Good to see I'm vindicated in the prediction that Musk has zero interest in free speech, he only has interest in his narrative being dominant on Twitter.
I believe that is only the tip of the iceberg, given anti-vax narrative and transphobia is endlessly repeated by those on the far/alt-right. I see the "Prosecute/Fauci" tweet as a signal towards his intended audience for what kind of place he wants Twitter to be.
The way he runs his companies is "do a good job or else ill come in and do your job badly". Hes doing this with the world now. "Find a way to like me or ill fuck you up"
As with Trump, I think there's a tendency to impute some master plan behind Musk's bizarre and offensive statements. His actions show he doesn't spend a lot of time on planning. Is it a signal? Sure. But also he's just a shitposter with right-wing beliefs. I think he mostly operates on instinct.
I have believed from the start that Musk's main motivation for buying Twitter was giving a boon to the Republicans to buy favorable treatment for his companies, because he isn't getting that from the Democrats.
Would you please stop posting flamewar comments and/or using the site for ideological battle? We ban accounts that do these things, regardless of what they're battling for or against, because it's not what this site is for and destroys what it is for.
You've unfortunately been doing it quite a lot lately. If that keeps up, we're going to end up having to ban you. Fortunately, you've also posted good comments, so this shouldn't be hard to fix. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting, we'd appreciate it.
He couldn't possibly. It's just not how any business is run. No idea if he was lying from the start or really was just so starry-eyed at his new toy that he never thought it through. Content moderation is done to maximize the value of the platform. Yishan Wong rightly pointed out that spam is free speech, but we routinely delete it because users hate it. Cloudflare went through the same song and dance about free speech until customers threatened to leave until they severed ties with Daily Stormer. Customers leaving is free speech too. And things like threats, abuse, harassment, doxxing may be the free speech of the abusers, it has the effect of chilling the free speech of victims or potential victims.
There's simply no Libertarian ideal that can be achieved in one place. The Internet as a whole is an absolute haven of free speech. Twitter caters to a certain audience, Facebook to another. They're very broad, but not infinite. There are plenty of other places that cater to the audiences that they don't. And people can always find ways to share their ideas with no interference. The thing they aren't entitle too is reach.
This is more like paparazzi following famous people around. Doxing some random person is different matter than posting the travel patterns of a Russian oligarch or an American oligarch like Elon.
Okay so if you reach a certain wealth level, everyone should be entitled to see where you are? If that's the world you want to live in, fine. My doubt would be that if you accrued such wealth, your opinion would rapidly change. So this position is doubtful.
I think it's better for everyone to be entitled to their privacy.
Pointing out that it really is not the same situation and it's not generic "doxing". A random individual is very likely powerless.
Someone who very visibly, very loudly, and very consequentially, inserts himself or herself into global and national matters is a very public person, by choice. No one is peering into his house and taking pictures. Someone published legally available public data about an aircraft, exercising their right to freedom of speech.
And certainly not powerless. Being an oligarch (or celebrity) -- you know, you get to call heads of state and have a chat -- is not about "wealth" or "fame"; it is a hazy zone between power and wealth.
I think you are only imagining people you dislike.
Try to think of someone you admire. Fighting for a good cause. A pro-choice activist or an female celebrity flying to an African country to work with NGOs for women's health issues or something.
The critical necessity of open and unobstructed expression to a functioning liberal/democratic order far exceeds such considerations.
> Try to think of someone you admire. Fighting for a good cause. A pro-choice activist or an female celebrity flying to an African country to work with NGOs for women's health issues or something.
Speaking of lovely Angelina, as a CFR member she will be well advised (by experts) to take necessary precautions, should they be necessary. In fact, I would be surprised if she does not have a professional security detail.
Btw, I'll take that bait ("pro-Choice") and offer you this: At a fundamental level, my view is that as a citizen of a free society my primary concern shall never be my choice or viewpoint, rather that which insures that I may freely express my views and be able to freely exercise the political right to promote or support my viewpoint. Anything that undermines fundamental mechanisms that support our free society, regardless of the ideological or right/wrong garb it takes, must be rejected. That would be a more accurate picture of what "[I] think".
If you are wealthy enough to buy a jet, the public is entitled to know where that jet is flying, because such info has been shown to prevent accidents (which endangers the public and costs money to taxpayers).
If you are wealthy enough and that tracking rubs you the wrong way, you are free to take public transportation like the rest of us. If Congress can do it, so can Musk.
It appears that all automated flight tracking accounts utilizing open source data from @ADSBexchange have been banned from Twitter, including @RUOligarchJets.
He's also restored countless accounts that were banned under previous ownership. While banning ElonJet flys in the face of being a "free speech absolutist", he's certainly demonstrated that he's generally in favor of freer speech.
He's demonstrated he's generally in favor of speech he likes. I don't think there's any obvious connection between those accounts getting banned/unbanned under his leadership other than "does Elon like this account?"
He certainly has not demonstrated that he's in favor of free speech. He did restore a bunch of accounts - mostly far right trolls - and banned a bunch of others. It's not like Twitter wasn't a cesspool before, but he managed to make it worse while blaming the previous regime for being asleep at the wheel. The guy who used to be in charge of content moderation recently had to flee his home after Musk suggested Twitter had been turning a blind eye to child abuse and his army of sycophants went on the warpath. This is after he fired the entire team responsible for dealing with that garbage. He accuses companies who are cutting back advertising of being against free speech. The guy is a straight up cyber bully. Anyone paying attention has known that for years. Free speech only matters when it's his own free speech.
> he's certainly demonstrated that he's generally in favor of freer speech.
He's just changed who gets banned to be more in line with his personal beliefs. Accounts banned under the previous regime are unbanned and accounts that either were or likely would be permitted previously are now banned, with recent examples being the account that initially hosted the viral clip of Elon being booed on Chappelle's show and now ElonJet.
The latter example is particularly important, since both the public and Elon himself seemed to view this account as a litmus test of his commitment to "free speech."
well seems like he reactivated his account(pretty sure you got like 30 days or something to reactivate it after deleting or something like that), here's an archive of how it looked: https://archive.ph/W0d0v
The elonjet account however is a pretty bad one gotta agree, wonder if there will be any kind of explanation or attempt at one.
Twitter has also banned lots of left wing activist accounts, maybe we can agree that he has demonstrated that he's in favor of some free speech but not of free other speech?
seeing this as supporting "freer" is a take that falls apart pretty quickly when you specifically look at who's benefiting from this newfound "freerness"
