[cyphertruck]

Active users on the site is setting records pretty regularly, according to Linda. Usability and performance of the site is far higher than before in my experience as well. Revenue is down only due to an illegal cartel boycott, which X has recently filed a lawsuit to resolve.

[verandaguy]

I've only seen the words "illegal cartel boycott" being used (verbatim, as it were) by Musk, as well as the Twitter account of something called Rumble who are apparently joining Musk in trying to sue the advertisers who left the platform in response to it becoming too volatile to associate their brands with.

Is this the illegal cartel boycott you're talking about?

Would it not be an expression of free speech and advertisers' choice to disassociate from another entity, seen through the lens of Musk's famous free speech absolutism combined with corporate personhood? At worst, wouldn't it be the invisible hand of the free market acting to telegraph reduced demand in a resource by its previous consumers?

[cyphertruck]

Government using force, whitewashed with a thin veneer of an NGO to cartelize advertisers and censor twitter is not “free speech”.

You pretended to be unaware of the situation then you straight up lie to push the dishonest narrative.

You support censorship.

This site literally bans anyone who defends conservative positions.

There’s nothing more hypocritical than leftists pretending to care about human rights.

I’m not going to indulge pretending otherwise.

You cannot lie your way into moral superiority.

[mmmmmbop]

This take, which is taken straight from Elon, is plainly hilarious.

They claim to be the last bastion of free speech, but when advertisers exercise their free speech and go advertise someplace else, suddenly that's unacceptable.

Same way Elon goes on and on about how they won't moderate hate speech and will only ever delete content if it's illegal by law, 'cause "otherwise it'd be censorship". But then with the legal and publicly available information posted by ElonJet, that was different and everybody who ever mentioned it was banned.

[verandaguy]

>Government using force, whitewashed with a thin veneer of an NGO to cartelize advertisers and censor twitter is not “free speech”.

This is squarely in conspiracy theory territory, but doesn't really justify the thought that association between any group of private entities could be compelled.

> You pretended to be unaware of the situation then you straight up lie to push the dishonest narrative.

I think this may have been in reference to another commenter.

> You support censorship.

I literally have spent much of my career on teams trying to find technical workarounds to online censorship in dictatorial regimes. What Musk's Twitter stands for these days is closer to the censorship seen in those places than it was before Musk took over.

I'll also add that what the US Right often decries as censorship is... jarringly hypocritical, at best. I won't get started on here.

> This site literally bans anyone who defends conservative positions.

Summarily incorrect. I don't know that there have been any high-profile bans since I joined, but HN does delete conversations where people who aren't constructively participating in the thread are. It wouldn't surprise me if this thread got removed, for example.

I'm not going to entertain your remaining points since those aren't really substantial enough to even talk about.

[latentcall]

"illegal cartel boycott"

I'm not sure what you're talking about, can you fill me in a little bit?

[BobAliceInATree]

https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/6/24214536/x-elon-musk-antit...

Yes, it's as stupid as it sounds.

[cyphertruck]

Except he is not suing advertisers. The Verge is fake news.

He is suing a literal cartel after their crime was exposed in congress.

[BobAliceInATree]

And what is this supposed "cartel" composed of? Advertisers.

Yeah, congress "exposed" it, when it's right on their website (https://wfanet.org/leadership/garm/about-garm)

This is just another of Musk's "free speech for me, but not for you" lawsuits that never go anywhere and are designed to waste your money with lawyers.

[cyphertruck]

From the CEO: https://x.com/lindayax/status/1820838625245880634

[WheatMillington]

Elon?