A search for Threads content on Twitter currently brings up zero results, despite plenty of links to Meta’s microblogging rival being posted on the platform.
Elon Musk runs the whole of Twitter like the jealous, power-drunk moderator of a small 5,000-member Discord server.
People are free to either agree with the CEO view or to not use the platform. Sad but true. At least it reminds us all that it is a private for-profit company and always has been. No matter whether the “value” of it was mostly provided by user-created contents.
It’s kind of a good example as to why the “benevolent dictator” idea is fundamentally flawed—you don’t really get two benevolent dictators in succession unless you’re incredibly lucky, and doesn’t matter how lucky you are, you’re not getting three in a row
But, I really hope this twist of fate of how he accidentally bought Twitter in the first place helps people learn the lesson about all that “free speech” they were whining about. Your speech is not free when it is moderated by a corporation. Yes, the constitution allows you to say what’s on your mind, but it does not tell media corporations that they must allow you to say whatever is on your mind. If the uneducated people haven’t caught on yet, they shall never catch on, which really might mean stupid is just stupid, no matter how much education you throw at it.
It’s not even that, free speech is about the government, not private entities, it’s about not being arrested for what you say, it has nothing to do with what private companies do on their platforms, they’re free to do what they want and they’re not limiting any free speech by doing so because they’re not the government.
It’s baffling how many people still don’t understand that and go on crying about free speech related to private entities.
the constitution allows you
I thought the point of the constitution was that it confirms existing rights, not allows or forbids something. While the usual laws do allow or forbid.
Free speech in the web was really funny in the 00s, when moderators could partake in long discussions about it, and then just ban somebody for looking at them wrong (figuratively).
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I’m glad you do, it’s just that many people don’t get this very important difference. If this wasn’t important for your message, then fine.
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Just take your pills and have some tea, will ya?
You’re the only person knowing for sure whether they change your message. Others may interpret it in various ways.
well not really free if their job depends on Twitter.
He’s done everyone a few favors. He showed us that the government sticks it’s fingers into social media in ways that are illegal, and he also showed us that corpos aren’t a good alternative because they’ll stick their fingers into social media in ways that are legal.
Decentralization and self-hosting is ultimately the only protection against forces that want to force us to see what they want us to see and nothing else.
He showed us that the government sticks it’s fingers into social media in ways that are illegal
That’s what a few right wing media repeatedly claim but I haven’t seen anyone actually providing any proof. Or do you mean the recent crazy judge decision?
The fact that there’s censorship is self-evident. It’s highly documented that in the past 3 years social media companies have cracked down on specific political speech. They banned a sitting president, and are continuing to ban speech from political candidates from both US political parties.
So was this caused by the government? Well, we do know that there’s the twitter files, but maybe you go “hey, he’s a far right electric car guy, don’t believe him” – I know what happened to me.
I donated to a protest I agreed in. The company returned my money.
Hey, ok. Maybe it was just that this specific company didn’t agree with the protest. The protest moved to another company that agreed with the protest. The money was prevented from reaching the cause by the government.
People started looking at new ways to help, and the government threatened to sieze our bank accounts.
This is highly documented, was a public event. So we at least circumstantially know that western governments directly engaged in censorship.
Eventually you end up with a preponderance of the evidence.
Hey, you disagree with my political speech and think I deserve to be censored by the government? Great. Fine. Just remember that tomorrow it might be you who has something unpopular to say.
well with the government they just gives them selves the power sick their fingers in and make it legal
Ah great. Here comes another believer of the “Twitter Files”.
So just because I believe that Hillary Clinton used Hunter Biden’s laptop to collaborate with Twitter in a conspiracy to suppress conservative’s “Free speech”, I’m crazy?
You had me raging for a second.
I mean, the Twitter Files are, pretty objectively, true
Sure, but they also don’t actually contain 95% of what people claim they contain.
He showed us that the government makes requests and Twitter doesn’t care because they don’t have to. So what?
Maybe he is aware of that, but wants to remind us all how internet communities were in the 00s.
Banning people for mentioning competing platforms just brings nostalgic tears.
Or maybe he doesn’t, just all the benevolence social media owners would show goes down the pipe when there really are decentralized alternatives which work. When they didn’t feel threatened, they could seem wiser.
Maybe he is aware of that, but wants to remind us all how internet communities were in the 00s.
This i don’t know. Any news references or links?
That’s like asking for news references for somebody being kicked out of a bar (doesn’t matter whether it’s unjust).
It just was a common thing - posting links to competitor sites gets you disciplined and possibly banned. Of course, competition was not for money, but for people. Cause if nobody comes to your site, then your ego is hurt and you’re depressed. Also posts advertising other people’s sites spoil the mood in general, contributing nothing.
EDIT: There were also friendly\allied sites, of course. With little banners somewhere at the bottom of the page leading to those.
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No surprise there. Weren’t they banning people for posting their Mastodon/Cohost accounts or something?
Yes. Twitter was at one point tagging links to Mastodon as “potentially harmful” and removing them.
But the one thing that’s been shown consistent about Mr. Musk’s ownership of Twitter is that it is consistently self-contradicting. So as Twitter positions itself as “free speech absolutist” one can rest assured that the reality will be “self-contradicting”.
Let us not forget that time that Musk said that “Elon Jet Tracker” would not be banned WHILE it was indeed banned. Literally tweeting verifiably false information and then subsequently being called out on it, only for Musk to do the traditional “ignore and move on”.
Yeah, I think at this point it’s easier to compile a list containing categories of platforms/people/accounts they didn’t ban :)
Just thought it was kinda funny.
And no one is surprised.
Elon made it clear shortly after taking over that “free speech” was speech he happened to agree with, and he had no intentions of ethical consistency on ‘free speech’ when it came to speech that was critical of him or his platform. Twitter already went nuclear on links to Mastadon and similar alternative platforms earlier this year while their dumpster fire was raging.
Fee speech, pay $8/mo to post hate speech at your leisure.
lmao that is such a good descriptor of what’s going on there. Elon figured he could make money from racists wanting to be racist around normal people.
Honestly seems like it could be the GOP’s definition of free speech.
Anything I don’t like = hate speech. Got it.
I don’t like when people use their boosted presence to say that minorities are a threat and ought to be exterminated, yeah.
What’s with people pretending we are talking about pineapple on pizza whenever hate speech is mentioned?
What’s with people pretending we are talking about pineapple on pizza whenever hate speech is mentioned?
Because some people (and reddit users in particular) use the strategy of putting everything in the same bag to silence dissent. All it takes is the majority calling ‘pineapple on pizza’ hate speech and now nobody can talk about it in fear of being called a hater.
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Do you have a single example to back this up or are you ready to admit you’re just talking out of your ass?
I do. Discussing whether trans women should be allowed to compete in women sports will get you branded as a transphobic right wing nazi in 99% of Reddit’s subs, and probably banned too. Once you are labeled your arguments are moot, because you are a hater.
You’ll find no lack of people with very good arguments about this matter, as well as many who are tired to rehash it over and over again when it has become very clear that many are not satisfied simply with setting rules for women’s sports. There are people being radicalized through a minor issue into generalized hate. For an example, what is happening in US Florida is not about women’s sports.
But I wasn’t even talking about women’s sports, I was referring to how there are people literally referring to minorities as subhuman and calling for them to be wiped out. Is that not hate enough for you?
For someone so concerned that your arguments might be mischaracterized, you sure are quick to make sweeping assumptions about people you don’t know.
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Lol are the goalposts so far gone that we are trying to imply hate speech just isn’t a thing that exists anymore? They didn’t say what was classified as hate speech, just that it is definitely on Twitter. If you don’t believe there’s hate speech on Twitter, well… I’d offer to sell you the Golden Gate Bridge but I don’t want to take advantage of such low cognitive ability.
Yeah, I think what he said was that anything allowed by law would be permitted, whatever that means. But then when they started impeding links to mastodon he was like “we don’t have to let you advertise our competition >>>:(.” Elon/Twitter has gotten so tedious to hear about.
The thing there is that like … it’s not about consistency or values. The fact that he lied is meaningless to him, throwing it in his face is wasted effort. Communication is a tool to get what he wants, not a goal unto itself.
how is that free speech, twitter is blocking a competitor for obvious reasons
same as reddit did with lemmy and kbin when they banned users and sub for mentioning it and giving migration howto’s
They did? Have a source? That seems like one more argument against the “Lemmy doesn’t matter to Reddit” crowd.
Man, and that’s before the protests. For “spam” lmao, there’s entire communities built on self-promotion, those are fine I guess?
Because anyone who cries “freeze peach!” at any provocation are really just people that want to say hateful shit without repercussions. Generally, those same people are the ones to shut other people down from expressing their own freedom of speech.
Anyone that cries “free speech” when government isn’t involved at all is a dolt
Musk fans then: finally! We have absolute free speech
Musk fans now: it’s a private company. He can do whatever he wants
Isn’t Twitter’s free speech kinda the same as Fediverse or Reddit’s free speech? Pretty sure if someone says something homophobic or transphobic in here, they’ll get kicked out (which, for me, is good. Keep reading). It’s free speech for the people that align with the admin ideals. I see nothing wrong with it besides the echo chamber effect, but at least people can create spaces where they feel safe.
Someone could argue “but Lemmy also has right wing instances”. Then just imagine Twitter is a right wing instance of Mastodon that has been defederated. And that’s what the free market is about. The free market is a fediverse and a company is an instance, you can create an instance and put whatever rules you want in it. It’s up to everyone else if they want to use it or federate with it. Twitter just “defederated” Threads. How is that different from a Lemmy instance defederating other instances?
Is it against free speech when Lemmy admins kick right-wing people or defederated right-wing instances? I think it is against free speech, but I don’t think everyone needs to allow free speech in their home. Go ahead and kick out the people you consider offensive. I believe Lemmy and private companies should have the right to do this.
I do agree, it’s his company. He can create his own rules. I don’t agree with his rules, so I don’t use the service.
Twitter’s “free speech” rule after the musk takeover was utter hypocrisy and pure bullshit. It was never about “free speech” or, in his own words, “free speech absolutism”. The latter would mean “zero moderation platform”. Wouldn’t take long for it to be nothing but bot posts of scams, hateful shit, pedophilia and snuff. Nobody in their right mind would favor zero moderation. Even fucking chans (4chan, 8chan) have moderation, not even they want to be swamped with even worse shit than they produce.
In short, musk uses “free speech” as a dog whistle and smoke screen.
He’s an asshole and his platform is definetely not 100% free speech. I’m just saying even assholes should have the right to moderate their platforms however they want, obviously in the framework of the law.
If they think there are legal requirements then yes they are. But wanting platforms to be more open in general is not necessarily a doltish thing. Yes twitter has the legal right to ban anyone they want, but that doesn’t mean that’s a good thing or we shouldn’t seek out platforms that aren’t so arbitrarily censorious.
When people cry free speech they are invoking the US constitution. They fail to recognize it only pertains to the government.
You cannot claim this on behalf of other people. I myself sometimes refer to lax moderation rules as “free speech focused” moderation. It has nothing to do with the government.
That isn’t to say that some, or even many, people don’t use the phrase assuming that it is their constitutionally protected right to spread vitriol on the internet. But to imply that this is the only common meaning is disingenuous.
Free speech is the freedom to speak about the government. That’s all it is. That’s it. If a company practices free speech all they’re doing is exercising thier freedom to criticize the government. Same with an individual.
There is no other form of free speech. It exists solely to counter the government.
You don’t police the English language. I don’t know what else to tell you.
One phrase can refer to multiple things; “free speech” often refers to the ability to say whatever you like* without repurcussions from an authoritative figure, be that the government, Elon Musk’s cronies, or Lemmy moderators. Obviously it is not a constitutionally protected right in the latter contexts, but then again the phrase wasn’t “right to free speech.”
Freedom of speech is an ideal before it is a law. Even if we lived in a utopian classless society without a government we could still have the concept that everyone deserves the right to say what they wish.
If it can exist without the government then logically it cannot strictly refer to the government.
Freedom of speech from what?
From your peers. For example if I say I am an atheist in a group of religious people and they kill me because of it - I don’t have freedom of speech.
Or they are neolibs who are seemingly incapable of thinking critically about anything
I’m a simple man, I see anyone use the word “neolib”, I downvote
Musk was only appealing to right wing idiots who think “freedom from social consequences” is a human right and co-opt “free speech”, making it a meaningless term
Musk purported to be a free speech absolutist when he bought Twitter. He said only illegal content should be suppressed. Obviously, he’s a liar. He banned tons of Leftist accounts shortly after he took over.
It’s some form of sarcasm
They didn’t put a /s at the end, so that can’t be it.
/s
You can tell Lemmy’s getting bigger when the gullible people start showing up.
Logic doesn’t matter. Literally do anything at all and say “it’s because free speech” or “it’s to stop cancel culture” and the fan boys will cheer it.
I won’t, and I really am against cancel culture (I’m for developing reputation systems to help you automatically ignore those you don’t want to read, but to be able to read what they say in case you suddenly want that).
Now, this whole Twitter-Threads dynamic seems like an exemplary “toad vs viper” case.
I didn’t think cancel culture was a great tactic until I saw its effect on Alex Jones and Milo Yieanowetpahppolis.
Deplatforming fascists works, and we have observed it. We should do more of it.
lol ‘cancel culture’ used to be called ‘boycotting’ / ‘speaking with your wallet’ used to be called ‘having an opinion’
its not new, obviously we should punch nazis, and you can be certain anyone who says the words ‘cancel culture’ unironically is a tool with less than a 10 year memory span, max.
‘boycotting’ / ‘speaking with your wallet’ used to be called ‘having an opinion’
Cancel Culture is none of those things. Cancel Culture is very specifically taking a platform away from someone who has misused it to do harm in our society.
Should you choose to vote with your wallet and boycott destructive people, though? Yes, absolutely. But deplatforming is observably effective, because we’ve seen that many of these loud, awful people simply aren’t able to rebuild their following without the convenience of major social media platforms and interviews on major networks.
And without that following, they aren’t shit. Alex Jones literally went bankrupt.
so first, we generally agree and I don’t want to get into an argument with you.
If cancel culture means ‘deplatforming’ to you, thats great. I agree deplatforming works. But the term ‘cancel culture’ is deliberately vague, does include boycotting, and is just one of the many terms made up by the right to create a ‘boogey man’. I tend to throw these terms back in their faces as laughable (‘woke’, ‘CRT’ - all the same badly defined bullshit that just means ‘things I don’t like’). If your strategy is to embrace, rehab, and legitimize the terms thats fine too.
Gotcha.
Alex Jones literally went bankrupt.
- Still Online
- Still doing shows
- Still hawking shit
Still needs some quality time in a dark alley with a lead pipe
And without that following, they aren’t shit. Alex Jones literally went bankrupt.
Alex Jones declared bankruptcy in an attempt to avoid paying the families who sued him and won. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64644080
But I overall agree: had he been deplatformed earlier, he could probably not have had so much influence and caused so much damage.
Deplatforming requires a centralized platform from which to deplatform. Ability to sometimes deplatform real Nazis (but usually not) is not worth centralizing crucial systems, end of story.
Not necessarily. It just requires that admins do their job and be good stewards of their users and instances.
Mastodon, for instance, has a tag used exclusively for dogpiling fascists and their instances, so even though it’s decentralized, people are vigilant and keep the destructive elements disconnected. (Or, at least, make a great effort of it, which is more than we can say for Twitter.)
No, that’s what I described in parentheses. Not really existent yet in the Web.
While “cancel culture” (in its narrow meaning in the Web, again) is when you have serious problems talking even to those who are willing to listen to you or undecided. Say, you won’t ever read something, because the decision has been made for you by somebody else, and you don’t even choose whether to delegate that decision.
The difference is in the architecture of systems used, actually. Because with both things every person involved acts voluntarily, it’s just that in my variant that power to decide is spread more evenly.
What I mean is similar to the reputation system in Locutus, only it doesn’t work yet.
a tool with less than a 10 year memory span
and/or has the self-awareness of a dishrag
No, we can’t say that. I am able to decide for myself who is a fascist and who is not. However, the systems allowing for this work with the assumption that I can’t and shouldn’t decide for myself.
I’d rather share a bunk with a Nazi (won’t happen, I’m part Armenian, part Jewish, but) than accept something like this.
To each their own.
I like my mods doing their job and keeping the fascists out, and I love that when we report that, it’s investigated and a reasonable decision is made. That doesn’t happen anywhere else but in the fediverse.
Well, we are at least back to the 00s state of things from the degeneracy centralized social media were. Which is good. I just think with modern means and experience one can go further.
We’re certainly disentangling ourselves from it, and yeah, I love that too. :)
“Free speech absolutism (but not if you link to my competitor)” isn’t free speech absolutism. It’s just another hypocrisy to throw on the pile.
Free speech Moscow style by Eloon Muskovite
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Ah yes. The exact kind of action I would expect from someone who has measured responses like “Zuck is a cuck”.
Use a platform ran by a five year-old, expect five year-old behavior.
Although it won’t absolve one of crimes, affluenza seems to be a real thing. The social isolation and deference that money brings seems to have a host of well-documented psychological issues that accompany it. Musk, like Trump, seems to believe that he can do whatever he wants without meaningful consequences, because he exists in a bubble of sycophants and wealth, where rules for the plebs do not apply. Normal people can’t burn this much good will and go on with their lives unhindered. Normal people would be permanently financially ruined if they lost that much doing stupid and illegal business moves.
Geez that’s rough and must really suck. We should help all of those rich people get over their lack of personal connections. By taxing most of their money away.
Geez that’s rough and must really suck. We should help all of those rich people get over their lack of personal connections. By taxing most of their money away.
This could be done in a generation if we made sensible inheritance laws, a wealth tax, or did away with capital gains and implemented an income tax with the highest bracket >90% like the US did in the 1940s-1960s instead, (provided this is done without loopholes.) There’s huge benefits to living in a country with more economic equality in terms of crime, political engagement, home ownership, economic competition, social mobility, terrorism, poverty reduction, mental health, etc., It’s harder to exploit people when they have resources.
made sensible inheritance laws, a wealth tax, did away with capital gains, …done without loopholes
So it’s not going to happen, got it.
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ill check that out
Meh, you don’t work all the time.
I just looked up the word, but isn’t this “affluenza” something rooted in guilt and which leads to near-conscious self-destructive actions? I don’t think it applies, Elon probably doesn’t even know what guilt feels like.
isn’t this “affluenza” something rooted in guilt and which leads to near-conscious self-destructive actions?
Not exactly. “Affluenza,” is loosely defined, and definitions vary, but was popularized as a defense presented at Ethan Couch’s trial with the premise that his killings were due to psychological effects of being wealthy and the lack of boundaries it afforded. Nowadays it’s generally used to mean a behavioral illness caused by wealth/affluence.
Though Wikipedia itself says that:
The word is thought to have been first used in 1954, but was popularised in 1997 with a PBS documentary of the same name and the subsequent book Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic (2001, revised in 2005, 2014).These works define affluenza as “a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more”. A more informal definition of the term would describe it as “a quasi-illness caused by guilt for one’s own socio-economic superiority”.
The term “affluenza” has also been used to refer to an inability to understand the consequences of one’s actions because of financial privilege.
So the first “popularization” seems to frame it more as a negative thing even for the self, while other definitions fit the case of Ethan Couch/Musk. Seems like the two definitions are pretty much opposites that use the same word, it’s kinda confusing honestly lol
Is anyone surprised?
Of course. That’s who they are. Why would anyone continue to use either of those?
This has a very “let’s de-federate from Threads” vibe.
Don’t get me wrong the guy is a tool but it feels similar to an instance admin blocking threads and not letting users decide.
My gut reaction is defensiveness that the fediverse has a different motive, but no. The motive IS the same. Both are fueled by self-preservation.
There IS a difference in circumstance, however. The fediverse has to measure potential gain vs potential risk of working with a greedy rich billionaire.
Twitter is already a giant that’s been going through a lot of abuse and bleeding users. It stands to gain nothing from Meta’ new copycat, only lose even more.
So, Yes. Same motivation for blocking/defederating. The difference between the two is what thy stand to gain vs what they risk losing.
I mean, you’re free to speak. The article doesn’t mention banning anything, just not making it findable. There’s a difference.
That’s like, every kind of ban on the internet. If a mod deletes a post on Reddit it just becomes “not findable” for people outside of its OP.
The article isn’t suggesting this is a free speech violation.
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A private citizen owning a social media company cannot “violate free speech”. That is like saying a newspaper is violating my freedom of speech by not publishing my article about flowers
