Has Musk made it clear why he thinks Twitter doesn’t serve the goal of free speech with explicit reasons? I don’t follow him so he may have mentioned them in the past.
Musk’s involvement in Twitter has absolutely nothing to do with free speech. Like many things he does, it’s a false narrative to push what he wants forwards. He has a clear history of trying to bully and shutdown those that disagree with him in any capacity.
It takes a huge leap of logic to come to the conclusion that Musk cares about free speech for anyone other than himself. What he wants is speech without consequences for himself. His ability to speak is mostly unrestricted by any government power, and policy changes at Twitter will have no effect on what few restrictions he might encounter.
Pre-Musk Twitter didn't specifically try to present itself as a bastion of free speech.
On top of that, in case of this particular account, Musk specifically said that it would be allowed on the platform per his understanding of free speech.
Well, in the context of Musk's entire public premise for buying Twitter being to provide an at-scale safe haven for online free speech, it absolutely is a free speech issue.
Except that Musk's Twitter in no way supports freedom of speech. For a while he banned any mention of Mastodon, or the ElonJet account, and he's banned a whole slew of antifascist accounts and journalists who report on the far right (he will claim that it's because they violated rules, but in each case it seems it was a new rule: journalism he doesn't like is "doxxing": reporting on who did what). So sure, it looks like he is willing to lose a big chunk of his net worth to change Twitter, but his intent seems to be to promote certain speech and suppress other speech, or as he would say, to kill the "woke mind virus".
You've misunderstood me. I don't believe twitter has an obligation to be a platform for free speech. You're arguing against points I never made which makes me believe you may be misunderstanding other arguments as well.
Musk wants twitter to be a platform for free speech, that does not mean he or anyone else is legally obligated (or in my opinion even morally obligated) to make their platform a place for free speech.
At the very very terrible TED interview last week:
Interviewer: You've described yourself, Elon, as a free speech absolutist, but does that mean that there's literally nothing that people can't say and it's okay?
Musk: Well, I think obviously Twitter or any forum is bound by the laws of the country that it operates in. So obviously there are some limitations on free speech in the US, and, of course, Twitter would have to abide by those rules. [...] No, I think, like I said, in my view Twitter should match the laws of the country
I thought Musk is constantly railing for free speech on Twitter (he inserts himself into any major event, trucker protests, Ukraine). Awaiting his commentary.
Remember the whole thing about Musk buying Twitter? One if his reasons for doing so was because he believes Twitter is "censoring" conservative speech. But Twitter is a private company, running a private service, so your strict government-focused interpretation of free speech clearly wouldn't apply.
Musk has stated in his own words that he is a "free speech absolutist", and given his complaints about Twitter it seems that his interpretation of that is not limited to government censorship, but all censorship.
Musk was never a free speech absolutist. He claimed he supported 'legal speech'. Which turned out to be a big fat old lie. The guy is a state actor. People like that are never for free speech and lie all the time.
Also, to be fair, there was time before musk ( like 10 years ago ) when twitter and much of social media had some semblance of free speech. I don't think that era is ever coming back.
I don't believe Musk's free speech claims for a second, he has a long history of regailing the public with grandiose claims and then failing to deliver. I'd bet 100 to 1 that twitter will continue to ban accounts for legal posts.
Your arguments are invalid because Musk himself bashed Twitter for similar behavior before he bought it, and all hell would have broken loose if they had banned him for it.
He proclaimed himself to be free speech absolutist and now fails miserably on multiple occasions.
It only shows that it is not about freedom of speech, but about being able to say whatever he wants.
That's not freedom, it's tyranny. Fear him if your tweets don't get his favor.
The good thing about Musk claiming Free speech absolutism is that we can hold him responsible for it. He might be a free speech NIMBY but because he claims to support free speech, his actions that clearly contradict this claim have very heavy toll on his persona.
IMHO Musk has a real opportunity to actually make Twitter great, Twitter was in a horrible shape and no one was happy with its state and I hoped that he can fix it because Musk is a product person. Unfortunately every passing day I'm losing hope. Even if he can fix it as a product, it seems like he will bomb it as a community.
No one ever forgot the calling the diver pedo incident and his handling Twitter can severely damage his image.
There is a reason why people pay Musk thousands of dollars for features that don't exist or cars that are not well build and still don't go after him like people went after Elizabeth Holmes and I'm afraid he might eventually burn out his social credit and be judged promptly for whatever he delivers without a slack.
No, but rather that Musk has been using it in bad faith (I’m assuming “I support free speech” was meant to qualify the criticism of Twitter under Musk’s leadership).
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