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Re: Chief Twit Elon Musk says 'tyranny is all that lies ahead' if free speech is lost in America

By: Cactus Flower in ALEA | Recommend this post (0)
Tue, 29 Nov 22 7:36 PM | 15 view(s)
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Msg. 48058 of 54959
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"Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan said, on Tuesday morning, that while she backed freedom of speech, Twitter would have to fall in line with its tough new internet safety laws which, if broken, could leave firms facing fines of 10 per cent of their global turnover.

On Mr Musk’s Twitter takeover she said: “Look, he’s an individual that’s purchased a private business, but it’s important that we have those safeguard mechanisms around it, so no matter what direction he wants to take Twitter in, we will have this triple shield in place. For adults, they will have to adhere to the new rules [and] for children to take off content.”

Asked on Sky News about reinstating “choice” characters she added: “I do believe in free speech. I passionately believe that is the cornerstone of our democracy, but I also believe in freedom of choice, which is why we’ve added that safeguard mechanism. So you will have more choice over the content that you see. I believe that people shouldn’t be subjected to illegal content...

Under the Government’s new Online Safety Bill, set to return to the House of Commons next week, social media sites will have to offer its millions of users a “triple shield of protection” with platforms forced to remove illegal content, take down material which breaches their own rules and adults given a greater choice over the content they see.

The new Bill will also offer tougher protection for children by requiring platforms to verify the age of users and make the promotion of self harm illegal."




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The above is a reply to the following message:
Chief Twit Elon Musk says 'tyranny is all that lies ahead' if free speech is lost in America
By: Cactus Flower
in ALEA
Tue, 29 Nov 22 3:55 PM
Msg. 48057 of 54959

You can only laugh at these grandiloquent abstract statements.

What is Musk's expertise in matters of speech? I thought he was a business guy trying to make a buck, not an ideologue trying to teach society how to behave.

Is twitter's speech policy defined by the government? Last I heard, it was a privately-owned platform and it sets its own rules within the boundaries of local law that apply to everyone. It is entitled to do what it wants within those parameters.

As a rule-setter, it gets to define internal rules on its platform while balancing the needs of different users: posters, readers and advertisers being the primary ones.

As a commercial enterprise, it wants to maximise its profit and to do that, it issues policies to make twitter user-friendly so that posters want to post, readers want to read and advertisers want to advertise. If he doesn't, his company, twitter, will be less profitable than it might be. And other platforms will eat twitter's lunch.

User-friendly policies and ruleless speech are not the same thing. We already know how ruleless speech works on a global scale. The shoutiest, most unpleasant people dominate the space. So other, more polite posters don't post, readers don't read and advertisers walk away.

One of these decades, Musk may figure it out. He's just a business guy trying to make a buck. Not a lawyer with expertise in speech rights or a philosopher with anything interesting to say about the relationship between peoples and their governments. It's altogether obvious he has no clue how to turn twitter into a successful business.

And just in case he hasn't noticed, the internet isn't only in America. Different rules apply in different places.


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