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Comment by Klinky | Hacker News Reader

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.

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> 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.

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