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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
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On September 01 2024 17:33 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2024 16:15 Acrofales wrote:On September 01 2024 15:02 BlackJack wrote:On September 01 2024 14:26 Acrofales wrote:On September 01 2024 13:21 BlackJack wrote:On September 01 2024 12:30 Acrofales wrote:On September 01 2024 10:15 BlackJack wrote:On September 01 2024 09:55 micronesia wrote:
There's a breakdown in the logic chain though.
Country X is censoring ideas and look how horrible it is. They execute everyone in their country who says "James Raynor" on social media. Obviously, the USA shouldn't start executing people within the USA who say the words "James Raynor" on social media.
Oh, and also, obviously direct and indirect censorship of all types is bad and shouldn't be used in the USA. After all, look at Country X.
You need to provide more for those two paragraphs to connect.Comparisons to other countries are made all the time in the US pol thread. I've never seen anyone object on the grounds of relevance when talking about UK's gun control, or Canada's healthcare, or Finland's education system, or Norway's prison system, etc. The USA replicating those things is no more likely than a hypothetical replication of Brazil's censorship of social media. I'd argue that my example is the most likely to be replicated given the similarities of both countries dealing with far-right election-denying government-building-storming mobs and the reaction to "defend democracy" at any cost Where is the limit for you? Should I be allowed to advertise my illegal phentanyl on twitter? And if I do, get arrested, and thrown in jail, should my pithy tweets inviting people to try phentanyl just remain there forever? In general I think the limit should be what the law already allows for. Could you advertise your fentanyl in a newspaper, or on the street corner, or on a billboard? Granted, different countries have different laws. Clearly in this case the law allows for 1 guy in Brazil to determine what should or shouldn't be banned. It's up to Twitter to decide if they want to abide by the laws or risk getting banned. I'm reminded of this exchange between Elon Musk and Don Lemon Musk: If something is illegal we are going to take it down. If it's not illegal then we are putting our thumb on the scales and being censors Lemon: But you remove child pornography Musk: thats illegal "One guy" is a rather crude way of referring to their legal system. If this were in the US, this would ultimately be up to "9 guys" for similar reasons. Ultimately, courts decide whether the law was broken. I understand you think juries are the amazeballs way of doing the legal system, and they're a staple of common law systems. But the majority of the world actually doesn't use juries, but the civil law system, almost universally without juries. Probably because far less depends on any one decision (case law doesn't exist), but I'm not a legal historian. As such, it is entirely normal, probably also in most cases in the US, but definitely in France, Italy, Germany, Spain, and yes, also Brazil, for a single judge to decide an expression is illegal and order it taken down. And not because they don't like the message but because they have judged that it breaks the law. Which was where you drew the line. Nay, this is not "entirely normal." Every article I've read about this seems to acknowledge the powers granted to him are extreme but many insist the threat to democracy is so severe that it's worth suspending certain freedoms. Among the accounts Mr. de Moraes ordered taken down are those of at least five members of Congress, a billionaire businessman and more than a dozen prominent right-wing pundits, including one of Brazil’s most popular podcast hosts. Mr. de Moraes’s orders to remove accounts do not specify why, according to the lawyer and a copy of one order obtained by The New York Times. Visits to banned accounts on Twitter yield a blank page and a blunt message: The “account has been withheld in Brazil in response to a legal demand.” And account owners are simply told they are banned because of a court order and should consider contacting a lawyer. I assure you the US does not have a judge that bans whoever they decide from social media without providing a reason for doing so. I can't speak for the other European countries you've listed. Trump got a gag order from one judge. I'm sure he could've fought it, but he would've lost, because it was within that judge's right to issue that gag order. Sure, he didn't go so far as requisition X to take the posts down when Trump (repeatedly) broke the gag order, but he probably could have if he felt the need to? As for de Moraes's extraordinary powers, they do go far, but in the case of censoring posts on X, they are backed by the other members of the tribunal. His "superpowers" are more related to his ability to approve/issue secret wiretaps. It is far-reaching and I have my own reserves about whether that's a good idea. An example of what seems like clear overreach is blocking Starlink to pay X's fines. But the bit about banning accounts that posted calls for insurrection and hate speech toward Lula and his government would easily be upheld if put before the full tribunal, which is part of why he didn't bother. Now, whether it's just or not is something we can discuss, but *you* were the one who pointed to the law as the one thing that X had to comply with. We can have a discussion about the justness of restrictive censorship laws, but by pointing to the legality I assumed you wanted to avoid that. I'm not sure I entirely understand your point. I think it isn't just and it shouldn't be legal. Whether or not it actually is legal is not an argument I think is worth having. If the 6-3 SCOTUS started making authoritarian rulings against leftists you probably wouldn't offer a nonchalant explanation that they are legally allowed to do that since they are the highest court in the land. Should a justice be allowed to ban anyone he decides without due process and without explanation? Should he be able to order Google and Apple to ban VPNs from their app stores because people might use VPNs to access the other app he banned? Should he be allowed to fine anyone that access X $50,000 or whatever it was? Should he be able to freeze Starlink's finances because he decided the Starlink should be responsible for fines levied against X? For me these are all very easy questions and defending these actions is akin to defending Kim Jong Un by saying "well technically he's supreme leader so he's allowed to do that."
I'm not the one who answered "should you be allowed to sell fentanyl on X" with "no, because that's illegal". You started conflating the moral limits of free speech with the legal limits of free speech. If you are coming to the realization that that is a bad argument we can revisit the absolutist argument you seemed to be making about free speech.
Would I be right in stating that you think advertising Fentanyl on X is illegal AND should be illegal? Or do you think selling Fentanyl should be legal, and X should not be censoring advertising for it?
If so, we can make the hypothetical things that can be posted on X progressively worse until we find some line even you won't cross. Silk Road probably had some instructive examples. Am I right in asserting that there will at some point be a line that even you think should not be covered by freedom of speech?
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Yes the standard that I think should be applied for policing speech on Twitter is roughly the same as policing speech of somebody on a street corner under US law. I don't think the policing should be done according to the laws of every country, no matter how backwards and tyrannical those laws may be. But I'm also acknowledging that Twitter is at the mercy of whatever that country decides so they can either play nice or be banned.
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On September 01 2024 18:24 BlackJack wrote:
Yes the standard that I think should be applied for policing speech on Twitter is roughly the same as policing speech of somebody on a street corner under US law. I don't think the policing should be done according to the laws of every country, no matter how backwards and tyrannical those laws may be. But I'm also acknowledging that Twitter is at the mercy of whatever that country decides so they can either play nice or be banned.
So who, if not the country itself, should decide what speech is acceptable and what isn't? Is it just that you think US law should apply everywhere? Or that multinational corporations shouldn't really care about the law in countries in general says (except the US, of course)? Why is the US street corner so special compared to a German street corner that its laws should apply everywhere?
For example, in Germany our laws are a bit more strict than the US about stuff like swastikas and historical Nazi paroles. Do you think those laws shouldn't apply on Twitter?
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Every country gets to decide their own laws and Twitter gets to decide whether or not to follow the laws or suffer the consequences. My role here is to voice my insignificant opinion, similar to what we all do here. I don’t want to see this type of censorship imported to the United States although I think there are some that are keen to see that happen.
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American companies trying their best to not care about the laws of the nations they operate in is nothing new.
Good for Brazil for giving them some pushback.
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Under Elon Musk, government censorship on Twitter has gone way way up.
"The data shows that, overall, government requests to Twitter have more than doubled since Musk took over at the app, and that Twitter’s compliance rate for such has increased from around 50% on average, to 80%."
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/twitter-actions-more-government-requests-for-removals-under-elon-musk/648865/
This is not a case where Elon Musk's policy stands in contrast to a government's wishes. It's just him being selectively hypocritical. He'd happily censor away if this didn't irk him personally. He's a hypocrite.
Granted, I agree with the overall point BJ is making. Twitter should not comply with government censorship to the degree that it has been doing in recent years. But it's a misrepresentation to paint Elon Musk as our savior when he's literally the exact opposite. He loves government censorship.
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There is nothing about free speech that makes people in the US ready for it and people in Brazil not. The issue is a judge in Brazil is trying to force a company to suspend his opponents from it while they are under "investigation" for "disinformation." This is a playbook we see authoritarians all over the west trying to act out. The Biden administration tried to make a ministry of information. The current Democratic nominee for resident of the White House suggested her opponent should be cut off from any internet audience.
On September 01 2024 21:31 Magic Powers wrote:
Under Elon Musk, government censorship on Twitter has gone way way up.
"The data shows that, overall, government requests to Twitter have more than doubled since Musk took over at the app, and that Twitter’s compliance rate for such has increased from around 50% on average, to 80%."
The data you provided give no insight into the nature or sources of the requests other than "government." Not even which governments. Many things have changed at X. For example, the verification process. When it was first rolled out there was a slew of fake accounts and impersonators, often impersonating actual officials, whether maliciously or as mislabeled parody. Child abuse content has plummeted on X. If your increase in government censorship is accounted for almost entirely by these things, which is totally plausible, I don't see how anyone would find it controversial, but you have only data with no information.
On September 01 2024 21:31 Magic Powers wrote:
This is not a case where Elon Musk's policy stands in contrast to a government's wishes. It's just him being selectively hypocritical. He'd happily censor away if this didn't irk him personally. He's a hypocrite.
By your own reasoning if he's so censor-happy, this case must really have crossed the line for them to oppose it to this degree.
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On September 01 2024 21:47 oBlade wrote:There is nothing about free speech that makes people in the US ready for it and people in Brazil not. The issue is a judge in Brazil is trying to force a company to suspend his opponents from it while they are under "investigation" for "disinformation." This is a playbook we see authoritarians all over the west trying to act out. The Biden administration tried to make a ministry of information. The current Democratic nominee for resident of the White House suggested her opponent should be cut off from any internet audience. Show nested quote +On September 01 2024 21:31 Magic Powers wrote:
Under Elon Musk, government censorship on Twitter has gone way way up.
"The data shows that, overall, government requests to Twitter have more than doubled since Musk took over at the app, and that Twitter’s compliance rate for such has increased from around 50% on average, to 80%." The data you provided give no insight into the nature or sources of the requests other than "government." Not even which governments. Many things have changed at X. For example, the verification process. When it was first rolled out there was a slew of fake accounts and impersonators, often impersonating actual officials, whether maliciously or as mislabeled parody. Child abuse content has plummeted on X. If your increase in government censorship is accounted for almost entirely by these things, which is totally plausible, I don't see how anyone would find it controversial, but you have only data with no information. Show nested quote +On September 01 2024 21:31 Magic Powers wrote:
This is not a case where Elon Musk's policy stands in contrast to a government's wishes. It's just him being selectively hypocritical. He'd happily censor away if this didn't irk him personally. He's a hypocrite. By your own reasoning if he's so censor-happy, this case must really have crossed the line for them to oppose it to this degree.
Yeah I guess even Hitler would oppose dog genocide. We can therefore say we shouldn't blame him too much for being so pro-genocide in other ways. By that same reasoning Elon Musk is actually a good person for putting the foot down against one instance of government censorship and we should ignore all the other instances where he fully supports it. Lets not be too critical of the pro-censorship guy who pretends to be totally anti-censorship.
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Well Musk literally told the EU to go fuck itself and said he wouldn't take an extortion deal where they would secretly censor according to the EU's whims in order to avoid being fined. Also, he's not Hitler.
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Northern Ireland25665 Posts
Other than people repeating it, what’s the evidence as to Twitter having cut down on things like child abuse content?
It seems dubious, albeit not impossible that a laissez-faire approach to moderation, with a commensurate cut in staff that deal with that equals being much more successful at scrubbing such content.
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On September 01 2024 21:31 Magic Powers wrote:Under Elon Musk, government censorship on Twitter has gone way way up. "The data shows that, overall, government requests to Twitter have more than doubled since Musk took over at the app, and that Twitter’s compliance rate for such has increased from around 50% on average, to 80%." https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/twitter-actions-more-government-requests-for-removals-under-elon-musk/648865/This is not a case where Elon Musk's policy stands in contrast to a government's wishes. It's just him being selectively hypocritical. He'd happily censor away if this didn't irk him personally. He's a hypocrite. Granted, I agree with the overall point BJ is making. Twitter should not comply with government censorship to the degree that it has been doing in recent years. But it's a misrepresentation to paint Elon Musk as our savior when he's literally the exact opposite. He loves government censorship.
While many things changed, a significant change was Twitter itself. Before Musk, Twitter took a considerably more proactive approach in policing what people could post, removing bots, hate speech and other excesses. Musk has unbanned a lot of PBUs, and has cut their CS department down to the bare minimum. It's entirely possible that the reason governments request more censorship is because Twitter no longer does anything themselves.
It's not the only change, of course. Western society has polarized further in the meantime, and more strongman leaders feel empowered to clamp down on "free" speech. Whether that's Erdogan, Orban, Modi or any of too many others.
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On September 01 2024 18:24 BlackJack wrote:
Yes the standard that I think should be applied for policing speech on Twitter is roughly the same as policing speech of somebody on a street corner under US law. I don't think the policing should be done according to the laws of every country, no matter how backwards and tyrannical those laws may be. But I'm also acknowledging that Twitter is at the mercy of whatever that country decides so they can either play nice or be banned.
"What the US allows" is a fairly lazy definition of where your personal line is, but I'll allow it, because I like being similarly lazy! I like the overall gist of European countries' take on freedom of speech. It's similar to the US, bit places considerably more limits on hate speech.
However, in the case of Brazil, I find it very hard to decide what side of my line the tweets fall, partially because the net de Moraes cast is very wide. It includes lots of things that I think are very obviously bannable, surrounding the riots/attempted coup. However, he has cast, imho, his net far too wide and includes people and tweets that are not clearly related in his crusade against "misinformation" and the X Files Brazil has some very troubling examples, including arresting people calling for transparency in vote counting, when obvious corruption and fraud has been a real issue in Brazil in very recent history.
Nevertheless, clamping down on fascists trying to stop the legal transition of power through violence need to be stopped. I'm inclined to let de Moraes break some eggs to make an omelette. As long as he stops when he's finished with the omelette...
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Northern Ireland25665 Posts
On September 02 2024 01:40 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2024 18:24 BlackJack wrote:
Yes the standard that I think should be applied for policing speech on Twitter is roughly the same as policing speech of somebody on a street corner under US law. I don't think the policing should be done according to the laws of every country, no matter how backwards and tyrannical those laws may be. But I'm also acknowledging that Twitter is at the mercy of whatever that country decides so they can either play nice or be banned. "What the US allows" is a fairly lazy definition of where your personal line is, but I'll allow it, because I like being similarly lazy! I like the overall gist of European countries' take on freedom of speech. It's similar to the US, bit places considerably more limits on hate speech. However, in the case of Brazil, I find it very hard to decide what side of my line the tweets fall, partially because the net de Moraes cast is very wide. It includes lots of things that I think are very obviously bannable, surrounding the riots/attempted coup. However, he has cast, imho, his net far too wide and includes people and tweets that are not clearly related in his crusade against "misinformation" and the X Files Brazil has some very troubling examples, including arresting people calling for transparency in vote counting, when obvious corruption and fraud has been a real issue in Brazil in very recent history. Nevertheless, clamping down on fascists trying to stop the legal transition of power through violence need to be stopped. I'm inclined to let de Moraes break some eggs to make an omelette. As long as he stops when he's finished with the omelette...
Therein lies the problem
Hence my oft-stated preference for some kind of international standard framework with some buy-in from companies, users and various governments.
Otherwise you’re leaving too much up to the personal whims of a Musk, or alternatively an Erdogan type cracking the whip.
It’s still a factor now, albeit IMO I think the problem of mis/disinformation is just considerably worse and can overshadow it. I think it’s been that long that it’s easy to forget that Facebook and especially Twitter were really productive platforms for genuine political dissent and enabled democratic mobilisation.
It may be that in attempting to create the omelette of limiting bad actors and the spreading of bollocks, some of the eggs you end up cracking are legitimate political activists.
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Northern Ireland25665 Posts
On September 02 2024 01:15 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2024 21:31 Magic Powers wrote:Under Elon Musk, government censorship on Twitter has gone way way up. "The data shows that, overall, government requests to Twitter have more than doubled since Musk took over at the app, and that Twitter’s compliance rate for such has increased from around 50% on average, to 80%." https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/twitter-actions-more-government-requests-for-removals-under-elon-musk/648865/This is not a case where Elon Musk's policy stands in contrast to a government's wishes. It's just him being selectively hypocritical. He'd happily censor away if this didn't irk him personally. He's a hypocrite. Granted, I agree with the overall point BJ is making. Twitter should not comply with government censorship to the degree that it has been doing in recent years. But it's a misrepresentation to paint Elon Musk as our savior when he's literally the exact opposite. He loves government censorship. While many things changed, a significant change was Twitter itself. Before Musk, Twitter took a considerably more proactive approach in policing what people could post, removing bots, hate speech and other excesses. Musk has unbanned a lot of PBUs, and has cut their CS department down to the bare minimum. It's entirely possible that the reason governments request more censorship is because Twitter no longer does anything themselves. It's not the only change, of course. Western society has polarized further in the meantime, and more strongman leaders feel empowered to clamp down on "free" speech. Whether that's Erdogan, Orban, Modi or any of too many others.
I can’t say too much specific, but I’ve a friend who works in regulatory compliance of tech companies on behalf of the UK government.
Twitter are, to quote a ‘ballache’ to deal with to use some of our local vernacular. They’ve a small team as it is compared to the bigger platforms, but also compared to smaller ones too. And usually, what happens is the two teams flesh out some kind of agreed-upon plan, with actionables and some timelines and go from there.
Twitter’s lot also do this, but unlike basically everyone else the team will come back and u-turn in the interim. As if someone in the company, or someone acting on behalf of what they think someone wants just overrules their legal compliance team. As to who that could be, answers on a postcard!
He will happily admit he doesn’t enjoy the likes of Amazon have a multitude of lawyers in every call, it rather slows proceedings, but equally they take it extremely seriously as a process.
This isn’t within the content moderation domain, I imagine it’s similar there too.
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On September 01 2024 22:55 oBlade wrote:
Well Musk literally told the EU to go fuck itself and said he wouldn't take an extortion deal where they would secretly censor according to the EU's whims in order to avoid being fined. Also, he's not Hitler.
I still like Musk overall and thinks he's contributed quite a lot to humanity. I also really don't care about US politics.
But Musk thinks his ideas overrule anything else, including the laws and cultures of all countries on earth. He can think whatever he wants as long as he fucks off himself when his hosts don't agree with him.
Currently he is pioneering trying to break unions in Sweden with Tesla. It's extremely unlikely he actually understands our system but he thinks he is right so that's that. Fine. But kindly take your cars and fuck off then, there are plenty of other electric brands to choose from.
Maybe this is a general problem with American companies in that they are completely tone deaf to local laws and cultures? My wife have worked for multiple global corporations from America and the lack of understanding about labor and paternity leave laws is staggering. Or rather of course there is local middle management, HR and law departments who know how things work. But you still get executives asking local management to "solve paternity leave".
Of course you still get what you are legally guaranteed in the end but the pattern seems to be a constant struggle against a company always trying to push it. For other companies who are Swedish or from some other place they just build the system around how it's supposed to work and then there is no friction.
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On September 02 2024 03:03 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2024 22:55 oBlade wrote:
Well Musk literally told the EU to go fuck itself and said he wouldn't take an extortion deal where they would secretly censor according to the EU's whims in order to avoid being fined. Also, he's not Hitler. + Show Spoiler +I still like Musk overall and thinks he's contributed quite a lot to humanity. I also really don't care about US politics. But Musk thinks his ideas overrule anything else, including the laws and cultures of all countries on earth. He can think whatever he wants as long as he fucks off himself when his hosts don't agree with him. + Show Spoiler +Currently he is pioneering trying to break unions in Sweden with Tesla. It's extremely unlikely he actually understands our system but he thinks he is right so that's that. Fine. But kindly take your cars and fuck off then, there are plenty of other electric brands to choose from.
Maybe this is a general problem with American companies in that they are completely tone deaf to local laws and cultures? My wife have worked for multiple global corporations from America and the lack of understanding about labor and paternity leave laws is staggering. Or rather of course there is local middle management, HR and law departments who know how things work. But you still get executives asking local management to "solve paternity leave".
Of course you still get what you are legally guaranteed in the end but the pattern seems to be a constant struggle against a company always trying to push it. For other companies who are Swedish or from some other place they just build the system around how it's supposed to work and then there is no friction.
I think there are interesting questions around whether corporations are/should be subordinate to nations. As well as considering whether they will continue to be.
Particularly when you consider large corporations/markets like Amazon, Apple, and Alphabet, compared to smaller countries. For instance, pretty unlikely the Netherlands or probably even Germany could have forced Apple to comply with the USB-C thing on their own. It's only through the collective EU that they have the leverage to make such a modest demand.
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Northern Ireland25665 Posts
On September 02 2024 03:03 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2024 22:55 oBlade wrote:
Well Musk literally told the EU to go fuck itself and said he wouldn't take an extortion deal where they would secretly censor according to the EU's whims in order to avoid being fined. Also, he's not Hitler. I still like Musk overall and thinks he's contributed quite a lot to humanity. I also really don't care about US politics. But Musk thinks his ideas overrule anything else, including the laws and cultures of all countries on earth. He can think whatever he wants as long as he fucks off himself when his hosts don't agree with him. Currently he is pioneering trying to break unions in Sweden with Tesla. It's extremely unlikely he actually understands our system but he thinks he is right so that's that. Fine. But kindly take your cars and fuck off then, there are plenty of other electric brands to choose from. Maybe this is a general problem with American companies in that they are completely tone deaf to local laws and cultures? My wife have worked for multiple global corporations from America and the lack of understanding about labor and paternity leave laws is staggering. Or rather of course there is local middle management, HR and law departments who know how things work. But you still get executives asking local management to "solve paternity leave". Of course you still get what you are legally guaranteed in the end but the pattern seems to be a constant struggle against a company always trying to push it. For other companies who are Swedish or from some other place they just build the system around how it's supposed to work and then there is no friction.
I’m not sure I particularly agree on Musk being an overall net positive, but everything else there seems bang-on to me.
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On September 02 2024 01:15 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2024 21:31 Magic Powers wrote:Under Elon Musk, government censorship on Twitter has gone way way up. "The data shows that, overall, government requests to Twitter have more than doubled since Musk took over at the app, and that Twitter’s compliance rate for such has increased from around 50% on average, to 80%." https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/twitter-actions-more-government-requests-for-removals-under-elon-musk/648865/This is not a case where Elon Musk's policy stands in contrast to a government's wishes. It's just him being selectively hypocritical. He'd happily censor away if this didn't irk him personally. He's a hypocrite. Granted, I agree with the overall point BJ is making. Twitter should not comply with government censorship to the degree that it has been doing in recent years. But it's a misrepresentation to paint Elon Musk as our savior when he's literally the exact opposite. He loves government censorship. While many things changed, a significant change was Twitter itself. Before Musk, Twitter took a considerably more proactive approach in policing what people could post, removing bots, hate speech and other excesses. Musk has unbanned a lot of PBUs, and has cut their CS department down to the bare minimum. It's entirely possible that the reason governments request more censorship is because Twitter no longer does anything themselves. It's not the only change, of course. Western society has polarized further in the meantime, and more strongman leaders feel empowered to clamp down on "free" speech. Whether that's Erdogan, Orban, Modi or any of too many others.
I agree with this analysis. It's hard to draw any firm conclusions just from looking at two sets of numbers and percentages, especially when the government takedown requests are not differentiated between illegal things that should obviously be banned like CP and governments just wishing to crack down on political dissent on social media. Either way, my point was not to claim Elon to be a saviour of free speech. My point was we shouldn't have governments that are permitted to silence dissent. I was hoping to find unanimous agreement on that here but evidently Elon is too much of a lightning rod that trying to stick it to him is more important than trying to stick it to the people you've listed.
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On September 02 2024 05:11 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2024 01:15 Acrofales wrote:On September 01 2024 21:31 Magic Powers wrote:Under Elon Musk, government censorship on Twitter has gone way way up. "The data shows that, overall, government requests to Twitter have more than doubled since Musk took over at the app, and that Twitter’s compliance rate for such has increased from around 50% on average, to 80%." https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/twitter-actions-more-government-requests-for-removals-under-elon-musk/648865/This is not a case where Elon Musk's policy stands in contrast to a government's wishes. It's just him being selectively hypocritical. He'd happily censor away if this didn't irk him personally. He's a hypocrite. Granted, I agree with the overall point BJ is making. Twitter should not comply with government censorship to the degree that it has been doing in recent years. But it's a misrepresentation to paint Elon Musk as our savior when he's literally the exact opposite. He loves government censorship. While many things changed, a significant change was Twitter itself. Before Musk, Twitter took a considerably more proactive approach in policing what people could post, removing bots, hate speech and other excesses. Musk has unbanned a lot of PBUs, and has cut their CS department down to the bare minimum. It's entirely possible that the reason governments request more censorship is because Twitter no longer does anything themselves. It's not the only change, of course. Western society has polarized further in the meantime, and more strongman leaders feel empowered to clamp down on "free" speech. Whether that's Erdogan, Orban, Modi or any of too many others. I agree with this analysis. It's hard to draw any firm conclusions just from looking at two sets of numbers and percentages, especially when the government takedown requests are not differentiated between illegal things that should obviously be banned like CP and governments just wishing to crack down on political dissent on social media. Either way, my point was not to claim Elon to be a saviour of free speech. My point was we shouldn't have governments that are permitted to silence dissent. I was hoping to find unanimous agreement on that here but evidently Elon is too much of a lightning rod that trying to stick it to him is more important than trying to stick it to the people you've listed. because you went black and white instead of using it to say that both sides of the spectrum need to be managed with a robust set of guidelines that prevent dangerous misinformation as well as government crackdown on dissent.
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On September 02 2024 05:11 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2024 01:15 Acrofales wrote:On September 01 2024 21:31 Magic Powers wrote:Under Elon Musk, government censorship on Twitter has gone way way up. "The data shows that, overall, government requests to Twitter have more than doubled since Musk took over at the app, and that Twitter’s compliance rate for such has increased from around 50% on average, to 80%." https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/twitter-actions-more-government-requests-for-removals-under-elon-musk/648865/This is not a case where Elon Musk's policy stands in contrast to a government's wishes. It's just him being selectively hypocritical. He'd happily censor away if this didn't irk him personally. He's a hypocrite. Granted, I agree with the overall point BJ is making. Twitter should not comply with government censorship to the degree that it has been doing in recent years. But it's a misrepresentation to paint Elon Musk as our savior when he's literally the exact opposite. He loves government censorship. While many things changed, a significant change was Twitter itself. Before Musk, Twitter took a considerably more proactive approach in policing what people could post, removing bots, hate speech and other excesses. Musk has unbanned a lot of PBUs, and has cut their CS department down to the bare minimum. It's entirely possible that the reason governments request more censorship is because Twitter no longer does anything themselves. It's not the only change, of course. Western society has polarized further in the meantime, and more strongman leaders feel empowered to clamp down on "free" speech. Whether that's Erdogan, Orban, Modi or any of too many others. I agree with this analysis. It's hard to draw any firm conclusions just from looking at two sets of numbers and percentages, especially when the government takedown requests are not differentiated between illegal things that should obviously be banned like CP and governments just wishing to crack down on political dissent on social media. Either way, my point was not to claim Elon to be a saviour of free speech. My point was we shouldn't have governments that are permitted to silence dissent. I was hoping to find unanimous agreement on that here but evidently Elon is too much of a lightning rod that trying to stick it to him is more important than trying to stick it to the people you've listed.
It's not about Elon. Of course it's not great that governments crack down on dissent. But countries and cultures have different views on what free speech is and which parts are important and your coming into this from a *very* US perspective it seems.
Remember that these are mostly democratic countries where the people have shaped their laws. I visit r/conservative weekly to check in with opinions that are pretty far from mine. The conservative free-speech brigade loves to talk shit about other countries. Now it's Brazil but just recently it was the UK. Why? Because they had riots over the Swift stabbings and among other things they cracked down on people trying to inflame the situation. Completely heinous to a US crowd because they would 100% be protected if they did it there. But in many countries free speech is not considered above people actively being assholes in order to make a bad situation worse and the government is trusted to not run amok with that power.
Also the US free speech situation is not exactly a shining beacon inspiring others right now. While you may have free speech (political) discourse seems to be an open sewer ripping your country apart right now.
I prefer to stay with our mostly free but civil system that's watched over by the government and EU over whatever it is the US of A are doing.
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EPT
