• hperrin@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    That’s not what free speech is, and there never has been free speech on Twitter, and that’s mostly a good thing. Jesus.

    • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      That’s not what free speech is

      Well yeah, obviously. It’s just wordplay based on the two common definitions of free.

      Everybody knows what free speech means. It’s just a bit of wordplay that you’ve taken very literally.

      • affiliate@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Everybody knows what free speech means.

        i really dont think so.

        free speech is a pretty complicated thing and i feel like many people dont have a solid grasp on it. i think a good number of people think they know what free speech means because they know “it only applies to what the government can do to you”, but there’s quite a bit more to it than that. like how to deal with hate speech, threats, misinformation, disinformation, etc.

        and this is directly related to the problems twitter is facing: elon musk started out by saying hes a “free speech absolutist”, but twitter has been slowly rediscovering why “free speech absolutism” doesnt work. and you can see those discoveries in real time with twitter reintroducing moderation policies (among other things)

        • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Ok then. People know enough about what it means to know it doesn’t refer to not having to pay a fee to open your mouth.

          It’s very clear that the headline is a little wordplay joke. It doesn’t literally convey that the journalist thought free speech means you don’t have to pay to make a twitter post. You’re taking it way too literally.

          elon musk started out by saying hes a “free speech absolutist”, but twitter has been slowly rediscovering why “free speech absolutism” doesnt work.

          I’m in agreement that it doesn’t work.

          But it should also be called to attention that Musk never tried free speech absolutism on his platform (not that I think he actually should). He has been willing to bend over backwards in assisting dictatorships in censoring content, and he culled a lot of left-leaning and anti-Musk accounts/comments on day one. It’s always been a lie to pander to the freeze peach crowd.

    • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Elon Musk said free speech like once and then immediately threw a bunch of journalists off the site. And apparently every news article for the rest of my life is going to be about how he was hypocritical instead of whether he wants power or influence or has power and influence or the meaning of giving him those things.

      Don’t trust every industrialist you meet even if they invested in one company where competent people make cool space ships. He’s clearly on Ket and some uppers. Grimes divorced him and her music isn’t even good. He’s not that complicated.

    • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      Elon and his sycophants have been the idiots talking about free speech on Twitter. It’s perfectly fine to use that talking point as criticism. If he’s not interested in free speech then what was he doing allowing banned Nazi accounts back on?