Cont: Musk buys Twitter II

dirtywick said:
yeah it’s supposed to be some shady technicality through shell companies or something like that. now it’s just this one guy, a foreigner at that, donates $45M a month openly no problem. can anyone else remember something like this?
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It’s frreeeeeeedom!
 
Maybe Elon Musk should offer to let Donald Trump ride the first Starship to successfully land.

Think what an amazing campaign stunt that would be!
 
angrysoba said:
Is "Adrian Dittmann" an alternative account of Elon Musk? Or is there some weird thing where he is a different person pretending to be someone who might be Musk?

Anyway, whoever he is, he is taking Elon Musk's side against Destiny who has been making edgelord comments about the Trump shooting.
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he's just a dude that kind of sounds like Musk and is a worshipper. Alex Jones for awhile was convinced ha actually was Musk and was embarrassingly differential to him
 
KDLarsen said:
Ol' Musky's dedication to free speech on Xitter can be summed up by the auto-censoring of the word 'Cisgender'.
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That is a misstep, since cisgender can presumably transition from perjorative to normal with time.
I can only repeat, my echo chamber loves Musk after they were banned for years by Jack Dorsey.
 
Samson said:
Jokes about the incident will proliferate, and it is best practice to assess whether one wishes to associate with the jokester rather than silence.
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As you do with your associating with Nazis i.e. those that want to kill trans folk, homosexuals and the mentally ill.
 
Darat said:
As you do with your associating with Nazis i.e. those that want to kill trans folk, homosexuals and the mentally ill.
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Free speech is ingrained in your post, others can decide if you are being accurate.
I think Musk is a positive force in supporting enlightenment traditions.
 
Elon says

True, the Democratic Party has moved so far left that the Republican Party is now closest to the center
 
sir drinks-a-lot said:
Maybe, but the center of what?

If you take a deep historical view, they're both pretty far left.
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:jaw-dropp

I suppose compared to a feudal absolute monarchy the modern day Republican Party isn't so extreme.

Then again perhaps post-war democracies in developed countries should be the benchmark. In that case, I don't think either is left wing and one of them is pretty extremely right wing.
 
sir drinks-a-lot said:
Maybe, but the center of what?

If you take a deep historical view, they're both pretty far left.
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Are you longing for a return to slavery and barbarism?

The center of the left-right spectrum doesn't move, either way. The Overton window does, though, and so does where groups fit on the spectrum over time. That's just not really relevant here, though, because what Musk is saying is likely far closer to being part of a firehose of falsehood.
 
ponderingturtle said:
Letting women and black people vote and speak in public are seriously left wing views in your book it seems.
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Correct. These have always been leftist ideas.

In the past the Musk said he was "half Democrat, half Republican" and "disavowed terrestrial political affiliations". What changed?

In 2002 Musk received $176 million from the sale of PayPal, (formerly co-founded by Musk as X.com). You or I would probably just sit on that fortune and enjoy a life of leisure, but not Musk. He was involved in the Mars Society and had big dreams. He wanted to actually do it! That's why he started SpaceX with $100 million of his own money.

But that's not the only big thing Musk wanted to do. He was very concerned about global warming and wanted to do something about it. So he invested $6.5 million in a small startup company that was attempting to make electric cars, becoming chairman of the board and eventually CEO. Against all odds and much derision, under his leadership Tesla survived the valley of death and became a major car manufacturer. By the end of 2020 its market capitalization was more than the next nine largest automakers combined. In 2023 the Tesla Model Y became the best selling car of any type (not just EVs) in the World - then legacy automakers stopped laughing and became worried about their own futures. And Musk himself became (on paper) one of the richest men in the World.

But what does all this mean? In his attempt to follow his dreams, Musk had become a businessman. The financial success of his ventures became paramount, and politics was bound to become a factor. That's when he started moving right, just like most businessman do. But he didn't do it alone - liberals pushed him there, while conservatives welcomed him.

The free speech Musk primarily bought Twitter to preserve is his speech, and the speech of those with similar views. Call that hypocritical if you want, but we all do that. And in truth, that was the speech which was being suppressed - mostly by liberals. It came to a head when they called for Trump - the President of the United States - to be banned from Twitter. This was a huge mistake.

In Pulling Trump’s Megaphone, Twitter Shows Where Power Now Lies
In time, we learned that the version of President Trump we saw on our feeds was, in many ways, more real than the flesh-and-blood human who occupied the Oval Office. People who wanted to know what Mr. Trump actually thought about kneeling N.F.L. players or Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn’t watch him read a prepared speech or hold a news conference. They looked to @realDonaldTrump, the most honest representation of who he was.

The most predictable result of Mr. Trump’s dismissal from Twitter — and, most likely, a similar ban he’ll face from Facebook after Inauguration Day — is that it will become a rallying cry for conservatives who see themselves as victims of Silicon Valley censorship...

No serious thinker believes that Twitter and Facebook, as private companies, are obligated to give any user a platform, just as no one doubts that a restaurant owner can boot an unruly diner for causing a scene. But there are legitimate questions about whether a small handful of unelected tech executives, accountable only to their boards and shareholders (and, in Mr. Zuckerberg’s case, to neither) should wield such enormous power...

Mr. Trump’s ban will... probably accelerate the splintering of the American internet along partisan lines, a process that was already underway
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Liberals should be welcoming Musk's attempts - however flawed - to provide a free speech 'town square' that doesn't ban people whose political views they disagree with. But instead they waste no opportunity deriding him for it.

Checkmite said:
Elon can say that he "likes free speech", and it might even be true; but his actions whilst running Twitter make it clear that his like is not exclusive. There are definitely some situations in which he feels that the outcomes of censoring or suppressing speech outweigh the benefits of preserving free speech on principle.
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Free speech is not absolute, and sometimes other factors take precedence. Musk owns Twitter now, so he gets to decide when that happens. For example, Musk initially refused to unban Alex Jones, saying he has "no mercy" for people who "use the deaths of children for gain, politics, or fame.". But in December 2023, after a user asked if the ban could be lifted, Musk replied:-
Will consider. In general, since this platform aspires to be the global town square, permanent bans should be extremely rare. Also, if he does say something false on this platform, then @CommunityNotes will correct him, whereas that would not be the case elsewhere. Let's hold a poll.
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70.1% voted for lifting the ban, so he did.

I have also noticed that many of the 'shocking' posts on X from Musk that liberals trot out are actually just short responses to posts from others. This tells us very little about what he actually thinks. Furthermore you can bet these examples were cherry-picked to put Musk in the worst possible light - by the very same people who accuse Musk of being a lair.

To those people I say - look in the mirror.
 
Roger Ramjets said:
Correct. These have always been leftist ideas.

In the past the Musk said he was "half Democrat, half Republican" and "disavowed terrestrial political affiliations". What changed?

In 2002 Musk received $176 million from the sale of PayPal, (formerly co-founded by Musk as X.com). You or I would probably just sit on that fortune and enjoy a life of leisure, but not Musk. He was involved in the Mars Society and had big dreams. He wanted to actually do it! That's why he started SpaceX with $100 million of his own money.

But that's not the only big thing Musk wanted to do. He was very concerned about global warming and wanted to do something about it. So he invested $6.5 million in a small startup company that was attempting to make electric cars, becoming chairman of the board and eventually CEO. Against all odds and much derision, under his leadership Tesla survived the valley of death and became a major car manufacturer. By the end of 2020 its market capitalization was more than the next nine largest automakers combined. In 2023 the Tesla Model Y became the best selling car of any type (not just EVs) in the World - then legacy automakers stopped laughing and became worried about their own futures. And Musk himself became (on paper) one of the richest men in the World.

But what does all this mean? In his attempt to follow his dreams, Musk had become a businessman. The financial success of his ventures became paramount, and politics was bound to become a factor. That's when he started moving right, just like most businessman do. But he didn't do it alone - liberals pushed him there, while conservatives welcomed him.

The free speech Musk primarily bought Twitter to preserve is his speech, and the speech of those with similar views. Call that hypocritical if you want, but we all do that. And in truth, that was the speech which was being suppressed - mostly by liberals. It came to a head when they called for Trump - the President of the United States - to be banned from Twitter. This was a huge mistake.

In Pulling Trump’s Megaphone, Twitter Shows Where Power Now Lies

Liberals should be welcoming Musk's attempts - however flawed - to provide a free speech 'town square' that doesn't ban people whose political views they disagree with. But instead they waste no opportunity deriding him for it.

Free speech is not absolute, and sometimes other factors take precedence. Musk owns Twitter now, so he gets to decide when that happens. For example, Musk initially refused to unban Alex Jones, saying he has "no mercy" for people who "use the deaths of children for gain, politics, or fame.". But in December 2023, after a user asked if the ban could be lifted, Musk replied:-
70.1% voted for lifting the ban, so he did.

I have also noticed that many of the 'shocking' posts on X from Musk that liberals trot out are actually just short responses to posts from others. This tells us very little about what he actually thinks. Furthermore you can bet these examples were cherry-picked to put Musk in the worst possible light - by the very same people who accuse Musk of being a lair.

To those people I say - look in the mirror.
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By far the best post on the thread.
Good work Roger.

Eta I don't think banning Trump was unreasonable after january 6, it is the multitude of gender rationalists that got banned.
 
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Roger Ramjets said:
But what does all this mean? In his attempt to follow his dreams, Musk had become a businessman. The financial success of his ventures became paramount, and politics was bound to become a factor. That's when he started moving right, just like most businessman do. But he didn't do it alone - liberals pushed him there, while conservatives welcomed him.
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You're trying really hard to blame "liberals" even after acknowledging a real driving force here.

Roger Ramjets said:
The free speech Musk primarily bought Twitter to preserve is his speech, and the speech of those with similar views. Call that hypocritical if you want, but we all do that.
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That sounds more like projection than anything else, really.

Roger Ramjets said:
And in truth, that was the speech which was being suppressed - mostly by liberals.
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That's a foolish myth. Moderation was primarily driven by business and profit maximization reasoning, not "liberals." The massive losses that X is suffering now pretty much make a case in point.

Roger Ramjets said:
It came to a head when they called for Trump - the President of the United States - to be banned from Twitter. This was a huge mistake.
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That Trump hadn't been banned long, long before is because Twitter was intentionally choosing not to enforce its own rules for business and profit maximization reasoning. Whining about how liberals were calling on them to actually finally uphold their rules in the wake of large scale actual violence that Trump had used the platform to help make happen is a very unreasonable and bad faith complaint.

Roger Ramjets said:
Liberals should be welcoming Musk's attempts - however flawed - to provide a free speech 'town square' that doesn't ban people whose political views they disagree with. But instead they waste no opportunity deriding him for it.
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And why would they not? Musk's not actually attempting "to provide a free speech 'town square' that doesn't ban people whose political views they disagree with," after all, pretenses aside.
 
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