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Comment by LAC-Tech | Hacker News Reader

Seems reasonable.

Let's all remember the spirit of '20, everyone: Twitter is a private company, if you don't like it build your own twitter!

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People absolutely should.

And people should also hold Musk to account for being a liar and a hypocrite. These things don't conflict.

"He who has not sinned shall cast the first stone"

Yes now we are finally at the point where the “free speech absolutism” stuff is dropped and we can have an honest discussion about why linking to a Facebook profile is somehow more objectionable than posting transphobic content.

It's not reasonable for someone claiming free speech absolutism & unbiased moderation. You do make a good point by pointing out Musk could have just built his own social media platform instead of crying about the moderation and blowing $44B on Twitter, only to fail to make good on his promise of free speech.

It is, and they can do what they like! I have moved to Mastodon without too much fuss and I'm enjoying it so far.

Does that mean it's a good idea, that it's not rank hypocrisy, or that it's in any way in the spirit of a "marketplace of ideas"? No.

Let's say I was a person rooting for Twitter under Musk to succeed; even viewing it through that lens, this seems really really super dumb, and I can't imagine people sticking around if they can't promote their work elsewhere.

It's his business, but that doesn't necessarily rationalize it. Jack Dorsey's Twitter, for as oblivious and misguided as it was, didn't stop people from connecting on other sites. This is a top-down decision to lock everyone in the Hellsite, and I'm pretty sure this will be the tipping point for most average users.

>I'm pretty sure this will be the tipping point for most average users

I don't think so. Musk is doing the same thing Trump did - a new outrage every day to keep the masses coming back. It's far more important to generate controversy than anything else and he can get a whole new day of Twitter views when he changes the policy again next week.

I mean I don’t think Musks critics are asking for the government to intervene here (well, other than those pointing out it might violates EU regs).

I was pretty cynical about his purchase and Im not terribly happy about being proven right. My hope is that he gets bored with it, sells it, and it gets a boring new owner that’s less ideological.

Yeah, the post you're responding to is missing that the responses to right-wing concerns about censorship were responding to "principled" free speech absolutism or a desire for government intervention.

There were left-wing critiques of twitter's moderation all of the time, but I don't recall seeing anyone on here advocating for government intervention to tweak it.

Posts like the one you're responding to are parroting the arguments without understanding what the arguments were actually against.

That's exactly what they've done, and that's what Musk cannot stand.

Obviously people are building their own platforms, or else Elon wouldn’t feel the need for this policy.

They did, and it is called mastodon.

> if you don't like it build your own twitter

What's the problem with critique? I mean we know Musk does not like it in any way, shape, or form, he has made that oh so very clear. But complaining about Twitter is not officially against Twitter rules (yet).

Also, we are not even on Twitter here, are we?

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