censorship.

As I mentioned in another thread recently: Is content being changed or removed for reasons related to subjective moral, political, or religious values? If yes, that's censorship.
 
And then he dunks on the feature...

He didn't dunk on the feature, he dunked on the accuracy of that one community note. And it seems like he's wrong, and that the autocorrect feature is turned off by default. Wouldn't be the first time for him to have issues when it comes to admitting a mistake.
 

Toons

Member
As I mentioned in another thread recently: Is content being changed or removed for reasons related to subjective moral, political, or religious values? If yes, that's censorship.

That is a VERY liberal use of the term.

You might as well say all terms of service, house rules for a place of business, etc are censoring you.
 
That is a VERY liberal use of the term.

You might as well say all terms of service, house rules for a place of business, etc are censoring you.

It's a very accurate use of the term. That isn't to say all censorship is always bad or always wrong, but it's still censorship. Censorship is at it's worst when it prevents the expression of opinions, viewpoints, beliefs, etc. Old twitter did a fair amount of that, but if Jack Dorsey truly learned from the experience, maybe Blue Sky will end up being an even better platform for speech than modern Twitter.

Also, censorship is a far greater issue when it's selectively applied, which isn't the case for most terms of service or house rules. To use a recent example, if Harvard really did defend freedom of speech, they'd be able to defend their recent inaction from a place of truth and precedent. Instead, everyone can see how hypocritical they are, allowing the sort of speech that shouldn't be accepted at any school.

Like I said, censorship isn't always bad, especially if it doesn't include government involvement. I've been saying that since before Musk bought Twitter. I never wanted to see slurs allowed on Twitter, for example.
 
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Toons

Member
It's a very accurate use of the term. That isn't to say all censorship is always bad or always wrong, but it's still censorship.

I think you're going to great lengths to make censorship synonymous to correction, and I think those two terms carry very different connotations depending on the context.

I dont think someone clarifying, or correcting their own statements should be boxed under the same category as suppression or prohibition of speech by another party, for example. There are factors of agency that divide the two.

Also, censorship is a far greater issue when it's selectively applied, which isn't the case for most terms of service or house rules. To use a recent example, if Harvard really did defend freedom of speech, they'd be able to defend their recent inaction from a place of truth and precedent. Instead, everyone can see how hypocritical they are, allowing the sort of speech that shouldn't be accepted at any school.
No, many houses rules and terms of service is in fact selective.

By nature in fact it must be. No terms of service restricts all forms of speech. No place of business restricts ALL forms of expression, obviously not. There are specifics, often based on widely accepted parameters of understanding, social context and a whole lot of other subjective stuff.

The ALLOWANCE of certain forms of speech is often an entirely different conversation. And again, context often matters to that effect. Phrases and sayings, symbols and images that are otherwise innocuous can very quickly become something more sinister given the right contextual precedent. Theres no shortage of examples of this.

Like I said, censorship isn't always bad, especially if it doesn't include government involvement. I've been saying that since before Musk bought Twitter. I never wanted to see slurs allowed on Twitter, for example.

But what is a slur and wasn't isnt a slur isnt a universally agreed upon thing, is it? In fact, some words, become harmful slurs ONLY in specific contexts, and sometimes depending on who is saying them, and to whom they are saying it to. Words work this way, their acceptance, their meaning, their usage, is contextual, and so making blanket regulations that ignore this is a faulty system in the first place.

I agree that not all forms of censorship is bad, but calling it censorship denotes "control by others" rather than "control of oneself". If I write an encyclopedia, but 20 years later many of the understandings changed, or even the terms used to refer to those understanding have changed, and I publish a new edition that updates the terminology so that current and future students can understand exactly what is being said, I dont think that necessarily should be boxed in under the same terms as, say, a government agency proofreading my book under compulsion, rewording it, then allowing it to be released.
 
Is content being changed or removed for reasons related to subjective moral, political, or religious values? If yes, that's censorship.

Just posting this again to remind you and anyone else of my original statement.

I think you're going to great lengths to make censorship synonymous to correction, and I think those two terms carry very different connotations depending on the context.

I dont think someone clarifying, or correcting their own statements should be boxed under the same category as suppression or prohibition of speech by another party, for example. There are factors of agency that divide the two.

I agree. At most you're talk talking about self-censorship there, and only if the correction is happening for moral reasons. It's still a very different thing than another party being involved in censorship.

No, many houses rules and terms of service is in fact selective.

By nature in fact it must be. No terms of service restricts all forms of speech. No place of business restricts ALL forms of expression, obviously not. There are specifics, often based on widely accepted parameters of understanding, social context and a whole lot of other subjective stuff.

That's not what I mean by selective. If you don't allow your students to scream "fuck" in the middle of a school lecture, that's censorship, but it's understandable and not selective. Just about everyone would agree about that, and it isn't designed to prevent any specific thought, opinion, worldview, etc.

If you punish students for saying that there are only two genders but allow students to protest against the existence of the state of Israel and vocally support the killing of Israel's citizens, that is selective. You can't be taken seriously to claim that you care about free speech after that. That is selective censorship.


The ALLOWANCE of certain forms of speech is often an entirely different conversation. And again, context often matters to that effect. Phrases and sayings, symbols and images that are otherwise innocuous can very quickly become something more sinister given the right contextual precedent. Theres no shortage of examples of this.

As the great George Carlin once said, "you can say you pricked your finger, you can't say you fingered your prick."

But what is a slur and wasn't isnt a slur isnt a universally agreed upon thing, is it? In fact, some words, become harmful slurs ONLY in specific contexts, and sometimes depending on who is saying them, and to whom they are saying it to. Words work this way, their acceptance, their meaning, their usage, is contextual, and so making blanket regulations that ignore this is a faulty system in the first place.

No, slurs are not universally agreed upon and context is a thing, which is why prohibiting their use makes more sense for social media platforms and such rather than giving the government the power to ban words. Given enough time, the government will always use the power they have to benefit themselves.

But slurs also don't prevent the expression of thoughts, feelings, opinions, beliefs, etc. They tend to detract from a conversation rather than add to it.

I agree that not all forms of censorship is bad, but calling it censorship denotes "control by others" rather than "control of oneself". If I write an encyclopedia, but 20 years later many of the understandings changed, or even the terms used to refer to those understanding have changed, and I publish a new edition that updates the terminology so that current and future students can understand exactly what is being said, I dont think that necessarily should be boxed in under the same terms as, say, a government agency proofreading my book under compulsion, rewording it, then allowing it to be released.

It's a matter of intent and agency. George Lucas censored Star Wars with the whole "Han shot first" thing. Several book publishers have been changing the content of their books for subjective moral reasons long after the author has died. Both are censorship, but the latter is worse than the former. You keep talking about self-censorship, which is a considerably less offensive and less concerning form of censorship. In the context of twitter, I keep talking about the government putting pressure on social media companies to remove legally protected speech from their platform. Like most things in life, there's a scale when it comes to how awful and unjust a given act of censorship can be, and that's a pretty bad one.

But again, it has to come back to content changed or removed because of morality. That's the biggest factor in all of this. It's also why, as opposed to modern times, in the past so much censorship has come from the church and organized religion.
 
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Toons

Member
That's not what I mean by selective. If you don't allow your students to scream "fuck" in the middle of a school lecture, that's censorship, but it's understandable and not selective. Just about everyone would agree about that, and it isn't designed to prevent any specific thought, opinion, worldview, etc.

If you punish students for saying that there are only two genders but allow students to protest against the existence of the state of Israel and vocally support the killing of Israel's citizens, that is selective. You can't be taken seriously to claim that you care about free speech after that. That is selective censorship.

Well to be frank with you I've not kept up with any of the goings on at Harvard regarding the israel/Palestine conflict in great detail.

I did some research and their student hand book makes very plain that they at least claim to tolerate free expression saying quote: "our commitment to freedom of expression by its nature entails tolerating some speech that members of the community may receive as offensive or harmful. Although this expression may feel deeply injurious to some who hear it, it is nevertheless protected and permissible speech, unless it takes on a character that violates University or School policies on harassment, discrimination, or bullying."

I searched for any example of a student being punished for claiming that there are only two genders and havent found nothing, so if you've got something that would clewrlt be hypocrisy on their part. If you dont, then it seems they are sticking to their general policy of allowing even controversial ideas. Keep on mind that's a different discussion to their preferences in what they choose to include in curriculum, or teach the students.
No, slurs are not universally agreed upon and context is a thing, which is why prohibiting their use makes more sense for social media platforms and such rather than giving the government the power to ban words. Given enough time, the government will always use the power they have to benefit themselves.
What is that last sentence supposed to mean? The governments ability to "ban words" is not a factor of time, its a factor of constitutional authority, and they don't have it. That's always been the case, so I'm not sure what you are referring to here.

But slurs also don't prevent the expression of thoughts, feelings, opinions, beliefs, etc. They tend to detract from a conversation rather than add to it.

Generally I agree with that.
It's a matter of intent and agency. George Lucas censored Star Wars with the whole "Han shot first" thing. Several book publishers have been changing the content of their books for subjective moral reasons long after the author has died. Both are censorship, but the latter is worse than the former. You keep talking about self-censorship, which is a considerably less offensive and less concerning form of censorship. In the context of twitter, I keep talking about the government putting pressure on social media companies to remove legally protected speech from their platform. Like most things in life, there's a scale when it comes to how awful and unjust a given act of censorship can be, and that's a pretty bad one.

I disagree.

First off, I dont consider the han shot first thing censorship. Theres no real political, social, religious reasons for the change. It was done out of the artists preference so it doesn't even really fit the definition you gave earlier.

as to your second point, Twitter is not a free speech platform, no matter how populous or accessible it is, it is a place of business, and like any place of business, there are house rules. House rules being influenced by the government arent universal but it happens. The selling of alcohol is a good example of this, the government intervenes because its a matter of public safety. Are the usage of slurs and the unregulated platforming of ideas antithetical to the good of, not just our country but many others, also a matter of public safety? I say yes.

However I would like you to clarify what exactly you mean when you say that the government "pressures" social media platforms to regulate themselves. Because that's getting into what rights the government has over how it interacts with corporations, and thats almost an entirely different topic.

Anyways, Twitter is a private company but its willing and continued influence on the spread of information, global international policy from official governments, news, and thus by extention the regulation of what is fact and what is fiction for a large portion of people is no small matter. Theres a reason musk was quick to shut down the verification of accounts claiming to be the president of the United States, or various other public figures rather quickly. Was he pressured by the government to do so? Maybe, but I dont see how you can frame that such as a bad thing in that case, but a necessary precaution.

But again, it has to come back to content changed or removed because of morality. That's the biggest factor in all of this. It's also why, as opposed to modern times, in the past so much censorship has come from the church and organized religion.

the difference is that religion was intended to be SEPERATE from the state in the constitution, and ergo religious organizations shouldn't have had the authority or the wherewithal to regulate public safety. The government however does.

That's not to say any time they regulate something that it is good. But I think actually, the regulation of major social media content is one of those things where it depends heavily on what kinds of content exists on the platform and what influence that has, and for something like Twitter, there should be incentive for Twitter to have regulations rather than not.
 
Well to be frank with you I've not kept up with any of the goings on at Harvard regarding the israel/Palestine conflict in great detail.

I did some research and their student hand book makes very plain that they at least claim to tolerate free expression saying quote: "our commitment to freedom of expression by its nature entails tolerating some speech that members of the community may receive as offensive or harmful. Although this expression may feel deeply injurious to some who hear it, it is nevertheless protected and permissible speech, unless it takes on a character that violates University or School policies on harassment, discrimination, or bullying."

I searched for any example of a student being punished for claiming that there are only two genders and havent found nothing, so if you've got something that would clewrlt be hypocrisy on their part. If you dont, then it seems they are sticking to their general policy of allowing even controversial ideas. Keep on mind that's a different discussion to their preferences in what they choose to include in curriculum, or teach the students.

I may return to the thread later to address some of your other points, but I wanted to cover this. My example of punishing students for saying there are only two genders was a hypothetical. I was wrong for not communicating that. I don't think anyone at Harvard would be stupid enough to say that, given the climate of the campus and that their literal grades are at stake. But I did include a real life example below.

As for a list of censorship that actually happened at Harvard:


First of all, Harvard, which on paper commits to protecting free speech, has a dismal record of responding to deplatforming attempts — attempts to sanction students, student groups, scholars, and speakers for speech protected under First Amendment standards. Of nine attempts in total over the past five years, seven resulted in sanction.

For each of these seven incidents, Harvard was penalized in the rankings:

From 2019 to this year, Harvard sanctioned four scholars, three of whom it terminated.

In 2020, Harvard revoked conservative student activist Kyle Kashuv’s acceptance over comments he made on social media as a 16-year-old, for which he had since apologized.

In 2022, Harvard disinvited feminist philosopher Devin Buckley from an English department colloquium on campus over her views on gender and trans issues.

In 2019, Harvard was the site of a substantial event disruption when protesters interrupted a joint talk featuring former Harvard President Lawrence S. Bacow and Graduate School of Education Dean Bridget Terry Long by occupying the stage and refusing to leave.

Harvard also performed very poorly on a number of the survey-based components of the College Free Speech Rankings, ranking 193 out of 254 on “Comfort Expressing Ideas,” 183 on “Administrative Support,” and 198 on “Disruptive Conduct.” This is reflected in student survey responses. For instance, just over a quarter of Harvard students reported they are comfortable publicly disagreeing with their professor on a controversial political topic; only roughly a third think it is “very” or “extremely” clear the administration protects free speech on campus; and an alarming 30% think using violence to stop a campus speech is at least “rarely” acceptable, an increase from the 26% of Harvard students who felt this way last year.

And there's even more at the link.

So to adjust what I said to fit what has actually happened, "If you take action when it comes to an invited guest for having the 'wrong' opinions on gender and trans issues, but you refuse to take action when it comes to a situation where your students are calling for the genocide of Jews, don't expect people to take you seriously when you claim to believe in free speech.
 
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Nobody_Important

“Aww, it’s so...average,” she said to him in a cold brick of passion
And then he dunks on the feature...

And his own lovingly pushed AI also disagrees with his bullshit lol


GBZwrKqb0AANaoA



LqBGebN.gif
 
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Nobody_Important

“Aww, it’s so...average,” she said to him in a cold brick of passion
Bit of an oxy that
Not unless you believe in "absolute free speech" which is kind of nuts when you take a few to think about what it entails.


There needs to be a few limits on "free speech" otherwise everything can go to shit the moment that humanity starts to act like humans tend to do.
 


Another win for "absolute" freedom of speech. /s

"Spam" and "dangerous" I'd disagree with, along with any such labels being used on Twitter, but "disingenuous bullshit presented without context in order to smear an individual they hate" would be a better content description.

Every rechargeable battery on the planet has materials mined with child labor, including every phone battery, every laptop battery, and every electric car battery. It's a shameful reality. So why only write about Tesla and Musk?

If you'd care to educate yourself on the matter, here's a guy who risked a lot to write a book on the topic:

 
the unregulated platforming of ideas antithetical to the good of, not just our country but many others, also a matter of public safety? I say yes.

Who in the government should decide what ideas should be removed from all social media? What if you disagree? What if you agree now, but someone you completely disagree with is elected later who then uses the government to remove ideas and people that you do agree with? This is authoritarianism.

[edit]

I'll also include this, because it's one of the best exchanges I've ever seen on the topic:



However I would like you to clarify what exactly you mean when you say that the government "pressures" social media platforms to regulate themselves. Because that's getting into what rights the government has over how it interacts with corporations, and thats almost an entirely different topic.

As I've said multiple times, the government told Twitter if they didn't do a better job at keeping "hate" and "misinformation" off the platform, that they would be regulated. This was said several times using vaguely worded threats, and other times with a much more specific threat of removing section 230 protections, which would destroy almost any social media company.
 
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Toons

Member
I may return to the thread later to address some of your other points, but I wanted to cover this. My example of punishing students for saying there are only two genders was a hypothetical. I was wrong for not communicating that. I don't think anyone at Harvard would be stupid enough to say that, given the climate of the campus and that their literal grades are at stake. But I did include a real life example below.

As for a list of censorship that actually happened at Harvard:




And there's even more at the link.

So to adjust what I said to fit what has actually happened, "If you take action when it comes to an invited guest for having the 'wrong' opinions on gender and trans issues, but you refuse to take action when it comes to a situation where your students are calling for the genocide of Jews, don't expect people to take you seriously when you claim to believe in free speech.

I think its a stretch to call any f this censorship. No speech is being suppressed. They have the right to allow and disallow any individual onto THEIR platform or onto their grounds. The clauses of policy ix would not apply to them, they are not students, they are guests in their house.

If a person invited to their stage got caught sending inappropriate messages to underage individuals the day before I'd imagine they'd not be allowed onto the site to speak either. And these individuals are not having their speech suppressed, they are just not having their speech boosted by them. I think that's an important distinction.

As for the Palestine issue, it seems more like you're just asking them to take an official stance on a very complex matter. As far as I know they haven't, and to be frank I dont believe they should. That would create numerous conflicts of interest for their students, faculty, and would go against their claims of allowance even of "outrageous" speech. And let's be real, expelling students for expressing support for one side or the other would be tantamount to picking a geopolitical side on a major historical event as it happens.
 

Toons

Member
Who in the government should decide what ideas should be removed from all social media? What if you disagree? What if you agree now, but someone you completely disagree with is elected later who then uses the government to remove ideas and people that you do agree with? This is authoritarianism.

I dont think the president himself is making these decisions at all for one, nor should he be. Im also not making this claim on a basis of "agreement", I'm making this claim on a basis of what is good for the people. Attempts to push antisemitics narratives, white supremacists propaganda, and hate speech and other bigotry is generally something that already sees regulation, but when your platform allows individuals to push these messages as means of recruitment or the furthering of their goals that is a potential threat. As I said, we already have regulations that are intended for this purpose. For some things this is ongoing, like the regulation of certain drugs and medical substances used for recreational purposes. Many state governments have changed their stances on several of these over the years.

At some point, it becomes not about agreement, but about it complacency and irresponsibility toward the common people. Would be like not having seatbelt laws or speed limits. Yes, its a government regulation that all businesses and individuals fall under, but it would be irresponsible for them not to be there.

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I'll also include this, because it's one of the best exchanges I've ever seen on the topic:



Im going to have to check on this later but full disclosure, I'm not generally a fan of Peterson. So I may take away different things than you.

As I've said multiple times, the government told Twitter if they didn't do a better job at keeping "hate" and "misinformation" off the platform, that they would be regulated. This was said several times using vaguely worded threats, and other times with a much more specific threat of removing section 230 protections, which would destroy almost any social media company.

Do you feel any social media platoform is inherently entitled to section 230? I do not think any site is. The law could probably use an update but... again, this is the closest thing you can do to NOT bring authoritarian. But it should not be assumed as a given, nor should it be unconditional. Most protections like this aren't.
 

Drew1440

Member
For all the people saying Musk made it so no one could label his posts with community notes, either he quickly reversed that decision, or that was a lie that people believed and never was true.




The note in question: "This feature has been available in Microsoft Word since at least 2020 and has to be turned on manually."

It's good to have context, and Musk deserves to have his statements questioned as much as anyone on the platform. I'm glad to see this can still happen.



As I mentioned in another thread recently: Is content being changed or removed for reasons related to subjective moral, political, or religious values? If yes, that's censorship.


Cant wait to get banned from Xbox and lose my digital games because my Word documents weren't 'Inclusive' enough. As for the community note, Musk never implied it was enabled by default so why that was mentioned in the note makes no sense.
 
Cant wait to get banned from Xbox and lose my digital games because my Word documents weren't 'Inclusive' enough. As for the community note, Musk never implied it was enabled by default so why that was mentioned in the note makes no sense.
It adds important context, which is a good thing. MS word criticizing you for not using "inclusive" language is quite a different thing than people opting in and and saying "MS word, please criticize me if I don't use inclusive language!" To not include that context is to misrepresent the situation. For an example of leaving out context from someone who dislikes Musk, please see my criticism of the article about Musk in post 387.
 
I dont think the president himself is making these decisions at all for one, nor should he be.
Sorry for the formatting, or your welcome. Either way. There were a lot of questions and statements I wanted to respond to.

Anyhow, you're right, but he does appoint an entire cabinet of government officials. A lot of things change with an administration.

Im also not making this claim on a basis of "agreement", I'm making this claim on a basis of what is good for the people.

And what is good for the people? Who gets to decide that in the US, for example, if not the president?

Attempts to push antisemitics narratives, white supremacists propaganda, and hate speech and other bigotry is generally something that already sees regulation

Not in the US from the government, which is where I'm generally talking about when I write that the government threatened twitter into censoring legally protected speech.

At some point, it becomes not about agreement, but about it complacency and irresponsibility toward the common people.

But it still has to come down to agreement. For example, I'm sure a lot of people feel that many, if not most, of the pro-Israel stories coming out of Israel are propaganda and "misinformation," while a lot of others distrust any reporting that comes from Palestine. What if the US government decided one side was full of misinformation and threatened twitter into censoring what they felt wasn't true? Aside from that, some feel Israel is an apartheid state committing genocide, and others feel Israel is a victim of Hamas terrorists and they do everything they can to prevent casualties.

An authoritarian who feels very strongly about any of these positions could very well decide that for "the greater good" people should be removed from social media who disagree with them. If it doesn't come down to agreement, are you saying that you'd be fine with any of this decided for you, no matter the speech that was being censored, as long as it was done with good intentions? I wouldn't think so, so yes, it comes down to agreement. It kind of always has to, doesn't it?

After writing the previous two paragraphs, but before posting this post, I just now saw a news story that the EU actually going to attack Twitter's free speech using Israel / Hamas in very much the way I describe above. If you've read the Israel thread, I've been very pro Israel throughout, but NO, I do not want this to happen in either direction. Because if it can happen in one direction, it can happen in the other, depending on who has the power at a given time.




It is extremely authoritarian to say "I know the truth when it comes to this matter, and everyone saying otherwise is pushing misinformation and their speech should be prevented." That should always be seen as 3rd world country, banana republic, dictator behavior. Yet if the censors wrap their censorship up in "inclusiveness" and "public safety" far too many people will go along with it. But the thing is, any government or dictator can ALWAYS use these two concepts to justify anything they want to do.

Im going to have to check on this later but full disclosure, I'm not generally a fan of Peterson. So I may take away different things than you.

I love how much agreement there is in that clip, which is why it's a favorite of mine. Even if no minds were changed, I think people came away with a better understanding of each other, and that's really ideal IMO.

Do you feel any social media platoform is inherently entitled to section 230? I do not think any site is.

Yes, out of an absolute necessity. If you could sue a paper company for what others write on that paper, there wouldn't be any paper companies.
 
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I was thinking today, Twitter should allow people to pay for the Twitter blue subscription for other accounts, just like GAF allows people to buy GAF gold for other members. Think of all the people who hate twitter but still use twitter, and all the people who disagree with them so they'd want to fund twitter through their account, and all the people who agree with them but still want their posts to be seen by more people.

Rewarding an especially good tweet with a month of twitter blue would also work nicely there, and at this point not doing that and making it widely known is just a huge missed opportunity.
 

Majmun

Member
Anyone else's feed also full of anti-immigration posts? I'm being bombarded with anti-immigration content by users I've never heard before.
Elon Musk is boosting certain content again
 
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Also, censorship is a far greater issue when it's selectively applied, which isn't the case for most terms of service or house rules. To use a recent example, if Harvard really did defend freedom of speech, they'd be able to defend their recent inaction from a place of truth and precedent. Instead, everyone can see how hypocritical they are, allowing the sort of speech that shouldn't be accepted at any school.

Other than the news about Don Lemon, the rest of this video is about Twitter suspending several accounts that have been especially critical of Israel lately. I personally am very pro Israel, but I stand by what I said above. Musk owes an explanation for the suspension of these accounts. Any major social media platform has a social obligation to allow free speech in a way that isn't biased towards certain beliefs or opinions, and anyone banned from a major social media platform deserves to know EXACTLY why, and what specific post was the reason for their removal.

Why should you fight for the speech of others even when you strongly disagree? Because if they can be silenced, you can be silenced. Because the positions of power deciding you can't criticize Israel today will be the ones deciding that you can't criticize Palestine tomorrow. If you have any kind of understanding of history, you always push for free speech.

 

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
Remember the people who said Twitter would go bankrupt because the users would leave, the advertisers would flee, and Mastodon would take over?
I mean it's lost about 70% of its market valuation and seems to have no viable path to profitability.

Remember how people were sure Twitter wouldn't last one year because Elon was changing too many things that the brilliant Jack Dorsey had established and that Elon didn't understand how to run a tech company? 😂
This seems to be the lived reality of the situation. Twitter continues to spiral into its death throes largely based on the poor decision making of one man.

To say nothing of how the distraction has devalued his other properties.
 
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