[dom96]

You’re a fool tricked by another fool who shouts loudly that they support free speech while they ban speech left and right.

For goodness sake, ElonJet was banned and you can’t even say the word “cisgender” on the platform. How delusional are you?

[pavlov]

Also Musk has banned mentions of his own transgender daughter, who now posts on Meta’s Threads app instead.

X is like a textbook case of why total autocracy isn’t actually good management practice. Musk has become the Henry VIII of social media.

[horns4lyfe]

I prefer that to the CIA having a direct line to the top of the platform and free reign to use it for propaganda, yes.

[ETH_start]

ElonJet was a live geotracking site for private jets. You can post cisgender, it just comes with a warning.

Before, people were being banned for using "him" instead of "her" to describe biological males who self-identified as women. People were secretly de-amplified for criticizing the government policy of lockdowns. It was censorship on a whole different magnitude.

[dom96]

So your response is “it was worse in the past”?

Two wrongs don’t make a right. Either you’re a “free speech absolutist” or you’re just a lying charlatan. Elon is clearly the latter, the evidence is right in front of your eyes and you choose to make excuses.

ElonJet is posting publicly available information and isn’t banned on other platforms. Something coming with a warning is the same as restricting speech.

[andsoitis]

> Something coming with a warning is the same as restricting speech.

Placing a warning is generally not considered a restriction on free speech but rather a tool to inform or protect audiences.

In contrast, restricting free speech involves preventing someone from expressing their views or censoring content outright. Warnings are typically seen as a way to balance free expression with the responsibility to inform audiences.

[jcranmer]

> In contrast, restricting free speech involves preventing someone from expressing their views or censoring content outright.

You mean like suing people for saying true things, and encouraging the government to criminally investigate for people for saying the same? Because that is exactly what Musk has done in the past year.

[andsoitis]

I’m not saying anything about Musk.

I’m simply saying that it is false to claim that attaching a warning to something is restricting free speech.

Two good examples are the government warning on tobacco product or cancer-causing warnings in public spaces.

These are warnings and do not constitute restriction of free speech.

[dom96]

The warnings undoubtedly come with a derank in the Twitter algorithm, so it's very much not the same.

But if you want to get really technical then this isn't even about "free speech". A platform restricting speech has nothing to do with "free speech" as it is defined in the US constitution. That's all about governments creating laws that punish people for certain speech.

But hey, we're in a world where Elon spouts nonsense about being all about "free speech" so the world has lost that meaning anyway.

[ETH_start]

Yes, it was much worse in the past.

People are only being banned for impersonation and live geotracking. In the previous Twitter, you were banned, shadow-banned, de-amplified, etc, if you expressed views that the political left disagreed with.

You want to justify and downplay the latter my presenting Musk as equally villainous. It's disingenuous mental gymnastics to advance your censorious and authoritarian agenda. Getting Twitter back to being censored is what motivates the incessant attacks on Musk.

[dom96]

Let’s say you’re right. There is only one side claiming they are “free speech absolutists”. There is only one side demonstrably lying to you. It’s Elon Musk. You’re being duped by a billionaire and you’re too blind to see it.

[ETH_start]

I'd much rather X under Musk while he doesn't live up to his free speech absolutist claims than X under the establishment, where you must use left-wing gender pronoun conventions or be banned.

You're okay with the previous authoritarianism that was imposed that's why you'd prefer a return to the previous setup. If you believed in political neutrality and Free Speech, you would be hardly annoyed by Musk not being as committee to Free Speech as he claims, while he reverses what had been an overwhelming censorship program.