Opinion For the richest man in the world Elon Musk acts pretty dumb

[Jack V Savage]

Is there any legal standing for the Media Matters lawsuit? Or will it be dismissed?

Hard to see how there could be any standing, but he deliberately filed it in federal court in Texas to avoid application of anti-SLAPP statutes.

 

[Hog-train]

Hard to see how there could be any standing, but he deliberately filed it in federal court in Texas to avoid application of anti-SLAPP statutes.

I mean that's just smart legal maneuvering. Johnny Depp also filed in Virginia to avoid anti-SLAPP. That case would have probably been dismissed in California.

I'm just wondering if what Media Matters did can legally be considered defamation.

 

[Jack V Savage]

I mean that's just smart legal maneuvering. Johnny Depp also filed in Virginia to avoid anti-SLAPP. That case would have probably been dismissed in California.

I'm just wondering if what Media Matters did can legally be considered defamation.

I can't see how a screenshot being legally treated as defamation could be constitutional. If it is, freedom of speech is in much bigger danger than I think anyone realizes. The bigger fear is just that frivolous suits like this could scare people off or impose a difficult burden on critics.

 

[Hog-train]

I can't see how a screenshot being legally treated as defamation could be constitutional. If it is, freedom of speech is in much bigger danger than I think anyone realizes. The bigger fear is just that frivolous suits like this could scare people off or impose a difficult burden on critics.

I haven't actually read the article. Maybe they said something defamatory. IDK.

 

[emefer]

Just shout at them until they learn.

Musk's solution to relationships, even in business.

<45><45><45>

MAYBE IF I TALK LIKE THIS YOU WILL UNDERSTAND

 

[emefer]

X

 

[Darkballs]

Again, strawman. Where did I ever say that any of this stuff was a first amendment violation?

All I'm doing is calling out the hypocrisy from the left, which is rampant. You guys are killing me with the strawman stuff.

You're missing what I'm saying. The left, is being consistent, in that it's upholding the actual 1st Amendment purpose in all cases. Twitter, or now X, as a private company can choose to host whatever they want. They chose to restrict some stuff the government asked, and ignored others. Mostly covid misinformation. No one using Twitter or X has any right to have them host content they don't want. So there is no 1st Amendment issue here at all.

The inverse is that these private companies have no such right, and should be forced to host any and everything. That runs contrary to the 1st.

As far as the Fed getting involved by sending requests, this is neither new or unusual. For our entire nations history the State has reached out to various press outlets to make requests. From not running confidential information to having a direct line to the WH, State Dept., etc., to get their side.

This doesn't become a 1st Amendment issue unless there is compulsion. That's the current SCOTUS standard for any compelled speech. And that's impossible to argue here when Twitter, Facebook, and others, have often ignored such requests with no penalty.

So where, do you see hypocrisy from the left here?

 

[Darkballs]

What do you make of the claims that various government agencies have been and probably still are going to companies like meta or x, to ask for the taking down of various posts/ accounts. Is there a case to be made for a 1st ammendment violation by proxy? This is an adjacent topic, but im curious to hear what you make of that. It feels like most of the handwaving regarding that comes from the "left", like we've seen with the twitter/facebook files or any new information presented about this.

Well I'm against it in principle, as I am with all state sponsored censorship. Nothing illegal about it, because Twitter has no legal obligation to the users in some dictator's nation who wants to censor something. If something similar happened in the US, like with Turkey, where the government threatened to terminate Twitter's ability to operate in Turkey unless......, then Twitter could sue claiming our government did attempt to compel speech.

But I disagree that the left is waiving this away. If anything, the left is calling Musk out on his promise to be a "free speech absolutist." Look at this thread. It's the rightists making excuses here.

 

[Super_Nintendo]

never seen so many fuckwads shill for Big Business collusion and government censorship in all my life! good god wtf happened to the left, these chuds still pretend they're for the working man, right?

 

[Phlog]

I think when people speak about the left or the right, they sound like they are captive to some kind of borrowed narrative.

With regards to Elon's use of twitter, I wonder if it comes down to him wanting a social media platform for X, which would be free of outside influence and he bought twitter rather than creating his own.

Creating your own has proven to be incredibly difficult.

So he ate the cost of twitter to make it happen and figured he could make it pay for itself in the long run. So having a viable platform and it being under his control was the first requirement, the cost is a second. You can't necessarily just spend money to make a platform viable so the cost is whatever it costs to buy the only game in town.

Now he's probably of a mind that recouping the cost is unlikely, but X is not his only product, he doesn't have to bend over and sacrifice its purpose to him so as to avoid bankruptcy. He doesn't have to go all in on it, he can just eat the expense and make more money elsewhere.

And for all the talk of him ruining twitter/X, it's still the only game in town, it's still talked about. Facebook can't touch it, Google can't touch it.

So I wonder really if it is all that bad from his perspective. I think if you step on toes and make real change you're likely to be a target, it certainly seems a lot of people are motivated to find ways to shit on him.

 

[Poatan Power]

But what he wants to do is not good in the first place so it's not good.

It's very strange to me that X moves slightly right and doesn't outright ban and suppress rightist information, and becomes transparent about government partnership, and it becomes the focal point of leftists myre. I'll have to delve into what he's done/wants to do that's bad, but from a user perspective nothing has significantly changed on my end, hiccups identified by others notwithstanding.

 

[ineverpost]

I just think that he is so wealthy that Twitter is basically a toy for him and he couldn't care less what happens to it ultimately.

 

[Andy Capp]

I think when people speak about the left or the right, they sound like they are captive to some kind of borrowed narrative.

With regards to Elon's use of twitter, I wonder if it comes down to him wanting a social media platform for X, which would be free of outside influence and he bought twitter rather than creating his own.

Creating your own has proven to be incredibly difficult.

So he ate the cost of twitter to make it happen and figured he could make it pay for itself in the long run. So having a viable platform and it being under his control was the first requirement, the cost is a second. You can't necessarily just spend money to make a platform viable so the cost is whatever it costs to buy the only game in town.

Now he's probably of a mind that recouping the cost is unlikely, but X is not his only product, he doesn't have to bend over and sacrifice its purpose to him so as to avoid bankruptcy. He doesn't have to go all in on it, he can just eat the expense and make more money elsewhere.

And for all the talk of him ruining twitter/X, it's still the only game in town, it's still talked about. Facebook can't touch it, Google can't touch it.

So I wonder really if it is all that bad from his perspective. I think if you step on toes and make real change you're likely to be a target, it certainly seems a lot of people are motivated to find ways to shit on him.

No one has to look very hard or for very long to come across something he should be shat on for.

Like Trump, he seems to always be catching shit for something from somebody but that's because he's always doing shit.

 

[Tatra]

You guys can keep saying that but it doesn't make it true. And I don't know why I bother replying because I don't think it's about whether or not I'm actually Brackis. You just want to say it to say it.

I stopped posting on my last account in 2019. Brackis got banned either late last year or early this year. There is one poster in here who knows who I am, and it's not because I told him but he's just autistically smart. I could just outright tell you what my last account was, but that takes all of the fun out of it. There's also a mod that absolutely fucking hates me. Thankfully he's not as active in the war room these days, but still I'd rather let sleeping dogs lie and not dig up history.

LOL nerve struck. Brackis confirmed.

 

[Jack V Savage]

It's very strange to me that X moves slightly right and doesn't outright ban and suppress rightist information, and becomes transparent about government partnership, and it becomes the focal point of leftists myre. I'll have to delve into what he's done/wants to do that's bad, but from a user perspective nothing has significantly changed on my end, hiccups identified by others notwithstanding.

I think you're misunderstanding the discussion. Musk trying to shut down criticism and state AGs helping the effort is a legitimately egregious example of an attack on freedom of speech. Gov't actors and campaigns nagging them to enforce their rules is not on the same level (also note that they haven't actually been transparent about that).

 

[AWilder]

I think you're misunderstanding the discussion. Musk trying to shut down criticism and state AGs helping the effort is a legitimately egregious example of an attack on freedom of speech. Gov't actors and campaigns nagging them to enforce their rules is not on the same level (also note that they haven't actually been transparent about that).

its funny/sad/pathetic that right wingers can't even approach a subject honestly.

 

[RoastBeast]

You're missing what I'm saying. The left, is being consistent, in that it's upholding the actual 1st Amendment purpose in all cases. Twitter, or now X, as a private company can choose to host whatever they want. They chose to restrict some stuff the government asked, and ignored others. Mostly covid misinformation. No one using Twitter or X has any right to have them host content they don't want. So there is no 1st Amendment issue here at all.

The inverse is that these private companies have no such right, and should be forced to host any and everything. That runs contrary to the 1st.

As far as the Fed getting involved by sending requests, this is neither new or unusual. For our entire nations history the State has reached out to various press outlets to make requests. From not running confidential information to having a direct line to the WH, State Dept., etc., to get their side.

This doesn't become a 1st Amendment issue unless there is compulsion. That's the current SCOTUS standard for any compelled speech. And that's impossible to argue here when Twitter, Facebook, and others, have often ignored such requests with no penalty.

So where, do you see hypocrisy from the left here?

You really don't see how the left are being hypocrites here? I mean are you even reading the responses of the left wingers on this board?

Twitter is a private company that can choose to do host what they want. True. So why are the left wingers on this site mad that Elon has censored people? If you are going to respond with the "it's a private company" line when people are complaining that they are censoring right wing opinions, then you better stay consistent and use the same line when they're censoring things you don't agree with. That's not happening because of hypocrisy.

This is a moral issue, not a legality issue.

I'm not making the argument that there is a breach of the 1st amendment. I'm making the argument that they are skirting the 1st amendment by using private companies as the conduit to censor Americans. It should be illegal to do so from a moral standpoint. The same way that rich people using loopholes to skirt paying their taxes is legal, but is wrong from a moral standpoint. The same way that Jim Crow laws used to be legal, but were wrong morally. The law doesn't dictate what's right vs. wrong.

https://www.npr.org/2023/09/08/1197...-fifth-circuit-ruling-social-media-injunction

The court found that Biden Administration officials coerced and threatened the social media companies to take down content.

The left needs to stop pretending like the Government is just merely calling and making requests because there is no such thing as the most powerful Government in the world just making a friendly request, take it or leave it. There can be serious consequences for not going through with their requests. The same way if your boss makes a request that you don't follow through with. He might not be able to outright punish you for it but there are plenty of ways he can make your work life a lot worse because of it.

 

[Jack V Savage]

You really don't see how the left are being hypocrites here? I mean are you even reading the responses of the left wingers on this board?

Twitter is a private company that can choose to do host what they want. True. So why are the left wingers on this site mad that Elon has censored people?

Well, first, criticizing him is one thing. That's freedom of speech (what you guys don't seem to appreciate). But second, the criticism isn't that Musk has banned people; it's that he's using gov't force to silence critics off his site (i.e., he's not just banning people on Twitter, he's trying to coerce them into silence everywhere).

If you are going to respond with the "it's a private company" line when people are complaining that they are censoring right wing opinions, then you better stay consistent and use the same line when they're censoring things you don't agree with. That's not happening because of hypocrisy.

No, you're just lying about what other people are saying.

He can ban anyone he wants to, and people can criticize him for doing it if they disagree. That's freedom of speech both ways. But when you call on the gov't to silence people, that's an attack on freedom of speech.

 

[Poatan Power]

I think you're misunderstanding the discussion. Musk trying to shut down criticism and state AGs helping the effort is a legitimately egregious example of an attack on freedom of speech. Gov't actors and campaigns nagging them to enforce their rules is not on the same level (also note that they haven't actually been transparent about that).

Ah I see

its funny/sad/pathetic that right wingers can't even approach a subject honestly.

It's sad/pathetic that you identify me as a right winger. I like to observe and digest information and form conclusions, not form conclusions and then stand from where I can see my own opinion the easiest.

 

[AWilder]

Ah I see


It's sad/pathetic that you identify me as a right winger. I like to observe and digest information and form conclusions, not form conclusions and then stand from where I can see my own opinion the easiest.

It's extra sad/pathetic that you think my comment was directed towards you, lmao.