X Bans and Then Unbans Journalists and Podcasters in Latest Free Speech Massacre | Hacker News Reader

X Bans and Then Unbans Journalists and Podcasters in Latest Free Speech Massacre

gizmodo.com

79 pointsceejayoz81 comments

"Free speech massacre"? The hyperbole has gotten out of hand but I for one can't wait for the first article title that starts with "C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER"

On one hand, yes. On the other, there is a literal massacre of humans happening right now and this censorship is definitely related. So it is very dangerous in a real and urgent way.

Which one are you referring to there are too many ongoing for me to be certain and I don't want to think poorly of you for calling the military action in Gaza a massacre if you are referring to something else

Yes, I'm speaking about the Israeli massacre of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.

A hyperbole about restricting free speech on a platform owned by a "free speech absolutist" will never get old.

They forgot to throw in a "surging"; that's their favorite hyperbole in recent years: "bans of journalists SURGING on X".

If the accounts were suspended and almost immediately restored after Musk's intervention, couldn't the explanation be that some actors managed to trick the system into getting them banned (for example through a flood of reporting) rather than something initiated in Twitter itself?

An attack with immediate moderation seems the most plausible explanation, without further data.

How does accounts with 500.000 followers get mistakenly closed by a spambot?

This is obviously related to the cancel-thy-neighbour over Israel/Palestine that is going on at the moment. Mr. Musk is just too shy to admit it.

Elon isn't above lying

The twitter meme of putting replies to ELO's "Mr Blue Sky" for every lie Elon has told would probably make the song go on for hours

There is a decent related question for how many of those followers are legitimate?

I think it is somewhat likely that any account with a lot of followers has a lot of bot followers. I could easily see any "clean up the bots" script being wrong on taking down some legitimate posters that are in the neighborhood of a lot of bots.

Twitter's bot system is fundamentally broken right now.

If you look here you can see OpenAI being used en-masse across the platform all blue-ticked indicating that they will not be flagged as spam. And showing exactly what Musk said would not happen when he changed what blue-tick meant.

https://www.threads.net/@parkermolloy/post/C14qS_CJp8q

ChatGPT bots are one of the worse problem of Twitter, but I really don't get how the math can work for them. Between the blue tick and the OpenAI API costs, how can they make actually some profit with subpar-quality tweets that leech from big accounts and basically redescribe the original post? What am I missing?

Oh, so Twitter ban-wave is a thing in the English world too? That has been a problem since long before the takeover, and I think it's also one of reasons why rather few aside from spammers use human names and sign up for paid plans.

Twitter the system bans prominent accounts in frequency and amount for no discernible reasons(it's "Twitter Rules"). That had completely normalized ban evasions to the point even its support personnel sometimes suggested it in the past.

Users won't pay to get banned[1]. Businesses can't rely on ID provider that unexist hard earned customers. People flee to competitors when the platform does this and require social graph reconstructions. It's not a new phenomenon, it's a plague somewhere within the system that needs to be fixed by a major re-architecture.

1: Anecdotally, but in fact I've seen users signing up for the paid Blue program when it was first introduced, hoping for preferential treatment for paid accounts with regard to bans, only to report back in disappointment - and I've seen it precisely because those users had promptly gone through the ban and evasion process and came back in the buzz.

Lets let a petulant man-child control one of the most important media companies in the world. What could possibly go wrong?

“Important” is not what I would use to describe one of the most toxic and uninteresting cesspools to come out of the Internet.

unfortunately that's why it's important. it's like a cesspool being upstream of a city's water source being an "important" problem.

Is it really upstream of the water source, or is it its own lake that sometimes, but not often, runs off into the water supply?

The mainstream idea is that Twitter is important, but I haven’t seen much reason to agree. Most apps that rely on it could be served with an RSS feed. Most people I’ve met don’t use Twitter to any measurable degree. The amount of real world change the service has brought is rather low given how often it appears in mainstream media. In fact I see TikTok do more to influence and promote.

i don't think you realize how much culture moves on twitter. regardless of your personal opinion and your selection bias of nobody in your friend group using it. so much happens on twitter, still, even after elon musk has driven folks off of it.

For people who give two F*s about Twitter.

The rest of the world keeps revolving.

i don't care about twitter. my argument is that it's still an important part of our internet culture. caring about the platform != thinking it's a platform that shapes mainstream culture. the rest of the world keeps revolving while incorporating bits of culture or "discourse" or whatever from the twitter, without realizing it.

it's similar to tiktok. you likely don't realize you're seeing something only because it originated from tiktok or twitter. if the daily news is still regularly reporting about things that happen on twitter, then i'd say it's still an important platform.

Useful to consider how many accounts that are not high profile were deleted and if these high profile accounts were a casualty ofa much more aggressive attempt to silence a segment of voices then then next question is, what is the criteria being used?

first discussed then flagged here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38927699

Musk's mistake, as others mention, was positioning himself as a free speech absolutist, which was a promise he could not possibly keep, nor did he really want to. He's following the same sort of approach as other tech CEOs.

Sure, but most people are self-aware, or just aware, enough not to claim to be one.

edit: the parent comment has been edited since my reply, it used to make a bit more sense.

there is of course a model for making completely outrageous, easily disproven assertions and running with them without ever having to walk them back, and it's called Donald Trump. Musk keeps trying to use the same playbook but lacks the skills.

The idea of the firehose of falsehood predates Trump.

> The Russian "Firehose of Falsehood" Propaganda Model

> Why It Might Work and Options to Counter It

https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html

He seems to spout a lot of things about free speech, and about how Twitter is the only place to get your voice heard without censorship, etc. But if a journalist crosses him or pens an article that paints one of his companies in a negative light... they're gone.

>but who is

The guy who runs GAB, pretty much everything that's not pornography is allowed there.

How can people still be on the free speech narrative? PG and a lot of other famous people got punished just for the mere mention of 3rd-tier chat platforms.

Imagine you're setting a standard on free speech and you draw the line at the mention of Mastodon.

Journalists need to fine tune their words to smaller nets. Free speech does not mean any more what it used to mean.

Change headline to "... in latest assault on political journalism." Or Pro-Palestinian journalism.

If you know enough about Musk, doing thoughtless, stupid, risky stuff that backfires is his play. Or not even a play, a default state of mind. He enjoys all this drama.

We all believe we're punishing him by massively dunking on him, but we effectively reward him. The media too loves Musk, in the same way that they love Trump.

I have a related question. What are some plausible explanations as to why community notes still exist?

The most charitable explanation is that Musk believes in the concept, even though it is often used against him and his online friends.

A less charitable explanation would be that some regulation requires it. Maybe the consent decree?

Would anyone who is better informed on the matter care to share an opinion?

Maybe it's just not bad at all for impressions and engagement metrics?

Having listened to Musk speak on the topic: he seems to believe in community notes as an effective way to suss out truth in a less biased way. He sounds like a fan.

But when he got Community Noted he called it state sponsored action:

> Interesting. This Note is being gamed by state actors. Will be helpful in figuring who they are. Thanks for jumping in the honey pot, guys lmao!

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1733882978781053383

I was just about to post this. And am I reading the situation correctly, did the note that he was complaining about get removed? I don't see one on the parent post.

It's plausible that state actors would try to game community notes somehow. It's hard but no system is perfect and there are very refined actors out there.

Maybe, but if he really thinks they're being systematically brigaded by state actors you'd hope he'd be more worried about it in general and not only when he thinks it happened to him personally.

> you'd hope he'd be more worried about it in general and not only when he thinks it happened to him personally.

why? this sounds exactly like something he'd do. "if it happens to me it is bad, but if it happens to others then it is just free speech" or some such

Sounds irrelevant to that which you replied to. (you stated that which is in response to that which would be hoped)

He also has the ability to delete them off his tweets (and presumably others he agrees with)

It's a rigged system but seeing idiots and liars get smacked upside the head [1] in a public way is definitely helpful

[1] https://i.redd.it/a7xye7gjbzac1.jpeg

I appreciate the notes even when they are directed against my ideological team/side. They help provide important, missing context or facts. The notes are a not-positive.

"not-negative" ?

That was his excuse for eviscerating (not paying for) T&S. Since that decision cannot have been wrong, community notes must be working as intended.

Basically, "it's ok if we have disinformation on this site, it will have a community note attached"

Most of the top 10 accounts with most community notes are plain disinformation accounts. No action is taken against them.

Community notes allows him to say that a system exists for moderation that doesn't involve X.

Which is true at lower volumes of disinformation but during events e.g. Israel-Gaza community notes simply can't keep up.

And this is the concern that the EU and others have rightly raised.

Dead platform continues to flail, news at 11.

BSD is dead! Netcraft confirms!

Undead platform continues to flail, news at 11.

Zombies have feelings too!

It's a private platform. Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences. [XKCD showing affected pundits the door] https://xkcd.com/1357/

You may be trying sarcasm here, but the "free speech absolutists" this argument was originally deployed against insisted such a right should not exist, and that freedom of speech meant the government should privatize social media and force platforms to publish content against their will, and make content moderation illegal.

However no one here is claiming Musk doesn't or shouldn't have the right to run Twitter (I still refuse to call it X and will die on this hill) however he likes, rather people are just pointing out that he's a hypocrite and an asshole.

Elon Musk on Lex Fridman, very soon after the latest violence started, made comments that appeared pro-Palestine, something along the lines of "Israel should safeguard Palestinian civilians and draw them away from Hamas with kindness." Soon after, they tried cancelling him, there was the infamous "go fuck yourselves" during that interview, and he visited Israel.

Hard to say where he stands and who is pulling the strings, but it's interesting to follow.

Yet another headline reminding those who forgot that Twitter/X still exists...

Free speech massacre = antispam system?

Gizmodo you can do better...

I gave reddit another try during xmas break. I would copy and paste a sutta and reply on r/buddhism. A mod would come along and called me an idiot and wrong. I never really said anything myself lol, you cant really disagree with me. Literally a major violation of right speech, but they are a mod so they decide.

I then go on my province subreddit and 11% of people have gotten the new covid booster. But if you have a viewpoint anything other pro-vaccine, you're not going to be allowed to speak.

I was then on some major subreddit and I linked a recent vibrations kill cancer cells thing. I said 'cure to cancer?' and got banned for medical misinformation.

Then I was on a vaguely trans subreddit, im trans. The person posted asking for help. They mentioned they have a feminine parts, they have an obgyn, etc. They never said their gender. I posted trying to help, and I accidentally misgendered them. They were upset greatly. Reddit admins gave me a warning for harassing/abusing them.

Dont worry reddit admins, i'll ban myself from the tremendously toxic website.

Meanwhile on X. I never have any problems at all. I actually have free speech. Amazing.

I don't really understand why the legacy media keeps reporting on X.

Not only were they COMPLETELY wrong about X being days away from shuttering, these idiots are paying Elon for corporate subscription to keep using his platform.

These are unserious people and should be regarded as nothing more than clowns. That's all they are.

I can see why the talentless scumbags of Gizmodo are so terrified of ChatGPT taking their job, especially when the most broken ChatGPT results are more congruent with reality than the likes of their self-proclaimed journalists.

>I don't really understand

Really? They have a massive pipeline built on generating content for their sites 100% dependent on mining Twit...er,X. It's really easy to understand if you're being honest about the situation. Just because you don't like the content doesn't mean the masses of sheeple feel the same way

The subtitle of the article is "Elon Musk's "free speech" social media platform banned a number of accounts recently critical of Israel."

Wasn't Elon widely deemed an antisemite last month?

Edit: I wasn't being tongue-in-cheek. Perhaps we should not attribute to malice what we can attribute to incompetence -- especially in Elon's case.

yes and this is likely twitter overcompensating after that fallout.

Basically what this show is that firing your entire moderation team leads to inconsistent moderation as modern automation simply isn't up to the task of dealing with high-emotion topics.

He visited Israel a month ago.

This man has the ideological orientation of a windvane.

He visited because he was called out for openly supporting complete psychos like Louis farakan. His advertisers increasingly wanted to disassociate with people like that so he was doing damage control.

He's a puzzle. He's more than smart enough to understand that for someone in his position, the only winning move is to STFU. Yet his rational side always seems to lose these battles.

"He's more than smart enough to understand"

Are you sure about that? Historical accounts of his actions and thoughts would disagree

He famously wanted to move Paypal to Windows NT because "UNIX is for old junk mainframes!"

Puzzle? I think he is a normal man with emotions and a moral compass of some kind. Many immoral people would STFU and tacitly support the status quo, but I think Musk is better that that, despite the hate that he gets.

I think he can’t STFU. He needs constant public validation and praise. Frankly, I think he never will. 20 years from now, if he is still alive and wealthy, we will still be hearing from him - long after his peers have gone into quiet retirements.

He's an idiot's idea of a smart person.

Elon Musk has a lot to learn about driving a media company. Remember when he was going around saying "we're building the most advanced factory in the world, people have no idea" and then he spent a year sleeping on the factory floor to fix the mess he created? Same thing.

I would say that those going around brandishing the titles of Nazi and antisemitic as cudgel to use on their ideological opponents are more likely to be the ones who have changed stances.

And I say this as someone who has disliked Musk since his comments during the cave rescue.

> I have made posts critical of Israel’s targeting of civilians and journalists

But they aren't targeting those groups.

"Free Speech Massacre"

I thought Gizmodo was on the team ranting against X having "free speech." But now that something went wrong with it, they are on the pro "free speech" side?

We need a stronger word than hypocrite. Though, I shouldn't be surprised - G/O Media (who owns Gizmodo, Jezebel, Kotaku) is well known for being peddlers of poppycock.

You are confusing absolute free speech and free speech.

Musk asserts that he subscribes to absolute free speech, but continuously shows that he most definitely does not, usually through being a thin skinned snowflake.

That is not what Musk asserts, while it's an aspirational goal, he has always said twitter is limited by laws of the government they operate in.

Dude. lol.

There are numerous tweets and clips of musk himself stating he is a free speech absolutist.

This whole “within the confines of the law” only came out after he bought twitter and after advertisers left the platform out of fear of absolutist free speech.

He doesn't seem to be exactly eager to comply with various European laws:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/eu-investigates-x-over-po...

I thought the argument by those for censorship was in this order:

1. You have no right to hate speak. 2. Companies don't have to give you a platform. 3. It's not censorship unless the government is doing it! 4. Muh freez peach

I guess we are now trying to walk back our previous declarations by saying that "Free Speech" and "Absolute Free Speech" are distinct things.

How about instead we learn that if we censor and silence critics that the same tactics will be used by the other side, and a civilized society this does not make.

I thought absolutist freeze peach meant “anyone can say anything without consequence” except for

Muslims

LGBTQ

People with alternate personas reading books to children

Teachers

Academics

Scientists

I mean. If we’re going to play a game of “who consistently applies their belief”, you’re not going to win.

In order for me to lose this game, I would have to be opposed to the speech of the above groups that you just listed.

I am all for their speech as well as speech by anti-vaxers, alt-right, conservative christians.

The problem is that we have many here that don't want to accept that the opposite of speech is not silence but is in fact more speech.

I would also not call myself a "free speech absolutist", I believe there should be no restrictions on the discussion of ideas but would be against the ability of anyone being able to slander and libel others.

I quite honestly think that our slander and libel laws are too permissive. If I were to take your picture and publish it on social media with an accusation, that would make you a "public person" who then has no recourse to any damage that I have caused.

> 1. You have no right to hate speak.

you have the right to hate speak. Hate speak all you like!

>2. Companies don't have to give you a platform.

they dont!

> 3. It's not censorship unless the government is doing it!

you can use the word "censorship" anywhere, it's just if you are going to claim First Amendment rights, then only the government is involved there.

> How about instead we learn that if we censor and silence critics that the same tactics will be used by the other side, and a civilized society this does not make.

Re: hate speech, Popper would disagree with you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

They're pointing out Musk's hypocrisy after repeatedly claiming himself to be a "free speech absolutionist". If someone hurts his feelings or calls out his BS he bans or blocks them. Very thin skinned and sensitive, desperate for attention and likes. I'm not even on Twitter and I've heard of this.

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