Free speech absolutist, btw.
You can all walk away. You don’t need it.
Except some people still want it, thats the uncomfortable truth that lots of people cant accept. I see lots of comments giving different reasons people think that other people cant leave twitter, but at the end of the day millions of people still like and use it all the time. Thats why its still there.
Now that said, I sure hope Elon will pivot this and make these services unnecessary. I'm not holding my breath though.
The fact that Twitter is login-gated makes it objectively less free as in freedom.
I dont see signing up to twitter any differently to this. You register with an email address and you are granted access. Similarly to registering a birth and being granted access to 'society'.
Free speech talk decorates a claim that, imo, doesn't really have much purchase.
It is not the same kind of "free" as in "no cost". Twitter is a paid service. To access Twitter, you have to pay for it. Either by purchasing a subscription or viewing ads.
Think of it as having to buy a newspaper before being able to read it. That doesn't stop the paper's editors from being able to criticize the government.
This is one way to define it, yes, but Musk is a self-described “free speech absolutist” which I would argue means that he feels speech should be maximally free.
> It is not the same kind of "free" as in "no cost".
I have never meant it in that way, and I’m not sure why you thought I did.
> To access Twitter, you have to pay for it. Either by purchasing a subscription or viewing ads.
This is possibly pedantic but this statement as written is false. I can view single tweets just fine, and I don’t see ads.
> Think of it as having to buy a newspaper before being able to read it. That doesn't stop the paper's editors from being able to criticize the government.
That analogy doesn’t really work here, IMO. My only point is that it’s objectively true that speech behind a login wall is less free (as in freedom) than speech not behind a login wall, and so a (non-hypocritical) “free speech absolutist” should always prefer the latter.
i get the sense he instead thinks of free speech maximalism as people need to hear him and completely censor alternatives
This is functionally the same as you not being able to say it.
So am I.
If a comedian is doing a bit at a bar and they charge a $5 cover to get in is that infringing on “free speech”. Of course not, that’s absurd. Why would be it any different online?
Do you disagree with this statement? If so, why?
Nobody is being censored by the inability of a third party to act as a parallel distribution channel. Nor does freedom of speech have anything to do with entitlement to an audience. No website infringes upon freedom of speech by having a paywall on UGC, as neither the contributors nor readers are worse off than if the site didn't exist.
We're talking about the quolloquial "free speech", here.
So I guess we're several layers of misunderstanding deep at this stage, and X's lockdown is ironic if its not free speech according to the flawed understanding of free speech it advocates? I dunno.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files
This type of loophole was (likely) closed after the ruling of Murthy v. Missouri and the "Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship" executive order.
It’s a private company. Free speech doesn’t mean I’m entitled to use your property to post and amplify my speech.
I also find the context of the whole thing suspect since Trump in his second administration has openly used the FCC and other federal pressures to attack speech he doesn’t like and Musk’s X has not been “free speech absolutist.”
I always thought it was just the far right being mad their side wasn’t in charge, and that when they got in power they would be even worse. That seems vindicated.
The entire point of the case was to determine exactly that. Read the judgement. If it were an open and shut case, it never would have made it to the supreme court.
>and that when they got in power they would be even worse. That seems vindicated
How in the world did you get to that conclusion from Murthy v. Missouri and the "Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship" order?
I'm just saying overall behavior -- outside this specific case -- is not consistent with a regime (or a larger political movement) that believes in free speech. It's consistent with "we want to be the ones in charge determining speech," with opposition to Twitter's previous moderation being motivated by that rather than principled belief in free speech.
The net effect of the Twitter takeover was not to make it a free speech absolutist platform but to shift the pattern of selective boosting and selective de-boosting and moderation to one that favors the far right's message.
He speaks out both sides of his mouth.