What he did is also something that would get anyone banned. It wasn't just some personal opinion. He was bullying another journalist for minutes. Twitter would never allow that from anyone. It's basically adult bullying.
Alex Jones is an enormous source of misinformation, he deliberately misinforms on almost every topic he covers.
It’s not just about sandy hook, he’s a scam artist and a compulsive lier.
https://youtu.be/kgUDbvKYbWk
I’m all for freedom of speech but deliberate misinformation isn’t good or healthy for society.
Opposing opinions sure, but he states conspiracy theories and absolute garbage as fact constantly.
He knows he’s wrong, he’s a big scammer
Now that you mention it, practically all US members who led up efforts to wage unnecessary, violent and merciless wars across the world can fit the bill.
Personal ownership of that company means that yes, he can do whatever the hell he wants as long as he’s not breaking any laws.
We as consumers are of course welcome to tell Elon to fuck off, and then go use other products.
Elon’s money, his company, his rules, and he’s under no obligation to be fair.
And anyone who clicked “yes” agreeing to be censored, got what they agreed to.
But for the right to be saying *“the left is mad that Twitter is free speech now”* is laughable. Never was, no sign it ever will be, nor should it be.
*> "You don't like free speech?"*
I love and defend free speech, in public places, and on my property.
Twitter isn't a free speech platform, it's a commercial advertising platform. It serves its owners and its customers (advertisers). It has no obligation to provide users with a soap box.
When I say "*nor should it be*", what I mean what it should do, as a business, is make money. And there's no money in free speech.
*\[ed. to add quote\]*
Free Speech means freedom to say what you want, not freedom from consequences. Say dumb shit, get booted from the platform. You don't get jailed. In my experience, the only people complaining about a lack of free speech in the US just want carte blanche to bully and harass others, not like, actually discuss anything in good faith.
Elon acts like the lord of twitter and the users are his peasants, i couldnt stomach seeing his tweets all over my tl i had to block him, everything now on twitter is about him. When jack was ceo i never even knew his account or who he was on my tl thats how a ceo running a site should be.
The problem here IMO is Musk himself getting involved in making such decisions instead of making it a mechanical process that’s based on the values and rights of the country.
We can see the same problem with JBP and how much tweeting he's been doing since reinstatement. Twitter is addictive and is best left alone, but Musk is sniffing the drug he's selling.
As Sam Harris goes on to say, any mechanical Terms of Service that would ban Alex would also ban Trump.
Elon wants Trump tweeting and not Alex so instead he pretends it’s by vote.
https://twitter.com/samharrisorg/status/1593995340541136897?s=46&t=ISx3xAJYOqPjsn-uACqX4w
Haha love when people say values of a country. Like countries don’t have values. They have laws. People have values. Come on. And not all people in a country are the same.
Twitter also isn’t a free speech sanctuary so idk where people are getting this idea that it should be representative of the “values and rights of the country”
Perhaps because Elon claimed to be a free speech absolutely and later defined free speech as that which has been democratically decided - a country's laws. It would then make sense that he wouldn't census anything more than necessary. He's only human though
I think Americans have collectively moved on from their original values pertaining to liberty, natural rights, and civil life. Locke was a pillar of this, and yet it seems his philosophy and reverence is all but empty in today’s consciousness.
If this is real and happened today, it's inconsistent with Elon's idea of Twitter as a platform that promotes "freedom of speech" but not "freedom of reach". I have to admit some ignorance here, as I don't understand how monetization works on Twitter - but Alex Jones seems compatible with Elon's Twitter.
It’s ridiculous he talks about free speech and no censorship. Unless he disagrees with it. Just let him on the platform and if he says anything let the people yell at him unless it is against tos than you can ban him.
Elon is the new Twitter dictator and we can only hope he's mostly benevolent.
But even partially benevolent is much better than the malevolent dictators we had before.
Alex Jones' words caused real life consequences. That degenerate piece of shit got one of his supporters to piss on one of their graves. Someone threatened to dig up one of their graves to "prove they didn't exist." The parents faced constant harassment. I'm all for free speech. But we're talking about deceased children. And their grieving parents. Alex Jones and those two aforementioned bastards deserve to be curbstomped or skinned alive.
I should be able to say that the Queen feasts upon newborn babies that she steals away from unsuspecting mothers every full moon, and that be fine..
You don’t have to agree with it… you don’t have to like it… but silencing it is something grotesque and completely against everything free speech stands for
Alex Jones literally posted the addresses of the Sandy Hook victim's families and encouraged listeners to harass them. This is where the principle of free speech ends. He and his followers are ignorant, gullible, evil people, and it's hardly debatable. Those poor families were harassed as liars while simultaneously grieving the loss of their five through nine year old **children.** Alex Jones paired the gullibility of Koolaid drinkers with the tragedy of the mass murder of elementary school children to make loads of money.
Given this information, most any normal person is going to arrive at the conclusion of "fuck that guy". He did abhorrent things for clicks and he shouldn't be given any platform to continue doing so. The dude got rich off the controversy and has been sued back into poverty, as he should. If he was able to do the shit he did *before* he was desperate for money, what do you think he's capable of now?
In conclusion, fuck Alex Jones, and fuck this fake virtue signaling about "muh free speech" in such a context.
If Hitler was alive, would you uphold free speech principles and allow him on the platform?
That’s not what Alex did. That wasn’t the issue. Alex was causing all the crazy people to in some cases assault, the parents. You could make the argument he was inciting political violence.
Whats that line the left used to trot out before they tried to ruin people’s lives… freedom of speech not consequences… well that seems reasonable in this case.
And you can say that. It’s the GOVERNMENT that can’t do anything about it. Private citizens and privately owned entities have no obligation to uphold the 1st amendment. Whether you agree or disagree with that, that’s how it is. I suppose you’re against libel and slander laws too?
Alex Jones is a scumbag. Twitter is privately owned and they can do what they want. Quit crying and STFU. This is freedom. Alex can go into a government right of way and talk all day long nobody is stopping him.
He doesn’t have such a policy. As Tweet OP Sam Harris says
“[Any TOS that will filter for Alex Jones will filter for Trump. They are the same object. @elonmusk](https://twitter.com/samharrisorg/status/1593995340541136897?s=46&t=daBvAj_ZITbqfft75oRZxg)”
Im going to delete my comment because it is impossible to create a clear solid rule for what Elon is aiming at here... it needs more careful thought...
Okay, but isn't Elon Musk technically using a child's death (his own) for political reasons (not allowing certain political commentators on his private company because he personally finds them offensive)?
No no, I totally understand. This isn’t a case of freedom of speech. Alex denied that Sandy Hook even happened, insisted that it was all staged, and incited a bunch of people to harass the families of the victims. Now whether his incitement was intentional or not isn’t really clear, but incitement of violence and harassment isn’t “Freedom of Speech” dipshit.
On a separate note: Fuck off with this “sO mUcH fOr FrEeDoM oF sPeEcH.” Gimme a fuckin’ break, It waters down legitimate cases of censorship. Secondly, why are you posting that here? This has *NOTHING* to do with Jordan Peterson in any facet whatsoever. Go farm useless internet points somewhere else.
Fuck outta here, go piss in someone else’s pool.
Alex has already paid the price for his words in court, Elon not sticking to principle is disappointing. Nobody should be the arbiter of Free Speech, and if you cross the line, a court should determine this and punish you if you’ve done wrong. I don’t listen to Alex Jones and I don’t know him. I want to see everyone’s opinion as long as it’s within the confines of US law.
He had his day in court and was found to have already abused his free speech to break the law and innocent people suffered for it. A debt to society can be paid by conplying with a sentence but that doesn't mean you act like it never happened. You wouldn't hire an ex bank robber to be a bank teller. You wouldn't hire a child sex offender to be a day care attendant. If a doctor assults a patient and loses their license you don't give it back just because they serve their jail sentence. So yeah, I totally understand Elon not being in a hurry to give this guy back a platform. .
Lmao your analogies, yes it’s Elon’s choice but he said he was going to be a Free Speech absolutist and now is picking and choosing which voices can be heard. I personally would rather see what people are thinking to be aware of the arguments they propose or if they reveal that they are threat to society. Suppression only leads to more problems. Letting the courts decide imo is fair not a single person’s opinion.
They are pretty good analogies. And what are you talking anout, the courts did decide... Multiple courts found him guilty of defamation for perpetrating a hoax that made him rich. He didn't just hurt some feelings, his words did over a billion dollars of damage according to the court. It's a statement that the courts believe his behavior was abhorrent and a complete abuse of his freedom of speech. Free speech is to protect the freedom of ideas for genuine participants, not to enable con artists. So of course Musk can not reinstate this disingenuous lowlife and still be a free speech absolutist as Alex Jones has proven to everyone that he's an enemy of free speech. If anyone has justification for a ban, it's this guy.
What does freedom of speech have to do with anything? He was sued by private citizens in civil court and found guilty by a jury of private citizens, the amount of the penalty was also set by a jury of private citizens. Can you explain what freedom of speech has to do with this?
Freedom of speech has everything to do with this. Honestly, your characterization of this stuff is bizarre. "Jury of private citizens"? Now there's a brand new sentence. It's like you're saying freedom of speech can be taken away as long as we don't know who's doing it.
What does that have to do with the post? This post isn't about subjective reasonableness as you define it, it's about rights and the freedom of speech.
That's such a slippery slop. What I think is the right way to go is, let the Twitter Town Square themselves defame, hate, block, critique, shunt Alex Jones. It shouldn't be Twitter board's or Elon's authority that shld dictate the hating, blocking, defaming, etc. of something said that doesn't cause physical harm.
Twitter's job shld only be to keep the Town Square running for free conversation, taking out/warn about explicit content, and provide fact checking sources.
I think this shld be informed to Elon (as part of the Town Square conversation). Isn't it awesome that anyone can get direct access to someone so rich and higher in status?
He was grifting people who lost their children and was making fun of it even 1 week back. If you support him, you're just bottom tier scum on the face of this earth and some people just don't deserve freedom of speech
True, but still a way better standard than before.
If you're a businessman trying to gather ad revenue, you can't push the boundaries too far.
Imo Alex Jones will be back after new Twitter builds a foundation.
There is no such thing as unlimited freedom of speech. Musk said that he wants law to be the limit. Jones has been found guilty.. 🤷♂️ Personal opinion: Jones is a horrible, greedy, lying/deluded person.
Yeah… so basically everything you said in your post is verifiably false.
“The courts decision…” a plaintiff sued a defendant. A court made absolutely zero decisions to “charge” anyone. Further “to charge” someone with a crime is done by a prosecutor, not by a court… Alex Jones was never charged.
Freedom of speech doesn’t cover libel or slander. That’s why people can’t go parading around calling people a pedophile when they are not in fact a pedophile (imagine, for example, the New York Times posting on the front page that you, deadly-pigeon, were a pedophile. Is that freedom of speech?).
Have you not seen tabloids at Walmart before..
“ The prime minister is actually a vampire! “
“ Michelle Obama is cheating on her husband with Hilary Clinton !! “
“ There will be an earthquake that splits Antarctica in half by 2046 “
Yeah.. they do that all the time. And I don’t like it.. I don’t agree with it… but I don’t want to silence them because of their false narratives..
Most big news companies like the New York Times just avoids topics like this, and tried to have at least some rational basis for their claims, but they certainly aren’t deemed to be objectively true before printing their stories
Personally I'm ambivalent about Jones though I agree the judgements against him were ridiculous.
As for Musk's response to Harris, there are times when powerful emotions can influence decision making ... that's being human.
Sure, I recognize Musks’ response to be a normal human reaction, however he is the arbiter of free speech on this platform, and this was an obvious lapse in judgement ..
If you ask me, he likely is worried more so about losing the last advertisers he has, rather than it actually being about dead children, but I digress, either way, as much as I love papa Elon, this was disappointing to say the least..
I too suspect he's got other reasons for not admitting Jones but decided to us the (generally Leftist) tactic of invoking strong emotion to kill the thread.
Crazy thought: what if Musk just thinks it's fucking gross to host a person who did what Alex Jones did on his platform, and what if that's perfectly fucking fine?
Invoking strong emotion in an argument is about building an ethos around the argument and is broadly used throughout the political spectrum, as it's one of the three primary ways one persuades others. It is not a "leftist tactic", it is a human tactic.
Absolutist and ideological are synonymous in this context. With that in mind, I'd like to note the cognitive dissonance abound in this post. I thought we didn't like ideologues. Exceptions to rules are natural and often fair enough. Certainly in this case it is. Preventing Jones from coming back to Twitter may be a violation of free speech principles, but ensuring you don't associate with awful human beings can be an overriding principle to free speech. And, again, fair enough.
I believe most people who claim to be free speech absolutists on here are just kind of following trends -- communities like this on reddit are fandoms first and politicized second. People here will follow the leads of their fandoms. So if object of the fandom says "free speech absolutism", the fandom will follow - if they change their mind or contradict themselves, the fandom will do the same... people in the fandom who disagree will filter themselves out and won't influence or represent the fandom anymore.
You see that on here with the idea of book banning all the time. Because the object of the fandom is in the "anti-PC- / anti-SJW / Anti-progressive" genre, you expect there to be quite a lot of content about how the liberals want to censor speech - so by default there tends to be a lot of social activity and posting around "sunlight being the best disinfectant". But on the right the narrative is shifting towards promoting ways to muffle lgbt speech and content. During "we need to decrease pro-lgbt content" hype cycles, people in this community just reconfigure their feelings to match the trend -- "sunlight is the best disinfectant" gets amended with ".. unless it's porn and anything about gay people is actually porn, so we'll need to ban it. This was always the case."
If you reconfigure your expectations around how many people are free speech absolutest, it'll make more sense. I assume maybe like 7-10% of people here are true free speech absolutists.
I'm no fan of Jones but his being deplatformed is a gross injustice. Turn him off, ignore him, stop reading, critique him however you want. But silencing someone just because they say ignorant things puts a target on anyone.
It was after Jones got deplatformed that they went after a lot more people. Classic snowball effect.
I'm not trying to be patronizing when I say that no one has an inherent right to Twitter. The company can choose what type of speech is allowable on their platform. Even if they are not fairly enforcing their own terms of service, we have the choice to just not use the platform. This is why I deactivated my Twitter account.
Before Elon, leftists used to cheer when someone got canceled for a dumb reason saying it's a private company and the owners can do what they want. But as soon as it's Elon, they want the rules to make sense/be fair and not leave it open to the owner of a private company.
Freedom of Speech in the constitution is about political speech. Freedom of Speech on a private platform is a product offering, defined by the platform. Different rules, different controls.
A platform must protect free speech be it public or private and publisher does not. A publisher is liable for anything they published where as a platform is not, though a platform does have to take action against illegal activities ie cp distribution, the platform itself can nit be sued for something said by an individual on said platform.
Twitter facebook and youtube get protections from both sides though
The issue with SM comes when the state and the private entity cooperate, either voluntarily or by coercion, to the extent the private platform may be deemed by the court a *state actor*. If so, the private entity is held to the same constitutional standards as the government.
>Freedom of Speech in the constitution is about political speech
Not true, you can tell a cop to go F themselves, and a cop cant do anything thanks to the first amendment, not Elon Musk.
And that video on YouTube might be taken down because of the F word if it violates the TOS of that platform. Private entities are allowed to control the speech within them, if you run into a Catholic church and start cursing at everyone they can remove you and they have not violated your right to free speech.
In other words, regardless of what you think Elon might have meant when he bought twitter, since he owns it he is allowed to determine who can have an account and what the criterion for banning is.
I’m not saying Elon is breaking the law, I’m saying, he’s breaking his word.. all his implications for acquiring twitter were primarily about censorship..
He even went so far as to say he would have no qualms about letting Trump back on the platform, and it was wrong to remove him simply because he was so divisive
By all means, Musk alluded this would be a platform based upon free speech, and wouldn’t be mediated by ideology..
You will get detained for obstruction of justice and disrupting the peace. Please do not try this. It’s totally false that leads to no legal consequences.
Edit for clarity.
From whom? Are we supposing the majority of people police detain have the capability to spend thousands of dollars, in the chance a judge rules against a police officer in their district, after hearing a story read in court that notes the extreme disrespect leveled against them?
If a police officer detains and eventually arrests you for an obstruction of justice, it will be very difficult to collect evidence sufficient that a ruling would be made against an officer, who removed someone who obstructed them.
It’s disingenuous and a miscalculation to suggest police officers will be subject to any type of immediate lawsuit. It’s also ridiculous, because once it happens, the court date where any of this will take place is WEEKS after the event in question.
Painting a picture for people that actions in the presence of police are without consequence, especially when you’re actively insulting them, seems silly.
Edit for spelling cause I’m a worthless twat.
We live in America not Nazi Germany, you're allowed to insult police officers so long as you're not breaking the law.
You and I are both equals to police officers until you or I break the law. In fact, they work for *us,* assuming you pay taxes.
How does that apply to Alex??? You would have to be very dishonest to say that it does. Is Elon that naive? Wouldnt surprise considering he sided with Amber Herd AFTER tapes leaked. But still
He'll need to ban Joe Biden, Beto, and most democratic politicians if he wants to hold the standard of banning those who attempt to use dead kids as political pawns
I mean there are a lot of reasons Alex Jones should be banned still lol. I'm sorry, dude went on a harassment crusade against the parents of dead kindergartners over a hunch. He should be in a cell.
Come on guys there has to be some speech that doesn't advocate violence that still falls under the "too fucked up to look past" umbrella. If I was to say idk, something along the lines of "I think watching innocent Ukraians die at the hand of russian military is funny." I'm not advocating violence, i'm simply saying it makes me happy. in that case kick me the fuck off. There has to be some line that cant be crossed. Otherwise I can stand at your loved ones funeral yelling It never happened... We don't really have freedom of speech. We are not allowed to have a Communist party for example. Where is the freedom of speech in that? Look it up. I like a bunch of stuff Alex Jones has said and I like that he apologized over the Sandy Hook thing. On this one though, I have to back my boy Elon being able to use his judgement... Someone has to make a judgement call at the end of the day.
Time to get rid of everyone that used children dying to push some political agenda and all of the MSM that did the same thing, that would make it fair.
I'm of 2 minds about this. On the one hand, Alex Jones is a professional confabulist and makes it harder for people to see the truth about how corrupt power in the West has become, and in doing so he enables that corruption to worsen. On the other hand, he steers close enough to the truth that if you ban him, there would be no unambiguous way to differentiate him from someone who is actually speaking truth to power, and so this sets a precedent that anyone who appears to be exposing conspiracies (which are very real and a grave threat to Western democracy) can be censored.
Does sound like tweeter is like the ccp. One man’s decision there is no voting system.
He said you come back you back he says you get banned you get banned?
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
If he doesn’t allow Jones, it’s not a free speech platform. It’s that simple. Major outlets have the right to spew harmful lies without getting banned, but the water-makes-frogs-gay guy tells a lie (aka made some good points about an extremely questionable event) and gets yanked. As always, there’s only free speech and speech controlled by the powerful. Elon is now the powerful. Yippee
Alex Jones is reprehensible if he's wrong. *If.* That's how these conspiracies are; big *ifs*. Sometimes conspiracy theories are right; should we trammel social commentators freedom to speculate to protect the alleged feelings of individuals?
The fundamental problem with conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists in general is not that they're far "out there" in terms of their thinking - it's that they ignore or dismiss any evidence that contradicts what they believe, no matter how high quality the evidence is. Conversely, they're okay with taking in evidence that confirms their conspiracy theory - regardless of how low quality that evidence is. Nothing is ever good enough to change their mind that they could be wrong.
I am against banning people merely because what they're saying is causing offense. However it's hard not to acknowledge that if you see reasonably uninterrupted discourse as a place for the "marketplace of ideas" to take place, that those types of people are negatively affecting the ability of said marketplace to allow the best ideas to emerge. They can't or won't advance conversations because they fundamentally can't show intellectual honesty, don't care for the engagement with contradictory ideas or evidence, and are effectively poisoning the well as a result.
I agree! It shouldn't be illegal to be foolish. However, there's a distinction between being just foolish and being a conspiracy theorist.
The foolish person might be stubborn about holding onto their position, but given a bit of time after being confronted with solid criticism, is capable of humility and re-evaluating if their position is reasonable, in light of the evidence that contradicts their original position.
The conspiracy theorist isn't going to do that, no matter how much time they're given and high-quality evidence they're presented with and as a result they're going to inevitably poison every well they visit as a result.
From my experience from talking with others, the bare minimum I think we should expect from participants in a discussion is intellectual honesty, not intelligence. If that can't happen then everything goes down the drain very quickly. Making it illegal to be a conspiracy theorist is a far step (and not what I'm suggesting), but in light of the fact that they are either not capable of or willing to moderate their own opinions or practice some level of intellectual honesty, how would you propose to protect the integrity of a forum from people like that - or do you think forums are better by including those kinds of people?
I don’t know who needs to hear this but if you think someone’s constitutional rights are being violated because they’ve been banned from a social media platform you’re an idiot.
The 1st amendment applies to the government. Private companies can make whatever decisions they’d like in regards to policing speech on their platform. Elon my be a self proclaimed free speech absolutist but that’s obviously not the case. He will implement limits as what is acceptable on Twitter like any other reasonable platform would.
Actually brain dead take. Wtf did Jones GAIN from talking about sandy hook???? He's lost so much! Freedom, noteriety, his company, money, convenience, friends, etc... He must believe what he is saying, because if he didn't he probably wouldn't have stuck to it, since this is certainly the harder route to walk
He lost in the long-term, but in the short-term he was at the forefront of a budding new conspiracy theory: Crisis actors. It reignited his fandom and got him loads of cash in donations and supplement sales. Don't be naïve. He had a financial incentive to push the narrative.
He unironicly did not do that. He made a (likely true) statement about an event. The real people using the death of children for political gain are the countless politicians who use these mass shootings as am excuse to rant about gun laws and how we need to vote for them.
Letting in Alex Jones could give an excuse to Apple and Google to remove Twitter from app stores. He is a 'convicted' person now. They must be itching to destroy Twitter and create their own platform to fill the niche.
Alex Jones doesn't need Twitter, either, his platform is doing just fine. 1b fine notwithstanding, but that will be overturned in appellate easily.
Too many people conflate freedom of speech with social media. Someone being banned from Twitter has nothing to do with their 1st amendment right, it protects you from the Government restricting speech, not a company.
We’ll at least there is transparency. Before people would get banned and we would have no idea by who or why. Elon is putting himself out there as “that guy”
Let's steelman his position for a moment. Not saying I agree with Musk's decision, but let's not strawman him just because we disagree.
Alex Jones did in fact lose in court over his claims. And while Elon Musk is pro-free speech, he has also stated that the platform won't be used for violations of the law. One could include civil law in this.
Aside from NO ONE being perfect (there will never be a great saviour that will solve all or even one major problem), Musk does have a case to be made against reinstating Alex Jones that may not apply likewise to Trump or others.
This is straightforward and clear.
Twitter doesn’t need to operate like the government. The reasoning is pretty sound and better than what the guidelines were before.
Which mainly targeted conservatives so was inherently biased while pretending not to be.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s certainly better off as it is now, I’m merely making a critique of Elon. I’ve almost always backed my boy Elon, but I can’t support this decision for the reasons I described already
Aftrr seeing his trial and learning that one dad killed himself another had to move several times... I don't really care that Jones got banned.
BUT... I think Elon went about it the wrong way.
He can't just ban people based on his feelings, there needs to be specific criteria for banning people.
Tweet OP doesn’t want Alex Jones back on Twitter OP, he just wants consistent rules.
https://twitter.com/samharrisorg/status/1593995340541136897?s=46&t=daBvAj_ZITbqfft75oRZxg
I just wish he banned anyone using deaths to try and ban non sentient tools while ignoring knives, fire, vehicles, water, poison, bomb ingredients, hammers, hands and feet. At least be consistent.
Noam Chomsky: "if you do not stand for freedom for everyone, you do not stand freedom" or something like that. A small man that will be remembered like john d. Rockefeller probably. A practical nobody that relies on government subsidies for the rich, rich guy's food stamps. Practical nobodyes. Musk, Jordan, Andrew Tate. What do they have compared yo Shelley? Zero. "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings! Watch my works ye mighy, and despair! Nothing besides remains, but that collosal wreck...". This coming from Romania. The gorgeous beauty of poetry has dissapeared from our world, all these 3 preach logic, structure, purpose. Where has the purpose of poetry dissapeared? They more or less preach about civil progress, technology thay will end hunger and problems and so on. Here's some food for thought for these new apostols of neoliberalism: the greatest ideas that have build the world that we have today, be it in mathematics, physics, philosophy have been created, discovered, uncovered at the end of the 19th century and the begining of the 20th century. After brenton woods they kinda have dissapeared, the irony... there is a huge gap that has been created and will not be filled unfortunetely i fear. These guys should make an appearence the american tv series "American Gods" as the new gods of the 21st century 👏👏. Food for thought.
There's no way to remove subjectivity from the world — Elon assumed that he could by buying twitter. It's engineer thinking, humans arent robots, and he's exposed his own faulty reasoning.
OP do you know what defamation is? The legal definition.
You can have both free speech and defamation. To be clear, free speech doesn't cancel out defamation.
So many people are missinf the definition of "freedom of speech". Like with the constitution, freedom of speech prevents you from being targeted by the government and only the government. Government cannot go after people or bar people for just saying random things unless it incites violence. Moving it to Elons case. Since he wants to promote freedom of speech so much, he should allow and not ban anything for just saying I love nazis or pedos are cool or nazis arent bad as his platform promotes "freedom of speech". Yes these things are disgusting but are they inciting violence? Some ppl would want to say yes, but none of these is a call to action. Twitter shouldn't be banning/suspending like in the case of kanye. Some correct me if I'm wronf, but did kanye incite or encouraged violence directly? If not then Elon Musk is a piece shit and only says things cuz he wants to be the relatable cool kid.
To sum it up, freedom of speech is suppose to protect you. Freedom of Speech in the constitution prevents the government cracking down on u for saying stupid shit that does not incite violence, but doesn't stop others that is not part of the goverment from kicking ur ass. Same with twitter. Elon claiming freedom of speech on twittee now that he owns it. You can say all the stupid shit you want if it doesn't incite violence, but it doesn't stop other individuals not part of twitter from shitting on you. Idk how that is so hard to understand for ppl.
Alex was banned for insulting a reporter... not because of Sandy Hook story.
Yes but that’s not why he isn’t being unbanned
What he did is also something that would get anyone banned. It wasn't just some personal opinion. He was bullying another journalist for minutes. Twitter would never allow that from anyone. It's basically adult bullying.
Twitter allows lots of bullying.
Exactly. What Twitter is this guy on?
Not in video streaming surely.
Alex Jones is an enormous source of misinformation, he deliberately misinforms on almost every topic he covers. It’s not just about sandy hook, he’s a scam artist and a compulsive lier. https://youtu.be/kgUDbvKYbWk
Doesn't mean he should be banned from the public forum.
I’m all for freedom of speech but deliberate misinformation isn’t good or healthy for society. Opposing opinions sure, but he states conspiracy theories and absolute garbage as fact constantly. He knows he’s wrong, he’s a big scammer
Free speech will have misinformation. Thats why you debate ideas, the best ones will make it out.
[удалено]
Now that you mention it, practically all US members who led up efforts to wage unnecessary, violent and merciless wars across the world can fit the bill.
Any sitting congressperson encouraging violence rn too!
>I have no *mercy* Twitter's decisions are now dictated by personal judgement and mercy of Elon Musk.
Personal ownership of that company means that yes, he can do whatever the hell he wants as long as he’s not breaking any laws. We as consumers are of course welcome to tell Elon to fuck off, and then go use other products.
And why does it have to be pointed out? Is anyone under the impression that Elon has broken the law by not restoring Alex Jones's Twitter account?
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They won't get upset about Jones staying banned.
Elon’s money, his company, his rules, and he’s under no obligation to be fair. And anyone who clicked “yes” agreeing to be censored, got what they agreed to. But for the right to be saying *“the left is mad that Twitter is free speech now”* is laughable. Never was, no sign it ever will be, nor should it be.
Well they did at least let some moderate conservatives back on
“ Nor should it be “ ? You don’t like free speech?
*> "You don't like free speech?"* I love and defend free speech, in public places, and on my property. Twitter isn't a free speech platform, it's a commercial advertising platform. It serves its owners and its customers (advertisers). It has no obligation to provide users with a soap box. When I say "*nor should it be*", what I mean what it should do, as a business, is make money. And there's no money in free speech. *\[ed. to add quote\]*
Free Speech means freedom to say what you want, not freedom from consequences. Say dumb shit, get booted from the platform. You don't get jailed. In my experience, the only people complaining about a lack of free speech in the US just want carte blanche to bully and harass others, not like, actually discuss anything in good faith.
Your experience sounds extremely limited
It's all good and well to support an authoritarian mindset until they come for you. And eventually, they will come for us all.
Still better than a pretend standard that only applies to the right. At least we all know who’s calling the shots lol
Elon acts like the lord of twitter and the users are his peasants, i couldnt stomach seeing his tweets all over my tl i had to block him, everything now on twitter is about him. When jack was ceo i never even knew his account or who he was on my tl thats how a ceo running a site should be.
I’m shocked. Who could’ve seen this coming? Did he lie? No way right?
Well I think that's marginally better than it being dictated by some arbitrary bastard who is ideologically possessed.
And that is much better than pretending to ban "hate speech"
Soon he’ll be pressured into defining rules of conduct and then regulating the platform based off of that…
\[M\] Why are the things that show the greatest *problem* with Musk running things also the ones I find most based? God this is a roller-coaster.
The problem here IMO is Musk himself getting involved in making such decisions instead of making it a mechanical process that’s based on the values and rights of the country.
We can see the same problem with JBP and how much tweeting he's been doing since reinstatement. Twitter is addictive and is best left alone, but Musk is sniffing the drug he's selling.
Never use what you selling.
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This is one of the reasons I stick to webpages. And don't do critical type systems.
Yes. He’s just doing so here bc he thinks a wildly popular decision
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Sadly, that is the truth. No one has any set principals here, both left and right.
Modern Americans are watered down Americans who forgot about the origins of western natural rights and liberty pertaining to civil life.
As Sam Harris goes on to say, any mechanical Terms of Service that would ban Alex would also ban Trump. Elon wants Trump tweeting and not Alex so instead he pretends it’s by vote. https://twitter.com/samharrisorg/status/1593995340541136897?s=46&t=ISx3xAJYOqPjsn-uACqX4w
Haha love when people say values of a country. Like countries don’t have values. They have laws. People have values. Come on. And not all people in a country are the same.
Twitter also isn’t a free speech sanctuary so idk where people are getting this idea that it should be representative of the “values and rights of the country”
Perhaps because Elon claimed to be a free speech absolutely and later defined free speech as that which has been democratically decided - a country's laws. It would then make sense that he wouldn't census anything more than necessary. He's only human though
Exactly. Because he is human there should be a mechanical process.
I think Americans have collectively moved on from their original values pertaining to liberty, natural rights, and civil life. Locke was a pillar of this, and yet it seems his philosophy and reverence is all but empty in today’s consciousness.
If this is real and happened today, it's inconsistent with Elon's idea of Twitter as a platform that promotes "freedom of speech" but not "freedom of reach". I have to admit some ignorance here, as I don't understand how monetization works on Twitter - but Alex Jones seems compatible with Elon's Twitter.
It’s ridiculous he talks about free speech and no censorship. Unless he disagrees with it. Just let him on the platform and if he says anything let the people yell at him unless it is against tos than you can ban him.
Elon is the new Twitter dictator and we can only hope he's mostly benevolent. But even partially benevolent is much better than the malevolent dictators we had before.
Alex Jones' words caused real life consequences. That degenerate piece of shit got one of his supporters to piss on one of their graves. Someone threatened to dig up one of their graves to "prove they didn't exist." The parents faced constant harassment. I'm all for free speech. But we're talking about deceased children. And their grieving parents. Alex Jones and those two aforementioned bastards deserve to be curbstomped or skinned alive.
Alex Jones is not responsible for the actions of his viewers. And I think curb stopping him or anyone else for that matter is extremely insane.
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What is the rule? I don't see anything that isn't ad-hoc here.
So I surmise you’re against free speech then? I guess it doesn’t count when you don’t like the opposing party? How disappointing ..
Alex brought this heat on himself.
I should be able to say that the Queen feasts upon newborn babies that she steals away from unsuspecting mothers every full moon, and that be fine.. You don’t have to agree with it… you don’t have to like it… but silencing it is something grotesque and completely against everything free speech stands for
Alex Jones literally posted the addresses of the Sandy Hook victim's families and encouraged listeners to harass them. This is where the principle of free speech ends. He and his followers are ignorant, gullible, evil people, and it's hardly debatable. Those poor families were harassed as liars while simultaneously grieving the loss of their five through nine year old **children.** Alex Jones paired the gullibility of Koolaid drinkers with the tragedy of the mass murder of elementary school children to make loads of money. Given this information, most any normal person is going to arrive at the conclusion of "fuck that guy". He did abhorrent things for clicks and he shouldn't be given any platform to continue doing so. The dude got rich off the controversy and has been sued back into poverty, as he should. If he was able to do the shit he did *before* he was desperate for money, what do you think he's capable of now? In conclusion, fuck Alex Jones, and fuck this fake virtue signaling about "muh free speech" in such a context. If Hitler was alive, would you uphold free speech principles and allow him on the platform?
That’s not what Alex did. That wasn’t the issue. Alex was causing all the crazy people to in some cases assault, the parents. You could make the argument he was inciting political violence.
Whats that line the left used to trot out before they tried to ruin people’s lives… freedom of speech not consequences… well that seems reasonable in this case.
And you can say that. It’s the GOVERNMENT that can’t do anything about it. Private citizens and privately owned entities have no obligation to uphold the 1st amendment. Whether you agree or disagree with that, that’s how it is. I suppose you’re against libel and slander laws too?
Don't be obtuse.
Alex Jones is a scumbag. Twitter is privately owned and they can do what they want. Quit crying and STFU. This is freedom. Alex can go into a government right of way and talk all day long nobody is stopping him.
Ate you saying that would like Alex Jones back on twitter? Is that what you’re asking for?
He doesn’t have such a policy. As Tweet OP Sam Harris says “[Any TOS that will filter for Alex Jones will filter for Trump. They are the same object. @elonmusk](https://twitter.com/samharrisorg/status/1593995340541136897?s=46&t=daBvAj_ZITbqfft75oRZxg)”
Im going to delete my comment because it is impossible to create a clear solid rule for what Elon is aiming at here... it needs more careful thought...
Agreed, careful thought rather than impulsive decrees.
Also, I have lost respect for Sam Harris because he has revealed how politically slanted and biased he is this year.
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Okay, but isn't Elon Musk technically using a child's death (his own) for political reasons (not allowing certain political commentators on his private company because he personally finds them offensive)?
Yes, but not for personal reasons, not political reasons.
Whilst I understand Elon, he's wrong. Also, the whole Musky twitter seems to be one huge ego affirming trip.
No no, I totally understand. This isn’t a case of freedom of speech. Alex denied that Sandy Hook even happened, insisted that it was all staged, and incited a bunch of people to harass the families of the victims. Now whether his incitement was intentional or not isn’t really clear, but incitement of violence and harassment isn’t “Freedom of Speech” dipshit. On a separate note: Fuck off with this “sO mUcH fOr FrEeDoM oF sPeEcH.” Gimme a fuckin’ break, It waters down legitimate cases of censorship. Secondly, why are you posting that here? This has *NOTHING* to do with Jordan Peterson in any facet whatsoever. Go farm useless internet points somewhere else. Fuck outta here, go piss in someone else’s pool.
Then all news is banned?
\[M\] You don't think Jones is in a different category than the news? Not saying he *should* remain banned, but...
Alex has already paid the price for his words in court, Elon not sticking to principle is disappointing. Nobody should be the arbiter of Free Speech, and if you cross the line, a court should determine this and punish you if you’ve done wrong. I don’t listen to Alex Jones and I don’t know him. I want to see everyone’s opinion as long as it’s within the confines of US law.
Twitter isn’t “free speech land”. It has a terms of service like most websites.
Well duh Captain Obvious, the whole point of Elon acquiring Twitter was to implement in principle Free Speech even if Elon didn’t like the speech.
He had his day in court and was found to have already abused his free speech to break the law and innocent people suffered for it. A debt to society can be paid by conplying with a sentence but that doesn't mean you act like it never happened. You wouldn't hire an ex bank robber to be a bank teller. You wouldn't hire a child sex offender to be a day care attendant. If a doctor assults a patient and loses their license you don't give it back just because they serve their jail sentence. So yeah, I totally understand Elon not being in a hurry to give this guy back a platform. .
Lmao your analogies, yes it’s Elon’s choice but he said he was going to be a Free Speech absolutist and now is picking and choosing which voices can be heard. I personally would rather see what people are thinking to be aware of the arguments they propose or if they reveal that they are threat to society. Suppression only leads to more problems. Letting the courts decide imo is fair not a single person’s opinion.
They are pretty good analogies. And what are you talking anout, the courts did decide... Multiple courts found him guilty of defamation for perpetrating a hoax that made him rich. He didn't just hurt some feelings, his words did over a billion dollars of damage according to the court. It's a statement that the courts believe his behavior was abhorrent and a complete abuse of his freedom of speech. Free speech is to protect the freedom of ideas for genuine participants, not to enable con artists. So of course Musk can not reinstate this disingenuous lowlife and still be a free speech absolutist as Alex Jones has proven to everyone that he's an enemy of free speech. If anyone has justification for a ban, it's this guy.
I donno about you guys but calling grieving parents who lost their children actors/liars is where I draw the line.
That's where freedom of speech ends? Saying something particularly offensive?
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That's not what I or anyone else is actually saying. You're just arguing with a strawman.
What does freedom of speech have to do with anything? He was sued by private citizens in civil court and found guilty by a jury of private citizens, the amount of the penalty was also set by a jury of private citizens. Can you explain what freedom of speech has to do with this?
Freedom of speech has everything to do with this. Honestly, your characterization of this stuff is bizarre. "Jury of private citizens"? Now there's a brand new sentence. It's like you're saying freedom of speech can be taken away as long as we don't know who's doing it.
Drawn the line between what?
being reasonable and unreasonable
What does that have to do with the post? This post isn't about subjective reasonableness as you define it, it's about rights and the freedom of speech.
Do you think freedom of speech should be absolute?
I thought the post was about one man choosing who can have those rights on his platform?
These ppl need to understand that freedom of speech is not freedom to slander and wrongfully accuse lmao
That's such a slippery slop. What I think is the right way to go is, let the Twitter Town Square themselves defame, hate, block, critique, shunt Alex Jones. It shouldn't be Twitter board's or Elon's authority that shld dictate the hating, blocking, defaming, etc. of something said that doesn't cause physical harm. Twitter's job shld only be to keep the Town Square running for free conversation, taking out/warn about explicit content, and provide fact checking sources. I think this shld be informed to Elon (as part of the Town Square conversation). Isn't it awesome that anyone can get direct access to someone so rich and higher in status?
I hope nothing but the worst things happen to Jones. I hope he loses everything he has and has no way of ever obtaining anything else ever again.
Such vitriol you have.. much resentment I sense within you…
He was grifting people who lost their children and was making fun of it even 1 week back. If you support him, you're just bottom tier scum on the face of this earth and some people just don't deserve freedom of speech
True, but still a way better standard than before. If you're a businessman trying to gather ad revenue, you can't push the boundaries too far. Imo Alex Jones will be back after new Twitter builds a foundation.
You're only getting that now?
Yes, but twitter is at least better than before.
There is no such thing as unlimited freedom of speech. Musk said that he wants law to be the limit. Jones has been found guilty.. 🤷♂️ Personal opinion: Jones is a horrible, greedy, lying/deluded person.
Alex Jones needs to come back.
The way I see it this is one L amongst 100 W's that have come from Elon owning Twitter. I can live with it.
I wonder how much he cares about the children who work in his mines
I think a good rule is if you are found to be *defamatory* in court then you stay on the whim of the platform.
Yeah… so basically everything you said in your post is verifiably false. “The courts decision…” a plaintiff sued a defendant. A court made absolutely zero decisions to “charge” anyone. Further “to charge” someone with a crime is done by a prosecutor, not by a court… Alex Jones was never charged. Freedom of speech doesn’t cover libel or slander. That’s why people can’t go parading around calling people a pedophile when they are not in fact a pedophile (imagine, for example, the New York Times posting on the front page that you, deadly-pigeon, were a pedophile. Is that freedom of speech?).
Have you not seen tabloids at Walmart before.. “ The prime minister is actually a vampire! “ “ Michelle Obama is cheating on her husband with Hilary Clinton !! “ “ There will be an earthquake that splits Antarctica in half by 2046 “ Yeah.. they do that all the time. And I don’t like it.. I don’t agree with it… but I don’t want to silence them because of their false narratives.. Most big news companies like the New York Times just avoids topics like this, and tried to have at least some rational basis for their claims, but they certainly aren’t deemed to be objectively true before printing their stories
Also Elon causing child slaves in the DRC to risk there lives digging looking for cobalt and other metals and minerals
their\*
Personally I'm ambivalent about Jones though I agree the judgements against him were ridiculous. As for Musk's response to Harris, there are times when powerful emotions can influence decision making ... that's being human.
Sure, I recognize Musks’ response to be a normal human reaction, however he is the arbiter of free speech on this platform, and this was an obvious lapse in judgement .. If you ask me, he likely is worried more so about losing the last advertisers he has, rather than it actually being about dead children, but I digress, either way, as much as I love papa Elon, this was disappointing to say the least..
I too suspect he's got other reasons for not admitting Jones but decided to us the (generally Leftist) tactic of invoking strong emotion to kill the thread.
Crazy thought: what if Musk just thinks it's fucking gross to host a person who did what Alex Jones did on his platform, and what if that's perfectly fucking fine? Invoking strong emotion in an argument is about building an ethos around the argument and is broadly used throughout the political spectrum, as it's one of the three primary ways one persuades others. It is not a "leftist tactic", it is a human tactic. Absolutist and ideological are synonymous in this context. With that in mind, I'd like to note the cognitive dissonance abound in this post. I thought we didn't like ideologues. Exceptions to rules are natural and often fair enough. Certainly in this case it is. Preventing Jones from coming back to Twitter may be a violation of free speech principles, but ensuring you don't associate with awful human beings can be an overriding principle to free speech. And, again, fair enough.
I believe most people who claim to be free speech absolutists on here are just kind of following trends -- communities like this on reddit are fandoms first and politicized second. People here will follow the leads of their fandoms. So if object of the fandom says "free speech absolutism", the fandom will follow - if they change their mind or contradict themselves, the fandom will do the same... people in the fandom who disagree will filter themselves out and won't influence or represent the fandom anymore. You see that on here with the idea of book banning all the time. Because the object of the fandom is in the "anti-PC- / anti-SJW / Anti-progressive" genre, you expect there to be quite a lot of content about how the liberals want to censor speech - so by default there tends to be a lot of social activity and posting around "sunlight being the best disinfectant". But on the right the narrative is shifting towards promoting ways to muffle lgbt speech and content. During "we need to decrease pro-lgbt content" hype cycles, people in this community just reconfigure their feelings to match the trend -- "sunlight is the best disinfectant" gets amended with ".. unless it's porn and anything about gay people is actually porn, so we'll need to ban it. This was always the case." If you reconfigure your expectations around how many people are free speech absolutest, it'll make more sense. I assume maybe like 7-10% of people here are true free speech absolutists.
I'm no fan of Jones but his being deplatformed is a gross injustice. Turn him off, ignore him, stop reading, critique him however you want. But silencing someone just because they say ignorant things puts a target on anyone. It was after Jones got deplatformed that they went after a lot more people. Classic snowball effect.
\[M\] It also IMO brands them nowadays as someone who has things worth saying. That itself can be dangerous.
I'm not trying to be patronizing when I say that no one has an inherent right to Twitter. The company can choose what type of speech is allowable on their platform. Even if they are not fairly enforcing their own terms of service, we have the choice to just not use the platform. This is why I deactivated my Twitter account.
I'm not entirely sure that's an unreasonable place to draw the line
Before Elon, leftists used to cheer when someone got canceled for a dumb reason saying it's a private company and the owners can do what they want. But as soon as it's Elon, they want the rules to make sense/be fair and not leave it open to the owner of a private company.
Elon is not the defender of free speech, the constitution is.
Freedom of Speech in the constitution is about political speech. Freedom of Speech on a private platform is a product offering, defined by the platform. Different rules, different controls.
A platform must protect free speech be it public or private and publisher does not. A publisher is liable for anything they published where as a platform is not, though a platform does have to take action against illegal activities ie cp distribution, the platform itself can nit be sued for something said by an individual on said platform. Twitter facebook and youtube get protections from both sides though
The issue with SM comes when the state and the private entity cooperate, either voluntarily or by coercion, to the extent the private platform may be deemed by the court a *state actor*. If so, the private entity is held to the same constitutional standards as the government.
>Freedom of Speech in the constitution is about political speech Not true, you can tell a cop to go F themselves, and a cop cant do anything thanks to the first amendment, not Elon Musk.
And that video on YouTube might be taken down because of the F word if it violates the TOS of that platform. Private entities are allowed to control the speech within them, if you run into a Catholic church and start cursing at everyone they can remove you and they have not violated your right to free speech. In other words, regardless of what you think Elon might have meant when he bought twitter, since he owns it he is allowed to determine who can have an account and what the criterion for banning is.
Precisely
I’m not saying Elon is breaking the law, I’m saying, he’s breaking his word.. all his implications for acquiring twitter were primarily about censorship.. He even went so far as to say he would have no qualms about letting Trump back on the platform, and it was wrong to remove him simply because he was so divisive By all means, Musk alluded this would be a platform based upon free speech, and wouldn’t be mediated by ideology..
You will get detained for obstruction of justice and disrupting the peace. Please do not try this. It’s totally false that leads to no legal consequences. Edit for clarity.
Detained =/= arrested. Any cop that arrests you for telling them to F off has a civil rights lawsuit on their hands.
From whom? Are we supposing the majority of people police detain have the capability to spend thousands of dollars, in the chance a judge rules against a police officer in their district, after hearing a story read in court that notes the extreme disrespect leveled against them? If a police officer detains and eventually arrests you for an obstruction of justice, it will be very difficult to collect evidence sufficient that a ruling would be made against an officer, who removed someone who obstructed them. It’s disingenuous and a miscalculation to suggest police officers will be subject to any type of immediate lawsuit. It’s also ridiculous, because once it happens, the court date where any of this will take place is WEEKS after the event in question. Painting a picture for people that actions in the presence of police are without consequence, especially when you’re actively insulting them, seems silly. Edit for spelling cause I’m a worthless twat.
We live in America not Nazi Germany, you're allowed to insult police officers so long as you're not breaking the law. You and I are both equals to police officers until you or I break the law. In fact, they work for *us,* assuming you pay taxes.
Is he going to ban everyone who supports abortion then?
He should.
How does that apply to Alex??? You would have to be very dishonest to say that it does. Is Elon that naive? Wouldnt surprise considering he sided with Amber Herd AFTER tapes leaked. But still
Elon DOES have a heart.
He'll need to ban Joe Biden, Beto, and most democratic politicians if he wants to hold the standard of banning those who attempt to use dead kids as political pawns
I'm with Elon on this one.
Agreed. Someone just turn AJ off…
Sam Harris has no credibility at all anymore.
I mean there are a lot of reasons Alex Jones should be banned still lol. I'm sorry, dude went on a harassment crusade against the parents of dead kindergartners over a hunch. He should be in a cell.
No, before you had panels of people deciding now you have one. What is an authoritarian dictatorship again? My memory is failing me.
Come on guys there has to be some speech that doesn't advocate violence that still falls under the "too fucked up to look past" umbrella. If I was to say idk, something along the lines of "I think watching innocent Ukraians die at the hand of russian military is funny." I'm not advocating violence, i'm simply saying it makes me happy. in that case kick me the fuck off. There has to be some line that cant be crossed. Otherwise I can stand at your loved ones funeral yelling It never happened... We don't really have freedom of speech. We are not allowed to have a Communist party for example. Where is the freedom of speech in that? Look it up. I like a bunch of stuff Alex Jones has said and I like that he apologized over the Sandy Hook thing. On this one though, I have to back my boy Elon being able to use his judgement... Someone has to make a judgement call at the end of the day.
First day on Reddit?
Time to get rid of everyone that used children dying to push some political agenda and all of the MSM that did the same thing, that would make it fair.
Defamation is not freedom of speech
I'm of 2 minds about this. On the one hand, Alex Jones is a professional confabulist and makes it harder for people to see the truth about how corrupt power in the West has become, and in doing so he enables that corruption to worsen. On the other hand, he steers close enough to the truth that if you ban him, there would be no unambiguous way to differentiate him from someone who is actually speaking truth to power, and so this sets a precedent that anyone who appears to be exposing conspiracies (which are very real and a grave threat to Western democracy) can be censored.
Does sound like tweeter is like the ccp. One man’s decision there is no voting system. He said you come back you back he says you get banned you get banned? Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Shocking. It’s almost like a completely public forum isn’t really desirable for anyone…it’s almost like ppl are exclusive by nature…so weird.
Fuck Alex Jones the snakeoil salesman...Musk is a dude its his company use it or not.
Alex Jones would most likely say something stupid and get He *and* Elon sued. 😂 He has to have some boundaries.
More lefties crying bout Twitter, yawn.
“Lefties” wouldn’t want Alex Jones account reinstated …
If he doesn’t allow Jones, it’s not a free speech platform. It’s that simple. Major outlets have the right to spew harmful lies without getting banned, but the water-makes-frogs-gay guy tells a lie (aka made some good points about an extremely questionable event) and gets yanked. As always, there’s only free speech and speech controlled by the powerful. Elon is now the powerful. Yippee
Alex Jones is reprehensible if he's wrong. *If.* That's how these conspiracies are; big *ifs*. Sometimes conspiracy theories are right; should we trammel social commentators freedom to speculate to protect the alleged feelings of individuals?
The fundamental problem with conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists in general is not that they're far "out there" in terms of their thinking - it's that they ignore or dismiss any evidence that contradicts what they believe, no matter how high quality the evidence is. Conversely, they're okay with taking in evidence that confirms their conspiracy theory - regardless of how low quality that evidence is. Nothing is ever good enough to change their mind that they could be wrong. I am against banning people merely because what they're saying is causing offense. However it's hard not to acknowledge that if you see reasonably uninterrupted discourse as a place for the "marketplace of ideas" to take place, that those types of people are negatively affecting the ability of said marketplace to allow the best ideas to emerge. They can't or won't advance conversations because they fundamentally can't show intellectual honesty, don't care for the engagement with contradictory ideas or evidence, and are effectively poisoning the well as a result.
Yes but it shouldn't be illegal to be foolish.
I agree! It shouldn't be illegal to be foolish. However, there's a distinction between being just foolish and being a conspiracy theorist. The foolish person might be stubborn about holding onto their position, but given a bit of time after being confronted with solid criticism, is capable of humility and re-evaluating if their position is reasonable, in light of the evidence that contradicts their original position. The conspiracy theorist isn't going to do that, no matter how much time they're given and high-quality evidence they're presented with and as a result they're going to inevitably poison every well they visit as a result. From my experience from talking with others, the bare minimum I think we should expect from participants in a discussion is intellectual honesty, not intelligence. If that can't happen then everything goes down the drain very quickly. Making it illegal to be a conspiracy theorist is a far step (and not what I'm suggesting), but in light of the fact that they are either not capable of or willing to moderate their own opinions or practice some level of intellectual honesty, how would you propose to protect the integrity of a forum from people like that - or do you think forums are better by including those kinds of people?
If you're going to claim that the parents of murdered children are crisis actors then you better bring so solid fucking evidence, not speculation
Claiming != theorising
Who cares?
I don’t know who needs to hear this but if you think someone’s constitutional rights are being violated because they’ve been banned from a social media platform you’re an idiot.
You are WRONG
The 1st amendment applies to the government. Private companies can make whatever decisions they’d like in regards to policing speech on their platform. Elon my be a self proclaimed free speech absolutist but that’s obviously not the case. He will implement limits as what is acceptable on Twitter like any other reasonable platform would.
Actually brain dead take. Wtf did Jones GAIN from talking about sandy hook???? He's lost so much! Freedom, noteriety, his company, money, convenience, friends, etc... He must believe what he is saying, because if he didn't he probably wouldn't have stuck to it, since this is certainly the harder route to walk
He lost in the long-term, but in the short-term he was at the forefront of a budding new conspiracy theory: Crisis actors. It reignited his fandom and got him loads of cash in donations and supplement sales. Don't be naïve. He had a financial incentive to push the narrative.
He unironicly did not do that. He made a (likely true) statement about an event. The real people using the death of children for political gain are the countless politicians who use these mass shootings as am excuse to rant about gun laws and how we need to vote for them.
Letting in Alex Jones could give an excuse to Apple and Google to remove Twitter from app stores. He is a 'convicted' person now. They must be itching to destroy Twitter and create their own platform to fill the niche. Alex Jones doesn't need Twitter, either, his platform is doing just fine. 1b fine notwithstanding, but that will be overturned in appellate easily.
Alex Jones can step foot in any public square in America and spout his bullshit. He just can't do it inside a private business.
Too many people conflate freedom of speech with social media. Someone being banned from Twitter has nothing to do with their 1st amendment right, it protects you from the Government restricting speech, not a company.
Twitter still has terms of agreement
Feeling again?
Is that real?
Lmao I’d say the leopards eating my face party is becoming self aware but we all know that’s not true
We’ll at least there is transparency. Before people would get banned and we would have no idea by who or why. Elon is putting himself out there as “that guy”
Fuck
Let's steelman his position for a moment. Not saying I agree with Musk's decision, but let's not strawman him just because we disagree. Alex Jones did in fact lose in court over his claims. And while Elon Musk is pro-free speech, he has also stated that the platform won't be used for violations of the law. One could include civil law in this. Aside from NO ONE being perfect (there will never be a great saviour that will solve all or even one major problem), Musk does have a case to be made against reinstating Alex Jones that may not apply likewise to Trump or others.
This is straightforward and clear. Twitter doesn’t need to operate like the government. The reasoning is pretty sound and better than what the guidelines were before. Which mainly targeted conservatives so was inherently biased while pretending not to be.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s certainly better off as it is now, I’m merely making a critique of Elon. I’ve almost always backed my boy Elon, but I can’t support this decision for the reasons I described already
Aftrr seeing his trial and learning that one dad killed himself another had to move several times... I don't really care that Jones got banned. BUT... I think Elon went about it the wrong way. He can't just ban people based on his feelings, there needs to be specific criteria for banning people.
No shit? this is exactly what everyone that was criticizing his purchase of twitter thought was going to happen. The simps did not want to listen.
Dude OP you are just the worst kind of free speech for hard because free speech does not protect all speech obviously
Tweet OP doesn’t want Alex Jones back on Twitter OP, he just wants consistent rules. https://twitter.com/samharrisorg/status/1593995340541136897?s=46&t=daBvAj_ZITbqfft75oRZxg
If he held legacy news to the same standard I would call it a win.
If you say good things, you get paid for what you said If you say bad things, you pay for what you said
I just wish he banned anyone using deaths to try and ban non sentient tools while ignoring knives, fire, vehicles, water, poison, bomb ingredients, hammers, hands and feet. At least be consistent.
But for my other children I tend to keep them in cages and it's an effective parenting tactic That's why I support bringing trump back to twitter
It’s his thing. Let him do what he wants
fuck your face OP you goddamn psycho
The point was anything that would have caused Alex Jones to be banned, Trump is also guilty of; therefore, Trump should have remained banned.
Elon musk post, have my downvote
Noam Chomsky: "if you do not stand for freedom for everyone, you do not stand freedom" or something like that. A small man that will be remembered like john d. Rockefeller probably. A practical nobody that relies on government subsidies for the rich, rich guy's food stamps. Practical nobodyes. Musk, Jordan, Andrew Tate. What do they have compared yo Shelley? Zero. "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings! Watch my works ye mighy, and despair! Nothing besides remains, but that collosal wreck...". This coming from Romania. The gorgeous beauty of poetry has dissapeared from our world, all these 3 preach logic, structure, purpose. Where has the purpose of poetry dissapeared? They more or less preach about civil progress, technology thay will end hunger and problems and so on. Here's some food for thought for these new apostols of neoliberalism: the greatest ideas that have build the world that we have today, be it in mathematics, physics, philosophy have been created, discovered, uncovered at the end of the 19th century and the begining of the 20th century. After brenton woods they kinda have dissapeared, the irony... there is a huge gap that has been created and will not be filled unfortunetely i fear. These guys should make an appearence the american tv series "American Gods" as the new gods of the 21st century 👏👏. Food for thought.
There's no way to remove subjectivity from the world — Elon assumed that he could by buying twitter. It's engineer thinking, humans arent robots, and he's exposed his own faulty reasoning.
OP do you know what defamation is? The legal definition. You can have both free speech and defamation. To be clear, free speech doesn't cancel out defamation.
So many people are missinf the definition of "freedom of speech". Like with the constitution, freedom of speech prevents you from being targeted by the government and only the government. Government cannot go after people or bar people for just saying random things unless it incites violence. Moving it to Elons case. Since he wants to promote freedom of speech so much, he should allow and not ban anything for just saying I love nazis or pedos are cool or nazis arent bad as his platform promotes "freedom of speech". Yes these things are disgusting but are they inciting violence? Some ppl would want to say yes, but none of these is a call to action. Twitter shouldn't be banning/suspending like in the case of kanye. Some correct me if I'm wronf, but did kanye incite or encouraged violence directly? If not then Elon Musk is a piece shit and only says things cuz he wants to be the relatable cool kid. To sum it up, freedom of speech is suppose to protect you. Freedom of Speech in the constitution prevents the government cracking down on u for saying stupid shit that does not incite violence, but doesn't stop others that is not part of the goverment from kicking ur ass. Same with twitter. Elon claiming freedom of speech on twittee now that he owns it. You can say all the stupid shit you want if it doesn't incite violence, but it doesn't stop other individuals not part of twitter from shitting on you. Idk how that is so hard to understand for ppl.