this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025

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114

They Criticized Musk on X. Then Their Reach Collapsed. (www.nytimes.com)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 23 hours ago

If you are still on this platform, you are part of the problem. No excuses.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's almost like free speech absolutism is bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 hours ago

"Free speech" for these people has only meant for them.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Never expect free speech (or other constitutional protections) in a private forum, which is one reason the right is always gung-ho for privatization.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

*in the US.

The EU recognizes that human right such as freedom of speech also should be protected against private parties. Platforms can't ban or restrict you for arbitrary reasons here.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Link to that? I don't see any such protections except for children and some for journalists. Nothing saying you can't be banned if they want.

https://epthinktank.eu/2024/06/28/regulating-social-media-what-is-the-european-union-doing-to-protect-social-media-users/

https://www.thejournal.ie/social-media-audits-digital-services-act-6151679-Aug2023/

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Sure. For the fact that many jurisdictions outside of the US also consider freedom of speech and other human rights to apply between private parties: this is called "horizontal effect" and covered extensively in case law by e.g. the European Court of Human Rights. See also this chapter for an international comparison and this paper for a European perspective.

As for the specific rules in the EU for platforms: Article 17 of the Digital Services Act requires that users who are banned or shadowbanned from any platform are provided with specific information of what rule they broke, which they can then appeal internally or in court. Article 34 and 35 requires very large platforms (such as X) to take broad measures to protect i.a. the users' freedom of speech.

More to the point, one person who was shadowbanned by X in a similar way used the DSA and won in court

(Edited to add the last paragraph)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Reminds me of COVID

[+] [email protected] -27 points 1 day ago (3 children)

So what, it's his platform, he can do whatever he wants on it, he paid a lot of money for it.

I really don't get why this would upset anyone, he is not forcing you to use his platform.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

"Twitter should be the global town square"

"free speech absolutist"

"make humor great again"

"leftists are snowflakes"

Sure, he doesn't force anyone to use Twitter. It's still unfortunately the de facto communication platform for a lot of government agencies. It's still an important tool for the world. Let's hope some large governments (EU? Please?) grow balls and leave Twitter alltogether...

This is absolutely newsworthy and worth being upset about.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I mean, calling out Musks hypocrisy is not a bad thing per se, but is it really news?

At the end of the day a lot of people choose to remain on a platform that got bought by an gigantic asshole, who can now do whatever he wants with it. That's how it works and being upset about it just shows that many users are either naive or delusional. Twitter can't be saved, there's nothing left.

Combined with the fact that most Lemmy users probably know about this and already chose alternative platforms a long time ago, articles like these rarely cause more than a shrug, at least for me.

But hey, if it get's a few more people off of twitter (especially like large institutions as you mentioned), I won't complain. As time passes I just tend to think that everyone who still stays on Twitter maybe belongs there.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Fair enough. It's still more news than the endless reporting major news websites do (I'm looking at you bbc) about his fucking tweets.

But I can see your point that it's not very newsworthy on Lemmy (nor is this new btw, he has done similar shit before)

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

it's his platform, he can do whatever he wants on it, he paid a lot of money for it. […] I really don't get why this would upset anyone

lol

Champions “free speech” to justify buying Twitter in a legitimate way.
Wins over idealists who think they’re fighting for openness, calling it a “public square”, “Greek Agora” etc.
Bans critics and content he just doesn’t align with.
Gets called out.
“Whoa whoa, I meant my free speech. The rest of you? Peasants.”
People leave the platform: “I don’t get why this upsets anyone, it’s his platform”.

This reminds me of the behavior most common in subreddits such as /r/Bitcoin, we can even put it side by side:

Step 1: Preach a grand ideal — “X is the free speech Agora!” / “Bitcoin is your path to financial freedom!”
Step 2: Rally support by moralizing it — “If you’re against this, you’re against liberty!” / “Only fools ignore Bitcoin!”
Step 3: When the consequences hit — censorship or market crashes — suddenly the ideal becomes personal: “It’s his platform, he can do whatever he wants.” / “You fool! You shouldn’t have invested more than you can afford to lose.”

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

You're misunderstanding what I wrote, because:

People leave the platform: “I don’t get why this upsets anyone, it’s his platform”.

Is exactly the opposite of what I was trying to say with:

he is not forcing you to use his platform

you can just leave, there are so many alternatives available, if you don't then you are part of the problem, giving him power and putting more money into his pockets. In fact you should have seen the writing on the wall many years ago and latest when he bought it.

Being upset about this now after he did so many worse things is just silly.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

you can just leave, there are so many alternatives available […] In fact you should have seen the writing on the wall many years ago and latest when he bought it.

Yeah I know what you’re saying, and I agree — many people left Twitter back then indeed. But many people will still get bothered with the hypocrisy of this sort of behavior persisting in their society. Anything is justified at the moment it is convenient, then when the hypocrisy is pointed out, suddenly the problem is the person who fell for it. It feels a bit like an US cultural thing, where the damage of something to society isn’t really discussed, after all, we all have “free will”, so the fault is on the person who didn’t know better. But you’re gonna be affected by these things one way or another regardless of whether you try to ignore them.

There are enough fools in the world who will keep giving billionaires more and more power, no matter what they do, because America’s current indoctrination glorifies the ultra-rich (the dominant class in the U.S.) in the same way authoritarian countries indoctrinate their citizens to worship a strong leader who promises to take care of everything for them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Upset? I think we're all just reveling in his pain.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

I'm of the opinion that having a lot of money shouldn't, in fact, allow you to do what you want. No person should have this power to do mass censorship, not in the last place because manipulating online discourse means manipulating a fundamental aspect of democracy.

Musk specifically is meddling in elections, both in the EU and the US by e.g. bribing voters. Turning the dials of the algorithm lets him do this even more effectively.