I don't get why people are so worked up about this. If you see Twitter, as Elon and millions of other people do, as the "public digital town hall", it is not unreasonable to verify people's identities and let them comment whatever they want so long it is legal.

It does not mean that you or anyone have to subscribe or listen to their crap.

If you don't see it that way, do people really not understand how others see that as gatekeeping, controlling, or dangerous? What is the purpose of Twitter than to you - basically television? To tune in and tune out?

Then, open source the algorithms. Do the same people really not want to know why Twitter chose to show you X information? Wild.

as for open sourcing the algorithms, I consider myself extremely pro-open source (though ofc you're free to draw your own conclusions), but isn't it clear that that might simply allow spammers to game them as efficiently as possible (and to that end, isn't spam also free speech)? one idea that seems reasonable that I've heard proposed is an open marketplace of algorithms that one can choose from (open source and otherwise)

Protesting a cause at an innocent persons expense is immature.

It also can escalate into real violence.

Here are some sample tweets I might want to post.

"I'm not saying Elon has killed anyone, but he owns a lot of property where bodies could be buried. Why aren't the authorities looking into this?"

"Fact: Tesla cars are killing more people than any other cause." Yes, it it is patently false, and that is the point.

"People are saying that Elon is forcing his numerous lovers to get abortions. Does anyone know if this is true?" Hey, I'm just asking questions.

I believe twitter accounts allow posting a very short description. I'd probably put something like "Testing the limits of twitter's free speech."

> People are saying that Elon is forcing his numerous lovers to get abortions.

Yes, this is harmful to Elon’s “lovers” and at their expense (not yours, not his).

Yes, this is deranged.

Yes, people can support your right to say this while thinking you are really immature, thoughtless, and not even remotely creative.

I understand you disagree with me. Call me deranged is over the top. Calling me immature and thoughtless and not even remotely creative is also a broadside that you can't possibly know. How about we talk about ideas rather than you psychoanalyzing me?

You have taken great offense that I hypothetically might say something untrue on twitter. Have you spent this much energy combating the actual harmful BS that is actually on twitter? Have you written more about my comment or about Elon Musk calling that scuba diver who helped rescue those kids a pedophile?

Although groups like qanon tend to sway naive users to extremism, it would be unfair to silence different thoughts just because it "may" lead to that.

Fight bad ideas with better ones.

I think it's more deranged to see such a test as abnormal.

(Also grotesque does not necessarily mean offensive, and you can limit the scope of the content's exposure)

> (Also grotesque does not necessarily mean offensive, and you can limit the scope of the content's exposure)

OP comment:

> start posting the most grotesque and offensive things

Also, testing if a billionaire (who has offended many people on Twitter) is lying is not deranged behavior, which is the point you keep avoiding.

> Right, it's not limited to being offensive, and even if it were, you can limit exposure.

What do you mean by limit exposure? How would the GP limit exposure of their grotesque and offensive tweets? And even if they did, wouldn't that defeat the purpose of their test? They are trying to increase exposure and see if Musk will limit exposure.

The GP is stating they will purposely offend people to test their suspicions of someone. They are willing to hurt (with words) innocent people to do this. You're calling this normal behavior. So if Musk takes over, it's okay to start calling black people the n word on Twitter to test Musk? I think that qualifies as "most offensive." And to call this testing behavior abnormal is deranged itself according to your words?

And some of your justifications are it's okay to do because Musk is the world's wealthiest individual and he's already offended others?

> It's a test of the word and motivation of not just a billionaire, but one of the world's wealthiest individuals - one who has publicly insulted and offended many people already.

So far you are railing on imagining the worst possible implementation of my idea. I won't speculate why you are that way.

I also think (a) nobody would notice my twitter account, (b) they'd probably block me, which would make my point, and (c) the people who did read my stream while it was active would clearly understand the context of my statements.

Think of it like The Satanic Temple. It exists not to glorify Satan but to test whether laws really are favoring some religions over others, in contradiction to the constitution.

Some people think it's fair game to retaliate gainst your own employees because there is no free speech at a company, I would counter that it's a very narrow margin for someone who declared themselve "free speech absolutist" and didn't implement it in their own kingdom.

Twitter is not Tesla or SpaceX neither are they considered the same (at all). To expect him to treat everything the same across the board is a disingenuou unrealistic expectation.

I think what Musk wants to see is the Overton Window opened up more than it is now, and that's not a bad thing.

There will be moderation.

Musk talked about the need to improve Twitter's handling of spam, bots and scammers.

So clearly if he owns Twitter he will direct the team to eliminate spam, bots and scammers as much as possible.

If you get classified as those, you'll be booted off the island.

And given that your stated purpose is malicious, I say that you should be.

  "Starlink has been told by some governments (not Ukraine) to block Russian news sources. We will not do so unless at gunpoint.

  Sorry to be a free speech absolutist."

I know I can read minds.

https://twitter.com/search?lang=en&q=absolutist%20(from%3Ael...

I think we're all about to witness the tragedy of the commons in real time if Musk buys twitter. Because there are literally thousands of people in college towns alone all across the US who will descend on Twitter and do this. Probably millions outside of college towns who will do the same. it's too bad.

My bet is we'll end up filing this under "This is why we can't have nice things".

From what I understand, a large reason the US switched from the Articles of Confederation to the US Constitution was to help resolve inter-state conflict. I wonder if we can resolve inter-national conflict with our current confederation of nations.

AKA “The South” in the US civil war.

Edit: Yup, as pointed out by replies, I got my documents backwards. Sorry!

> The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was an agreement among the 13 original states of the United States of America that served as its first frame of government. It was approved after much debate (between July 1776 and November 1777) by the Second Continental Congress on November 15, 1777, and sent to the states for ratification. The Articles of Confederation came into force on March 1, 1781, after ratification by all the states.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation

Edit: I think you're thinking of the Constitution of the Confederate States: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Confeder...

>mine

You enjoy grotesque and offensive things?

"Elon Musk says Tesla hopes to produce a robotaxi with no steering wheel or pedals in 2024"

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-tesla-build-robota...

I find the medium to not lead to productive dialog. The only interesting posts I've read are ones where someone essentially ignores the format and writes a long form comment over ten serial tweets. Limiting people to 140 characters (or 2x that now) leads to people spitting out punchy comments that lack any nuance. Rather than a dialog you get either echo chamber if the participants are in agreement, or if the participants are in opposition, a series of tweets attempting to land a body blow on the other.