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Comment by _heimdall | Hacker News Reader

Freedom of speech, at least in the US, is a concern specifically with the government censoring citizens' speech. The Twitter files are a recent example of the government partnering with private corps to censor, so that's a fair argument, but in general a private company can't violate free speech by deciding what kind of content they want allowed.

Is it shitty that they censor? Absolutely. But is it a constitutional violation? Not unless I've horribly misunderstood my rights for more than 35 years.

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> Freedom of speech, at least in the US, is a concern specifically with the government censoring citizens' speech.

Well, no -- you're conflating "freedom of speech" as a general concept with the first amendment as a legal principle. The first amendment is specifically the mechanism of law we use to ensure that freedom of speech is respected in our interactions with the political state.

The first amendment doesn't apply to our interactions with each other outside of the political sphere, but that doesn't mean that we don't also have expectations of conduct and cultural norms that uphold freedom of speech via other means in non-government contexts.

You're right, and that's were the double standards come in.

Progressives: Elon doesn't care about freedom of speech because he doesn't allow (edge case)

Also progressives: Freedom of speech has its limits

Pick a lane.

Elon described himself as a free speech absolutist. There is no inconsistency in pointing out that his actions don’t align with this description, regardless of whether or not the person doing so is themselves a free speech absolutist.

Shifting the goal posts.

The attacks on Musk are almost always that he doesn’t support freedom of speech, without any qualification.

If you’re trying to attack the much narrower position that he’s not a free speech absolutist you need to do it at the time your make the criticism, not retrospectively after you make the allegation.

I don't think so. Twitter before Musk had all kinds of TOS that obviously blocked speech that would be protected by the First Amendment. No-one is saying that Twitter used to be a free speech absolutist free-for-all before Musk took over. They're saying two things. First, that his actions don't match his stated intentions. Second, that he is heavily biased towards unblocking far right accounts.

> Progressives: Elon doesn't care about freedom of speech because he doesn't allow (edge case)

No, it's "Elon claims to be a free speech absolutist yet somehow keeps denying freedom of speech to people who disagree with him". The hypocrisy is the problem.

Here is my lane: Elon is a hypocrite. He bought twitter in the name of "free speech," then removes any speech he doesn't like.

His actions are inconsistent, and this one of many demonstrations that he doesn't care at all about liberty. That matters because he's now apparently in charge of every federal government agency.

Musk is a hypocrite, but so too are progressives on the topic of freedom of speech.

It's the pot calling the kettle black.

Wait so you're saying that anyone who criticizes Musk is in this bucket of "progressive" and therefore is accountable for the supposed hypocrisy of all "progressives"?

Actually this argument makes no sense. I know that it's commonly repeated in propaganda, but that doesn't mean it isn't stupid on its face. You can't just throw people into a collective arbitrarily and then hold them responsible for everyone else you'd call that's actions

Hypocrites deflect when their hypocrisy is called out.

Sure, but also hypocrisy only makes sense when applied to a single person or an actual organization that actually collectively takes positions. "Progressives" is an amorphous category that can seemingly include anyone we want to declare "woke" at any given time, and seems to span the political spectrum from even the most right-leaning democrat politicians to random tankie teenagers on social media. Such an incoherent group doesn't have collective positions or collective responsibility for each other's positions, and I think it's important to point this out because it's a very common rhetorical gambit

That's a generalization that I think you'll find hard to back up with evidence. I'm the progressive you're discussing this with right now, and I don't think I've said anything inconsistent. But I'll respond to your imagination's idea of what "progressives" must be saying anyway.

The statements "Elon Musk Musk doesn't care about free speech because he doesn't allow (edge case)." and "Free speech has limits." Are non-contradictory.

Additionally, not allowing links to Signal isn't an "edge case," but a considerable offense against free speech (the general concept, not the literal law in the constitution), especially for one who calls himself a "free speech absolutist."

Your definitions of social norms ass backwards.

Cultural norms dictate some modicum of restraint on everyone. You have no obligation to tolerate me if I call your wife a whore. Any given community has its social norms that dictate what you can and can't say. To force them to accept "unacceptable" speech would violate freedom of speech itself.

No, that's not quite correct. A lot of subcultures and echo-chamber type social contexts certainly do have extreme policing of extremely particular taboo subject matters, but in more general contexts, especially in American society, there's a strong expectation that people ought to be able to speak their mind without excessive interference, and there's usually a high bar to what constitutes subject matters taboo enough to restrict or exclude people for engaging with, along with social norms that often regard excessive policing of other people's expression as itself taboo.

No there isn't. You can't, rightfully, campaign to make rape legal for a day without your life being ruined through ostracization. I wouldn't want to be associated with such a person. And that is in public.

In private you have severe restrictions on speech and expressions. Workplaces, stores, and schools have codes of conduct, dress codes, etc. to restrict expression.

What you call "extremely taboo subjects" is relative, based on your own biases and beliefs. "Woman should be more active in public life" is not an "extreme" view, even in more conservative sections of society. But in Ultra-orthodox jewish communities, or isolationist muslim communities, or even many christian sects, this would be controversial statement.

If a member faces social consequences for these statements, it is not a violation of their right to free speech. Nobody is obligated to tolerate you, no matter how in the right you may be. You can't force society to be on your side.

You might say, "But these social norms are repressive and harmful." Well then change them through activism. Stop whining about "free speech violations". That is, again, ass backwards.

> No there isn't. You can't, rightfully, campaign to make rape legal for a day without your life being ruined through ostracization.

You can't control what other opinions people will have of you, or suppress their expression of those opinions, that's true. But that itself is part and parcel of freedom of speech. The social consequences of expressing opinions that other people find offensive or disgusting are yours to bear, and may indeed motivate others to want to have little to do with you.

But this is juxtaposed against an expectation of freedom of speech as a cultural norm -- the point above is precisely that the way this is expressed in other contexts is different from the way it's expressed with respect to the political state. So we do have an expectation that formal institutions will not engage in prior restraint, or punish people for speech itself within most (but not necessarily all) categories, etc.

For example, people might find it reasonable that someone be dismissed from a job for making overtly racist comments in the office. But the same people would consider it inappropriate if, for example, an employee was fired for expressing that he does not like the boss's favorite movie.

There are absolutely different boundaries and different weighing of consequences between how we apply the norm of freedom of speech to political vs. social situations, but to say that we do not adhere to freedom of speech as a cultural norm at all is quite incorrect.

These are a lot of words to state you disagree with your previous post.

Actually freedom of speech is a principle, which Musk and his ilk claim to care about, despite using their power to censor people through either direct control of information streams or threats. The first amendment to the US constitution specifically seeks to reify this principle in laws pertaining only to the government's actions, but freedom of speech as a principle can be supported or violated by anyone with power over other people. The people claiming to be "free speech absolutists" are hypocritical even if they didn't also work for the government and enact these vendettas against speech they don't like on a governmental level (which is also happening)

The owner is working for the government, can't play that card any more.

This is definitely true, however many of us remember Musk declaring himself a "free-speech absolutist", so in most cases people are referring to his hyprocisy rather than his legal rights.

[0] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1499976967105433600

It’s always been free speech for us, not for you.

I mean, congratulations you’ve explained why the Speechers criticising Twitter were always wrong on this point, but Twitter has now been taken over by people who’ve been pushing a very unamerican idea of free speech so it’s fair game to point out they’re trying to prevent people from using the very system that DOGE runs on.

When Mr. Musk describes X as "the last bastion of free speech" or similar what do you think he refers to?

Not OP but.. He’s full of shit?

You get banned for sharing identities of DOGE people, but Musk can share the name and tax documents of a federal judge.

Hypocrite.

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