Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, recently described himself as a "free speech absolutist."
It's also no secret that he's very much fine with Claqueurs and boot lickers, but amusingly thin-skinned when it comes to critique aiming at his person, ideas, or companies. He even shut down his personal "The Onion"-clone for fear of its activity might reflect badly on him or one of his companies at some point in the future [0].
[0] https://www.mic.com/p/elon-musks-first-foray-into-comedy-was...
Anyone can circulate letters in spacex, but spacex can fire you.
You can say whatever you want. That doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences.
Critics of free speech need to realise this is a silly debate between them, no “free speech absolutist” wants speech without consequences. This is basically a NYT and CNN talking point and nothing to do with reality.
The place is context and result is comletely different.
Does everyone these days feel the need to become a martyr over completely insignificant personal opinions about all kinds of drivel that doesn't even affect them personally?
Is this really the hill some of you want to die on, because it's more important to you to discuss the relevance of genitals with billions of people, than to just keep this shit to yourself and maybe rage about it offline with friends and family and keep your job and future prospects?
Do you really have so little going on in your lives that you absolutely must have a strong opinion about everyone and everything and just have to share this in the most public, traceable, and persistent way possible, lest your mind implodes from all the piled up internal stress?
You might not like that, but I do.
And in case you don't believe the truly terrible effects of this, have a read in the detrans subreddit.
Trans groups are wide and varied. You will find plenty who believe in the weight of the decision and that it should be made accordingly.
This doesn’t excuse the huge amount of disrespect and hurt that gets thrown towards someone because they ask to be identified as a man or a woman. Just the other day someone burned a pride flag in Baltimore and ended up burning down three houses and sending four people to the hospital.
Surely in their mind somewhere, there was a thought that they were saving children from a “delusion”. But in this instance who has the delusion?
Heck, back then just a word from a disgruntled neighbour could land you a visit from the feds and potential jailtime. Today, it's getting banned from some oh-so-irrelevant social media platform that gets people all riled up.
You want to know what high consequences are? Outing yourself as homosexual in Iraq, Suda, Saudi-Arabia, or Jemen. All these countries can have you sentenced to death for just expressing your love to an individual of the same gender - or worse, just being accused of doing so.
It's truly fascinating how whiny some folks are about potentially facing negative consequences for trouble they voluntarily and willingly getting themselves into for no reason and over miniscule BS they just want to rage about.
Instead of doing the grown-up thing and writing letters to their representatives - you know, the people you elected to care about such issues and pass legislation that reflects your interests - they instead want to stand on a pedestal and shout their opinions for all the world to hear.
If you want to try and convince people, go talk to them. Do it in a context where it actually matters, like a school board meeting where rules are discussed that go against your conviction. No one's stopping you and no one's going to "cancel" you for doing so.
Honest to god question: what did people do in the early 1990s, 1980s, 1970s, etc.? Did they all spend their free time writing angry letters to newspapers, TV- and radio stations and have heated discussions in the middle of time square shouting their opinion at every passer by?
I mean we all know what you are saying here. It is objectively wrong. And yes, if you profess it, I genuinely hope you could not find employment for the rest of your life, subject to squalor and begging for chump change on the street corner.
That would be the ideal world.
If he is trying to be a free-speech absolutist in terms of every opinion being heard equally and fairly without punishment, which is what absolutist implies, he is also a hypocrite as shown in his numerous actions against critics.
Overall, no matter how you spin and turn it, Musk is not a free-speech "absolutist" in any way. He has no specific position on free-speech other than what has the basic law that applies to every citizen.
What a joke.
These employees should have expected this reaction; Musk doesn't seem like the type to pass up executing his right to impose consequences. Hopefully they were prepared and have achieved some of the impact they were hoping for.
I am pretty sure that is exactly what many many people have stated, implied, campaigned for etc.
Its a core part of the culture war
Except when that consequence is being banned from twitter, apparently.
Free speech, refers to public speech, and especially in the context of the state not creating laws / rules that stifle dissent or criticism of the state or those holding public office
Free speech does not mean speak anything and it certainly does not mean my speech may not have any downstream effects.
As far as I can tell, the only intellectual consistency within that movement is that the people pushing it want to be allowed to say anything they want anywhere they want, without any consequences.
The comment I replied to before is a non sequitur, this doesn't mean what Musk is doing is right, simply that mindlessly upvoting a Trump-rally-tier argument is not conducive to anything good.
Eventually HN will become reddit and we'll just upvote "our side", regardless of whether the argument has merit.
Example: you are free to verbally shit all over your boss and company in public; just don't expect to work there for much longer.
Another example: you are free to call the 1.93m thug who bumped into you a blind idiot, just don't expect to face no physical consequences for exercising your right to give him a piece of your mind.
It's funny how some people try and make this a political issue when it's really not and never has been.
It's like being banned from the regulars' table for constantly being a nuisance and then complaining to the bartender that your former buddies don't want you at their table anymore.
His speech comments were always about public discourse. Not private organizational. In Twitter feed we are all equal. In Twitter internal there is hierarchy.
On the other hand, if someone posted something critical of a government policy (pick your poison), that is also protected free speech, in the United States. In this case, retribution from an employer, the (public) platform where it was posted, and the government should all be prohibited. The speaker should expect that future employers not care about policy preferences, only that the speaker can perform the job for which they are hired.
>Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy.
>Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?
70% of people, including Musk and the consequences promised are all just plain wrong.
Clearly the the government (local, state, or national) is not punishing the speaker of any tweets, never has done, doesnt have any intention to etc - so what is the big deal, who are we "saving freedome of speech" from?
Also last time I checked, being critical of one's employer is neither a crime nor a violation of any employment contract that I have ever signed. Its a bad look sure, but to be honest it is boardering on a 1984 thought crime if you are instantly fired if you think your boss is a bit of a dick.