X Purges Prominent Journalists, Leftists with No Explanation
vice.com
vice.com
It's possible (not saying this is what happened though) that this is just mistake and their accounts will be reinstated shortly.
Or maybe Elon did personally ban these journalists. If it turned out he didn't though I think a lot of you guys need to reconsider your biases.
Those two things combined are enough that it is reasonable to criticize him when a bias appears to occur. Of course, critics must be careful not to be too unreasonable. But such behavior as his is antithetical to big trust-based systems (e.g. moderation of large, entrenched social platforms), so it's important to criticize people in his position for commiting his behaviors, and to be critical/suspicious of moderation under his purview when there's a question of bias (this is the same criticism the right made, in not so many words, of pre-Musk Twitter, and which I don't think was totally unreasonable then either, though I do think the circumstances are far from perfect mirrors of each other).
Was Elon just messing with them, or was it perhaps as I suggested and just a mistake? Will you reconsider, or are you unable to accept this as a possibility?
For what it's worth I think Elon was mismanaging Twitter so I have no interest in defending him. But equally I think the idea that he's sat around randomly suspending "left-wing" journalists is kinda silly.
I don't know why this is the case, but Twitter seems to trigger suspensions quite frequently. They seemed to have tightened their spam / abuse algorithms in recent months, but the pattern as of late is that that most genuine users who get suspended are reinstated on appeal.
This is not acceptable rhetoric for HN.
The most disappointing part for me is the lack of transparency. Didn't Elon talk about including explanations for why people were banned or why they had restricted reach? We can only speculate about why these people were banned because Twitter doesn't provide a public explanation. Were these people verified (paying) users as well? IMO, that would make it even more egregious.
If this conflagration continues ... it may have a positive effect on reducing plagiarism. But since LLMs can easily reword text, the plagiarism wars are more about the past than the future. Because now the plagiarism of concepts rather than phrases is cheap and easy and far less detectable.
Perhaps plagiarism review can move to detection of shared sequences of concepts rather than words.
how is it "democratic" when a few people can kill an article they don't agree with?
"democratic" would be upvotes & downvotes canceling each other out, which we already have.
Submissions can't be downvoted; we don't already have that.
I know there's the downside of not being able to vouch for something until it got buried, but even so I think the end-result is reasonably democratic.
Explain to me the utility of flagging as opposed to simply downvoting (I'm talking about comments, not submissions).
especially, why is there no accountability for it? Are there "frequent flaggers" who should sometimes have their flagging privileges revoked?
@zei_squirrel@mastodon.social
Edit: as expected, this post has been flagged.
Can I conclude that both of those positions are by and large rhetorical shams?
Ironically it was defenders of freedom of speech and expression that were threatened with consequences.
> journalists and leftist pundits
usually you can be one of these but rarely both at the same time.
> usually you can be one of these but rarely both at the same time.
I didn't parse this as referring to only one person, so there's no "at the same time" here.
The next part talks about how they fall silent when pressed hard, but that was before the internet. Now they slip back, disappear, and re-emerge elsewhere. We don't even have the pleasure of their silence.
Press me as hard as you want! I can defend my positions easily and without getting emotional.
It turns out a lot of people love debating on the internet.
The week before he tweeted about "free speech absolutism" he canceled a dude's Tesla order because they criticized him on X.
I think it's more "I'm not accountable to you people". At least that's my position. Left wingers seem to think I have to care what they think about what I say on the internet. I do not, and I will not.
Is there a similar self-deprecating joke amongst the right? What's the required reading list look like for those on the right?
As for self deprecating jokes, I suppose I'd just point you to the right's love of over the top Trump impersonators who make fun of Trump's various verbal ticks and his general public speaking style.
As for "required reading" I don't believe that the various factions within non-left-wing communities have one unified reading list. You'd have to get out more and talk to some to find out what they're reading IMHO.
IME, nothing impressive there. If only they'd read some Sowell instead of headlines on Reddit.
From what I observe they seem to be riddled with bookclub after bookclub so much so that it prevents them from doing anything at all.
If you're spending a lot of time with those people and finding value in what they're saying then keep doing it. Do whatever makes you happy.
I wouldn't be surprised if some reach that conclusion. It's much more complicated than that -- but also pretty simple:
No one feels bad for a bully that gets punched in the face even if they believe violence is wrong.
You fundamentally cannot enable people to speak without fear without infringing others' right to speak freely. In the context of a government, it is possible (only very barely, and frequently governments are unable to rise to this level) to create systems that punishes neither party and exit any and all attempts at moderation. But when you are running a social media site, this isn't a feasible option, and trying to punish people who are causing fear and limiting free speech will only cause the next wave of free speech sites to arise. Techdirt has a nice article on speedrunning content moderation: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/02/hey-elon-let-me-help-you...
Is it a rhetorical sham? Not necessarily, in the sense that I think its proponents could very well believe in what they say. But it is a belief whose consequences hasn't been fully thought-through, and I can't see anyone who still hews to that belief after fully thinking it through.