There’s the immediate issues of the policy. But there’s the bigger issue of the thought process that led to the policy. One of Elons central criticism of old Twitter management was unfair content moderation policy. And almost immediately he enacts a far worse content policy than anything old management did, in a brazen display of hypocrisy.
Even if he reverses course on this one issue, he’s demonstrated that any previous advocacy for free speech was completely disingenuous. He wants to run Twitter like he’s the dictator of a banana republic. And any time you spend on the platform strengthens his ability to do so.
It was disturbing and confusing watching people like pg and Lex Fridman seemingly throw their apparent principles to the wind tolerating this type of behavior. I do sympathize there was some ambiguity about Elons plans for Twitter before this last week but with the banning of journalists and the banning of links to Mastodon, that ambiguity has been removed.
I’m relieved pg took a stand here but like you I wish it was a much stronger one.