I'm no fan of Musk but this is has been standard practice at Twitter since it was founded. They are just using slightly different "standards" to decide who to delete/suppress/shadowban.
The previous site was pretty well moderated. The current site is pretty awful, and the site owner is capricious about meting out punishment to those who offend him. It’s all personal, whereas before it was based on moderation policy.
you can’t be that naive… he bought it apparently for “free speech reasons” which he repeats every chance he gets (even on the same day he is silencing his critics). Xi Jinping is more for free speech than Elon is :)
it's like my alcoholic doctor telling me I need to cut my drinking: his advice may be sound, but it's rich coming from him.
I'm referring to the people who denied or did not decry the previous twitter administration deleting huge volumes of tweets they didn't like, the people who now populate bluesky and the fediverse they themselves are quite open about saying, because it's a cozy little echo chamber world where the people who disagree are erased from their view
The previous Twitter administration was quite open about the censorship they were doing and the reasons they did it. You may not like the result, but at least they tried to deal with their inherent conflict of interest (commerce vs. societal good) in a thoughtful way. The current one, on the other hand, constantly trumpets its free-speech absolutism while Elon tells the staff to delete whatever he wants whenever he wakes up in a bad mood, and artificially boost his own trolling.
Pretending to be ignorant doesn't change the facts, reinforce your point, or bolster your ridiculous argument that Musk supports free speech. You couldn't possibly be more wrong, and pretending to be ignorant doesn't make you right.
You have access to the same internet everyone else does. Look it up yourself instead of trying to argue with people who are paying attention and put in the time to be informed.
MAGA vs. Musk: Right-wing critics allege censorship, loss of X badges.
A handful of conservative critics of Elon Musk are alleging censorship and claiming they were stripped of their verification badges on X after challenging his views on H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers.
How is that unethical? X is Musk's toy to do with as he pleases. You as a user of X need to understand that he has absolutely no responsibility to you as a user.
> How is that unethical? X is Musk's toy to do with as he pleases.
I offer that that rights aren't ethics. Musk has a reasonable right to censor speech on his platform that he doesn't agree with.
However, when someone establishes themselves as a free speech absolutist, it is arguably unethical for them to remove, suppress and continually work to eliminate speech they disagree with.
Any time there are consequences to actions, the matter of ethics arises. The very act of making decisions that have consequences demands responsibility. This is the reality of being human.
Whether you or anyone else organize consequences as meaningful or not is a moral abdication. The first thing an immoral person does is justifying the consequences of their actions as inconsequential. This happens to such a degree that doing so is a signal of immorality. Immorality doesn't look like choosing evil, it looks like choosing inconsequentialism.
just yesterday the owner of twitter was getting his employees to delete the accounts of posts he disagreed with
I'm no fan of Musk but this is has been standard practice at Twitter since it was founded. They are just using slightly different "standards" to decide who to delete/suppress/shadowban.
Moderation isn’t censorship.
The previous site was pretty well moderated. The current site is pretty awful, and the site owner is capricious about meting out punishment to those who offend him. It’s all personal, whereas before it was based on moderation policy.
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you can’t be that naive… he bought it apparently for “free speech reasons” which he repeats every chance he gets (even on the same day he is silencing his critics). Xi Jinping is more for free speech than Elon is :)
what hypocrisy!
it's like my alcoholic doctor telling me I need to cut my drinking: his advice may be sound, but it's rich coming from him.
I'm referring to the people who denied or did not decry the previous twitter administration deleting huge volumes of tweets they didn't like, the people who now populate bluesky and the fediverse they themselves are quite open about saying, because it's a cozy little echo chamber world where the people who disagree are erased from their view
The previous Twitter administration was quite open about the censorship they were doing and the reasons they did it. You may not like the result, but at least they tried to deal with their inherent conflict of interest (commerce vs. societal good) in a thoughtful way. The current one, on the other hand, constantly trumpets its free-speech absolutism while Elon tells the staff to delete whatever he wants whenever he wakes up in a bad mood, and artificially boost his own trolling.
2 replies →
Moderation isn’t censorship. Many comments are “killed” on this very website. You can see them with the “show dead” option.
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What do you mean?
Pretending to be ignorant doesn't change the facts, reinforce your point, or bolster your ridiculous argument that Musk supports free speech. You couldn't possibly be more wrong, and pretending to be ignorant doesn't make you right.
You have access to the same internet everyone else does. Look it up yourself instead of trying to argue with people who are paying attention and put in the time to be informed.
https://www.axios.com/2024/12/27/musk-x-loomer-h1b-maga-veri...
MAGA vs. Musk: Right-wing critics allege censorship, loss of X badges.
A handful of conservative critics of Elon Musk are alleging censorship and claiming they were stripped of their verification badges on X after challenging his views on H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers.
6 replies →
How is that unethical? X is Musk's toy to do with as he pleases. You as a user of X need to understand that he has absolutely no responsibility to you as a user.
> How is that unethical? X is Musk's toy to do with as he pleases.
I offer that that rights aren't ethics. Musk has a reasonable right to censor speech on his platform that he doesn't agree with.
However, when someone establishes themselves as a free speech absolutist, it is arguably unethical for them to remove, suppress and continually work to eliminate speech they disagree with.
Any time there are consequences to actions, the matter of ethics arises. The very act of making decisions that have consequences demands responsibility. This is the reality of being human.
Whether you or anyone else organize consequences as meaningful or not is a moral abdication. The first thing an immoral person does is justifying the consequences of their actions as inconsequential. This happens to such a degree that doing so is a signal of immorality. Immorality doesn't look like choosing evil, it looks like choosing inconsequentialism.
(Regina George voice) So you agree? There are no “user protections” on X?
Your statement is basically “might makes right”, which is antithetical to ethics.