[TheCaptain4815]

I do wish Elon fulfilled his promise of 'free speech absolutism', but unfortunately it's not possible with advertising today. The problem is we have no choice here given the censorship of other social media companies so anything is better than what we had before.

[JakeTheAndroid]

It's almost like there is a bottom line and laws and stuff that require sites to moderate content. Elon will either follow suit or he'll pay out a ton of money and go broke taking Twitter/X down with him. Twitter is really no different than Facebook or any other social media site, the censorship still occurs and by and large along the same lines. The primary difference is that Elon is fine with the extreme right voices not the extreme left. But there is still a boot on the throat.

Flight trackers are not allowed on Twitter. Why? That's clearly free speech, and it's not political in nature at all. Elon just doesn't like it.

Censored in Türkiye because like every other platform he will crumble to government pressures.

He's doing the same shit that he tried to call out in the "Twitter Files", the ONLY difference is which views he supportive of compared to say Zuck.

And overall it's fine with me. A platform built around free speech absolutism is doomed to fail. No one wants to be associated with the most extreme voices, unfettered and in some cases even promoted. It's just more embarrassing when Elon says he wants to establish true free speech values, then his platform doesn't represent those values, and he tries to lie to your face telling you it is.

[TheCaptain4815]

There are no censorship laws in America. Under Elon's twitter, no sitting president of the united states will get banned. That alone is enough of a change. Please show me some examples of new Twitter increasing political censorship of people he disagrees with. The reality is new twitter has vastly expanded the amount of accepted speech, which is never a bad thing.

The flight trackers thing (from what I understand) ended up being a security risk with NON PUBLIC information beginning to appear there (people actually following cars and reporting). Not saying I agree with it, but in those circumstances I'd imagine most social networks would have done the same.

Turkey thing is not a choice of his. Not all countries have free speech like America, either they comply or get banned. The real test is censoring in free countries like Facebook, Instagram, old Twitter, etc have been doing.

[JakeTheAndroid]

> There are no censorship laws in America.

Yes and no. There are libel and slander laws, and there is definitely content that has to be moderated, such as illegal content. Which, if we're being strict on the idea of free speech absolutism, then complying with the laws is still censorship. Which is sort of the issue with the entire idea of "free speech absolutism" in general.

> Please show me some examples of new Twitter increasing political censorship of people he disagrees with.

The fact that the word CIS gender is considered hate speech on the platform[0]. That's a decidedly moral perspective and one that comes with an entire political movement.

> The flight trackers thing (from what I understand) ended up being a security risk

You understood wrong. There is no risk, period. The flight trackers aggregated public data which literally anyone can go look at. And they didn't validate whether the plane being tracked had anyone on it, and they didn't follow the people on-board around telling you their destinations once they landed. There was no real risk, full stop. Musk and other people with private jets have many ways to remove themselves from those trackers and simply chose not to do it.

> Turkey thing is not a choice of his.

Weird, now it's not a choice when he decides to censor stuff, but it is a choice when he decides to not moderate people using other slurs AT individuals. Is Musk located in Türkiye? No. Is the Corp offices for the company located there? No. Do they have employees there? No. Türkiye has no power over Musk, yet he still bent the knee because he wanted his platform to stay up in a country so that he could continue to benefit from the user base. Just like Zuck does with FB and Dorsey did with Twitter before that. Musk could have said eff you to Türkiye because he truly believes in free speech, but he didn't because he doesn't.

[0]: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1671370284102819841?s=20

[TheCaptain4815]

That's a pretty ridiculous notion to pit illegal content such as death threats and real libel with free speech. No one of any significance on the right who advocates for free speech believes in that and it's just a cheap trick / wordsplay.

>The fact that the word CIS gender is considered hate speech on the platform[0]. That's a decidedly moral perspective and one that comes with an entire political movement.

CIS IS a slur, used to marginalize non-transgender people. I totally disagree with banning the term, but labeling it under "hate speech" alongside anti-transgender wording is perfectly logical IMO.

>yet he still bent the knee because he wanted his platform to stay up in a country so that he could continue to benefit from the user base.

Again, he has no choice here. Either shut twitter down or follow the countries laws. The choices tech giants make in authoritarian countries is pretty meaningless. It's the choices they make in free countries that count and shows their true colors.

[JakeTheAndroid]

A lot of words to say that you are fine with curtailed speech, and that Elon's Twitter/X is not doing anything unique in regards to speech. Which is fine, the product needs to be for someone I guess. But don't pretend that Twitter is a safe haven for speech when it's not. It's just another social media site where moderation is done at the whim of those in control of the platform.

> That's a pretty ridiculous notion to pit illegal content such as death threats and real libel with free speech.

I am not the one that chooses to call myself a "free speech absolutist" and I am not the one that is claiming that Twitter is a place for free speech. If we're only looking at what is considered free speech in the US then Twitter had completely free speech before Elon took over. My usage of illegal content was in response to the claim that there were no laws around censorship in the US. Clearly there is, and you agree; Illegal content does need to be censored. I am fine with that, but is a "free speech absolutist"? If so, they aren't an absolutist.

I wasn't making a claim on whether or not that was reasonable content to take action on.

> CIS IS a slur.

No, it's not. It might be able to be used as a slur but that is true for most adjectives. You feeling like it is a slur says a lot more about you than it does about people who use that word. And this is just another example of where someones personal perspective is influencing the moderation on Twitter/X. You agree with Elon that its a slur, which is fine I guess. Elon says thats going to get banned, and that's not a free speech issue for some reason. But when people bring up the usage of the N-word or anti-Semitic language, Elon is oddly quiet. Again, I guess that is fine, it's his platform, but clearly slurs aren't wholesale banned, so then how is that free speech? Oh, right, it's not. It's the exact same as Facebook or Reddit or any other website. As if Elon isn't doing anything unique but selling you on the idea that he is.

[Timon3]

> CIS IS a slur, used to marginalize non-transgender people. I totally disagree with banning the term, but labeling it under "hate speech" alongside anti-transgender wording is perfectly logical IMO.

Do you then also consider "hetero" to be a slur?