[FirmwareBurner]

>Elon fights UK, Brazil, Australia, Germany, and other democracies

Care to share the sources that Elon fought those countries? Because the Wikipedia list of Twitter censorship shows that X complied with the majority requests from those countries.

[barbacoa]

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1811783320839008381

"""

The European Commission offered an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us.

The other platforms accepted that deal.

X did not.

"""

[FireBeyond]

And as we all know, Elon is physically unable to lie. Of course there's no actual evidence for this "illegal secret deal".

-- sent from the front seat of my FSD-based unmanned Robotaxi

[FirmwareBurner]

So the EC are the bad guys masquerading as free speech loving democracy?

[beepbooptheory]

Well this was like a huge deal at the time: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_Twitter_in_Brazi...

I know 2024 was like a century ago though so its ok to have already forgotten! It's probably more notable event for Bluesky than Twitter at this point either way. But also either way: there is a clear contrast here with the OP article.

Either you are going out of your way to unban guys, or going out of your way to (effectively) ban them. I think its uncontroversial at the very least to note that he does seem to be making it incredibly hard to argue against the evidence of ideological commitment here, even if there are some 3D chess players out there who can maybe still see a "free speech" forest through the political trees.

[Quarrelsome]

Elon Musk stirred the pot in the UK during the summer riots of 2024 posting on twitter:

> civil war is inevitable

as the owner of a key media platform in the world that sort of statement is indefensible.

He's also picked a side in Germany by weighing in with as much support as possible for AfD.

Don't pick this as a hill to die on, that man isn't worth it.

[graemep]

I do not know about Germany, but I would characterise Elon's attempts to gain political influence in the UK as failed.

He tried to bribe one party to accept an extremist as a member in return for a huge bribe, and he failed.

He does not seem to have much influence on public opinion.

I do not think its accurate to say he was fighting countries either. He was trying to buy influence. Its not the same thing.

[Quarrelsome]

The man owns twitter ffs. The only way his attempts to gain political influence will ever fail is if the UK government block access to twitter or British people decide to stop using it. Until then he has significant capacity to sway political opinion.

As an example: there is significant power in cultivating the default UK experience of twitter for new accounts, which he's already had significant impact on by culling Twitter's internal moderation team. I've experienced it myself and its a an absolute disaster zone of disinformation and bot accounts trying to stoke internal divisions.

[graemep]

You would think so, but he seems to have had remarkably little impact so far.

[Quarrelsome]

you're focusing too much on him personally instead of the impact of his platform and how he runs it. Twitter has had significant impact on UK politics and will continue to do so, especially in spreading disinformation[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Leicester_unrest

[graemep]

The platform does spread disinformation, but he does not have much ability to direct it.

Yes, its a different issue from what influence he has personally.

[FirmwareBurner]

>Don't pick this as a hill to die on, that man isn't worth it.

What are you talking about? Are you making up strawmen?

[Quarrelsome]

Im saying he's not worthy of defending. Its clear that he intends to wield his fortune to enact political change.

[FirmwareBurner]

Pointing out the truth doesn't mean you're defending anyone but the truth. Not everything is partisan.

[Quarrelsome]

You're obfuscating the truth. I'm a Brit and clearly more aware than you on how Elon likes to try to interfere with the democratic choices this country has made. In the past day or two, his personal account has been attempting to buoy up Tommy fucking Robinson (for the umpteenth time) who is a violent thug, convicted criminal and renowned Islamophobe. Your "facts" are just sea-lioning misdirection that takes us away from the blatently obvious.

Elon Musk has made his political intentions entirely clear, in writing, on his personal account. Anyone still trying to give him the benefit of the doubt is either being insincere or is a useful idiot.

[FirmwareBurner]

Again, I wasn't defending him.

Also, shouldn't you be more concerned with little girls in the UK needing to carry knives and axes to defend themselves from migrant rape gangs, than with what Elon is saying?

Especially since he's not causing those issues, he's just reading the room and calling it out as it is.

I feel like you're getting worked up for the wrong things.