I would give it at least 24 hours to see if these suspensions are legit. My understanding is that X does still suspend where they detect spam, illegal activity, etc. It's possible these accounts were all linked to something that got flagged up somewhere.
It's possible (not saying this is what happened though) that this is just mistake and their accounts will be reinstated shortly.
Or maybe Elon did personally ban these journalists. If it turned out he didn't though I think a lot of you guys need to reconsider your biases.
Was Elon just messing with them, or was it perhaps as I suggested and just a mistake? Will you reconsider, or are you unable to accept this as a possibility?
For what it's worth I think Elon was mismanaging Twitter so I have no interest in defending him. But equally I think the idea that he's sat around randomly suspending "left-wing" journalists is kinda silly.
I don't know why this is the case, but Twitter seems to trigger suspensions quite frequently. They seemed to have tightened their spam / abuse algorithms in recent months, but the pattern as of late is that that most genuine users who get suspended are reinstated on appeal.
It looks like Elon's claims of being a free speech absolutist don't go very far, if this article is to be taken at face value.
The most disappointing part for me is the lack of transparency. Didn't Elon talk about including explanations for why people were banned or why they had restricted reach? We can only speculate about why these people were banned because Twitter doesn't provide a public explanation. Were these people verified (paying) users as well? IMO, that would make it even more egregious.
It seems like the CTO was made aware of the situation and 15 minutes later the accounts were un-suspended. [1] https://nitter.poast.org/elonmusk/status/1744766353494376749 Probably some automated system or mass report (speculating, of course).
Bill Ackman?! Who on earth cares enough about _Bill Ackman_ to white-knight him with Twitter bans? Up until you mentioned him I'd completely forgotten he even existed.
he's trending because of the harvard plagiarism stuff, he was one of the annoying ppl on twitter about it. but apparently ackman's wife plagiarized too? idk the facts, just the headlines, i choose to ignore all that stuff bc culture war makes for bad political action
Just as a side note, I'm making this comment about an hour after the submission and maybe two after the article was written and I can find all of those people on twitter. Most of them have recent comments about being back.
Maybe some people just searched for the accounts on twitter, found them, and concluded that Vice is either mistaken, or jumped to premature conclusions.
@dang, do you have any solutions for Musk related articles being flagged constantly? Clearly someone is trying to abuse the flag process. Does being flagged affect it getting on the frontpage or any effect?
I flag most (not all) Musk-related articles because they're flamebait that isn't intellectually thought- or curiosity-provoking. This makes them unsuitable for HN, and therefore exactly what the flagging system is for.
This has been happening since the day Musk took over Twitter (here's one from December 2022 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/15/technology/twitter-suspen...). There are always people (including a large chunk on HN itself) who will come up with more and more elaborate excuses for his purges and maintain that he is all about free speech and neutrality. I'm sure same will happen for this one.
You're assuming the post was flagged in an effort to hide the alleged truth of the story. It's more likely it was flagged because it's political in nature. Change it to "Journalists, Rightists" and I'd flag it, as well.
They do afaik. I wish flagged posts showed who flagged them at least. If there was manipulation or coordinated acts to flag submissions, it would be a lot easier to figure out.
Is there a database somewhere that keeps track of all the flagged threads on here so we can see what gets censored on a regular basis? It would be fun to k-means cluster it and see what is verboten to HN users or staff.
I parsed this as (X Purges Prominent Journalists), (Leftists with No Explanation) at first and was pretty confused. If that should happen to anyone else, it's supposed to b (X Purges Prominent Journalists, Leftists) (with No Explanation).
It was always pretty transparent what "free speech" meant to Elon (and many others like him). It means "I personally should be able to say and do whatever I want without consequences".
The week before he tweeted about "free speech absolutism" he canceled a dude's Tesla order because they criticized him on X.
> "I personally should be able to say and do whatever I want without consequences"
I think it's more "I'm not accountable to you people". At least that's my position. Left wingers seem to think I have to care what they think about what I say on the internet. I do not, and I will not.
> They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words.
The next part talks about how they fall silent when pressed hard, but that was before the internet. Now they slip back, disappear, and re-emerge elsewhere. We don't even have the pleasure of their silence.
Ironically, it is the Trump supporting types that seem to really enjoy explaining their positions. Left wingers cannot handle being pressed hard -- particularly in a corporate setting -- about things like DEI and other matters they are unwilling to cede.
Press me as hard as you want! I can defend my positions easily and without getting emotional.
If you fear the consequences of your speech, then you are likely to self-censor, and (one can argue) you no longer have free speech. This is the argument that "Free Speech Absolutists" tend to use to justify trying to protect people from the consequences of their speech... which necessarily infringes on others' speech.
You fundamentally cannot enable people to speak without fear without infringing others' right to speak freely. In the context of a government, it is possible (only very barely, and frequently governments are unable to rise to this level) to create systems that punishes neither party and exit any and all attempts at moderation. But when you are running a social media site, this isn't a feasible option, and trying to punish people who are causing fear and limiting free speech will only cause the next wave of free speech sites to arise. Techdirt has a nice article on speedrunning content moderation: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/02/hey-elon-let-me-help-you...
Is it a rhetorical sham? Not necessarily, in the sense that I think its proponents could very well believe in what they say. But it is a belief whose consequences hasn't been fully thought-through, and I can't see anyone who still hews to that belief after fully thinking it through.
No shams and the inevitable and predictable result of people not advertising the wiser position. That people are silent should come to no surprise and some might even revel in that the tables have turned on some platforms. I expect the majority to just bang their heads into the nearest table though.
Ironically it was defenders of freedom of speech and expression that were threatened with consequences.
> journalists and leftist pundits
usually you can be one of these but rarely both at the same time.
No, it is not sensible to "conclude that both of those positions are by and large rhetorical shams". An age old seeming inevitability is that longstanding gripes get their banner taken up by charlatans dishonestly using them for personal gain. This does not mean the original concerns are dishonest or invalid. Rather it means we need to scrutinize people referencing these topics to see what they actually do when they have power, rather than uncritically supporting them merely because they claim to care about something we do.
Anyone who unironically calls themselves a "free speech absolutist" needs to go meditate under a waterfall for a few years on what the point of free speech is, and what the consequences and implications of that are.
Care to elaborate your point? I wouldn't label myself a "free speech absolutist" (seems like blowhard posturing), but my belief in freedom of speech does have an absolutist framing (it's a natural right flowing from computational enfranchisement plus the existence of cryptography).
I think it's sad that "conservatives" seem to think that they're persecuted when in fact the "previous regime" bent over backwards to accommodate them and amplify their voices.
"In separate discussions verified by Motherboard, that employee said Twitter hasn’t taken the same aggressive approach to white supremacist content because the collateral accounts that are impacted can, in some instances, be Republican politicians. The employee argued that, on a technical level, content from Republican politicians could get swept up by algorithms aggressively removing white supremacist material. Banning politicians wouldn’t be accepted by society as a trade-off for flagging all of the white supremacist propaganda, he argued."
So funny to watch everyone screaming about this, when pre-Musk many many conservative accounts were suspended merely for things like daring to question COVID "vaccine" efficacy (see: Alex Berenson), or making a humorous post about a transgender (see: Babylon Bee). And that is just the tip of the iceberg. There are lists of many medical doctors who were suspended for legitimate COVID paranoia criticism, while leftist accounts were free to spew violence and hatred (see: Antifa, BLM). Where were all these people then? Or, to quote Orwell, were some accounts/people more equal than others?
I would give it at least 24 hours to see if these suspensions are legit. My understanding is that X does still suspend where they detect spam, illegal activity, etc. It's possible these accounts were all linked to something that got flagged up somewhere.
It's possible (not saying this is what happened though) that this is just mistake and their accounts will be reinstated shortly.
Or maybe Elon did personally ban these journalists. If it turned out he didn't though I think a lot of you guys need to reconsider your biases.
It's not bias when it's based on a pattern of past behaviour. Perhaps you need to reconsider why you are unable to accept this.
Not op, but I'm sure that not everyone watches everything that goes down on Twitter to be able to notice a "pattern of past behaviour".
1 reply →
Looks like they're all unsuspended now, https://twitter.com/stevanzetti
Was Elon just messing with them, or was it perhaps as I suggested and just a mistake? Will you reconsider, or are you unable to accept this as a possibility?
For what it's worth I think Elon was mismanaging Twitter so I have no interest in defending him. But equally I think the idea that he's sat around randomly suspending "left-wing" journalists is kinda silly.
I don't know why this is the case, but Twitter seems to trigger suspensions quite frequently. They seemed to have tightened their spam / abuse algorithms in recent months, but the pattern as of late is that that most genuine users who get suspended are reinstated on appeal.
2 replies →
> Perhaps you need to reconsider why you are unable to accept this.
This is not acceptable rhetoric for HN.
[flagged]
https://web.archive.org/web/20240109154748/https://www.vice....
https://archive.today/lvZbT
It looks like Elon's claims of being a free speech absolutist don't go very far, if this article is to be taken at face value.
The most disappointing part for me is the lack of transparency. Didn't Elon talk about including explanations for why people were banned or why they had restricted reach? We can only speculate about why these people were banned because Twitter doesn't provide a public explanation. Were these people verified (paying) users as well? IMO, that would make it even more egregious.
It seems like the CTO was made aware of the situation and 15 minutes later the accounts were un-suspended. [1] https://nitter.poast.org/elonmusk/status/1744766353494376749 Probably some automated system or mass report (speculating, of course).
There's a theory that it's a bunch of bans for anyone critical lately of Bill Ackman - see https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1744724937313837177
Bill Ackman?! Who on earth cares enough about _Bill Ackman_ to white-knight him with Twitter bans? Up until you mentioned him I'd completely forgotten he even existed.
he's trending because of the harvard plagiarism stuff, he was one of the annoying ppl on twitter about it. but apparently ackman's wife plagiarized too? idk the facts, just the headlines, i choose to ignore all that stuff bc culture war makes for bad political action
2 replies →
Elon Musk
I was going to ask who Ackman was (yeah, I don't keep up with the twitterati) and I find he's someone who fits with Elon very well: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/jan/03/bill-ackma...
what a great platform for free speech when you can get banned for angering a billionaire
Just as a side note, I'm making this comment about an hour after the submission and maybe two after the article was written and I can find all of those people on twitter. Most of them have recent comments about being back.
Why is this flagged and why can't I vouch for it?
Maybe some people just searched for the accounts on twitter, found them, and concluded that Vice is either mistaken, or jumped to premature conclusions.
@dang, do you have any solutions for Musk related articles being flagged constantly? Clearly someone is trying to abuse the flag process. Does being flagged affect it getting on the frontpage or any effect?
Why do you think that democratic flagging needs a solution?
9 replies →
I flag most (not all) Musk-related articles because they're flamebait that isn't intellectually thought- or curiosity-provoking. This makes them unsuitable for HN, and therefore exactly what the flagging system is for.
The Elonites don't care for this sort of thing, as it makes Dear Leader look a bit silly.
Do they have the power to make a HN submission un-vouchable?
3 replies →
That's beyond ridiculous. Ken Klippenstein is a great journalist and definitely should not be suspended.
They should have left for the fediverse long ago. http://b4hntuy3fimfh2227vf4f74emnya7p35i5brtqujs6leqvtclfwvj...
Most of them already have accounts on the fediverse too.
anyone got a list of recent-purged-from-X left-leaning journalists fedi accounts?
1 reply →
If they did - why my NZ feed stinks like communist kolkhoz?
Preparing for election season.
Wew lad. So much for "free speech"
[flagged]
“Absolutely only the free speech I like”
This has been happening since the day Musk took over Twitter (here's one from December 2022 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/15/technology/twitter-suspen...). There are always people (including a large chunk on HN itself) who will come up with more and more elaborate excuses for his purges and maintain that he is all about free speech and neutrality. I'm sure same will happen for this one.
Edit: as expected, this post has been flagged.
You're assuming the post was flagged in an effort to hide the alleged truth of the story. It's more likely it was flagged because it's political in nature. Change it to "Journalists, Rightists" and I'd flag it, as well.
flagging is wayyy too easy on HN... I bet admins have extreme flagging powers too
They do afaik. I wish flagged posts showed who flagged them at least. If there was manipulation or coordinated acts to flag submissions, it would be a lot easier to figure out.
1 reply →
Is there a database somewhere that keeps track of all the flagged threads on here so we can see what gets censored on a regular basis? It would be fun to k-means cluster it and see what is verboten to HN users or staff.
I parsed this as (X Purges Prominent Journalists), (Leftists with No Explanation) at first and was pretty confused. If that should happen to anyone else, it's supposed to b (X Purges Prominent Journalists, Leftists) (with No Explanation).
Where is the Free Speech Absolutist outrage? What happened to the answer to bad speech is more good speech?
Can I conclude that both of those positions are by and large rhetorical shams?
It was always pretty transparent what "free speech" meant to Elon (and many others like him). It means "I personally should be able to say and do whatever I want without consequences".
The week before he tweeted about "free speech absolutism" he canceled a dude's Tesla order because they criticized him on X.
> "I personally should be able to say and do whatever I want without consequences"
I think it's more "I'm not accountable to you people". At least that's my position. Left wingers seem to think I have to care what they think about what I say on the internet. I do not, and I will not.
9 replies →
> They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words.
The next part talks about how they fall silent when pressed hard, but that was before the internet. Now they slip back, disappear, and re-emerge elsewhere. We don't even have the pleasure of their silence.
Ironically, it is the Trump supporting types that seem to really enjoy explaining their positions. Left wingers cannot handle being pressed hard -- particularly in a corporate setting -- about things like DEI and other matters they are unwilling to cede.
Press me as hard as you want! I can defend my positions easily and without getting emotional.
4 replies →
If you fear the consequences of your speech, then you are likely to self-censor, and (one can argue) you no longer have free speech. This is the argument that "Free Speech Absolutists" tend to use to justify trying to protect people from the consequences of their speech... which necessarily infringes on others' speech.
You fundamentally cannot enable people to speak without fear without infringing others' right to speak freely. In the context of a government, it is possible (only very barely, and frequently governments are unable to rise to this level) to create systems that punishes neither party and exit any and all attempts at moderation. But when you are running a social media site, this isn't a feasible option, and trying to punish people who are causing fear and limiting free speech will only cause the next wave of free speech sites to arise. Techdirt has a nice article on speedrunning content moderation: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/02/hey-elon-let-me-help-you...
Is it a rhetorical sham? Not necessarily, in the sense that I think its proponents could very well believe in what they say. But it is a belief whose consequences hasn't been fully thought-through, and I can't see anyone who still hews to that belief after fully thinking it through.
No shams and the inevitable and predictable result of people not advertising the wiser position. That people are silent should come to no surprise and some might even revel in that the tables have turned on some platforms. I expect the majority to just bang their heads into the nearest table though.
Ironically it was defenders of freedom of speech and expression that were threatened with consequences.
> journalists and leftist pundits
usually you can be one of these but rarely both at the same time.
>> journalists and leftist pundits
> usually you can be one of these but rarely both at the same time.
I didn't parse this as referring to only one person, so there's no "at the same time" here.
No, it is not sensible to "conclude that both of those positions are by and large rhetorical shams". An age old seeming inevitability is that longstanding gripes get their banner taken up by charlatans dishonestly using them for personal gain. This does not mean the original concerns are dishonest or invalid. Rather it means we need to scrutinize people referencing these topics to see what they actually do when they have power, rather than uncritically supporting them merely because they claim to care about something we do.
Free Speech Absolutist left twitter before Musk and are living in decentralized platforms.
> Can I conclude that both of those positions are by and large rhetorical shams?
I wouldn't be surprised if some reach that conclusion. It's much more complicated than that -- but also pretty simple:
No one feels bad for a bully that gets punched in the face even if they believe violence is wrong.
You mean the born-rich thin-skinned man-child is not a "free speech absolutist" and is actually opposed to free speech? I am shocked.
Anyone who unironically calls themselves a "free speech absolutist" needs to go meditate under a waterfall for a few years on what the point of free speech is, and what the consequences and implications of that are.
Care to elaborate your point? I wouldn't label myself a "free speech absolutist" (seems like blowhard posturing), but my belief in freedom of speech does have an absolutist framing (it's a natural right flowing from computational enfranchisement plus the existence of cryptography).
I'm glad the free speech platform is here to protect us from speech it doesn't like.
I'm glad that Elon's free speech brigade is here, as usual, to censor this discussion by flagging it to death.
[flagged]
I think it's sad that "conservatives" seem to think that they're persecuted when in fact the "previous regime" bent over backwards to accommodate them and amplify their voices.
"In separate discussions verified by Motherboard, that employee said Twitter hasn’t taken the same aggressive approach to white supremacist content because the collateral accounts that are impacted can, in some instances, be Republican politicians. The employee argued that, on a technical level, content from Republican politicians could get swept up by algorithms aggressively removing white supremacist material. Banning politicians wouldn’t be accepted by society as a trade-off for flagging all of the white supremacist propaganda, he argued."
https://www.vice.com/en/article/a3xgq5/why-wont-twitter-trea...
I see very little "white supremacist" content on twitter.
But I see plenty of "black supremacist" content that doesn't get banned.
Few dare even mention black supremacist or racism on behalf of blacks against whites.
2 replies →
[flagged]
That's X's fundamental problem. It's not a room, and it never intended to be one. It always intended to be a public space.
You can't be that, and also have a door.
Consequences for what?
[flagged]
6 replies →
By that useless definition, everyone everywhere always has freedom of speech.
[flagged]
So funny to watch everyone screaming about this, when pre-Musk many many conservative accounts were suspended merely for things like daring to question COVID "vaccine" efficacy (see: Alex Berenson), or making a humorous post about a transgender (see: Babylon Bee). And that is just the tip of the iceberg. There are lists of many medical doctors who were suspended for legitimate COVID paranoia criticism, while leftist accounts were free to spew violence and hatred (see: Antifa, BLM). Where were all these people then? Or, to quote Orwell, were some accounts/people more equal than others?
"I have been censored for my conservative views!"
"Holy shit, you were censored for wanting low taxes?"
"No."
"Ok then, you were censored for wanting deregulation?"
"No, lol."
"So which views, then?"
"Oh, you know the ones."
3 replies →
Exactly. No hit pieces by MSM then. Hail Twitter for shutting up those conservatives.
And now, predictably, you and I get downvoted by the logic of "tolerant" extremists.
Article is 404 for me.