So free speech absolutist means you tolerate incoherent yelling in all places at all times? While you're trying to focus and get work done? While you're trying to sleep? At your wedding? At a funeral?

I'd love to hear Mr. Musk define what he means by the term. I'm not the one claiming to be a free speech absolutist, he is.

I for instance am not a free speech absolutist. I think it's okay to deplatform people who are spreading misinformation about a global pandemic, or an election. But Mr. Musk apparently thinks that's bad.

So, we get to find out where he draws the line that he claims he doesn't have.

In the context of the current debate, I think a good faith reading of someone claiming to be a 'free speech absolutist' would be to interpret the internet as a public forum that is protected by speech guarantees enshrined by the first amendment despite the fact that they're hosted by private corporations. It probably doesn't mean child porn is okay. It probably doesn't mean direct exhortations of violence against specific individuals is okay. It's fair to say he can be more explicit in his definition, but it's easier for us to have a conversation if we try to interpret one another charitably.

The real test for whether or not Musk is being a hypocrite is whether or not he censors critics of him on Twitter. That is an apples to apples comparison. I think it's fair to say that continuing to pay people who criticize you is a different matter.

I think it's also fair to say that "absolutist" is not a correct term for him to use to describe himself.

This is observably what Musk seems to think free speech means when _he_ has the floor, but nobody else.

- Publicly attacking a man as a pedophile because he dismissed his submarine as an unworkable solution during the Thai cave rescue efforts.

- Cutting off analysts during a Tesla call, calling them boring and then soliciting fluff questions from the Internet.

Musk, like most free speech absolutists, is a hack. It's an argument used to allow _them_ to say words without repercussions.

He's such a hack! So terrible is Musk at leadership, he is only the richest man on the planet. Worst successful guy ever!

Being the richest man on earth does not absolve you of being called out for being a hypocritical douche?

I never understand this defense.

There are lessons one can take from successful people, but they not demigods. They're just people and people are often good and bad at the same time. Why do people defend them? If I make a controversial statement in a public forum, I should expect some uncomfortable criticism and they aren't entitled to any better treatment just because they can throw a wad of cash around.

If being the richest man on the planet proves anything, it’s probably not honesty and integrity.

If anything, being ruthless and deceptive are better traits to achieve this. Of course there are some exceptions. But I don’t think Musk is one.

Nice straw man you've got there. These employees weren't "incoherently yelling in all places at all times". They distributed a memo which criticized Elon. This should be very acceptable behaviour to a free speech absolutist like Musk.

> Shotwell's email to staff also said, "Blanketing thousands of people across the company with repeated unsolicited emails and asking them to sign letters and fill out unsponsored surveys during the work day is not acceptable."

Unsolicited blasting of the email, letter, and surveys to thousands of employees is the digital equivalent to "incoherently yelling in all places at all times."

I would expect nothing less from the woke-cancer employees. The productive members of the team must be relieved that the woke weight was shed.

using the word "woke" carries exactly zero weight with anyone other than people with the most basic primate-level understanding of social behavior

or more simply: by using that word you sound dumb

then again, maybe that's how you want to identify. who am I to say

Isn't it funny that the woke cancer employees want to shed the woke label, despite their claim of being "woke."

doubling down I see

It's telling that Musk's defenders have to stand up a hyperbolic caricature of the employee letter ("incoherent yelling at a wedding" in this case), rather than engage with what actually happened. This shows me that it's clear, even to his defenders, that firing employees for a letter criticizing Elon is an obvious contradiction to the spirit of his free speech moralizing, despite him being within his rights to fire them.

ab·so·lute adjective: absolute

1. not qualified or diminished in any way; total.

free adjective: free; comparative adjective: freer; superlative adjective: freest

1. not under the control or in the power of another; able to act or be done as one wishes.

hmm I wonder what 'free speech absolutist' means. maybe that one's freedom to speak is not qualified or diminished in any way? their freedom to speak is total?

Isn't this just "Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences"? No one is restricting their ability to speak, they are just restricting their ability to work at SpaceX.

What's the alternative? Does a free speech absolutist need to never make judgements on what he hears from someone's free speech? If I hear a person say he wants to murder me and my family, do I still need to invite him over for Thanksgiving dinner? Aren't I exerting some form of control of over him if I say you can't come into my home?

I think your view of the term "free speech absolutist" may make sense when analyzing the individual word meanings, but doesn't make sense as a phrase, and doesn't align with how self described free speech absolutists view themselves.

The point is that there’s no fundamental difference between “you are free to say what you want, but you might get fired from SpaceX” and “you are free to say what you want, but you might get banned from Twitter”. But people — including Elon! — act as if the former is normal and rational, while the latter is some sort of affront to a free society.

Most people would disagree that there's no fundamental difference between an employee-employer relationship and a user-service provider relationship.

Abstractly, in the sense that "freedom from speech is not freedom from consequences", I don't think they're fundamentally different. If you're a free speech absolutist, then the nature of the relationship shouldn't matter. They're both just private organizations making choices about how they voluntarily associate with others.

Most people aren't free speech absolutists, though, and I agree that they'd think there's a fundamental difference between employer-employee relationships and user-provider relationships as a whole. But it should be significantly harder for an employer to fire an employee than for a service provider to ban a user.

Not disagreeing with you, but elaborating on this 'you can say what you want, but you have to live with the consequences' idea.

It's a situation of monopoly. If consequences to speech prohibit one from an entire category of human need (one's life, ability to earn a living, ability to find housing, etc), then those consequences are in fact limiting speech. A 'cancellation' that makes someone unemployable is much more a prohibition on speech than being fired from a single job without affecting one's general ability to get hired. If Musk were to now work to get the signatories of the letter blacklisted from broader employment this becomes an issue.

The problem is that platforms on the internet benefit from network effects and become quasi-monopolistic. If there were platforms with similar reach as Twitter that allowed the speech that Twitter does not allow, whether or not Twitter censors would be kind of a moot point.

Everyone already has what you are describing by default, anyone anywhere can say anything at all, the issue is whatever consequences come from that, be it jail time like in Russia for speaking about the war, or losing your job at SpaceX.

Being a free speech absolutist is meaningless if you are going to fire people the moment they say something you don't like.

I don't think anyone would claim that a place where you have free speech, but you might just get murdered by your government for your free speech, is a place where free speech exists

Free speech implies a certain amount of freedom from consequences of that speech.

If you are a free speech absolutist, it would mean believing in no consequences.

> Free speech implies a certain amount of freedom from consequences of that speech.

Yes. Like not getting banned from the public square for giving your speech, or not getting arrested by the government for your free speech. No one has ever argued that truly free speech means no one can judge you on what you are saying.

> If you are a free speech absolutist, it would mean believing in no consequences.

It would mean either that, or that you are using the phrase in a different manner than other people who use the phrase.

I find this whole exercise silly. I view it as

1) I don't like someone

2) Someone says he is X

3) To me, X means Y

4) Someone is not a Y

5) Therefore, someone is a hypocrite and (1) is justified.

>It would mean either that, or that you are using the phrase in a different manner than other people who use the phrase.

Words have meaning, if they didn't then there would be no such thing as hypocrisy because everyone could just have their own little definition for a term or title they want to adopt but not be burdened to live by.

To Elon rules apply to thee and not me, these firings are text book hypocrisy.

Words have meaning, but that doesn't mean that:

1) The meaning of a phrase is the same as the meaning of stringing together the individual word definitions of the phrase.

2) There is a universally accepted, obvious definition of a phrase

I think you could reasonably call yourself a free speech absolutist, because you will never kick someone out of the public square for saying their peace, but you are still be allowed to not invite that person to your house for dinner.

>I think you could reasonably call yourself a free speech absolutist, because you will never kick someone out of the public square for saying their peace, but you are still be allowed to not invite that person to your house for dinner.

What you describe is just regular ole free speech.

Then whatever Twitter is/was does not align with "regular ole free speech", based on the people they've banned from their public square (and yes, public squares can be on private property).

There is no comparison between public debate within the letter of the law and what a private company does with insubordinate employees that are disrupting the business.

if you don't mean that, then why use the word "absolute"?

if there are exceptions then it isn't absolute

Its also pretty ambiguous what that means.