this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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“Freedom of Speech, not Freedom of Reach - our enforcement philosophy which means, where appropriate, restricting the reach of Tweets that violate our policies by making the content less discoverable.”

Surprise! Our great 'X' CEO has brought back one more bad thing that we hated about twitter 1.0: Shadowbanning. And they’ve given it a new name: "Freedom of Speech, Not Reach".

Perhaps the new approach by X is an improvement? At least they would “politely” tell you when you’re being shadow banned.

I think freedom of speech implies that people have the autonomy to decide what they want to see, rather than being manipulated by algorithm codes. Now it feels like they’re saying, “you can still have your microphone... We're just gonna cut the power to it if you say something we don't like”.

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[–] [email protected] 226 points 1 year ago (9 children)

If you're still on Twitter, you're part of the problem.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (7 children)

People keep repeating this for easy self-righteousness. Again, what about small artists whose careers depend on their social media following?

Fuck Musk, but for better or worse this isn't just about him.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Artists whose whole career depends on the whims of social media giants have dug their own hole.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (12 children)

Easy for you to say. Are you even an artist?

Small artists need a convenient way to get their work to the eyes of regular people. If their self-hosted gallery is seen by no one, it doesn't facilitate their career. They generally can't afford to buy ads and are not popular enough to get a fan made groups spreading the word everywhere else.

Not to mention that this is such a callous attitude in general. Because you in particular aren't susceptible to this manner in which wealthy assholes are screwing people, then it's their fault for needing it?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's ouroboros.

People don't leave which means there is an audience so people try to stay and capitalize on the audience that stayed.

Seriously, fuck Twitter. It needs to die. That might mean that a lot of people need to change a lot of things to make their lives work.

If you're successful you can pivot. If you're barely making ends meet and rely on Twitter to keep you afloat, I'm sorry to say this, but you're not successful yet.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It's not ouroboros because it's not artists with 1k followers that are keeping most people on Twitter. They are just the small fishes caught in the turmoil. Rihanna and those at her level can move anywhere, anytime and they won't even notice the difference. They are likely not even handling their accounts personally.

But I don't care to kill Twitter more than I care about smaller artists. What is it really being gained if you sacrifice them just for the satisfaction of killing a platform you don't even use? A lot of artists struggle but that doesn't make their work any less valid.

I'd hope everyone manages to move over, ultimately it's their best hope because that place will only get worse, but even I see that not everyone will make it. The followers lost in the move might be the difference that ends the viability of their career. But it's tragic that this is the situation that they have to deal with. So, why rush them and shame them for it?

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I don't make money as an artist, but I live with two of them. They both migrated to Mastodon, with my technical assistance, and left Twitter before Elmo bought it.

Bear in mind I'm not the previous commenter, but I believe what they were saying is that the writing was on the wall over a year ago, and there are alternatives. Artists and computer geeks tend to get along with each other, and so most artists should have a techy friend that can help them with exposure online. I understand that switching platforms is inconvenient, and tiresome. Looking at it from a tech perspective however, it's a better ROI.

The worst of it is the ≈week of daily posts right before you shut down your Twitter account, linking to your new account. My friends were able to direct link, but I don't know if Elmo is allowing that any more.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not an artist but I know a lot of them and basically only use twitter to follow them. And honestly, the ball is in their court. I see a lot of them complaining about shadowbans and it being impossible to grow a following. But nobody wants to jump ship to a place without an audience.

The problem being there will be no audience sitting around a new platform waiting for a show to start. They need to start double posting, IMO. Being the change they want in the world. They don't have to quit twitter, but posting content to twitter and mastodon (for example) would give their audience a reason to move, would give them a chance to grow, etc.

There's even apps like PostyBirb that can do the multiposting for you.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (4 children)

All the more reason to give their following a chance to find them elsewhere, and to follow them there when they do. There are other options; ideally standards-based federated options not susceptible to hostile takeovers by unstable billionaires

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[–] [email protected] 203 points 1 year ago (19 children)

So originally, it was that he was a "free speech absolutist," then it was that he was in favor of free speech "within the bounds of the law," and now he's not even in favor of that.

[–] [email protected] 180 points 1 year ago (4 children)

He never was, that was just an excuse to amplify the voice of his far-right buddies.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

I know. It was more about what he said.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don't believe this because it gives Elon Musk too much credit and honestly I think he's just a big loser who will latch on to whoever likes him at the time.

A series of stupid events led to Twitter being full of stupid far right nutjobs and stupid Elon decided they're his people now because they use his stupid platform.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I'm not so sure about that. The big tell is that whenever a far-right user complained to him about getting a tweet removed or the account getting banned or something like that, he'd respond that he'll personally take care of it. Just imagine, a billionare running a platform with millions of users personally taking care of a single one. This never happened with other people.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (4 children)

By free speech absolutist he really meant he thinks fascists should be able to say whatever they want.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

By free speech absolutist he really meant he thinks fascists should be able to force you to listen to them say whatever they want.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Freedom for me but not for thee

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[–] [email protected] 85 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Literally every single day we have idiots doing Musk’s PR work for free.

Downvote Musk spam. The billionaire doesn’t need your help ensuring his businesses stay in the 24 hour news cycle.

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[–] [email protected] 84 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Raise your hand if you are convinced this will not impact the people who pay for the blue checkmark. Meaning that a lot of Elon Fanbois / Bots / Fascists will be seen with theit shitty takes (since the checkmark pushes your comments up), while voices of reason will be dragged down further.

Twitter is rapidly becomming the new Truth Social and it's sad to watch.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Well that was the whole point. His old friend Peter Thiel and others failed to set up a competing service against Twitter, so now they're undermining Twitter. Either Twitter steps into line and becomes what they want it to be, or it dies due to the $13bn debt/tax avoidance scam that Musk performed.

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Can we stop posting musk shit? It’s exhausting.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Have you considered joining "Enough Musk Spam", another such community devoted entirely to posting about the thing they dont like seeing posts about?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Lol. I blocked that shit.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (17 children)

Like it or not (I don't), free speech has nothing to do with social media. Platforms are free to do this, it's the government that can't limit your speech like this.

Given those circumstances, I wonder if social media should be treated like infrastructure. That would fuse constitutional rights and the platform itself.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

While you're right, I think the issue here is the hypocrisy of Musk claiming to be pro free speech (specifically on his platform) only to then repeatedly limit speech he doesn't personally like.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (3 children)

This is from April. Did something change with it?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is the most important comment on this thread. I wish lemmy forced you to post the date of the article

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (2 children)

So much for that free speech he was talking about.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

"Free speech absolutist"®©™

(Terms and conditions apply)

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Someone predicted that they were going to slowly add back all the stuff they took out and they were right

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I think most people could have predicted that. Most of the things Musk removed were there for a reason (Regardless of whether they where popular with Twitter's users or not). Mostly of economical or legal nature. You cannot simply remove them if you want Twitter to someday make a profit.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago

You can say whatever you like... in the privacy of your own cell.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

I mean, it was never about free speech. It was always about crippling a powerful communication tool that had been used to undermine Middle Eastern governments. "Free Speech" was just how Musk was able to curry favor with fascists and grift retards into paying for twitter blue.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

Why are there people still using that garbage? It’s fucking hilarious watching everyone complain about twitter, YouTube, etc and then continue using it.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

I don't give a fuck about Twitter, stop posting this garbage already!

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

it's not a revolution if you don't wind up where you started

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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