Comment by _heimdall
5 days ago
Freedom of speech, at least in the US, is a concern specifically with the government censoring citizens' speech. The Twitter files are a recent example of the government partnering with private corps to censor, so that's a fair argument, but in general a private company can't violate free speech by deciding what kind of content they want allowed.
Is it shitty that they censor? Absolutely. But is it a constitutional violation? Not unless I've horribly misunderstood my rights for more than 35 years.
> Freedom of speech, at least in the US, is a concern specifically with the government censoring citizens' speech.
Well, no -- you're conflating "freedom of speech" as a general concept with the first amendment as a legal principle. The first amendment is specifically the mechanism of law we use to ensure that freedom of speech is respected in our interactions with the political state.
The first amendment doesn't apply to our interactions with each other outside of the political sphere, but that doesn't mean that we don't also have expectations of conduct and cultural norms that uphold freedom of speech via other means in non-government contexts.
Your definitions of social norms ass backwards.
Cultural norms dictate some modicum of restraint on everyone. You have no obligation to tolerate me if I call your wife a whore. Any given community has its social norms that dictate what you can and can't say. To force them to accept "unacceptable" speech would violate freedom of speech itself.
No, that's not quite correct. A lot of subcultures and echo-chamber type social contexts certainly do have extreme policing of extremely particular taboo subject matters, but in more general contexts, especially in American society, there's a strong expectation that people ought to be able to speak their mind without excessive interference, and there's usually a high bar to what constitutes subject matters taboo enough to restrict or exclude people for engaging with, along with social norms that often regard excessive policing of other people's expression as itself taboo.
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You're right, and that's were the double standards come in.
Progressives: Elon doesn't care about freedom of speech because he doesn't allow (edge case)
Also progressives: Freedom of speech has its limits
Pick a lane.
Elon described himself as a free speech absolutist. There is no inconsistency in pointing out that his actions don’t align with this description, regardless of whether or not the person doing so is themselves a free speech absolutist.
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Here is my lane: Elon is a hypocrite. He bought twitter in the name of "free speech," then removes any speech he doesn't like.
His actions are inconsistent, and this one of many demonstrations that he doesn't care at all about liberty. That matters because he's now apparently in charge of every federal government agency.
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> Progressives: Elon doesn't care about freedom of speech because he doesn't allow (edge case)
No, it's "Elon claims to be a free speech absolutist yet somehow keeps denying freedom of speech to people who disagree with him". The hypocrisy is the problem.
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Actually freedom of speech is a principle, which Musk and his ilk claim to care about, despite using their power to censor people through either direct control of information streams or threats. The first amendment to the US constitution specifically seeks to reify this principle in laws pertaining only to the government's actions, but freedom of speech as a principle can be supported or violated by anyone with power over other people. The people claiming to be "free speech absolutists" are hypocritical even if they didn't also work for the government and enact these vendettas against speech they don't like on a governmental level (which is also happening)
The owner is working for the government, can't play that card any more.
This is definitely true, however many of us remember Musk declaring himself a "free-speech absolutist", so in most cases people are referring to his hyprocisy rather than his legal rights.
[0] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1499976967105433600
It’s always been free speech for us, not for you.
I mean, congratulations you’ve explained why the Speechers criticising Twitter were always wrong on this point, but Twitter has now been taken over by people who’ve been pushing a very unamerican idea of free speech so it’s fair game to point out they’re trying to prevent people from using the very system that DOGE runs on.
When Mr. Musk describes X as "the last bastion of free speech" or similar what do you think he refers to?
Not OP but.. He’s full of shit?
You get banned for sharing identities of DOGE people, but Musk can share the name and tax documents of a federal judge.
Hypocrite.