Comment by bentlegen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bentlegen | Hacker News Reader

I decided to quit Twitter after Elon decided it was appropriate for him to deface the public profile of a national news institution (the CBC).

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/04/musk-feuds-with-...

If you upset Twitter’s boss, there is a non-zero chance he will retaliate by using his mod powers to customize your profile to say what he wants. This is undisputably true.

The old guard may have banned accounts for reasons you may have disagreed with, but imagine if they went in and wrote “huge loser” on someone’s profile in a way you could never remove unless you capitulated to the CEO’s personal demands.

I don’t understand how anyone can rationally claim that this system is “better”, unless you’re a partisan who’s happy as long as the victims continue to be people you disagree with.

He applied a factual label to the account. The real question is why would you be upset about it?

Here’s an example of a factual label: I was born a biological man. If I choose to omit my gender from my profile, and Elon insists that my biological gender must be present because of some comments I made — and only on my particular profile, of course — he is both factually correct and executing a kind of political reprisal.

It’s the same thing. It doesn’t matter if the label is factual or not. It’s the intimidation intent behind the label.

Elon is not highlighting, for example, how much funding Tesla receives. He’s selectively applying labels with a political calculus. But I believe you already know that.

What you're describing is transphobic. It's a completely different kind of thing. This isn't discrimination.

Ok, let’s say instead he decides to label every journalist that published a “pro-vaccine” article with a “has published articles that promote vaccines” tag on their profile instead. He makes no modifications to anybody else’s profile.

This statement is factually correct, does not infringe on anybody’s rights, and you’d have to be naive if it was not done with some kind of purpose.

To be clear, I am not accusing Elon of being transphobic or promoting an anti-vax agenda. I am highlighting how “it’s factually true” does not mean it is appropriate.

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