Merged Musk buys Twitter!/ Elon Musk puts Twitter deal on hold....

[Segnosaur]

If Musk actually attempts to implement an If-it's-legal-then-it's-allowed policy, then it will not last more than a week. Spam, targeted harassment, doxxing, and even some forms of threat and defamation will be on the table.

This is a peculiar complaint, given that threats and defamation are already not legal and so would be prohibited under such a scenario.

A few problems....

- Cases of threats and defamation may be illegal (or subject to civil penalties), but threats may not be treated seriously by the government, and launching a civil case (in order to handle defamation) is a costly undertaking for some people

- The relatively long delays in bringing a case to trial means that a person will have to be exposed to those sorts of things for an extended period of time

 

[Frank Newgent]

Why is twitter such a big deal? Here in the US about one in five use it to express opinions. I don´t understand the fuss.

 

[Dr. Keith]

Silly me.

My thought was that the stock might really go up with Musk in charge.

Kinda missed the implications of the whole “going private” part.

You’re not the only person I’ve heard that didn’t understand that. At least you didn’t say it o no the radio.

Also, not a bad return if he can close it in 30 days.

 

[Ziggurat]

A few problems....

- Cases of threats and defamation may be illegal (or subject to civil penalties), but threats may not be treated seriously by the government, and launching a civil case (in order to handle defamation) is a costly undertaking for some people

- The relatively long delays in bringing a case to trial means that a person will have to be exposed to those sorts of things for an extended period of time

I think you are confused. Nothing about Musk’s statements even suggests that Twitter should not or would not take action in such cases. Quite the opposite, in fact. These are precisely the sort of cases wher he’s saying they should take action.

 

[mumblethrax]

A few problems....

- Cases of threats and defamation may be illegal (or subject to civil penalties), but threats may not be treated seriously by the government, and launching a civil case (in order to handle defamation) is a costly undertaking for some people

- The relatively long delays in bringing a case to trial means that a person will have to be exposed to those sorts of things for an extended period of time

There's also the problem that Twitter's liabilities differ from those of its users. They are not responsibly for defamatory content posted by their users, for example. "If it's legal, it's permitted" has an ambiguous referent, but why would a free speech maximalist have a policy against defamatory speech if he didn't have to?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

The fact that Musk wants to take Twitter off the stock market suggests that he wants to do things that don't comply with financial oversight.

 

[BobTheCoward]

There's also the problem that Twitter's liabilities differ from those of its users. They are not responsibly for defamatory content posted by their users, for example. "If it's legal, it's permitted" has an ambiguous referent, but why would a free speech maximalist have a policy against defamatory speech if he didn't have to?

Free speech maximalism makes little sense. A person declaring they will not allow any of a certain content on their property is engaging in free speech. It is all speech.

 

[mumblethrax]

Free speech maximalism makes little sense. A person declaring they will not allow any of a certain content on their property is engaging in free speech. It is all speech.

So a permissive publication cannot be distinguished from a censorious one. You, like Musk, have an incoherent theory of free speech.

 

[catsmate]

Excellent news.
Both for the shareholders, who've offloaded an eternally unprofitable albatross, and governments (as he'll rapidly justify massive state regulation of social media).

 

[angrysoba]

Excellent news.
Both for the shareholders, who've offloaded an eternally unprofitable albatross, and governments (as he'll rapidly justify massive state regulation of social media).

Why would that happen?

I know that there is talk of modifying Section 230, which right-wingers (and some on the left) have been demanding.

The right-wingers are not going to like it when they get what they want, but why should there be massive state regulation of social media?

 

[catsmate]

Why would that happen?

I know that there is talk of modifying Section 230, which right-wingers (and some on the left) have been demanding.

The right-wingers are not going to like it when they get what they want, but why should there be massive state regulation of social media?

You do realise there's a whole big planet outside the USA? Like the Digital Services Act, which is engendering the expected USAian hysteria.

 

[Darat]

Why is twitter such a big deal? Here in the US about one in five use it to express opinions. I don´t understand the fuss.

Makes life easy for "journalists".

 

[angrysoba]

You do realise there's a whole big planet outside the USA?

Yes, I do.

There is also a world outside the EU. If you want to refer to some EU legislation, maybe give me a hint instead of making people guess at your oblique references.

Like the Digital Services Act, which is engendering the expected USAian hysteria.

I have not heard about it or any hysteria about it. I'll have a look though, thanks

 

[BobTheCoward]

So a permissive publication cannot be distinguished from a censorious one. You, like Musk, have an incoherent theory of free speech.

Not along some sense that one is more pro-free speech, no. They are the same.

 

[Matthew Best]

There’s a lot of whining in this thread and probably for good reason. But at the same time shouldn’t we be celebrating the fact that an African American is now the owner of one of the worlds biggest media outlets?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[mumblethrax]

Not along some sense that one is more pro-free speech, no. They are the same.

Go ahead and characterize the difference without doing so in terms of being more or less pro free speech.

"Censorship is freedom" is an amusingly Orwellian position for a doctrinaire libertarian to land on, but not at all a surprising one.

 

[BobTheCoward]

Go ahead and characterize the difference without doing so in terms of being more or less pro free speech.

"Censorship is freedom" is an amusingly Orwellian position for a doctrinaire libertarian to land on, but not at all a surprising one.

When one censors with their property, one is engaging in speech. If I declare I won't bake any cakes with a Christian message, I am engaging in speech. The cake would have been an act of speech, my censorship with my property is an act of speech. Either action increases speech. Heck, they even engaged in speech by telling me their message that was rejected.

 

[Ziggurat]

So the debate:
Is twitter doing this - deleting followers to leftists and adding bot-followers to rightists?
Is Musk doing this via bots? (He does not yet control the company, the legalities will take time)
Or is this just twitter users, left leaning users abandoning twitter and right-leaning users joining (or rejoining, or making use of it again after not quitting but not much making use of it)?

It's the last one. It's the only explanation that really makes sense.

A bit of follow-up on this:

https://twitter.com/politicalmath/status/1519298717714731009

Looks like 2 things happened. First, some users did deactivate accounts, but the numbers were actually fairly small. Your link with stats on Obama's followers show a drop of 5,063 followers. But that's out of 131,761,904 million followers. That's 0.004%.

But the second thing which happened, and which your links didn't show, is that some of the freakout about this was due to a change in rounding which some people didn't notice. So it made some people think that there were much bigger dropoffs than there actually were. See link for more details.

 

[mumblethrax]

When one censors with their property, one is engaging in speech.

This is immaterial. The question is whether an act of censorship can be characterized as promoting free speech.

If I declare I won't bake any cakes with a Christian message, I am engaging in speech.

You've twice conflated declaring an intention to do something with actually doing it. This is a tell--you don't consider your position strong enough to defend without this sleight of hand.

The cake would have been an act of speech, my censorship with my property is an act of speech. Either action increases speech. Heck, they even engaged in speech by telling me their message that was rejected.

Like I said, this is incoherent. You could just as easily characterize state censorship as a speech act, and claim that the state censoring speech "increases speech". This is foolish, since an act of censorship definitionally limits free speech (ie, free expression), and the relevant question is whether it creates an environment conducive to free speech, not how much speech there is in toto. Totalitarian societies have no problem generating huge quantities of propaganda, which also counts as speech, so I'm afraid just weighing up all the utterances in the world is not a useful exercise.

You've also failed to characterize the difference between our two hypothetical publications without doing so in terms of their attitudes towards free speech, the only thing I asked you to do.

 

[BobTheCoward]

This is immaterial. The question is whether an act of censorship can be characterized as promoting free speech.


You've twice conflated declaring an intention to do something with actually doing it. This is a tell--you don't consider your position strong enough to defend without this sleight of hand.


Like I said, this is incoherent. You could just as easily characterize state censorship as a speech act, and claim that the state censoring speech "increases speech". This is foolish, since an act of censorship definitionally limits free speech (ie, free expression), and the relevant question is whether it creates an environment conducive to free speech, not how much speech there is in toto. Totalitarian societies have no problem generating huge quantities of propaganda, which also counts as speech, so I'm afraid just weighing up all the utterances in the world is not a useful exercise.

You've also failed to characterize the difference between our two hypothetical publications without doing so in terms of their attitudes towards free speech, the only thing I asked you to do.

What?

You've twice conflated declaring an intention to do something with actually doing it.

In the choosing to not bake a cake? What else should I do besides declare it? Stare at the couple in silence? Take their money and not show up to work? It seems saying I won't take their business is the actually doing it.

State censorship is certainly an act of speech. And there are certainly positions with views about government power that would mean state censorship was more speech.

You asked me to characterize the difference between two things I don't think are different.

ETA: And I just realized this is a different thread topic