[yhersk0vitz]

> The whole "free speech" absolutism thing is thinly veiled political pandering.

I disagree. There were clearly political biases at play when it came to censoring/removing people from Twitter. Regardless of what side of the political aisle you're on that should be a huge issue.

[valeness]

No, but people have taken it upon themselves to make bigotry a political identity so the removal of hate speech feels like political censorship...

[FeepingCreature]

Of course the definition of hate speech is political, just like the definition of harm.

[asadotzler]

The bias was not political thought it had a political effect. The bias was against trash people and their trash talk and those people just happened to be overwhelmingly on one side of the US's political isle.

[theprincess]

Can you blame them for not wanting accounts spelling out the N word under every promoted tweet that contained a Black person? Or ranting about sodomites any time they saw a rainbow? Advertisers don't flock to 4chan for a reason.

Conservatives may not like it, but their ideological umbrella encompasses some of the most unsavory characters in our society. I mean, the N word example was a bit harsh but even imagine someone who tries to dress it up with khakis and an oxford shirt like Richard Spencer. Still incredibly off-putting once it becomes overt enough. It's natural that a for-profit company would want to hide these people away.

Also keep in mind that when far left accounts were banned for threatening police officers or something conservatives and libertarians were happy to ignore it. In the end, Twitter was not pushing a hegemonic progressive worldview. They were trying to make money, which is why they happily forced Musk to buy them in the first place. If they were just wanting to propagandize people to be Demonrats or whatever then they would not have sold with such zeal for $54.20....

[Vespasian]

The hard challenge of social media is how to keep the barbarians at bay.

People in general want to socialize and even put their opinion out their. What they don't want is to get death threats or be insulted for any minor opinion (or just for random stuff).

If it's a free for all the ugliest elements (which are currently moderated away on all major social media platforms) of society will scream the loudest and at all times and that turns off many people.

Advertisers don't want their brands associated with that and if I'm to pay 8€ a month I would expect that I am given tools to deal with that (without needing to flag a neverending streams of tweets).

If I'm making a business out of creating content there (or just want have a peaceful environment) I expect that I can also create a pleasant environment for my customers / friends / family. My money, my house rules.

This is not a trivial problem at all and I don't think Elon Musk is equipped to handle it well. If you ask me he is too thin skinned and caught up in his own greatness. The way he memes and engages with employees and (political) opponents in general does not bode well.

It's fair to ask users to pay instead of relying on advertisement but then you cannot (algorithmically and by default) force them to endure a waterfall of shit.

[knowaveragejoe]

Anyone who thinks the far right is being censored on twitter hasn't been paying attention.

[encryptluks2]

Most jobs have political biases, but not all CEOs act like megalomaniac toddlers.