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One could argue that but one would be wrong because cross-posting is clearly allowed if you read the whole policy instead of just the first section.

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One could argue a clear definition of "cross posting" should be provided before assuming it'd be allowed. A policy like this is going to have a chilling effect regardless, due to the ambiguity. It's also a quite absurd for a free-speech platform to even have such a policy in the first place, even if it's attempting to reign in "direct promotion" rather than sharing content across platforms.

> At both the Tweet level and the account level, we will remove any free promotion of prohibited 3rd-party social media platforms, such as linking out (i.e. using URLs) to any of the below platforms on Twitter, or providing your handle without a URL.

The fact that the first explanatory paragraph calls these other platforms "prohibited 3rd-party social media platforms" is confusing at best.

> It's also a quite absurd for a free-speech platform to even have such a policy in the first place

It does make sense for a paid-speech platform, though.

Also, as a thought experiment, if Twitter were a part of the fediverse, wouldn’t this policy essentially be the same as defederating from the prohibited sites?

I’m new to the concept of the fediverse, so I welcome edification or enlightenment on that thought experiment.

No. If your instance defederates from another you can still link to it (though you might get banned if you link to something nasty, depending on your instance's rules). Defederating simply prevents your instance from automatically pulling posts from the other instance, aka the status quo for non-federated platforms.

>It does make sense for a paid-speech platform, though.

What is a "paid-speech platform" exactly? Twitter is just going to be for press releases and advertisers now?

It would also be absurd for a node that claims to implement free-speech absolutism to defederate from any particular node. It would also be absurd to stay federated with nodes that you claim are prohibited while telling people on your node to still cross-post content from these nodes.

> Twitter is just going to be for press releases and advertisers now?

It wasn't already?

I agree with you that the policy should be clearer and I agree there's a chilling effect and I agree that it's absurd. However I disagree that the policy is so unclear that Twitter would be at all likely to interpret it as applying to the specific case of Carmack's post, as OP is arguing. Using fallacious arguments like that weakens your position rather than strengthening it. We can do better.

I don't think it's a fallacious argument when the terms "prohibited sites" & "prohibited platforms" are used instead of "prohibited promotion" & what they deem to be cross-posting is not defined. We could assume best intentions, but given that the policy seems to be from a place of bad intentions, I wouldn't grant the benefit of the doubt.

> the policy seems to be from a place of bad intentions, I wouldn't grant the benefit of the doubt.

The problem with arguing this way is it can't possibly ever convince anyone who doesn't already agree with you. It's a great way to get both sides arguing past each other.

If you're in the right then you can be charitable to the other side and still make your points. That's the only way you'll be heard. Unless all you care about is preaching to the choir. Then go ahead, but I won't join you. It's a good way to farm karma, but a bad way to argue.

Is the policy not from a place of bad intentions? It's clearly a ploy to try to trap users on Twitter, preventing them from promoting their presence on alternative platforms.

Is it not vague and poorly worded in a fashion that could give the impression that sharing links to other platforms might be prohibited? Is this ambiguity perhaps a feature and not a bug?

I find faux-free-speech supporters rely on ambiguity to mask their actual intentions. I would much rather people focus on asking more explicit questions and requesting explicit answers.

It's not a "ploy". Preventing people from promoting their presence on other platforms is the literal stated purpose of the policy. Clearly someone who agrees with the policy would not label that "a place of bad intentions". So if you were to argue with them charitably, you would have to understand why they think it's not bad and convince them that it is bad, not just state it. Of course I agree with you, and I think there are plenty of good arguments to be made! But starting off accusing people of having bad intentions is counterproductive if you want to convince them.

I don't think the policy actually explains its purpose (i.e. why banning these links is necessary), only its application. It discusses the "what", not the "why". This omission is probably also intentional.

I don't think it takes too much brain effort to figure out the problematic nature of the policy given the context of Twitter. If someone cannot, I am not really here to coddle them, or try to convince them otherwise. The only person who can actually answer these questions & clarify the policy is Musk, and I doubt he has any genuine interest in doing so.

There's no need to defend Elon here. Clearly what will happen is highly capricious enforcement based on who he personally likes and dislikes.

Don't ascribe motivations to me without evidence. This is not a defense of Elon Musk. I think this policy is stupid. But our criticisms of it should be correct. Otherwise we're no better than our opponents.

There is tons and tons of evidence that Musk is moderating capriciously at this point.

You misunderstand. The person he was ascribing motivations to was me. My intent is not to defend Musk here.

> You should stop ascribing motivations to people without evidence.

I very much agree, however doing that first requires that one is able to perceive reality without making errors, and that is a lot harder than it seems.

As for censorship: all platforms have it, including HN, and opinions (aka: reality) vary on which approach is best.

I think it is pretty clear this is the case, I mean look at any post he has responded to with dislike in the last month -- every day there is a queue of disabled accounts that have interacted with musk or poked his thin skin.

At the end of the day as far as i am concerned its a dead platform -- just the ad reductions against the 1bn + interest means the runway is on fire. Whatever elon does at this point is just pretending to do work effort while juggling balls in the air. It is clear he will not only tank twitter but given he has already hit a sell off cliff on tesla shares he will be licky to have any relevent input on that corp in the near future.

I'm talking about this policy, not Musk. I think the policy is stupid and I think we should argue against it. "Musk won't follow the policy" is not a criticism of the policy. There's plenty of room here to criticize the policy on its own merits.

Honestly I think he was defending the idea of 'read the whole thing' & not Elon.

I do share your prediction that given the ambiguous wording of the cross posting section this will likely involve the feelings of the supreme leader of twitter.

> There's no need to defend Elon here.

There is at least arguably value in defending/pursuing the truth though.

> Clearly what will happen is highly capricious enforcement based on who he personally likes and dislikes.

Visions of the future are sometimes not as accurate as they appear due to shortcomings in the simulator.

> > There's no need to defend Elon here.

> There is at least arguably value in defending/pursuing the truth though.

Indeed, it seems to simply be the case that the company is supporting “paid speech”.

Perhaps, but whether that is actually true is the tricky part....though truth seems to be not very interesting/fun to some cultures, so they instead imagine "truth" into existence and discuss that instead.

If no one breaks character (so far so good in this thread), it works out really good, ignoring the consequences of course.

The policy states "content that contains links of usernames" will be subject to removal.

I think the "cross-posting" that the article is referring to is e.g. downloading a TikTok to reupload it to Twitter, or screenshotting Instagram or whatever. Elon can't risk LibsOfTikTok's entire account falling under violation.

I could be wrong about that interpretation of the policy though, because the wording is probably intentionally vague.

TikTok isn’t on the banned platforms at all, which they claim is because its content is different, but may really be because Elon can’t antagonize China.

Of course this is also banned under EU law. (of course it is, everything is banned under EU law)

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