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Comment by mlindner | Hacker News Reader

People keep misconstruing his opinion on free speech. His opinion on free speech isn't "freedom to say anything anywhere to anyone and have no repercussions". He specifically believes Twitter should be treated as a virtual town square, i.e. you can say what you like without fear from being removed from the town square, but it has zero bearing on what people say about you on that town square.

SpaceX is not a town square and never will be, nor is any private company. I doubt even Twitter employees will be able to say what they like on Twitter without fear of being fired from Twitter. It's only about removing you from the platform.

There's no hypocrisy, it lines up exactly with his past actions and his past words.

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This is exactly correct. It absolutely lines up with his stance that everything he does or wants to do is fine and probably good, and that people that are not him should suffer consequences.

But Twitter isn't a town square either. It's a private company. No one is guaranteed an audience.

Arguing that Twitter ought to moderate itself according to free speech principles isn't denying Twitter's right to free speech. I'm not going to stan Musk specifically, but this is a common misunderstanding (the general formulation being something like: "criticizing someone's free speech violates their free speech!", which is patently untrue).

Precisely. Which is why he wants to acquire it and move it in the direction he has in mind.

Twitter the company isn't supposed to be a town square, you are correct. Twitter the product is, though. Whether that's how you see it or not, is a separate question, but those two positions on Twitter aren't mutually exclusive.

This makes as much sense as saying a United Airlines jet is a public forum, and your rights are being trampled on if you can't take a shit in the aisle.

Both are private property.

If you assume that either everything is supposed to be a public forum or nothing is, then yeah. Otherwise, no.

Both are private property, yes. And you are correct that twitter legally has as much right to do whatever they want with their product and restrict it however they want as United Airlines does. That's not the point being made here at all and has nothing to do with the discussion at hand.

The parent comment I originally replied to was saying "how can twitter even he a public square if it is a private company, that's a contradiction". And I was just saying that there is nothing preventing a private company from having a product that behaves like a public square, hence that isn't a contradiction or an oxymoron.

The government is meant to serve the public good. The workings of the government are oft opaque, and may need to be concealed, in the pursuit of that public good.

Thus stands the difference. Capisce?

Yes that's the entire point of contention here. Twitter is a company, its management can choose to treat it more like a town square or more like a closed network with stricter content mediation rules. Elon wants it to be more like a town square.

On the other hand he tries to silence any unfavorable sayings about him or his companies. For a free speech absolutist, he loves himself a good NDA.

NDAs are a private matter and involve contract law which has nothing to do with free speech.

This was beautifully articulated and I'll be using it in the future. Thank you!

Musk isn't your friend, but it's your fantasy so you do you.

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