> No. I'm saying nothing that twitter can do would infringe on freedom of speech.
I understand that that's what you're saying. But you're responding to my comment implying that I'm disagreeing with that point of view, which I did not.
> Somehow this does not register well with free speech enthusiasts
It registers fine. What you may be glossing over is that Twitter itself has free speech - so it is free to do this, unless you have something akin to a fairness doctrine.
If you keep getting in arguments about something, it's pretty silly to claim there is no controversy.
> Now you may not agree that Twitter SHOULD allow free speech
If you don't agree that Twitter should do something that it currently isn't, you by definition don't see it as having a problem in that behavioral domain.
> but you can not deny that censorship exists on Twitter and it is serving the political agenda of some people.
Private actors controlling the use of their private resources to select which ideas they will and will not promote with them is called “free speech”. So, you seem to think Twitter’s problem is that they exercise free speech.
> If one believes Twitter has a free speech problem
Twitter HAS a free speech problem. This is not controversial. Now you may not agree that Twitter SHOULD allow free speech, but you can not deny that censorship exists on Twitter and it is serving the political agenda of some people.
> those rules, exactly how you have stated them, can be--and are--used to clamp down on valid political speech.
As far as I can tell Twitter has not “clamped down on valid political speech”, but only on targeted harassment, threats, and so on.
You are complaining that supporting a racist worldview gets someone called out as a racist by other users of the site. But that’s expected and healthy discourse for a democracy. There’s nothing in Twitter’s terms of service that says people can’t make fun of someone or call them racist.
This is entirely different from getting banned by the platform for e.g. inciting violence.
> Maybe, maybe not. Twitter is free to do what you think they should not.
Donald Trump is free to do what you think they should not.
> It's what Twitter exercises when it decides what content and content sources to relay.
And now Twitter is doomed to fail.
> Free speech isn't an entitlement to someone else's resources to amplify your speech.
"Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The term "freedom of expression" is sometimes used synonymously but includes any act of seeking, receiving, and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used." [1]
> Do you honestly believe I should instead just take your word for it and ignore both personal evidence and studies? That would make no sense.
No. Also, maybe this is unclear, but I am questioning your decision when you posted your original comment (when my anecdote was unavailable).
If I were you, I would hesitate from making broad generalizations like “[hateful content] is typical content on Twitter”. A very strong statement, but sensible given your unusual access patterns. I would not make the general claim about Twitter that way (other than what studies mention), but seems like you are generalizing your cherry-picked experience.
I actually concede the points about the objective increase in hateful tweets on the site. It would be odd for them to not increase, given that all the banned accounts were reinstated; this is obvious. Similarly, we would reasonably expect less hate speech in countries that penalize them. Free speech was espoused in spite of these increases (for deeper, second/third-order consequence reasons).
To make it clear: I never said Twitter adopting free speech would lead to less hate speech on the platform. I am merely responding to your incendiary generalizations of the platform without having seriously used it.
There’s a sense in which we vary in our sensitivity towards strong moderation and limiting freedom of speech. I think freedom of speech is a hard-won right of history, something preserved for us by our ancestors so that we may enjoy it. It is also fragile, and the default human state is to diminish freedom of speech for exploitation. To me, it’s precious and serves as a backbone of a truly democratic society, but perhaps you may differ.
This leads to an interesting difference between HN and Twitter; I enjoy HN and its strongly moderated nature (there are several other strongly moderated platforms I enjoy).
But Twitter seems different. It acts as both a personal and commercial outlet for news. Personal identities are far stronger; silencing an account is silencing an identity. The consequences of limiting free speech differ.
EDIT: I also took a more careful look at your original comment with the Twitter accounts. I honestly cannot find any problematic accounts after having looked through maybe 30 posts on Top. Did you take most of them from Latest? That would make sense, but you are basically giving Twitter a very short window to respond to things. Besides, it’s not the *existence* that matters, it’s whether they are promoted or not. Because for the average user, they will see tweets with much engagement. I would be happy to see any studies on the average Twitter user’s feed, and see the amount of hateful content. If you can demonstrate that (by some sensible definitions) the average Twitter user sees a lot of hateful content, I would gladly change my mind.
> Twitter should not be allowed to control free speech. This is political meddling by a US company in our free democratic country.
Excuse me? What on Twitter do you mean about 'free speech'?
We have finally come full circle. Do you remember how the 'center left-leaning' folks kept deflecting to 'center right-leaning' folks and the lost and banned, and used the nonsensical 'private platform' justification and 'they can moderate, ban, censor who ever they want' replies?
Now one finally screams 'free speech' on a platform that also doesn't allow it and accuses Twitter of 'political meddling' and 'interference' and is now upset and confused whether if they breached the ToS or not.
So NOW, do you finally agree that the problem is actually with the platforms themselves?
> There is no good faith reason to be on Twitter's side unless:
Where did I say I was on Twitter's side? That's a whole loaded comment full of completely unfounded assertions.
Y'all are raising pitchforks when you haven't actually heard Twitter's side, just their automated message responses.
Personally, I think Twitter is a net negative for society, but there is an implication here that there is some totalitarian government control (i.e. anti first amendment) which is simply not true.
Giving people the choice of whether they want to accept moderation or not, seems reasonable.
For example, if twitter allowed everything that is allowed by law, but also gave people control over content that they see, then that seems fine.
There is a fundamantal difference between disallowing something, and giving a user the option of not seeing certain content.
IE, I do not believe that the block feature is censorship, for example.
> Is that really what you want?
I'd want to have the option to control the content that I see, as opposed to twitter forcing its own decision. I don't see a problem with someone choosing to allow spam to themselves, if they are OK with that.
I observed Twitter/X was recently loosening previous owner's restrictions and censorship. I'm apparently misinformed, so how is enabling previously banned accounts hurting free speech?
> People who didn't like twitter's policies were smugly told "go start your own twitter".
I really don't see how there could have been any other response. Twitter is a private company holding private assets and letting people use them in exchange for showing those people ads. What kind of free society would tell them that they can't decide what kind of content people get to put on their stuff? Should I be allowed to write KKK speeches on my work computer?
Unless we're going to declare social media a utility[0], what people are asking for is basically to have the government tell you what to put on your website.
[0] Which I personally think is ridiculous and entitled, but I'm open to the argument.
> And yes, Twitter and most platforms ban it for good reason.
Thanks for pointing out that you are wrong in pretending that Twitter is governed by this "free-speech absolutism" strawman.
> A great example of the way free-speech absolutists don't engage with the consequences of their views.
Calling normal people nazis doesn't mean normal people are nazis, it just means that you have a serious problem. It might also indicate, depending on how much control you want to exert on said normal people, that you are a totalitarian.
> Which is why I'm done here.
Cool! This was always allowed. At least, on platforms with freedom of expression.
I understand that that's what you're saying. But you're responding to my comment implying that I'm disagreeing with that point of view, which I did not.
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