Comment by p4bl0
5 days ago
> Twitter, which was arguably the hub of wokeness
This is a fake news. Research shows that Twitter algorithmic amplification favored right-wing politics even before Musk made it even worse. See: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2025334119
> On the other hand, the people on the far left have only themselves to blame; they could tilt Twitter back to the left tomorrow if they wanted to.
Being this much clueless in pg's position is not possible. I can only assume he's consciously lying. He can see front row what Musk does with Twitter and how the "free speech" he's supposedly defending is actually "what Musk likes to hear speech", and he perfectly knows Musk is strongly aligned with the far right that he supports however he can all over the world. See for example: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/europe/article/2025/01/10/musk-dou...
I wish, but to be Black in America is to witness this sort of cluelessness (despite prowess in other areas) ALL THE TIME.
Domain specific knowledge is SO REAL.
(Incidentally, this is roughly why I don't believe we will ever have so called "AGI")
Calling this "cluelessness" is being more charitable that parent, and on the balance of evidence, mayn not be the correct explanation.
If one were sceptical of this synchronized "political awakening" in the tech industry, that incidentally is aligned to an incoming presidential administration, one might call it some sort of gratuitous signaling of virtues. Which is hilariously ironic, and shows either a lack of self-awareness, or profound levels of shamelessness.
This feels like another VC/executive "taking a knee" towards the new administration, a vivid trend in the last few weeks. I feel like pg was particularly more left/right neutral just up until this month of inauguration.
Sorry, can you back this up with some data and specificity?
I understand that you feel Musk is aligned with the far right; my question is what exactly is Musk doing with twitter, and (other than when people take the piss against him personally) how is he removing free speech that is not "far right"?
I'm genuinely interested in the details -- and they are hard to come by.
Elon suspended PG's account just for lightly alluding that another social media platform exists. I'm not sure why you're even bringing up the idea of free speech on Twitter. Can you imagine Discord suspending your account for lightly alluding that Slack exists?
That's a great example of the insincerity of the PG article. I mean, I can believe there are people that don't pay very much attention to Twitter who genuinely believe that Elon Musk is the sort of free speech absolutist he says he is, but someone who was suspended and then left Twitter because a new Elon censorship policy praising Elon for not censoring anyone is quite funny.
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I do not call that a censorship of speech decision, it's a banning encouraging the competition decision, no? The company doesn't want competitors being boosted, so it makes and enforces a policy. I presume people discussing the Fediverse as a concept are not routinely suspended, although I'm too lazy to check.
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This is by Twitter itself, before Musk: "Our results reveal a remarkably consistent trend: In six out of seven countries studied, the mainstream political right enjoys higher algorithmic amplification than the mainstream political left." https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2025334119
This is more recent: "We observe a right-leaning bias in exposure for new accounts within their default timelines." https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.01852
You can also find a lot a testimony from users like: https://www.reddit.com/r/behindthebastards/comments/1es2lfd/...
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Now from personal experience (I've been on Twitter since 2007 and used it virtually everyday since then):
I've heard and read a lot of such testimony in particular from user who don't post much or at all and only follow a few accounts. In the last two years they've been exposed to a lot of far right content.
I've seen how the moderation team at twitter took action before musk when reporting (often illegal) hate speech and now just respond by saying that it doesn't violates the platform rules.
I've seen on the contrary people (even journalists) and political or news organization getting locked out of their account following a far right online mob against them, and then having a hard time (sometimes to the point of giving up) getting it back because the moderation team did not act.
I can. Before he owned twitter, if someone called me the n-word or other racial slurs, action was taken. Now when that happens and I report it, they reply to tell me no rules were broken
I'm sorry to hear you're called slurs. They seem endemic for my kid as well as soon as you move out of ultra progressive areas; as a white parent of a black kid, it's disheartening and eye opening to find out just how racist some families are, and how immensely wide spread it is.
That said, I don't think this qualifies as newly minted removal of speech. It is the allowance of speech that was formerly removed.
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I use Twitter for machine learning research only, but somehow that account gets inundated with Maga crap. That's proof enough for me.
Sure, that's an anecdote of one instance, but it's so clear. And how would you do a proper study? I'm guessing you would need Elon's permission.
Its interesting how doing something is immediately equated with 'removing not far right' free speech.
The idea is he promotes the talking points that benefit the right and the Republicans. Both personally and in changing the platforms algorithms [1].
There have been reports of people disagreeing with that general 'platform' loosing their blue check marks [2], accounts being disabled, followers dropped [3] and so on to reduce the reach of left/liberal people.
He doesn't need to remove speech he disagrees with, he can drown it and amplify the messages he wants to be heard and significantly control the narrative and discussion that way.
[1]https://eprints.qut.edu.au/253211/1/A_computational_analysis...
[2]https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/elon-musk-accused-...
[3]https://finance.yahoo.com/news/big-twitter-accounts-left-los...
If your position is that awareness of Musk’s alignment with the far right is a matter of feeling rather than well-documented fact [1,2,3,4,5,6,7] then no amount of easily-accessible and readily-available detail will convince you to adjust that position.
As for an example of Elon making Twitter rules around speech he doesn’t like, here[8] is one that is very public and not hard to come by.
1 https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/02/elon-musk-nazis-kanye-twit...
2 https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2024/12/20/elo...
3 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/08/technology/elon-musk-far-...
4 https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/elon-musk-...
5 https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/23/business/elon-musk-nazi-jokes...
6 https://www.nydailynews.com/2024/05/02/elon-musk-reinstates-...
7 https://www.vice.com/en/article/elon-musk-twitter-nazis-whit...
8 https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-cis-cisgender-slur-twitter-185...
No, I didn't make any statement on Musk's politics; it wasn't the part of the comment that interested me.
To the extent you slightly implied you were interested in what I think, he certainly seems trending far-right to me, but I think you need to moderate any thoughts on Musk with the reminder that he loves the drama, enjoys trolling, and has an almost unique freedom (in the west) to say whatever he likes online. Combine that with the drugs and his current ego trip, and I don't think it's that easy to say what he actually thinks, and I certainly don't think it's worth a lot of my time to consider it deeply.
I agree that banning cis while allowing the n-word is a concrete example, thank you. Super dumb. Speaking as a cishet guy. Also, banning cis seems essentially performative for Musk's (target?) audience(s?) -- I note that anti-trans rhetoric was one of the major platform points for Republicans in this election, so it's not, like, risky performativism, just run of the mill performativism.
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Elevating tweets of folks that pay the troll under the bridge, where folks on the left are going to avoid that fee (why would someone on the left materially support a right wing pundit?) is one very obvious way.
Just go check out that man's X (twitter?) feed. Elon constantly says the quiet part out loud. I'm from genx and if you're younger I'm going to give you all some solid life advice. When someone tells you who they are, listen.
> how is he removing free speech that is not "far right"
In Dec 2022 he suspended the accounts of several left-leaning journalists without providing a cohesive justification: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/15/technology/twitter-suspen...
Posting about Ukraine is categorised as misinformation and downranked: https://x.com/aakashg0/status/1641976925064245249
Suppression of tweets in India and Turkey: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/twitter-takes-down-po... https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/05/twitter-musk-censors...
> you feel Musk is aligned with the far right
It's not a feel, it's real (unless you're so far to the right yourself, you don't consider the AfD, neo-nazis, TERFs, etc etc such)
TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) are generally left-wing, despite holding a reactionary view on trans people. That sort of comes with the territory of being a radical feminist. If someone is right-wing, or even just a centrist liberal feminist, then they're just an ordinary transphobe, not a TERF.
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Create a new account and find out. If you create a new account, without any other information, twitter will recommend you follow Musk, Don Jr (President's right wing son), and Babylong Bee, a right wing fake news joke site.
Go ahead, do the experiment and come back and tell me what you see.
You don't even need a new account. You could have a years old account and you'll get notifications about that crap even if you have never followed anything even remotely similar. That's what made me delete my account. I got Musk's tweets in my notifications and noped the fuck out.
He tweeted 150x a day in support of Trump leading up to the election. Just go look at his timeline.
Edit: lol at this getting downvoted. Some of you free speech purists really don't want to hear basic facts. Seriously. Just go look at the timeline. 150x a day is not an exaggeration. All of it in direct support of Trump, or attacking DEI and anything else associated with Democrats.
People who lean left are choosing to leave.
Greg Lukianoff of FIRE, a free speech defender said Musk made twitter better for free speech (on balance): https://youtu.be/Er1glEAQhAo?si=2aWdSIsbKzjz0nGA&t=2853
It’s interesting to see how polarizing views about Musk have become. People often overlook the fact that Musk was, and in many ways still is, aligned with traditional liberal values. He’s been a long-time supporter of initiatives like universal basic income, environmental sustainability through the green movement ect... Yet, the moment he expresses support for ideas that deviate from the more extreme edges of left-wing ideology, he’s vilified and treated as a pariah by those who once championed him.
Regarding X, I still see plenty of left-leaning content, but the dynamic has undoubtedly shifted. What’s changed is that the platform no longer artificially amplifies one ideological perspective at the expense of others. Previously, algorithms seemed to prioritize content aligned with extreme left narratives while outright blocking opposing views. That system gave the impression of a dominant left-leaning consensus, that was entirely artificial.
At the end of the day, it's impossible to remove all bias so whatever system maximizes free speech is the best one.
What are you saying? Musk is literally and openly supporting the far right neo-nazi party in Germany these days. See: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/europe/article/2025/01/10/musk-dou...
Also, it's just not true that "Previously, algorithms seemed to prioritize content aligned with extreme left narratives while outright blocking opposing views". It's a lie. Twitter's research itself revealed their algorithm favored right wing politics even before Musk. And it became a lot more true since he took power. See: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2025334119
While at the same time our tax dollars are supporting literal Nazis in the Ukraine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Brigade
Musk recently de-verified or banned a bunch of far-right accounts that were posting anti-H1B content. Musk isn't far right, he's just looking after his business interests.
Well like any political descriptor, "far right" is a generalization that applies to several groups. In this case, Elon is part of the corporate-techno-authoritarian far right that supported trump, while figures like Loomer who were posting the anti-H1B content are part of the white-nationalist/christian-nationalist far right (that also supported trump).
Musk literally supports the far right in elections all over the world. In the past few days he intervened in Germany in favor of the far right candidate. See https://www.lemonde.fr/en/europe/article/2025/01/10/musk-dou...
I was banned from Twitter within hours of Elon having control for changing my displayed name (not my handle) to "Elon's Musk" in a reply to something unhinged that he had tweeted.
So much free speech.
Were you banned for your speech or for being a troll intent on being disruptive to the community? Because there's a difference.
Shouldn't matter. Musk is a free speech absolutist after all.
In this case, they are one in the same. And if it is a free speech forum, then it should have been a protected act.
Free speech means free speech for those you dislike too. It also means having a space for those that are disruptive, loud, and engaging in trolling. That's what those fire-and-brimstone "you're going to hell" preachers are doing at universities. (Which isn't all bad - it gives students a great opportunity to learn debate and to stand up for what they believe in.)
The ACLU has represented the Vietnam War protestors, the KKK, neo-Nazis, LGBT activists, Westboro Baptist Church members, religious followers of Jerry Falwell, flag burners, anti-abortion activists, women's rights activists, communist party members, gun rights advocates, anti-Trump protestors, BLM protestors, and more. And it's a good thing they represented every single one, because erosion of free speech for those we don't like will eventually get back to us.
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The easiest thing for a truly evil person to do is lie. They lie about being good, first and foremost. That most people are just a bunch of willfully ignorant rubes works very well for them, unfortunately.
So you were banned for the new rules on imitation as opposed to free speech
This is clearly not an imitation. Parody if nothing else which is protected by fair use.
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How is that imitation?
That sounds like satire not imitation to me.
"free speech absolutist"
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Can you prove it? Do you have any proof that Twitter promotes right leaning views more than left leaning ones?
"When You’re Accustomed to Privilege, Equality Feels Like Oppression"
Twitter was discriminating against right leaning views. Extreme far left views (like communism) were absolutely OK and widespread on Twitter. If one had as extreme right leaning views, he would be shadowbanned, reprioritised etc.
What is Twitter now is a fair game. Every voice is heard the same. What Twitter is doing now should have been the norm the whole time.
And the same is true for all major social networks, search engines, public funded media, universities and other organizations. When only leftists get their voice heard, they got used to it. Loosing this privilege looks like discrimination, doesn't it?
Are you aware you are asking parent to “prove it” to the claims you don’t agree with, and then make similar claims in the opposite direction without “proving it”?
I believe he's referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files
Easy, Reclaim The Net documents Twitter censorship for years. Here, you have dozens of links, pages and pages https://reclaimthenet.org/?s=twitter
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People gave Elon a lot of shit over his comments on supporting H1B visas and those comments weren't banned or deleted. There's your proof.
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Bullshit. Try using the term cisgender on Twitter, regardless of context
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Based on looking at the "Latest" feed (which shouldn't be biased by the algorithm), and on what newly created accounts see, right-wing posts on Twitter outnumber left-wing posts something like 10:1.
"What is Twitter now is a fair game. Every voice is heard the same. What Twitter is doing now should have been the norm the whole time."
Where is your proof for that being true? I was a left-leaning voice that was banned from Twitter after changing my display name (not handle) to "Elon's Musk".
How is that free speech?
You got banned for impersonation, not speech.
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