That's explicitly not the logic EFF is using; they come close to outright rejecting it.

> ... when the amount of impressions are no longer worth doing it for

> The Numbers Aren't Working Out

I don't know. That's front and center. Can to share how that's an "outright rejection"?

They explicitly say they're staying on other platforms whose ideologies they don't agree with.

Because there's enough people there to be worth it

It's like how the Soviets and the Americans were allies in world war II, the pros outweighed the cons

Was it costing a lot of money or resources to say on X? If they got few impressions what does it matter? You can write the content once.

> Was it costing a lot of money or resources to say on X?

Yes.

> If they got few impressions what does it matter?

Because, it was costing a lot of money or resources to stay on X. Kind of an odd follow up to your previous question.

> You can write the content once.

Pretty sure they know how to write content considering we are reading it.

I’m pretty sure it doesn’t fit with the founders intention.

“We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.”

Apparently X.com doesn’t fit in that world anymore.

Yes.... because..... "the amount of impressions are worth doing it for"

You can't just ignore complete sentences because it hurts your narrative.

"They explicitly say they're staying on other platforms whose ideologies they agree with."

Why would you say that? That's a lie?

Oh wait... it sucks when people just remove important parts of what you say. Don't lie. It's not good.

What exactly has Elon done to limit your freedom? For me, Elon has increased my freedom because I can read about certain viewpoints that were previously censored on Twitter.

You are being, and have been, played. What is happening to the left now is exactly what you thought was happening to the right before Elon.

"Thought was happening" is an interesting way to put it when they most certainly were being censored, and we know that we're even colluding with the FBI to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story.

Not to say that they're not doing the inverse now, but to paint it as some misconception that the inverse was happening before is just disingenuous.

Bro. He's still censoring viewpoints. He's also boosting his ideological viewpoints, which diminishes the reach of everything else.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/how-elon-musk-uses-his...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/04/23/business/elon...

Which is the issue? That’s he’s censoring, or that he’s sharing his own viewpoints? Your argument that the latter causes the former is not convincing, as there are plenty of opposing views on Twitter that get exposure.

The fact that my post got flagged (edit: now unflagged) is maybe indicative that the differing viewpoint is the concern.

I don't even see the option to flag a users post. is it some HN elite option?

It's not available to new users (I think there is a "karma" threshold but not sure about the exact number) and you need to to a direct link to the comment (e.g. click the time in the comment header) to see the option.

The first article merely states that Elon has some fairly common concerns, which are amplified because he is popular. It's deceptively framed as if he has the finger on the scale.

That plus journalists have a strong bone to pick with X because they aren't given preferential treatment over the rest of the userbase with VIP blue checkmarks like they used to.

Back in the day if you saw a blue checkmark they were either celebrities, politicians, or journalists. And they were always featured heavily in the old Twitter trending algorithm. The checkmark also made their Tweets standout among the plebs.

He ran DOGE and illegally destroyed science and arts funding across the US government. [0] He continues to interfere in elections, committing what is likely fraud. He silences viewpoints that disagree with him on twitter and routinely interferes with grok’s training to promote his own viewpoints.

Oh and he begged to visit Epstein’s child sex slavery island. [2]

I get that your moral compass might not be fully functional, but I draw the line at fascism, treason, and pedophilia.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Government_Effic...

[1] https://www.thebulwark.com/p/yes-elon-musk-vote-buying-is-ag...

[2] https://people.com/emails-reveal-that-elon-musk-asked-jeffre...

Which viewpoints?

I mean any conservative view points? Immigration, DEI policies, euthanasia, pro life, gender roles, trans sexuality..

Discuss any of these on Twitter would get you banned, until Musk took over. It still does on many left leaning platforms, including Youtube, Twitch, BlueSky, etc.

HN is the only platform I've participated in that tends to allow opposing view points (albeit more left leaning).

If EFF wants to declare that it's now a Left leaning activist entity and doesn't like to engage wit other people, that's fine, I'd rather they just say that instead and be honest.

You can discuss all of those things just fine, both now and then. I have, and never got banned for any of them.

The problem is online/MAGA conservatives don't want to discuss those things. I've never talked to any online conservative who had anything new or interesting to say about any of those things.

“A man can never be a woman” and “ok dude” got people banned on old Twitter.

Well the first is just plain old bog-standard bigotry. What was the "ok dude" in response to?

If anything not in agreement with far left viewpoints is "bog-standard bigotry" and gets you banned then that's the opposite of being able to discuss those topics.

No ‘a man can never be a woman’ is a fact and mainstream view. Disliking your sex isn't an innate characteristic and you have no right to force others to believe your illusion or participate in your gender performance.

More to the point you just claimed discussion of these matters wasn’t ever suppressed and then attempted to suppress discussion of them by claiming this was bigoted.

You're denying the existence of a marginalized group and claiming, "there is no bigotry here!" You see that that is risible, right?

People with gender dysphoria exist. THey are not marginalised: they have the same rights as every other person has. It is not bigotry to not participate in their gender performance, because gender performance is not an innate characteristic, as already mentioned to you in the comment you're replying to.

And in soviet Russia you can criticize the government all you want --- as long as you're criticizing the American government.

I don’t think your argument holds, or at least, there is missing data. We have a different administration now, and I suspect it significantly reduced the number takedown requests, maybe by an order of magnitude. I would expect that the remaining requests are for unambiguous legal issues and therefore have a higher rate of granting them.

> freedom is intersectional

What is your working definition of freedom? I'm interested in replying but I'd like to engage with you on your terms.

> You don’t have a freedom to make anyone else agree with or believe in your views…

No one has asserted this.

If your views suck, people have the freedom to say "ok, bye".

(Musk asserts otherwise, of course. https://www.npr.org/2025/02/01/nx-s1-5283271/elon-musk-lawsu...)

> the point is don't pretend leaving is a moral stance when it's just a preference

So I'm not free to assert moral reasons for my actions?

Nobody claimed that. The person you’re replying to quite clearly stated you shouldn’t pretend a preference is a moral stance.

I think that's the point. The owner of X as well as most of the remaining denizens are actively working on taking away the freedom of others to believe in their own views and make them adhere to their beliefs.

That works until that person is influential enough to sway political and social conditions drastically

so the argument is that someone is so influential their tweets are basically mind control, but also you need to leave the platform to stop them? if musk is that powerful, your absence from x isn't doing anything. and if he's not that powerful, then you're just mad about a guy you disagree with having a big megaphone.

"freedom is intersectional" is a fancy way of saying "I only support freedom for people I agree with." and the impressions line at the end is basically admitting it was never about principles, it was about clout. you didn't leave the platform because of ethics, you left because the algorithm stopped paying you for it.

>"freedom is intersectional" is a fancy way of saying "I only support freedom for people I agree with."

That is the exact opposite of what that means. It means freedom should be supported for all, especially for the oppressed. Those who stand for oppression in one way serve to benefit other forms of oppression

What? Freedom of association implicitly means freedom not to associate. It is not at all incompatible with freedom to say, "I don't want to hang out with those guys because they suck."

I believe in freedom of speech for people that I don't want to talk to. There is no contradiction in that.

that's fair, but nobody here was arguing you can't leave. the point is that the original post framed leaving as some grand moral act of defending intersectional freedom when it's just choosing not to hang out somewhere. you're allowed to do that. just don't dress it up as activism.

Universality of human rights is a great principle that breaks down horribly the moment it makes contact with people who do not want you to have those rights. Like, even if you're a single-issue free speech maximalist, it is entirely self-defeating to argue that censorious tyrants should be afforded the benefits of free speech. The only purpose tyrants have of free speech is to use it to amass power to destroy free speech.

And yes, to be clear, Elon Musk is a censorious tyrant. All the big tech leaders are, both because some of them started out as outright fascists and because the rules of the tech CEO game are, in the Nash equilibrium, unfavorable to liberal ideals.

Dehumanization is another common tactic of tyrants. You look at the group of dissidents you want to censor, identify those who are weak enough to silence, and use your control over society and government to make them pay for not being on their side. Rinse and repeat until you've salami-sliced away every dissident's rights. The only effective means of stopping dehumanization is to render it ineffective by making lots of friends who understand and defend against these attacks. [0] The interminably dense social justice literature uses jargon terms like "solidarity" and "intersectionality", which seem almost calculated to piss off the unenlightened into reflexively opposing social justice because we might as well be wizards chanting Latin curses at people to sound smart. But the idea is simple.

So yes, freedom is intersectional - because it it ultimately comes from the people as a whole exercising their power to check the power of tyrants.

[0] "Apes together strong", in case HN doesn't render emoji correctly.

"the only purpose tyrants have of free speech is to use it to destroy free speech" says who? you? so you get to read minds now, know exactly why someone wants to speak, and preemptively decide they don't deserve to? that's just you picking winners not defending free speech

and you didn't call every tech CEO a fascist but you did call them all censorious tyrants who operate against liberal ideals. which is a fun thing to say on a website where you're freely saying it. if the tyrants are this bad at tyranny maybe they're not actually tyrants.

That's circular nonsense. It makes you someone who doesn't want others to have speech. It's not self defeating, it's the entire point of defending universal rights, especially speech.

You throw around terms like "Dehumanization" while referencing people you specifically disagree with using names like "tyrants".. without even hint of irony.

Fallacies, like the paradox of tolerance specifically, is a paradox expressly because it makes the invoker guilty of the very thing they justify their actions on. Even as a flawed and useless concept (in a free society at least) it was only ever meant to be used theoretically as a last ditch emergency response. And certainly not simply as means to control unfavorable or illiberal thought.

Worse yet, it's all predicated on the claims that "they would have totally did it to me if i didn't do it first" Which brings up the other flawed aspect of the concept.. It becomes a race to silence the other side first.. Of course that's assuming it was the intent of both to begin with. Not used merely as a tool of political oppression.