I'm no expert in Twitter, but I have heard many people of note complain about receiving death threats on Twitter. One example:
https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-dea...
> Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has revealed that some mornings she starts her day by reading the death threats she has received from men on Twitter.
Making a death threat, or a threat of violence, is not protected speech, it is a crime. Can you clarify why you think the new owners will look the other way at crimes being committed on their platform?
Also, if it was already happening (up to and including "minor celebrity blames Twitter for their recent issue with a fan stalking them"), is this the trajectory you see regardless of ownership? And if not how will new ownership contribute to it?
If Twitter, under the previous leadership was full of death threats to leftists, and the new leadership is promising less moderation actions taken against the sort of people who make those threats, it seems reasonable to assume that those threats will continue or get worse
Less moderation to the point of not taking actions against content which is criminal, i.e. threatening violence?
> new leadership is promising less moderation actions taken against the sort of people who make those threats
I think there is some leap in logic here, which is that conservatives are more likely to be criminals, but if that holds then banning them from the platform for non criminal offences will reduce the amount of criminals on the platform, however you will also be banning people who are not criminals in the process, and this does not really seem like a terribly morally sound thing to be doing. How many steps from banning people from twitter for conservative views to reduce crime to jailing people who frequent bars because they are more likely to be criminals? If your only value is to reduce crime, then I'm not sure I see where the breaks are.
Yes, obviously. Because Musk sure isn't pushing for more of this oversight.
The correlation runs the other way. Mass shooters and people who carry out acts of political violence in the US are overwhelmingly driven by conspiracy "logic" that has recently been embraced by the right; Qanon, pizza parlor conspiracies, racism, etc.
Because, put plainly: I don't think there's much reason to expect Musk to take them seriously.The previous management had only minimal capability to curb this behavior, or claimed they did, because of scale. They'd deal with cases that rose to the top, but not a lot more. Musk, on the other hand, is ideologically congruent with much of it, and there are no indications that his yelling about "free speech, especially for the right wing" comes with consequences or even minor disapproval for that speech when you use it to threaten to kill somebody.
Maybe I'm wrong. I don't think so, though.
Absence of indication is not indication of absence though.
Another way to look at it that by having less strict moderation, and keeping moderation mainly focused on unprotected speech such as incitement or threats, you have more resources to go after unprotected speech.
> Maybe I'm wrong. I don't think so, though.
Fair enough.
>Can you clarify why you think the new owners will look the other way at crimes being committed on their platform?
The old owners only did what they had to when the threats floated to the surface of the lagoon. The new owner has explicitly said that free speech means free speech. I believe overt threats of violence (read: I will kill X on June 5, 2023) will be addressed, but anything that can be played off as "satire" or "joking" (Read: somebody should kill X. lol jk) will be ignored, if not promoted for the extra eyes and clicks.
>is this the trajectory you see regardless of ownership?
No. I believe with old ownership we would see what we currently have in perpetuity. There was no innovation from Twitter, but there was also no real negative change either. Status quo.
>And if not how will new ownership contribute to it?
From what I read/see, Elon Musk espouses the view that people who disagree with him are lesser than. I believe he genuinely thinks he is better than everyone else; smarter, stronger, faster, better. I believe he will see people who act and think the same way (read: toxic) on Twitter, and automatically defend them if not outright promote them. This group will include people who incite violence.
The internet has existed for decades with laxer moderation and nothing like this has happened - seems like you're making some hidden assumptions about how the political climate will evolve that are pretty questionable.
Twitter has no real impact on polarization on politics especially in the US. The problems of the US are first past the post elections, the broken 19th century style primaries, people literally not having enough money to take a day off to vote and/or being too burnt out daily to give a shit about politics.
The result is the extremes get a very very loud voice since they are the only ones with nothing better to do. Twitter suddenly being more "free and open" means the extremes get an even louder voice.
Your average person making up most of the population just wants to kick back and relax from the daily grind. Not go argue on twitter.
The toxic threats even sometimes come from twitter staff and insiders, for example when Coinbase announced their no-politics-at-work policy, Twitter's former CEO Dick Costolo tweeted in reply that that Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong would be "lined up against the wall and shot in the revolution. I’ll happily provide video commentary".
The fish rots from the head.
I'll bite on this one. For reference, I personally believe Elon Musk is a degenerate blowhard who has literally zero concept of what life actually is like for billions of people on the planet, nor does he care. I believe he belongs to the class of people known as 'parasites'. Here's my take:
1 year: Initially, we'll see improvements. Dead weight is cut, along with some live branches, but we see improvements. More free and open speech, I believe he will follow through on that. Fringe groups have a louder voice and can find people to join their causes, leading to further polarization of politics across the globe, and especially in the US.
3 Years: Quality and use is declining as celebrities and politicians have begun to move away from Twitter due to constant abuse from toxic individuals, up to and including "vague" threats of violence. A minor celebrity blames Twitter for their recent issue with a fan stalking them.
5 Years: Twitter is dead. There was a political assassination that was formed, planned, and tweeted/broadcast from Twitter live. This may be a state level politician or federal, but it will be someone many people know the name of. Elon Musk blames the engineers for not properly implementing his AI software intended to prevent this sort of thing from happening.