I'd love it if someone shot elon musk in the nuts about 4 or 40 times...

@sarabee1995 good question

@sarabee1995 @rachelsj have neither of you been paying attention to recent politics?

@sarabee1995 he's interfering in other countries politics

@basilfawlty89 Yes, I've been paying attention. My question still stands. Why all the hate?

@Longpatrol Like most billionaires, he is a citizen of the world more than any one country. And like most billionaires, he seeks to influence the world to his way of thinking. We see extensive foreign influence in American political media (supporting both left and right issues). This is the way of the world today.

@sarabee1995 Very true

@sarabee1995 Shouldn't be accepted at all. You really ok with it?

@sarabee1995 Let's see...

- https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-05-24/under-elon-musk-twitter-has-approved-83-of-censorship-requests-by-authoritarian-governments.html

- https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/01/1/7435389/

- https://www.pcmag.com/news/putin-reportedly-asked-elon-musk-not-to-deploy-starlink-in-taiwan

- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-05/uk-says-musk-s-civil-war-is-inevitable-post-is-unjustified (to then backtrack on it when people start killing CEOs)

- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-20/germany-s-scholz-takes-swipe-at-musk-for-his-afd-endorsement

And these are only the top few ones that I recall from memory

@Longpatrol No, of course I'm not okay with it. But the alternative is censorship of political expression and that I cannot support from any side.

@sarabee1995 See literally the first link I posted

@Elessar



You mean the link that discussed how China and India and other authoritarian governments are restricting political expression? And passing laws with further restrictions? And directing X to remove posts critical to the people in power? Yes, I read that. What about it?

For the record (in case anyone is confused by this), I opposed what China and India and others are doing in these circumstances because I am an absolutist when it comes to free expression.

@Longpatrol
Oh I'm gonna like this chat!! 😉

This sounds a lot like majoritarianism. Did you know that the US Supreme Court, the US Electoral College, and the US Senate are regularly the least popular political institutions in the US? Do you know why? It is because they were, all three, intentionally designed to oppose the majority (of course, the majority forget this).

The tendancy of majorities to limit speech that runs contrary to the goal of social cohesion is precisely why the very first provision in our Bill of Rights contains a prohibition against any government limitation on speech regardless of how unpopular or ugly that speech is.

@sarabee1995


Oh, they don't forget it... that's why they hate the Constitution as written so much.

@Longpatrol To add and to be clear: I don't see social cohesion to be a goal of government. Here in the US we have something like 330,000,000 residents (legal and otherwise). The idea that we would all be of one mind is just silly. We must allow EVERYONE (right and left and center) the ability to speak their mind.

And if you hear something that you consider to be absolute lunacy, then you should have the right to say so regardless of who the first person was (president, prime minister, MP, etc). The free expression of ideas, most especially political ideas, cannot ever be restricted. It is the very foundation of a free society. All other "rights" follow.

@sarabee1995

Quotes from Vladimir Lenin:

" Why should freedom of speech and freedom of press be allowed? Why should a government which is doing what it believes to be right allow itself to be criticized? It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are much more fatal things than guns. Why should any man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinions calculated to embarrass the government?"

"Give me your four year olds, and in a generation I will build a socialist state."

"The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation."

"We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn toward those who disagree with us."

https://www.azquotes.com/author/8716-Vladimir_Lenin

@sarabee1995 I agree on freedom of political expression. I'd never be arguing for a one side dominant voice. As someone who has lived under one party rule all his life, it is deeply wrong to be in a system that doesn't have a fair exchange of ideas.

@Thinkerbell Yup.

@Longpatrol But Elon's speech is very much in the political sphere and you advocate for someone to shoot him. Look ... I agree with maybe 40% of what the guy says. On a personal level, I find him obnoxious. But, he has the right to say whatever he wants to say and I support him exercising that right.

As for X censoring content in authoritarian regimes, this is the law there. He is in those countries to make money and being kicked out of those countries is not a viable solution for the business.

Under Twitter, the company was doing that in the USA. THAT is offensive, not the fact that X is conducting business in India and China.

@sarabee1995 Musk literally bought Twitter to allow only one side to have right to speech, while the others gets shadowbanned or even the alerted that their posts were removed for literally "hate speech" (ironic, right?). The other billionaires who control virtually all the media do pretty much the same, except they don't at least openly brag about it (see for instance the WaPo journalists getting the order from the top not to endorse Harris; or does this "absolute freedom of speech" not apply to the press?)

The idea that over there you have greater, let alone absolute freedom of speech when you have like 5 people controlling the entire media industry, and consequently the political discourse, all personally aligning with Trump due to being themselves billionaires who benefit from some nice tax cuts, is, honestly, laughable. Not even Berlusconi controlled 100% of our media, and just with like 50% the effects were tangible and I'm sure your press covered them much better than they're covering the very same shìtshow now going on over there.

"Absolute freedom of speech" doesn't exist; it's not that people are against it, they're just tired of getting repeated that nonsense by preachers who use it as a smoke screen to restrict that of those who oppose them, Musk in primis. You're about as likely to see an implementation of communism that truly benefits the working class and isn't infiltrated by opportunists, as you're about to experience actual "absolute freedom of speech".

@sarabee1995 (for the record I don't advocate for him or anyone getting shot, just explaining the source and reasoning of the "hate" he's getting)

@Elessar The "Freedom of Speech" refers to the prohibition against government restrictions, control, and/or limitations on speech (usually political speech).

So, the government should NEVER ask Twitter or the Washington Post or any other media outlet to publish or not publish some story or opinion or statement.

The "Freedom of Speech" has absolutely NOTHING to do with the actions of private entities.

If I own a newspaper, I have the absolute right to include or not include any content I choose without fear of the government coming and harassing me. Now if you own a competing newspaper with much greater readership and an opposing viewpoint, you would have every right to solicit a boycott of my paper and it's advertisers, etc. What you couldn't do is complain to the government and ask them to restrict my ability to publish.

Big difference between the government (legally must remain neutral) and private entities (free to express opinions anytime).

@sarabee1995 That form doesn't exist outside textbooks and constitutional texts either: think, if hypothetically another billionaire bought Twitter to spread jihadist messages, do you think the government wouldn't step in and have restricted him or his platform in any way, in the name of honoring his private freedom of speech?

Secondly, there's no public platforms that compete against the private ones, thus saying that a handful of billionaires that control 100% of the political discourse have every right to censor any talks they don't like equates in practical terms to saying you don't believe in (absolute) freedom of speech at all. If it were truly absolute, there'd be no difference between public and private, as there should be no different in type and purpose of speech.

You're focusing on the theoretical points completely disregarding the practical ones. If the country truly cared about people's freedom of speech, you'd have laws preventing private platforms to form monopolies or oligopolies, or likewise ensuring that every side gets equal time and exposure (guess which side killed those?). "Government mustn't tell billionaires who run social media how to policy their media" isn't freedom of speech, it's freedom to run propaganda machines.

@Elessar That is actually the ONLY form of the Freedom of Speech. The freedom of speech and expression doesn't now have and never has had anything to do with the private sector. It is a protection against government restriction of your right to express yourself regarding primarily politics and political opposition to power.

I assume those messages would incite violence, right? Is that what you are implying? If so, then they would be rightfully shut down. There are existing protections against incitement to violence. Doing so it's not free speech.

As there shouldn't be. The public sector should be neutral. Should be neither liberal nor conservative. Should never oppose any private sector message.

Would you want to allow the government to declare Catholicism the one true religion? Of course not!

No, because again, "free speech" refers to a prohibition against government intrusion into the public right to free expression. On this I am an absolutist. The fact that liberal billionaires and conservative billionaires control the media and fight it out with competing messages to me is the way it should be.

Of course there is a difference, and there must be. "Free speech" has never been in any way related to what I say to you or what you say to me. Free speech means only that THE GOVERNMENT can have no say, no opinion, no influence on what you or I say. That's it.

I wrote on here in 2016 that I thought Donald Trump was a buffoon and a pervert and that his campaign had to be a joke. My feelings on him have not changed. But you know what? I actually like Tulsi Gabbard a lot. Now saying these things might cause some of my conservative or liberal friends to block me. And that's fine. It's their right to do so. But the US government (my employer) cannot and should not do anything to me for those opinions.

Not at all. I'm focusing on what the freedom of speech actually is: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech... "
Nothing more and nothing less.

We have vibrant political speech here (and I think in your country too). We have liberal billionaires owning some outlets and conservative billionaires owning other outlets. And we have thousands of smaller independent outlets. None of it should be regulated by the government. THAT is free speech.

@sarabee1995 I like this exchange but I'll have to disagree on several points here (I apologize in advance for the essay 😇)

Absolutely not, only if you have an American-centric view on the matter - and even there, only if you care about the only legally defined interpretation (in so far), as hardly all the Americans will agree with you in saying that it's the only possible form of freedom of speech (I personally talked to a multitude that'd use an interpretation more akin to those we have here).

The concept of FoS is very much transnational, as is for instance the concepts of democracy. For a for a lot of Russian citizens, filling in a ballot in which the only possible realistic winner is Vladimir Putin, while being held at gunpoint by some govt official making sure that you vote the right way right (aka don't put a cross outside the "United Russia" box) is the definition of "democracy", for me and you it's clearly not. Similarly, if you tell anyone here where I am that freedom of speech means billionaires can buy all the media and turn them into 24/7 propaganda machines while the govt must not interfere in any way they'll assume you must be either high or sarcastic, especially those who aren't well versed about American constitutional law.

Freedom of speech has a very different definitions outside of America, here for instance it means that the state must guarantee that every viewpoint is equally respected by all actors, without a distinction between public and private. In my own constitution it's defined like this:

«Everyone has the right to freely express their thoughts through speech, writing and any other means of distribution. The press cannot be subject to authorizations or censorship. [...] Printed publications, shows and all other manifestations contrary to morality are prohibited. The law establishes adequate measures to prevent and repress violations.»

Note the stress on "any means of distribution": no references at all to private or public ownership. And then, that final bit, where the constitution expressly grants the legislative branch authority to define and even repress violations of freedom of speech, which is the literal opposite of "the govt shouldn't interfere in private-controlled media's speech". Bear in mind also that this constitution was written after Goebbels and Mussolini, with the alikes of Goebbels and Mussolini in mind. The American constitution was written circa two centuries before, so of course it couldn't come with provisions against XX century authoritarianism.

In the German constitution, it's defined like this:

«Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing and pictures and to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting by means of broadcasts and films shall be guaranteed. There shall be no censorship.»

Notice how this is even more explicit: it expressly calls for "generally accessible sources" (again, with no distrinction between privately an publicly owned) to guarantee every person's right to express and disseminate their opinions, writings and pictures.

Not necessarily, they could push for it without explicitly calling for political violence, and they'd still receive a visit from men in black suits. And on the copntrary, Musk explicitly called for a civil war(!) and Trump for a coup, and weren't "rightfully shut down".

How would the existence of a hypothetical publicly owned social media platform where all the viewpoints are equally permitted be akin to declaring Catholicism as the religion of state? 🤨

This is another easily disproven rightwing talking point, the very concept of "billionaire" (i.e. someone who accrued more wealth than literally entire smaller nations) is plainly incompatible with the very concept of "leftwinging" (wealth redistribution is a foundational pillar), therefore if 100% of the media is owned by billionaires a good 50% of the political spectrum (i.e. anyone at left of the actual center, that is not the American perceived center) is already cut off by definition.

Secondly, the billionaires in question are naturally more sympathetic towards Trump (due to benefiting directly from tax cuts for the highest brackets more than any other "liberal" policy), and the few like Bloomberg who lean "liberal" (I doublequote it because the American definition of liberal is quite wild as well, but I'd write an essay if I get into it) are the establishment-Dem style of "liberal" (Pelosi et al), not Bernie Sanders' or AOC's style of "liberal", so actually the portion of the political spectrum actually given a platform by billionaire-owned media is even narrower than 50%. That's why you hear that the American overton window is shifted at right and that's also why a lot of people feel estranged by politics and you have a comparatively low turnout compared to other western countries.

This is OT, but aside from her military background, knowing our agreements on foreign politics idk how you can approve of someone who's vocally pro-Putin?

https://apnews.com/article/gabbard-trump-putin-intelligence-russia-syria-a798adaf9cd531a5d0c9329f7597f0f6