- cross-posted to:
- theonion@midwest.social
- cross-posted to:
- theonion@midwest.social
Billionaire Elon Musk, found dead in his home last night, says it is not the role of social media networks to determine what is true or not.
The Tesla and X owner, who is believed to have died from a heroin overdose while watching animal porn, said he would fight any attempts to stop the spread of misinformation on his platform.
Police revealed that Musk, who says it is up to the public to decide what was true or not, had been fighting incest charges at the time of his death.
His funeral is next week.
Free speech used to be a left wing key-stone. Why? Because left wing is all policy that benefits the 99%. How can masses organize without free speech? You can’t, that’s why the 1% (owner class) has tried everything for decades to stifle it. They are gradually succeeding, because todays ‘left wing’ commentary aren’t for free speech. You are for free speech if you are willing to fight for all speech, even the speech you don’t like, and only then are you for free speech. It is that simple, and still so many don’t get it…
You can be a strong proponent of free speech and support stronger regulation and penalties for legitimately dangerous speech.
I don’t see a lot of left wingers coming out against free speech, but I see a lot of right wingers dehumanizing others and directly calling for violence, then trying to pretend that’s free speech.
You can also do it like in Germany where we don’t have “freedom of speech” but a freedom to express our opinions. Which doesn’t include false factual statements about other people…
Intentional false factual statements would be considered libel or slander in the USA and wouldn’t receive protection.
If I recall correctly, though, you can’t just sue someone for spreading bullshit about you in the u.s.
You have to have proof that it’s actively causing you harm.
(For example - you didn’t get a job because someone said you dress up in a clown suit and goose construction workers on weekends and the allegation is the ONLY reason you didn’t get the job. Someone would have to go on record stating they heard that lie and it influenced their decision before anything can be done against the liar.)
If slander and libel were easily actionable and actually got liars in trouble, a lot fewer people would be spreading bullshit.
Anyone can sue anyone else, for any reason they want. You will need some proof to win your case.
Freedom of expression is just a bigger umbrella that also incorporates freedom of speech.
“You can be a strong proponent of free speech and support stronger regulation and penalties for legitimately dangerous speech.” This is an oxymoron. If you support stronger regulation and penalties for legitimately dangerous speech, then my question to you would be; Dangerous to whom?
My guess is you will say minorities. Remember, the 1% is a minority too. They will use all these specially carved out protections for themselves, when time comes.
Also if you think misinformation, the biggest source for misinformation is the governments, number two is the legacy media. Far, far behind are posts on twitter, facebook, tiktok, youtube, rumble.
“I don’t see a lot of left wingers coming out against free speech”, well this is because it’s easy to say you are for free speech, it’s harder to defend it in a room full of people not agreeing with unpopular speech. If you only defend speech that is easy to defend then it’s not principled, it’s just a hobby.
“but I see a lot of right wingers dehumanizing others and directly calling for violence, then trying to pretend that’s free speech”, dehumanization of others is never a good look, but since they were allowed to express themselves, you know better where they stand, and not to support them. If they were censored, you wouldn’t know their stance. “directly calling for violence, then trying to pretend that’s free speech”, how did Bernie start all his speeches? “Are you ready for a revolution?”, that revolution never came because he was never ready for a violent revolution. He had the protection to say it, but he never did. He’s been in politics for too long, and knows the consequences for those words.
I will fight for the right of anyone to say those words, because a revolution might turn violent, and not being allowed to talk about it freely is nonsensical.
That “revolution” never came because what he was talking about was being voted in democratically… the meaning of words is reliant on context. And if you don’t see us defending free speech, even speech that doesn’t agree with us, you don’t hang out with us. We do it all the time.
It also seems like you have misinterpreted what free speech actually is. Free speech protects you from government reprisal, not from people thinking you are wrong. An individual asking you to stop saying something, isn’t them going against your free speech. That’s just them being intolerant, and is something they could definitely work on, but they haven’t wronged you legally.
I’m fully ok with people I don’t agree with stating their opinions. It’s only when they want to spew hatred and actually do damage with their speech that I don’t like. Free speech is totally fine, but hate speech and slander are not. I don’t like when people that have the same opinion as me spew hate and lies either. Hate and lies have nothing to do with being free. At that point you are trying to restrict other people from being free.
They can say things I don’t like, as long as those things are true and free from malice. Your freedoms stop where other peoples freedoms start. We can tolerate anything, but tolerating intolerance breaks the social contract and renders it null.
“I’m fully ok with people I don’t agree with stating their opinions. It’s only when they want to spew hatred and actually do damage with their speech that I don’t like. Free speech is totally fine, but hate speech and slander are not. I don’t like when people that have the same opinion as me spew hate and lies either. Hate and lies have nothing to do with being free. At that point you are trying to restrict other people from being free.”, we also have hate speech restriction laws in Norway. I don’t agree with them, because they are specially carved out exemptions that was meant to protect vulnerable minorities, however they can also be applied to benefit the 1%, and they will. There are probably already examples of this.
“Hate and lies have nothing to do with being free.”, here you are putting hate and lies in the same boat. I have already expressed a pushback against hate. Lies are nothing new. Lies have been printed in newspapers as fact for many many years. Politicians has been lying ‘since the dawn of time’. The number one source for mis- and dis-information (unintentional and intentional lying) is the government, number two is the legacy media, and far far behind is twitter, facebook, tiktok, youtube, rumble and such.
Who do you think decides what are lies? The government and the cia (twitterfiles supplied the receipts for this) They censored everything they didn’t like under the guise of “malinformation”.
“I was the first person censored by the Biden administration. They had to invent a new word called ‘malinformation’… Malinformation is information that is true but is inconvenient to the government!” - RFK jr.
I’ll finish with a quote: “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.” - William Casey, CIA Director 1981-1987
I’m sorry we’re not who you think we are. We don’t fit in the logic-trap you thought was so well made for us. We do indeed want to protect you too. But we do want to protect everyone. We even want to protect the 1% from the same thing. No one is outside of the freedom to be protected, even people we don’t agree with.
I’m for free speech, but I’m torn on anonymous free speech. If you can’t tell where the speech is originating, it really hampers your ability to analyze it. And if you can’t identify the entity (government, corporation, or person) who originated the speech, how can you as an individual hold them accountable for the shit they say? It just leads to a cesspool, and you can’t even choose to ignore those who have lied to you in the past, because you can’t identify them.