Elon Musk | Doer of things on X and sad little man

NotThatSoph said:
I remember you being worried about government influence on social media censorship. It turns out that Musk's Twitter is way more compliant with government requests than before the takeover. The amount of requests have also gone up, so it's not a case of governments being more selective in their requests. Why do you think this is?

https://restofworld.org/2023/elon-musk-twitter-government-orders/
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If you read the article it explains the increase in the 5th to last paragraph.

"The rise in overall requests may have been driven by forces outside Twitter’s control. The bulk of the recent requests come from countries that have recently passed restrictive speech laws — most notably, India, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. Germany, which generated 255 requests, recently increased enforcement after revisions to a 2017 law prohibiting hate speech and extremism."

I believe Musk has said in the past that any policing of speech should be consistent with the law and no more. In countries like Germany and probably India I think there is no question that they should follow the law. In Turkey and the UAE I’m not sure. All technology companies face difficult choices when choosing to operate in countries with repressive governments. I believe some western technology companies (not necessarily Twitter, but some of the other big ones) have made reprehensible choices with respect to Hong Kong, Tibet and the Uighurs in order to protect their businesses in China.

I don’t expect technology companies to solve all the evils of the world though it would be nice if they tried not to make them worse.

My concern with Twitter is that they were, possibly still are, censoring / suppressing speech in Canada where I live and in the United States which has a big influence over Canada. Canada passed a law yesterday imposing more restrictions on on-line speech in our country. I don’t agree with it but it is at least the law of the land.

But, in the United States, my understanding is their constitution prohibits government officials from interfering with the political speech of citizens. Since Musk took over Twitter it has become clear that prior to his takeover they were routinely, and illegally, censoring speech at the request of government officials of both parties. Here are some of many stories describing this censorship. The last one is behind a pay-wall but some may have access to it.

https://www.newsweek.com/fbi-colluded-twitter-suppress-free-speech-where-outrage-opinion-1768801

https://www.rollingstone.com/politi...-files-collusion-biden-censorship-1234675969/

https://www.city-journal.org/article/government-tech-collusion-threatens-free-speech

https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitte...saki-murthy-section-230-antitrust-11660732095
 
Belisarius said:
If you read the article it explains the increase in the 5th to last paragraph.

"The rise in overall requests may have been driven by forces outside Twitter’s control. The bulk of the recent requests come from countries that have recently passed restrictive speech laws — most notably, India, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. Germany, which generated 255 requests, recently increased enforcement after revisions to a 2017 law prohibiting hate speech and extremism."

I believe Musk has said in the past that any policing of speech should be consistent with the law and no more. In countries like Germany and probably India I think there is no question that they should follow the law. In Turkey and the UAE I’m not sure. All technology companies face difficult choices when choosing to operate in countries with repressive governments. I believe some western technology companies (not necessarily Twitter, but some of the other big ones) have made reprehensible choices with respect to Hong Kong, Tibet and the Uighurs in order to protect their businesses in China.

I don’t expect technology companies to solve all the evils of the world though it would be nice if they tried not to make them worse.

My concern with Twitter is that they were, possibly still are, censoring / suppressing speech in Canada where I live and in the United States which has a big influence over Canada. Canada passed a law yesterday imposing more restrictions on on-line speech in our country. I don’t agree with it but it is at least the law of the land.

But, in the United States, my understanding is their constitution prohibits government officials from interfering with the political speech of citizens. Since Musk took over Twitter it has become clear that prior to his takeover they were routinely, and illegally, censoring speech at the request of government officials of both parties. Here are some of many stories describing this censorship. The last one is behind a pay-wall but some may have access to it.

https://www.newsweek.com/fbi-colluded-twitter-suppress-free-speech-where-outrage-opinion-1768801

https://www.rollingstone.com/politi...-files-collusion-biden-censorship-1234675969/

https://www.city-journal.org/article/government-tech-collusion-threatens-free-speech

https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitte...saki-murthy-section-230-antitrust-11660732095
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Musk's free speech schtick also only apparently extends to issues that don't affect him. Take for instance, the kid who was tracking his plane around the country and tweeting about it. Musk got rid of him very quickly.
 
Belisarius said:
If you read the article it explains the increase in the 5th to last paragraph.

"The rise in overall requests may have been driven by forces outside Twitter’s control. The bulk of the recent requests come from countries that have recently passed restrictive speech laws — most notably, India, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. Germany, which generated 255 requests, recently increased enforcement after revisions to a 2017 law prohibiting hate speech and extremism."

I believe Musk has said in the past that any policing of speech should be consistent with the law and no more. In countries like Germany and probably India I think there is no question that they should follow the law. In Turkey and the UAE I’m not sure. All technology companies face difficult choices when choosing to operate in countries with repressive governments. I believe some western technology companies (not necessarily Twitter, but some of the other big ones) have made reprehensible choices with respect to Hong Kong, Tibet and the Uighurs in order to protect their businesses in China.

I don’t expect technology companies to solve all the evils of the world though it would be nice if they tried not to make them worse.

My concern with Twitter is that they were, possibly still are, censoring / suppressing speech in Canada where I live and in the United States which has a big influence over Canada. Canada passed a law yesterday imposing more restrictions on on-line speech in our country. I don’t agree with it but it is at least the law of the land.

But, in the United States, my understanding is their constitution prohibits government officials from interfering with the political speech of citizens. Since Musk took over Twitter it has become clear that prior to his takeover they were routinely, and illegally, censoring speech at the request of government officials of both parties. Here are some of many stories describing this censorship. The last one is behind a pay-wall but some may have access to it.

https://www.newsweek.com/fbi-colluded-twitter-suppress-free-speech-where-outrage-opinion-1768801

https://www.rollingstone.com/politi...-files-collusion-biden-censorship-1234675969/

https://www.city-journal.org/article/government-tech-collusion-threatens-free-speech

https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitte...saki-murthy-section-230-antitrust-11660732095
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Yes, I did read the article. What you refer to explains the increase in total requests, but not how Twitter responds: Musk's Twitter is much more likely to fully comply with government requests. The paragraph is extremely specific about that, so you can't have missed it.
 
NotThatSoph said:
Yes, I did read the article. What you refer to explains the increase in total requests, but not how Twitter responds: Musk's Twitter is much more likely to fully comply with government requests. The paragraph is extremely specific about that, so you can't have missed it.
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I'm not sure what your point is then. Are you suggesting they should refuse to comply with the law in Germany? Or do you think they should stop doing business in countries whose speech laws offend western ideas of free speech?

My point has never had anything to do with trying to create free speech in far away countries where it is challenged. It concerns preventing tech companies from destroying or undermining free speech in countries where it is well established and is at the heart of our freedom and is one of the pillars upholding meritocracy. If you look at your article you'll notice that the United States, Canada and the U.K. don't even make it onto the list of where these requests are coming from.
 
Belisarius said:
I'm not sure what your point is then. Are you suggesting they should refuse to comply with the law in Germany? Or do you think they should stop doing business in countries whose speech laws offend western ideas of free speech?

My point has never had anything to do with trying to create free speech in far away countries where it is challenged. It concerns preventing tech companies from destroying or undermining free speech in countries where it is well established and is at the heart of our freedom and is one of the pillars upholding meritocracy. If you look at your article you'll notice that the United States, Canada and the U.K. don't even make it onto the list of where these requests are coming from.
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I'm asking why you think Twitter has become more compliant with government interference under Musk. Pre-Musk they risked national bans, and they sued countries instead of taking things down no questions asked. There seemed to be at least some resistance, now that has changed.
 
Belisarius said:
If you read the article it explains the increase in the 5th to last paragraph.

"The rise in overall requests may have been driven by forces outside Twitter’s control. The bulk of the recent requests come from countries that have recently passed restrictive speech laws — most notably, India, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. Germany, which generated 255 requests, recently increased enforcement after revisions to a 2017 law prohibiting hate speech and extremism."
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This was pro-censorship, PC gone mad, woke twitter before freedom-loving, free-speech-extremist Elon Musk agreed to every request:

https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/05/twitter-sues-india-government/

Twitter, challenging block orders, sues India’s government
 
NotThatSoph said:
I'm asking why you think Twitter has become more compliant with government interference under Musk. Pre-Musk they risked national bans, and they sued countries instead of taking things down no questions asked. There seemed to be at least some resistance, now that has changed.
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They have not become more compliant with government interference since Musk took over in the jurisdictions I care about. Quite the contrary if you bother to read any of the links I posted. Most of the censorship is not from formal requests but from informal e-mails sent by politicians and bureaucrats which are clearly not captured in the data presented by your article.

Even if you're going by the purported world-wide data used in this article. Data which they admit may or may not be accurate. They have gone from 3 requests they refused to fully comply with in the 6 months before the Musk takeover to 0 in the 6 months since. That's a drop of 3. In the whole world. I'll be the first to admit that tech companies that operate under repressive regimes face difficult choices and I'm not certain what the right answer for any of them in those circumstances is. But, the data presented in this article says nothing about the censorship practiced by Twitter in the United States.
 
Belisarius said:
They have not become more compliant with government interference since Musk took over in the jurisdictions I care about. Quite the contrary if you bother to read any of the links I posted. Most of the censorship is not from formal requests but from informal e-mails sent by politicians and bureaucrats which are clearly not captured in the data presented by your article.

Even if you're going by the purported world-wide data used in this article. Data which they admit may or may not be accurate. They have gone from 3 requests they refused to fully comply with in the 6 months before the Musk takeover to 0 in the 6 months since. That's a drop of 3. In the whole world. I'll be the first to admit that tech companies that operate under repressive regimes face difficult choices and I'm not certain what the right answer for any of them in those circumstances is. But, the data presented in this article says nothing about the censorship practiced by Twitter in the United States.
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In the 6 months before the takeover they fully complied with 280 out of 550 requests, or 50.9 %. In the 6 months since the takeover they fully complied with 808 out of 971, or 83.2 %.

"Data which they admit may or may not be accurate" is an extremely weird paraphrase of the actual text:

Lumen's data consists entirely of self-reporting by platforms, and there's no legal requirement that the reports be complete. Nonetheless, the data is considered to be canonical within the industry, and outside surveys have largely confirmed its accuracy. "Historically, it seems Twitter has sent a copy of everything they've received to us," Adam Holland, who manages the project for the Berkman Klein Center, told Rest of World. "My understanding is that they have a small team of people that work on this and it’s a largely automatic process."
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You're obviously obfuscating on purpose here, which is strange.
 
NotThatSoph said:
In the 6 months before the takeover they fully complied with 280 out of 550 requests, or 50.9 %. In the 6 months since the takeover they fully complied with 808 out of 971, or 83.2 %.

"Data which they admit may or may not be accurate" is an extremely weird paraphrase of the actual text:



You're obviously obfuscating on purpose here, which is strange.
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"Twitter's self-reports do not show a single request in which the company refused to comply, as it had done several times before the Musk takeover. Twitter rejected three such requests in the six months before Musk's takeover, and five in the six months prior to that."

So, they refused to comply at all in 3 cases in the 6 months prior to the takeover. (perhaps I worded that poorly in the earlier post).

Even the data your quoting which involves partial compliance doesn't show what you think it shows.

for the period since musk took over :971 requests - 808 full compliance = 163 partial compliance
six month prior to takeover: 550 requests - 280 full compliance = 270 partial compliance
six months before that: 338 requests - 169 full compliance (assuming 50%) = 169 partial compliance.

So basically they are objecting roughly about as often as they always did, but the percentage has changed because the number of requests has risen due to changes in the law or its application in several jurisdictions.

All of this has nothing to do with censorship here at home.
 
Belisarius said:
"Twitter's self-reports do not show a single request in which the company refused to comply, as it had done several times before the Musk takeover. Twitter rejected three such requests in the six months before Musk's takeover, and five in the six months prior to that."

So, they refused to comply at all in 3 cases in the 6 months prior to the takeover. (perhaps I worded that poorly in the earlier post).

Even the data your quoting which involves partial compliance doesn't show what you think it shows.

for the period since musk took over :971 requests - 808 full compliance = 163 partial compliance
six month prior to takeover: 550 requests - 280 full compliance = 270 partial compliance
six months before that: 338 requests - 169 full compliance (assuming 50%) = 169 partial compliance.

So basically they are objecting roughly about as often as they always did, but the percentage has changed because the number of requests has risen due to changes in the law or its application in several jurisdictions.

All of this has nothing to do with censorship here at home.
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Yes, both I and the article werevery clear about full compliance. You didn't word it poorly, you worded it wrong.

This is a waste of time, though, because I asked you what you thought about it and the answer is obviously "I don't care". There is no need for you to try to explain away things when you don't care.
 
Bepi said:
:lol: I live in Southern Italy and we are just a local branch of a regional agency providing reports from a local perspective. I went twice to Brussels, though.
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Ma stavo scherzando, dai! Come mai sei Juventino pero essendo meridionale?
 
Suedesi said:
Ma stavo scherzando, dai! Come mai sei Juventino pero essendo meridionale?
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Born and bred in Bergamo, now living in sunny Apulia because of life circumstances. :p

EDIT: now that’s interesting… if I were Apulian, my nickname over here would be Peppe.
 
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NotThatSoph said:
Yes, both I and the article werevery clear about full compliance. You didn't word it poorly, you worded it wrong.

This is a waste of time, though, because I asked you what you thought about it and the answer is obviously "I don't care". There is no need for you to try to explain away things when you don't care.
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It's true that I care most about the place I live and it's governance and culture because they most directly affect my life. It's also true that the issue of company's behaviour with respect to speech should be simpler in countries who have a long tradition of free speech.

I'm very much less animated about other countries because as I've told you, I think it's difficult for tech companies operating in countries with shaky adherence to principles of free speech. If they pull out completely they may deny the people of that country the ability to communicate fully with other parts of the world and even within their own countries. If they stay, they get criticized for compromising those principles. Going to court frequently to fight court orders can be costly and for a company like Twitter that has never been profitable and is likely doing financially worse since Musk's takeover is not likely to be a successful business strategy.

But,

1) This article implies and you seem to be arguing that the changes in the data presented are due to changes in Twitter policy since Musk took over. This data in no way proves that proposition. I think it far more likely that Twitter's policy on complying with official government and court requests has not changed at all and the data variation is due to other factors altogether.

2) The fact that you specifically directed the article to me seems to imply that you are conflating this information of obeying the law in the countries where Twitter operates with the issue of twitter doing it's own censoring, that is not required by law, which is the issue I have raised in the past. While they are related, they are separate issues.
 
What has this utter cnut done to the login? Been logged out of the browser version and can only access it through the app.
 
Same as well. That asshole has been running the app into the ground ever since he bought Twitter.

How could you do this, Jack? How could you do this to all of us?
 
RedDevilQuebecois said:
Same as well. That asshole has been running the app into the ground ever since he bought Twitter.

How could you do this, Jack? How could you do this to all of us?
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wutang-cream.gif
 
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
Yeah that’s what I meant. Lots of people not having invite links yet. I thought I’d missed the point that folks were sharing en masse.
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They can't be shared en masse right now. They are using a staggered approach to gradually bringing users in so that people grow the community organically. Once someone gets onboarded they receive one invite every two weeks that they can forward to someone else. I think that's a better approach than allowing the masses in all at once.
 
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I managed to log on again. Anyway, that's another embarrassment on a growing list of failures under that the rule of that son of Apartheid.
 
Frosty said:
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As a recent father who is taking 2 months off in Germany after the birth of my son, I can't imagine having to go back to work after just 2 weeks. My wife would've gone insane trying to take care of the kid alone.
 
hasanejaz88 said:
As a recent father who is taking 2 months off in Germany after the birth of my son, I can't imagine having to go back to work after just 2 weeks. My wife would've gone insane trying to take care of the kid alone.
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We get two weeks paternity in the UK.

I basically saved up my annual leave and rolled it into when we closed over Christmas (and get anywhere from 3-5 day’s additional holiday courtesy of my company tbf) so I had two weeks pat, back in for 7 working days and then 6 weeks off. It would have been incredible to have 2 months as paternity leave and not have to cut into my annual leave though.
 
Pexbo said:
We get two weeks paternity in the UK.

I basically saved up my annual leave and rolled it into when we closed over Christmas (and get anywhere from 3-5 day’s additional holiday courtesy of my company tbf) so I had two weeks pat, back in for 7 working days and then 6 weeks off. It would have been incredible to have 2 months as paternity leave and not have to cut into my annual leave though.
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There is no government supported paternity leave? To be honest what I'm talking about is government paternity leave and not from my company itself. I'm not paid fully (1800 Eur a month) but my job is still secure.

My cousin in Denmark has 6 months fully paid paternity leave :lol:
 
hasanejaz88 said:
There is no government supported paternity leave? To be honest what I'm talking about is government paternity leave and not from my company itself. I'm not paid fully (1800 Eur a month) but my job is still secure.

My cousin in Denmark has 6 months fully paid paternity leave :lol:
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Fathers always have the right to 11 weeks in Denmark. But then you have something like 32 weeks you can split between the parents. And then the mother obviously gets some amount of leave too.
This isn't to say you'll get full pay throughout that time though. At my workplace I get 10 weeks of full pay and after that I get "barselsdagpenge" ("barsel" being the Danish word for leave due to becoming a parent) which is similar to "dagpenge" which is a sort of unemployment insurance thing you can get paid out if you're a member of an A-kasse. I think for most people it works out pretty well. Most guys I know have done 3-4 months of paternity leave and then extended that with their saved up vacation days.
 
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