A search for Threads content on Twitter currently brings up zero results, despite plenty of links to Meta’s microblogging rival being posted on the platform.
Elon made it clear shortly after taking over that "free speech" was speech he happened to agree with, and he had no intentions of ethical consistency on 'free speech' when it came to speech that was critical of him or his platform. Twitter already went nuclear on links to Mastadon and similar alternative platforms earlier this year while their dumpster fire was raging.
Yeah, I think what he said was that anything allowed by law would be permitted, whatever that means. But then when they started impeding links to mastodon he was like “we don’t have to let you advertise our competition >>>:(.” Elon/Twitter has gotten so tedious to hear about.
The thing there is that like ... it's not about consistency or values. The fact that he lied is meaningless to him, throwing it in his face is wasted effort. Communication is a tool to get what he wants, not a goal unto itself.
What’s with people pretending we are talking about pineapple on pizza whenever hate speech is mentioned?
Because some people (and reddit users in particular) use the strategy of putting everything in the same bag to silence dissent. All it takes is the majority calling ‘pineapple on pizza’ hate speech and now nobody can talk about it in fear of being called a hater.
Do you have a single example to back this up or are you ready to admit you’re just talking out of your ass?
I do. Discussing whether trans women should be allowed to compete in women sports will get you branded as a transphobic right wing nazi in 99% of Reddit’s subs, and probably banned too. Once you are labeled your arguments are moot, because you are a hater.
Excellent example, because almost none of you cared about women’s sports in the slightest until you learned trans people were involved, so it’s quite obvious you’re making a fuss over it so you can have a “legitimate” excuse to spew bigotry. One very common argument I hear is “men shouldn’t be allowed to compete in women’s sports” which yes, this does in fact make you a transphobe, because as I’m sure it’s been explained to you a thousand times by now, trans women are women, not men.
You can sit here and pretend “actshually it’s about fairness in women’s sports, not because we hate trans people,” but the rest of us can see through your bullshit. We all know what it’s really about.
You’ll find no lack of people with very good arguments about this matter, as well as many who are tired to rehash it over and over again when it has become very clear that many are not satisfied simply with setting rules for women’s sports. There are people being radicalized through a minor issue into generalized hate. For an example, what is happening in US Florida is not about women’s sports.
But I wasn’t even talking about women’s sports, I was referring to how there are people literally referring to minorities as subhuman and calling for them to be wiped out. Is that not hate enough for you?
For someone so concerned that your arguments might be mischaracterized, you sure are quick to make sweeping assumptions about people you don’t know.
But I wasn’t even talking about women’s sports, I was referring to how there are people literally referring to minorities as subhuman and calling for them to be wiped out. Is that not hate enough for you?
Yes, I would consider referring to minorities as subhuman as hate speech. My point is how easily some people throw the phrase ‘hate speech’ to validate their own views and silence debate.
For someone so concerned that your arguments might be mischaracterized, you sure are quick to make sweeping assumptions about people you don’t know.
99% of the people in here are Reddit users, I know those very well. I created my Reddit account 13 years ago when it was a thriving site where you could have discussions just about any topic, instead of the echo chamber that it is today. That’s why I will continue to call them out here, until eventually they take over like they did over Reddit and all dissenting opinions are banned.
But that point just doesn’t apply to what I was saying.
Seems like you accumulated more resentment than understanding.
Do you really think coming up to someone out of the blue saying “anything I don’t like = hate speech” is going to lead to a reasonable debate? A lot of people would just dismiss you on the spot because clearly you have no respect for the opinion of people you lump into your preconceived expectations and no interest in understanding them.
And really, are you even actually talking to me? You are talking a lot about the things you argued with other people and the clashes you had before with other people. You are taken as granted that everyone using that same phrase must have the same opinion. You even seem to have completely forgot any discussion that had been going before you made it about your baggage.
So how is calling people out like this improving debate any? I’m not seeing it.
Lol are the goalposts so far gone that we are trying to imply hate speech just isn’t a thing that exists anymore? They didn’t say what was classified as hate speech, just that it is definitely on Twitter. If you don’t believe there’s hate speech on Twitter, well… I’d offer to sell you the Golden Gate Bridge but I don’t want to take advantage of such low cognitive ability.
But the one thing that's been shown consistent about Mr. Musk's ownership of Twitter is that it is consistently self-contradicting. So as Twitter positions itself as "free speech absolutist" one can rest assured that the reality will be "self-contradicting".
Let us not forget that time that Musk said that "Elon Jet Tracker" would not be banned WHILE it was indeed banned. Literally tweeting verifiably false information and then subsequently being called out on it, only for Musk to do the traditional "ignore and move on".
My gut reaction is defensiveness that the fediverse has a different motive, but no. The motive IS the same. Both are fueled by self-preservation.
There IS a difference in circumstance, however. The fediverse has to measure potential gain vs potential risk of working with a greedy rich billionaire.
Twitter is already a giant that’s been going through a lot of abuse and bleeding users. It stands to gain nothing from Meta’ new copycat, only lose even more.
So, Yes. Same motivation for blocking/defederating. The difference between the two is what thy stand to gain vs what they risk losing.
I won’t, and I really am against cancel culture (I’m for developing reputation systems to help you automatically ignore those you don’t want to read, but to be able to read what they say in case you suddenly want that).
Now, this whole Twitter-Threads dynamic seems like an exemplary “toad vs viper” case.
No, we can’t say that. I am able to decide for myself who is a fascist and who is not. However, the systems allowing for this work with the assumption that I can’t and shouldn’t decide for myself.
I’d rather share a bunk with a Nazi (won’t happen, I’m part Armenian, part Jewish, but) than accept something like this.
I like my mods doing their job and keeping the fascists out, and I love that when we report that, it’s investigated and a reasonable decision is made. That doesn’t happen anywhere else but in the fediverse.
Well, we are at least back to the 00s state of things from the degeneracy centralized social media were. Which is good. I just think with modern means and experience one can go further.
lol ‘cancel culture’ used to be called ‘boycotting’ / ‘speaking with your wallet’ used to be called ‘having an opinion’
its not new, obviously we should punch nazis, and you can be certain anyone who says the words ‘cancel culture’ unironically is a tool with less than a 10 year memory span, max.
No, that’s what I described in parentheses. Not really existent yet in the Web.
While “cancel culture” (in its narrow meaning in the Web, again) is when you have serious problems talking even to those who are willing to listen to you or undecided. Say, you won’t ever read something, because the decision has been made for you by somebody else, and you don’t even choose whether to delegate that decision.
The difference is in the architecture of systems used, actually. Because with both things every person involved acts voluntarily, it’s just that in my variant that power to decide is spread more evenly.
What I mean is similar to the reputation system in Locutus, only it doesn’t work yet.
‘boycotting’ / ‘speaking with your wallet’ used to be called ‘having an opinion’
Cancel Culture is none of those things. Cancel Culture is very specifically taking a platform away from someone who has misused it to do harm in our society.
Should you choose to vote with your wallet and boycott destructive people, though? Yes, absolutely. But deplatforming is observably effective, because we’ve seen that many of these loud, awful people simply aren’t able to rebuild their following without the convenience of major social media platforms and interviews on major networks.
And without that following, they aren’t shit. Alex Jones literally went bankrupt.
Deplatforming requires a centralized platform from which to deplatform. Ability to sometimes deplatform real Nazis (but usually not) is not worth centralizing crucial systems, end of story.
Not necessarily. It just requires that admins do their job and be good stewards of their users and instances.
Mastodon, for instance, has a tag used exclusively for dogpiling fascists and their instances, so even though it’s decentralized, people are vigilant and keep the destructive elements disconnected. (Or, at least, make a great effort of it, which is more than we can say for Twitter.)
Also it has filters. :) I use those too, but I don’t have Nazi or Fascist speech filtered because I think it’s of the utmost importance that it be reported when it slips through. The upside is that in nine months of being on Mastodon, I can count on one hand the number of extremist toots I’ve seen. I’m glad filters exist for people who are emotionally upset by it, though.
so first, we generally agree and I don’t want to get into an argument with you.
If cancel culture means ‘deplatforming’ to you, thats great. I agree deplatforming works. But the term ‘cancel culture’ is deliberately vague, does include boycotting, and is just one of the many terms made up by the right to create a ‘boogey man’. I tend to throw these terms back in their faces as laughable (‘woke’, ‘CRT’ - all the same badly defined bullshit that just means ‘things I don’t like’). If your strategy is to embrace, rehab, and legitimize the terms thats fine too.
Because anyone who cries “freeze peach!” at any provocation are really just people that want to say hateful shit without repercussions. Generally, those same people are the ones to shut other people down from expressing their own freedom of speech.
Isn’t Twitter’s free speech kinda the same as Fediverse or Reddit’s free speech? Pretty sure if someone says something homophobic or transphobic in here, they’ll get kicked out (which, for me, is good. Keep reading). It’s free speech for the people that align with the admin ideals. I see nothing wrong with it besides the echo chamber effect, but at least people can create spaces where they feel safe.
Someone could argue “but Lemmy also has right wing instances”. Then just imagine Twitter is a right wing instance of Mastodon that has been defederated. And that’s what the free market is about. The free market is a fediverse and a company is an instance, you can create an instance and put whatever rules you want in it. It’s up to everyone else if they want to use it or federate with it. Twitter just “defederated” Threads. How is that different from a Lemmy instance defederating other instances?
Is it against free speech when Lemmy admins kick right-wing people or defederated right-wing instances? I think it is against free speech, but I don’t think everyone needs to allow free speech in their home. Go ahead and kick out the people you consider offensive. I believe Lemmy and private companies should have the right to do this.
I do agree, it’s his company. He can create his own rules. I don’t agree with his rules, so I don’t use the service.
Twitter’s “free speech” rule after the musk takeover was utter hypocrisy and pure bullshit. It was never about “free speech” or, in his own words, “free speech absolutism”. The latter would mean “zero moderation platform”. Wouldn’t take long for it to be nothing but bot posts of scams, hateful shit, pedophilia and snuff. Nobody in their right mind would favor zero moderation. Even fucking chans (4chan, 8chan) have moderation, not even they want to be swamped with even worse shit than they produce.
In short, musk uses “free speech” as a dog whistle and smoke screen.
He’s an asshole and his platform is definetely not 100% free speech. I’m just saying even assholes should have the right to moderate their platforms however they want, obviously in the framework of the law.
If they think there are legal requirements then yes they are. But wanting platforms to be more open in general is not necessarily a doltish thing. Yes twitter has the legal right to ban anyone they want, but that doesn’t mean that’s a good thing or we shouldn’t seek out platforms that aren’t so arbitrarily censorious.
You cannot claim this on behalf of other people. I myself sometimes refer to lax moderation rules as “free speech focused” moderation. It has nothing to do with the government.
That isn’t to say that some, or even many, people don’t use the phrase assuming that it is their constitutionally protected right to spread vitriol on the internet. But to imply that this is the only common meaning is disingenuous.
Free speech is the freedom to speak about the government. That’s all it is. That’s it. If a company practices free speech all they’re doing is exercising thier freedom to criticize the government. Same with an individual.
There is no other form of free speech. It exists solely to counter the government.
You don’t police the English language. I don’t know what else to tell you.
One phrase can refer to multiple things; “free speech” often refers to the ability to say whatever you like* without repurcussions from an authoritative figure, be that the government, Elon Musk’s cronies, or Lemmy moderators. Obviously it is not a constitutionally protected right in the latter contexts, but then again the phrase wasn’t “right to free speech.”
are you saying that free speech as a concept was invented by the US Government? and that the right to free speech can only be enforced by it?
free speech can mean, and has meant, many things to many different people. the concept has been around for over 1000 years. there’s plenty more to say about “free speech” than just the rights specifically provided to american citizens.
Freedom of speech is an ideal before it is a law. Even if we lived in a utopian classless society without a government we could still have the concept that everyone deserves the right to say what they wish.
If it can exist without the government then logically it cannot strictly refer to the government.
Go to Google and search “define freedom of speech”
the right to express any opinions without censorship or restraint.
It doesn’t say government anywhere there. I think I know where you are coming from - lots of people complain about private businesses or organizations not honoring freedom of speech and they may not be aware that legally only the government gives you the right to speech.
Ie a business can tell you to leave if you say something offensive or a university doesn’t have to accept a fascist lecturer.
I think you learned something about that and want to tell everyone but don’t worry - everyone knows. I’d imagine most people here are college educated.
Freedom of speech is an ideal borne out of the enlightenment. Just like the pursuit of happiness or liberty. These ideas are not inextricably tied to governments.
For example a slave owner giving their slave freedom. Nothing to do with government but it is an expansion of liberty. Of course modern liberal governments also guarantee liberty but it didn’t originate the idea nor has exclusive use of the concept.
It’s a general, abstract thing.
Also you’re right, I have no desire at all to learn from you because I have determined you’re out of your element. Really this message is for other people reading
Musk purported to be a free speech absolutist when he bought Twitter. He said only illegal content should be suppressed. Obviously, he’s a liar. He banned tons of Leftist accounts shortly after he took over.
Musk was only appealing to right wing idiots who think “freedom from social consequences” is a human right and co-opt “free speech”, making it a meaningless term
A private citizen owning a social media company cannot “violate free speech”. That is like saying a newspaper is violating my freedom of speech by not publishing my article about flowers
Although it won't absolve one of crimes, affluenza seems to be a real thing. The social isolation and deference that money brings seems to have a host of well-documented psychological issues that accompany it. Musk, like Trump, seems to believe that he can do whatever he wants without meaningful consequences, because he exists in a bubble of sycophants and wealth, where rules for the plebs do not apply. Normal people can't burn this much good will and go on with their lives unhindered. Normal people would be permanently financially ruined if they lost that much doing stupid and illegal business moves.
I just looked up the word, but isn’t this “affluenza” something rooted in guilt and which leads to near-conscious self-destructive actions? I don’t think it applies, Elon probably doesn’t even know what guilt feels like.
isn’t this “affluenza” something rooted in guilt and which leads to near-conscious self-destructive actions?
Not exactly. "Affluenza," is loosely defined, and definitions vary, but was popularized as a defense presented at Ethan Couch's trial with the premise that his killings were due to psychological effects of being wealthy and the lack of boundaries it afforded. Nowadays it's generally used to mean a behavioral illness caused by wealth/affluence.
The word is thought to have been first used in 1954, but was popularised in 1997 with a PBS documentary of the same name and the subsequent book Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic (2001, revised in 2005, 2014).These works define affluenza as “a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more”. A more informal definition of the term would describe it as “a quasi-illness caused by guilt for one’s own socio-economic superiority”.
The term “affluenza” has also been used to refer to an inability to understand the consequences of one’s actions because of financial privilege.
So the first “popularization” seems to frame it more as a negative thing even for the self, while other definitions fit the case of Ethan Couch/Musk. Seems like the two definitions are pretty much opposites that use the same word, it’s kinda confusing honestly lol
Geez that's rough and must really suck. We should help all of those rich people get over their lack of personal connections. By taxing most of their money away.
Geez that's rough and must really suck. We should help all of those rich people get over their lack of personal connections. By taxing most of their money away.
This could be done in a generation if we made sensible inheritance laws, a wealth tax, or did away with capital gains and implemented an income tax with the highest bracket >90% like the US did in the 1940s-1960s instead, (provided this is done without loopholes.) There's huge benefits to living in a country with more economic equality in terms of crime, political engagement, home ownership, economic competition, social mobility, terrorism, poverty reduction, mental health, etc., It's harder to exploit people when they have resources.
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