I think you still being too generous. Other than Teslas which starting to get large amount of competitors who were late to EVs market, and SpaceX, which won't have many competitors because we still kind of figuring out what the heck we need to fly in space for (at this price points), Musk's basket is full of terrible failures.
The most shocking to me is a Boring company. What was promised - vast network of 3D tunnels where cars will move at 150mph speeds. Eventually trip from New York to Shanghai will take less than 2 hours.
What was delivered? A short tunnel with absolutely zero safety features, no ventilation, no exit points, build with state-of-the-art technology that turned out to be 3 times slower (per mile) than 30 years old boring machine that dug La-Manche, and Teslas are driving in that tunnel at... 35mph.
And Musk as we could all predicted came out in defense of all this tweeting that "We made the whole thing much simpler" - no elevator ramps, no high speeds, simple one-lane tunnel. And his base ate it up like some sort of genius he is that he invented moving traffic in one lane underground at bicycle-ride speed.
I say the same thing will happen to twitter. Initially it will be: - open algorithms (99.9% people would not understand what they looking at, at probably 80% of engineers wouldn't either - as an ex-Googler, I can tell you these algorithms are like rings inside a tree - hundreds of layers amassed on the top of each other over the years; - allow full free speech (so no control over even nastier language) - fight with bots.
Fast forward 5 years from now, the only people who understand the algorythms will be large bot farms and they will game the system to get throw to the top before anyone elses tweets. Just like there is reason Google is hiding their algo instead of f.e. patent those, they do that because they don't want smart people to game the system. Full free speech will bring even more maneuver to the site, and at the end of the day its impossible to remove bots. In China for 5 cents you can get someone's real ID. For 10 cents they provide you photo of ID with todays date. For 15 cents they will show up on any video call to provide they are who they are. So at the end of the day small trolls and insignificant bot farms will get wiped out, but the big players who make decent buck by trolling, they will continue undisputed. In a few years Musk will abandon Twitter to focus momentarily on another shiny object. "in fight for humanity freedom", like he couldn't do that when he proposed to solve world's hunger.
On the top of that, isn't his involvement in another project just a big fuck-you to everyone still waiting for:
- Solar City - roof shingles that will revolutionized electricity and actually will make you the homeowner to sell electricity to the power plant. - Tesla trucks and semi trucks - nothing new on that? - Boring company - no new progress after years of LV "loop". - Flying to Mars (many things changed now - from fancy trip sort of Cruise Trip with fun games etc, now the word is that many people will die during the trip and it wont be fun)
Seriously if all these projects would run full speed ahead on all cylinders, I would be happy Musk is taking over another project. But they are not. Most are terrible failures and Musk is still in hot water re: Solar City buyout. I'm starting to think all these projects were just temporary scams to boost Tesla stock value (which Musk succeed with 20 x P/E), and that's about it.
- The Tesla Cybertruck and Semi are going to be manufactured in the Austin, TX factory, which literally just opened after only 2 years of construction (mid-pandemic) – seems like progress to be.
- Who said the initial crewed missions to Mars would be a fancy sort of cruise trip?
Good luck with that, because at this rate you can literally sell snakesoil and claim it works. Take any group of say 10,000 people, have them use it for the rest of their lives, I guarantee you find few people who miraculously got some sort of disease cured.
- Who said the initial crewed missions to Mars would be a fancy sort of cruise trip?
Musk said that during the first presentation regarding the trip.
"Why would I want my kitchen to be sexy?"
"Why would I want my car to be sexy?"
100% of engineers won't either. These algorithms are all going to be neural net based, which means they need the data (which will be private) to even know what outputs will be for a given input. And why the output is such for a given input? No way to know - basically a black box.
It absolutely is an engineering and technology problem.
Shotwell is an excellent president and pretty much directly responsible for many of SpaceX's prominent contracts (as well as their survival in the early days), but she handles the 'business' side of things (although, since she has a mechanical engineering background I assume she also keeps up with the technical side), while Elon mainly deals with the technical side.
To take your example, she doesn't need to be able to weld rollcages into racecars, but she may be able to understand that a rollcage can only be expected to be useful in X cases or that a good rollcage should have Y features.
Similar to how Elon most likely isn't telling people to change X flange into a weld by adjusting the pipe by Y mm, but rather asking his engineers what they would adjust to achieve Z and the technical tradeoffs, then stating what he thinks is acceptable and what isn't.
Musk is not a rocket scientist.
I'm quite sure that Musk understands the engineering totally and makes important contributions. Plus, his instincts in providing direction as a CEO are excellent. Very few CEOs understand tech like Musk does.
Hard to say from the outside what it is exactly that allows him to do that. It makes sense that its hard to say what it is, because if it was easy to describe, chances are it wouldn't be what sets him apart (the other option being that it's hard to emulate).
Seems well run enough to pull that off.
As influential as Musk is, he's not a real world Tony Stark.
It's clear he knows a thing or two about rockets. Obv no single person is designing the thing, but it's clear he's highly involved.
Can you enlighten me? Why is this such a common refrain?
If he runs Twitter like 4chan, it will surely fail, but I think he has more to his plan than he is willing to share publicly at this time.
All Trump said was “give them hell”, which is the same thing the leftist say when they lose. Anybody that knows the American left knows this is purely political. They’re trying to smear him, charge him with a felony, so he can’t run again. That’s all this is.
Tell me this, had they succeeded in delaying the vote, then what?
“Had the rioters succeeded in preventing the certification, Raskin said, Trump "was prepared to seize the presidency" and likely declare martial law”
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-attempt-coup-be-focus...
But for you obviously Reuters is part of the left and fake news. Only Fox News, OAN and Russia Tv are the harbinger of “Truth”, better known in Russian as “Pravda”. I bet that you also approve of him congratulating Putin for his invasion and subsequent genocide…
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/23/trump-putin-...
“Trump said he saw the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis on TV “and I said: ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine … Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful.”
The former US president said that the Russian president had made a “smart move” by sending “the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen” to the area.”
You are incredibly lucky that he still doesn’t have power, otherwise the US would have helped Russia instead of Ukraine.
Hopefully all the traitors and Putin puppets will get what they deserve at some point, after this genocide is concluded.
Yes a democrat saying Trump was prepared to enact martial law. They’re clearly not biased.
> You are incredibly lucky that he still doesn’t have power, otherwise the US would have helped Russia instead of Ukraine.
How do you draw this conclusion? You know there’s a difference between saying someone’s smart and liking what they do? Here I’ll do it now: Biden’s request for a ministry of truth is genius. It’ll squash dissent and any non left leaning counter narrative.
Now since you’re American, let’s play hypothetical. Had they destroyed the case, then what? If you actually think on the topic you’d realize a coup isn’t possible as you’d need some military force to provide law enforcement. So all this coup talk is just meaningless searching for a reason to ban him from elections. Given that it’s only one side that wants him out, this makes it very curious.
Donald Trump incited a group of people to launch a violent attack against the United States Capitol. That's not acceptable behavior.
Look, there are lots of things you can say about Rep. Cheney (R-WY), but that she is part of “the left” isn't even remotely one of the credible options.
"Just don't ban US politicians" seems like an unworkable solution.
As a smart person you should realize this is insane.
Also, yes. That sounds incredibly sane. Especially if they say "Lets have trial by combat" and other such calls to violence.
We can quibble over details but it's far from being a "lie".
I am also utterly gobsmacked how people here jump to the defense of billionaires.
> Taking a moment to think about how utterly crazy it is that in 2022 a company with a significant dataset of private and public communications, that has municipalities, companies and governments on the platform, can switch ownership with pretty much zero scrutiny -- https://twitter.com/emilybell/status/1518580094649966592
Whatever laws protect that data or communications will continue to exist. And if you're just taking it on good faith that the current ownership won't do anything shady even if there's no laws preventing it, that's a much bigger problem to address.
If this dataset is dangerous, regulation is the way to solve that, not relying on the benevolence of corporate boards and shareholders.
The discussion forums hosted by a startup accelerator are friendly to major capitalists? Who would have expected it?
What you're saying is why do regulations allow for this? Idk, but this is a regulatory question, and therefore it should be directed at the government not at the billionaire in question.
Often people look up the ladder in awe and respect because we all want to move up and be there ourselves one day, so it makes sense to venerate that position in order to justify it within ourselves subconsciously.
Call them Oligarchs like we have been taught to do for their commie counterparts.
American Business Titans are individuals who personally own and control obscene amounts of a country's infrastructure, through outsized stock ownership. And they wear fitted t-shirts instead of creepy euro-suits.
Is Twitter available in on of the following countries? China, Saudi-Arabia, Russia, Turkey? Since we know the answer I'm looking forward to see how helping those local governments go after "dissidents" will be aligned with Musk's high ideals of free speech.
But since this whole affaire started with "ElonsJet" refusing to shut down, and Musks reaction was a teenagers "Then I'll buy this company and fire you", I'm inclined to believe free speech is going to be ok as long Musk is criticized.
This has nothing to do with elonjets btw and if that's the worst example you can come up with... you'd be just convincing those who think that Twitter's moderation policy is horrible. Because for them, a dude censoring people who track him (which won't happen anyways imo) is still insanely better than the current policy that they deem is used to supress entire ideas/events.
In SV you don’t get locked up or suicided if you say the wrong thing.
Following the law in some of the places listed above would have Musk help identify those breaking local laws.
My point was that I'd prefer companies to stick to their principles, and if that means they can't do business in certain countries, so be it. Saying that you'll follow local rules if that means abuse of human rights is not something I agree with. In this context 'human rights' is used as a personal definition rather than some sort of legal one, as local rules allow abuse in some places.
Do you believe it’s a win for human rights to allow dissent whilst also helping governments identify dissenters?
Sadly, not just in Turkey but increasingly in what you'd consider developed "western" countries. This is concerning.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2021/14/introduction/enac...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country
Certainly he could retreat from places like Turkey and China. Alas, increasingly there is nowhere left to run. You can be inclined to believe what you want, we can just wait and see what happens no?
Bullsh*t alert! Name one western country that charges people for terrorism for criticizing Erdogan.
Incidentally, Ahmadinejad is quoting 2pac on twitter: https://twitter.com/Ahmadinejad1956/status/10519371063927521...
Of course this is nothing new, the slippery slope in the UK started over a decade ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Joke_Trial
"Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"
Chambers was arrested by anti-terror police at his office, his house was searched and his mobile phone, laptop and desktop hard drive were confiscated. ..was found guilty at Doncaster Magistrates' Court, fined £385 and ordered to pay £600 costs. As a consequence he lost his job as an administrative and financial supervisor at a car parts company. English defamation law puts the burden of proof on the defendant, and does not require the plaintiff to prove falsehood. For that reason, it has been considered an impediment to free speech in much of the developed world.
You're welcome to explain to me how a teenager quoting snoop on her instagram is deserving of a court case whether somebody is familiar with the quote or not as opposed to Ahmadinejad quoting 2pac.
Or the Taliban being explicitly allowed to stay on the platform for that matter: https://www.mediaite.com/news/twitter-says-taliban-spokesman...
how do you think this is on par with Turkey consistently persecuting ---dissidents---?
Scotland is a small place so can't find much for you other than this one local explaining it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvmF1peteGE
You can now meme yourself to jail now. No need to even go so far as the head of state, any random individual can feign offense at you to land you in legal trouble.
> 'It had to do with an American and a Russian arguing about their two countries,' Reagan said Monday, relating the story he told Gorbachev. 'And the American in the story said, 'I can walk into the Oval Office, I can pound the president's desk, and I can say, Mr. President, I don't like the way you're running our country.'
> 'And the Soviet citizen said, 'I can do that.' The American said, 'You can?' He says, 'Yes. I can go into the Kremlin to the general secretary's office, I can pound his desk and say, Mr. General Secretary, I don't like the way President Reagan's running his country.''
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/11/18/Reagans-jokes-draw-S...
> The Böhmermann affair (also known as Erdogate[1]) was a political affair following an experimental poem on German satirist Jan Böhmermann's satire show Neo Magazin Royale in late March 2016 that deliberately insulted Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan using profane language. ... After the show was aired on German public television channel ZDFneo, the Turkish government released a verbal note demanding that the German government begin criminal prosecution of Böhmermann. German Chancellor Angela Merkel further escalated the situation by apologizing for Böhmermann's "intentionally hurtful" poem – later she called this "a mistake".[2] On 15 April Merkel announced in a press conference that the German government had approved Böhmermann's criminal prosecution, but would abolish the respective paragraph 103 of the German penal code before 2018. Intense criticism followed the Chancellor's decision, with speculation that she decided to allow the prosecution in order to protect Germany's refugee deal with Turkey.[3] The case was dropped in October 2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Böhmermann_affair
> The Netherlands' lese majeste law dates from 1881 and carries sentences of up to five years jail or a fine of 20,000 euros ($22,200; £16,700).
Not really abolished, just a lower punishment.
Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK for posting ‘offensive’ tweetPeople did get their bank accounts frozen for playing key roles in protests that shut down critical infrastructure for a prolonged period. Protests that were at least partially funded by foreign interests. Protests that cost Canadians millions of dollars and posed a safety risk for many people.
Whether you like JT or not, at least on the surface the government had justification to do <<something>> to stop the protests after so many weeks. Some governments would have gone in with clubs, rubber bullets and teargas. Ours elected to shut off the funding tap. And it worked.
Whether the emergencies act should have been used here is definitely up for debate. For what it's worth, an independent inquiry has been established to look into this. I for one hope they recognize the slippery slope that such a blunt tool represents and put in better controls and oversight.
Sure, one can’t survive without money. And they shut that dissent down real quick. Like they controlled speech quite well. Now that they’ve found the button, I wonder how many times in the future they’ll push it. You’re basically bragging about your loss of dissent.
Also, the government did not "shut down the dissent real quick". The protests went on for weeks without any reprisal. The shouts were shouted, the horns honked, the memes posted, the swastikas flown. The protesters got their fifteen minutes of fame and more. We all heard them speak, unfortunately it turned out they didn't have anything interesting to say.
So they let it take it’s natural course? Or did they force it to stop by using power wielded only by a gov?
Nobody had their bank account frozen for "saying mean things about Trudeau."
Briane is a single mom from Chilliwack working a minimum wage job. She gave $50 to the convoy when it was 100% legal. She hasn’t participated in any other way. Her bank account has now been frozen.
Sworn testimony in parliament makes it seem as if Mr Strahl’s story is either wholly or partially manufactured. No accounts were frozen for donating when the protest was still allowed.
Additionally there is no evidence that a person by the name of “Briane” lives in that town, and no one with that name was listed as a donor to the protest.
One day Mark Strahl or somebody like him will be in power and the shoe will be on the other foot. If you start banning people you don't like (from twitter, bank accounts, whatever) left and right you will end up in a very dark place by setting that precedent.
There were ~200 accounts frozen affecting less than that number of people (some people had multiple accounts frozen). The claim is that these accounts were the ones directly supporting the protest. This was after the courts had declared many aspects of the protest unlawful. The accounts were mostly unfrozen after the protest broke up. The mechanism that was used to freeze their accounts allows them to sue for compensation
As much as the process for the emergencies act has been painted as absolute power. It very much isn’t. It is subject to quite a bit of oversight from the legislative and judicial.
I understand what your point is, but Canada has a history of going after left leaning protesters in FAR more concerning ways than this. As far as I can tell this was way more preferable to the usual tactics that the RCMP used to enforce injunctions.
For example, the military was used to clear native peoples off their land to build a golf course. A child was bayoneted. In 1990.
The RCMP broke into a cabin with a chainsaw and axe where indigenous elders were praying to stop oil and gas construction. That was last year.
Temporarily freezing funds of enablers seems like a pretty reasonable solution to an unlawful protest, all things considered.
Besides all that, at the time it was VERY clear that this political action was funded from unknown sources outside the country. I don’t think that money is speech. And I really don’t think that political destabilization should be funded by anonymous overseas donors.
Yay
> but Canada has a history of going after left leaning protesters in FAR more concerning ways than this
Sigh
Temporarily freezing the banking privileges of people involved in the perpetuation of 1. A crime 2. while acting against an injunction 3. after being authorized to use that power by a majority of elected representatives is a pretty acceptable use of government. Regardless of who in power does it.
You said you don’t like people in power arbitrarily freezing accounts of people they don’t like, and cited what appears to be a completely made up story from a fringe candidate.
I’m pointing out that this was not arbitrary, and it was used in a very specific and limited manner, as authorized by law, to accomplish a very specific goal. The goal was accomplished with, as far as has been actually proven, an absolute minimum of harm caused, even to the perpetrators themselves.
The protest is still allowed, there are still people protesting in my town. Just saw ‘em this weekend. What they aren’t allowed to do is use money from unknown international sources to shut down cities and infrastructure
What are we discussing here? Because your response to me was that "the other side is much worse" and you cited the military bayoneted a child in 1990.
This Mark Stahl fellow is a sitting MP not a fringe candidate.
> Temporarily freezing funds of enablers seems like a pretty reasonable solution to an unlawful protest, all things considered.
Well, if they are willing to bayonet children to build golf courses imagine the pandoras box you've now opened for when they get back in power. Won't seem so reasonable when they freeze your bank account in turn. Not a hard concept to grasp.
Try to imagine a carbon copy of yourself who fell into the other echo chamber and has similarly low opinions of your politics. There will be no shortage of justifications for why you must be punished.
You seem to be seeing this through the lens of “two sides”. There are more than two major political parties in Canada. And the East/West/French divide is as important as the left/right divide.
I’m seeing this through the lens of government quelling illegal protest, regardless of what is being protested. I see what happened in Ottawa as a restrained response that I wish was used more, rather than the violent response that is so common.
At the time temporary asset freezes we’re used, military force was authorized by the legislature. They could have dragged the trucks out using military recovery equipment, instead they made it so they couldn’t buy diesel and propane with money from unknown sources.
> Try to imagine a carbon copy of yourself who fell into the other echo chamber and has similarly low opinions of your politics. There will be no shortage of justifications for why you must be punished.
If I fall down some conspiracy rabbit hole, protest by unlawfully shutting down a city for a month, ignore an injunction, and encourage others to do the same while ignoring warnings about the consequences, I sure as hell expect that the government will come after me.
There was no “pandoras box” opened. The legislature authorized the PM to act in a limited way to end an unlawful protest. Those powers have expired, and could have been rescinded at any time.
The people weren’t “punished”. Organizers had money frozen for about a week until it could be seen that it wouldn’t be used to support more activity deemed to be an emergency.
The dangerous precedent isn’t the seizure of money. It’s using foreign bankrolls to pay for a destabilizing protest movement to use industrial equipment to shut down major infrastructure and cities while ignoring the rule of law.
Many people are childish and it is now fashionable to stick your fingers in your ears and try to make the thing you don't like disappear instead of dealing with it. Once upon a time citing did not imply agreement. Sometimes reality is icky.
> You seem to be seeing this through the lens of “two sides”.
I'm seeing it through the lens of "no sides". Try putting politics aside.
> If I fall down some conspiracy rabbit hole, protest by unlawfully shutting down a city for a month, ignore an injunction, and encourage others to do the same while ignoring warnings about the consequences, I sure as hell expect that the government will come after me.
I wonder why you think only people with politics that differ from yours (and therefore are clearly wrong) are susceptible to this behavior and members of your tribe are somehow immune.
> There was no “pandoras box” opened. The legislature authorized the PM to act in a limited way to end an unlawful protest. Those powers have expired, and could have been rescinded at any time.
It seems you are under the impression you need to convince me.
Many people would say otherwise, to use your parlance. Alas, Mark Strahl is still an MP, even if he spreads lies. Marjory Taylor Greene somehow got elected. They have supporters. You need to convince them.
Is it getting easier or harder? What will happen when they regain power? Something to ruminate on.
And not only the "fringe" or conservatives but even people who might agree with your politics directionally might disagree with the heavy handedness and perceived slide into authoritarianism. It is as if your perceptions are not the only ones that matter even if undoubtably you're right of course.
> The dangerous precedent isn’t the seizure of money. It’s using foreign bankrolls to pay for a destabilizing protest movement to use industrial equipment to shut down major infrastructure and cities while ignoring the rule of law.
Presumably it could be both. You could have multiple ongoing problems. And in a heavy handed attempt to solve one exacerbate others. I really hope it sinks in but I'm quite afraid you'll just reply again about how bad the people you don't like are.
Technically true, but without context, easily misunderstood. It's illegal in Germany to promote or advocate for illegal acts. Since Russia attack on Ukraine is an illegal act, it's illegal to promote or advocate for the war, and this includes the Z symbol.
Also "incitement to illegal conduct and imminent lawless action" is also illegal in the U.S. it just gets interpreted a little different.
> There is only one country on earth that has decent free speech and it's the US
Except for nearly all the other countries in Europe, Canade etc.
It's practically true, and there is nothing to "misunderstand" there, unless you try to create such a misunderstanding by claiming this comes out of some kind of "general ban", when it's actually a very specific ban German states started putting in place [0].
Case in point;
> Since Russia attack on Ukraine is an illegal act, it's illegal to promote or advocate for the war, and this includes the Z symbol.
The US attack on Iraq was also illegal, yet that didn't lead to German states banning the V symbol for Victory or any other US symbols, or US media, getting banned.
Which is not the only example of how most about this is purely political and not in any way based on impartial interpretation and application of laws for human rights and "justice" [1].
[0] https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2022-03/z-symbol-rus...
[1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/08/germany-could-have-deli...
But it does, it's just that to prevent a misuse, any ban on symbols (which are used to advocate or promote something criminal) a separate law is needed to prevent misuse and allow judiciary overview. That's an additional protection.
> US attack on Iraq was also illegal
That's a fair point (and I agree on the illegality), and I would actually like this to be challenged in the court and see a decision. However, the Russian flag is not banned, just the Z symbol as a symbol for this war. If there was a symbol for U.S. drone strike or the invasion of Iraq we could be talking about something more concrete.
The Z symbol exists for the same reason why the V symbol existed on US military vehicles in Iraq; It's mainly a friendly fire and unit identifier as Russia and Ukraine use a lot of the same mechanized equipment.
While the Anglo V also stands for V as in "Victory" and even has a hand sign associated with it, it's a whole campaign dating back to WWII and Winston Churchill [0].
Me and many of my schoolmates would flash it at US military convoys passing our bus at school trips in the 90s. The soldiers were always super happy about it, while we thought we were signaling "peace" to them.
Ultimately the V would morph into a Chevron with different orientations to distinguish what military group a vehicle belongs to [0], but there is a whole propagandist history behind the Anglo use of V, overlapping very much in the same ways of military necessity as the Russian Z does.
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20150708011459/https://time.com/...
[1] https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-significance-of-the-invert...
However, when a country doesn't allow you to promote or advocate for war crimes, then it's "only the U.S. has free speech", go figure.
But I agree with your more general point that Americans should be a bit less smug about the superiority of their free-speech rules.
I think both have their historic reasons, place and differences.
Ability to advocate for illegal, repugnant, or offensive ideas or acts is in fact the entire point of free speech, so being able to do it is an essential right.
In summary, those basically are high treason, murder/manslaughter, assault, robbery, counterfeiting, creating fire/explosions/radiation, destroying/interference in infrastructure (planes etc.).
Back in the day, noone prevented same-sex partners to marry in Germany in front of a religious congregation which allowed that according to their rules. They just couldn't get the marriage certificate from the State.
As for the illegality: it would make gay marriage an impossible act, because the legal framework to marry two men (or two women) from a legal standpoint (which includes the marriage certificates and the rights and responsibilities associated with it) would not exist. A public official who wrote a marriage certificate for a same-sex couple in 1999 would not have committed a crime, he or she would just have written an invalid form which would have had no legal bearing (and the public official would probably have been reprimanded).
Something you cannot do by definition cannot be illegal.
I'd say its more than a little different. The US definition is pretty narrow and immediate. You can't get on a megaphone and tell a crowd to go kill some guy right now.
>Except for nearly all the other countries in Europe, Canada etc.
It's all down to opinion of course but those nations do not have sensible freedom of speech. They pay lip service to the idea but will gladly jail people for saying things the government doesn't like but otherwise harmless or victim less.
Except for exceptions, such like making some kind of threat against the president.
> will gladly jail people for saying things the government doesn't like but otherwise harmless or victim less.
Can you show me such examples for lets say Germany?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/15/angela-merkel-...
It's practically true, and there is nothing to "misunderstand" there, unless you try to create such a misunderstanding by claiming this comes out of some kind of "general ban", when it's actually a very specific ban German states started putting in place only recently [0].
Case in point;
> Since Russia attack on Ukraine is an illegal act, it's illegal to promote or advocate for the war, and this includes the Z symbol.
The US attack on Iraq was also illegal, yet that didn't lead to German states banning the V symbol for Victory or any other US symbols, or US state media getting banned.
Which is not the only example of how most about this is purely political and not in any way based on impartial interpretation and application of laws for "human rights and justice" [1].
[0] https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2022-03/z-symbol-rus...
[1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/08/germany-could-have-deli...
None of them has free speech. Free speech is a binary thing - either speech is free, or it isn't. The moment you face criminal lawsuits for saying the wrong things, you do not live under a Free Speech regime. To my knowledge, the only country which does this correctly is the US.
Many countries claim to have Freedom of Opinion - which is a different concept from Freedom of Speech. Under a "Freedom of Opinion" regime, you can hold any opinion that you like - but some you need to keep to yourself.
Your proposed rule might be unpractical, since it would disallow the U.S. government from from saying anything about free speech for at least 30 more years (see [1] and [2]).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A...
Suffice to say that censorship was pretty prevalent through the history of Germany and it did not provide the advantages some had hoped.
And the allies did censor speech that is true.
> The representative of the Allied forces admitted that the order in principle was no different from the Nazi book burnings, although unlike the burnings, the measure was seen as a temporary part of the denazification program.
In that case the measure can be understood as the country was full of Nazi propaganda and alternative media was more or less dead. But it was indeed temporary and the Allies also wrote Germany's constitution, which explicitly forbid censorship.
Lies and incitements to violence were a significant factor in Hitler being able to assume emergency powers, so you could argue that Germany learned a valuable lesson from one of its dictators.
But the thing everyone forgets is that he has very strong ties to the US government. From a free speech perspective, this is as good as the government taking over twitter, but much better PR
After taking part in the "DevOps" cultural revolution, I feel that there is no path to mandating culture. Culture is the summation of ideas, practices, and values of all parts that participate in a system. If you try to discriminate against participants in order to get "the culture you want" then you'll end up doing some nasty discrimination along the way. That practice is also, ime, heavily correlated with ideological hell holes that lose relevancy the minute they gain relevancy because they're frozen in time along the timeline of acceptable ideas.
That's why he's perfect for this task. Most decision-makers feel intense scrutiny and tip toe around things that cause backlash, especially things that threaten the status quo.
When you're oblivious to how people will react to your vision, you're more able to follow through and make it to the other side.
I'm all for a good damning with faint praise, and this definitely put a smile on my face.
I'm still convinced this is just the Twitter board calling Musk's bluff.
Lets say this does fall through, the SEC, Tesla, and SpaceX fall out could be REALLY bad.
> In 2018, he came under fire after tweeting that he was considering taking Tesla private, and the SEC charged him with fraud. Musk agreed to a court-approved deal in order to settle the charges, which required that Tesla lawyers review any social media posts containing information "material" to shareholders. Months later, after he was called out for defying the order, the settlement was amended to include a specific list of topics Musk needs permission to tweet about. The list includes tweets about the company's financial condition, production numbers or new business lines.
> The SEC notified Tesla that two of Musk's tweets from 2019 and 2020 — one about Tesla's solar roof production volumes and one about the company's stock price — hadn't received the required pre-approval, the Journal's Dave Michaels and Rebecca Elliott reported.
I find it hard to overlook that at least one thing that might be motivating him to buy Twitter is to tweet however he wants to tweet, regardless of US law.
[0]: https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/01/tech/elon-musk-tesla-sec-twee...
He got in trouble because of what he said given his responsibilities to Tesla and the market in general, not where he said it.
He'd have gotten in just as much trouble had he posted on Instagram.
Maybe I'm wrong and he'll still abide by the law (which, apparently he wasn't doing very well anyways), I just see it as possible escalating conflict between a private business and a government agency.
> The only question is whether the SEC has the authority to actually create pain for someone whose wealth is so outside of the norm.
I assume they should have the authority to make such rulings regardless of how wealthy someone is. Now, will they actually enforce those rulings to create that realized pain? Maybe that depends on how much regulatory capture one can muster.
Perhaps I'm looking too deep into this and he really does care a lot about other people having freedom to tweet whatever they want. I think there's just a good chance that the SEC ruling telling him he needs to have his Tesla tweets reviewed before sending them could also be motivating him to buy Twitter.
This doesn't really track. First of all he already tweets however he wants. Secondly what difference would it make to the SEC if he owns Twitter here?
Also highly recommended for anyone curious about what he wants to do with Twitter.
At least in the US, there is no law that says non-government things have to offer "free speech" to customers. Womp womp.
What's so elusive about it? Let people say what they want and give users a robust word and account filtering system.
If you think your ideas and values won't stand up to public scrutiny, then perhaps you should do some self-reflection. If it's just a matter of your own comfort, use the block/mute/blacklist controls.
The path is balancing all that. It’s not just about people being “uncomfortable”, there is very real & hurtful abuse on social media, some of which breaks laws that Twitter will also need to respect. Just adding more filters does nothing to build the open public square that Musk seems to want to curate. More filters & blocks just creates smaller echo chambers.
Frankly, I didn't think the rest of your quote added anything meaningful to the first part. Rather than being rude I was just going to leave that out and hope you picked up on it.
My reasoning was as follows: Twitter is already forced to follow US laws where the legal system is willing to enforce them, and "toxic cesspool" is highly subjective. When it comes to handling the mob mentality, I've already offered my thoughts and suggestions in my previous comment.
>Just adding more filters does nothing to build the open public square that Musk seems to want to curate.
So, which is it then? Is it a public platform, or a publisher curating content? Either way, Twitter couldn't exist without the taxpayer footing the bill for ARPANET, which is why I think they should be forced to allow all legal speech on their platform.
>More filters & blocks just creates smaller echo chambers.
Explain why it's bad for "echo chambers" to exist. Why shouldn't people be allowed to mind their own business and tend to their own spaces? I do this daily by choosing to not use 90% of the modern web.
Welcome to Voat 2.0.
Or Reddit 1.0? That's what reddit used to be, and reddit got quite popular when it was like that.
I don't see how twitter changing ownership will change anything structurally at Twitter. Jack Dorsey started out as a free speech champion many years ago. The things people say cause real problems for real people and at some point the rubber meets the road. A large site like Twitter is at the mercy of the politics of the world.
Even stuff like "Twitter will comply with local laws" is a subtle concession to local censorship laws. Cracks in the facade are already appearing before Musk even owns twitter.
They do not.
They lock down specific, controversial threads in this manner when outsiders start making confrontational comments. AFAIK this was done because the racist vitriol proved impossible to moderate.
Reddit has huge "tyranny of the majority" problems and many communities spring up to essentially censor the speech of people outside of that community so people in that community can speak their mind without getting downvoted (I.E. censored) by the masses of Reddit. BlackPeopleTwitter has a system where all users that are not verified black users will be censored if the moderators deem it appropriate, which is perfectly reasonable. Is this racist censorship? Absolutely and yet it turns out that's not always a bad thing.
I find much of the discourse on free speech to be an oversimplification to the point of self-parody. I support the intentions of free speech but not a literal interpretation of what it means, which is just never censor anybody ever. That literally doesn't work and can't work, it's not a thing that's possible outside of a thought experiment, you'll end up getting DDOSed by speech.
If Musk can dial up the abuse on Twitter, Reddit 1.0 can live again.
Just remember, twitter does not give those people a megaphone. It's the media that report on their stupid shit that gives them an audience. Otherwise nobody would know what they're saying - especially the people who don't like them - and yet everyone knows who some of those people are.
I foresee measures coming to prevent coordinated attacks too large for simple blocking, but that will take some time.
He solves very few problems himself, personally, with ideas from his own mind. He just recognizes the people who will be able to solve the problems and brings problem and problem solver together.
There's no reason that should be less effective with Twitter than anything else.
Well, from that perspective I don't think it can get any worse.
Verified, real people will change the dynamic.
> Admitted he doesn't understand people, is a self-confessed troll & edgelord and and Tesla's culture seems less than ideal.
He got all those self-confessed trolls & edgelords together, created companies in hard sciences and made everyone rich in the process. I worked at Tesla, it was a good time.
Personally my reservations are because I think running a social media site is a lot about understanding people and defining a healthy culture for your elusive market place of ideas. Musk has admitted he doesn't understand people, is a self-confessed troll & edgelord and and Tesla's culture seems less than ideal. So lacks any of the qualifications I see as being needed to run something like Twitter. Maybe there's some other Musk magic that will do what so many others have failed to do.