[Red Liner]

Originally Posted by norhog

I do not understand one point. Please enlighten me.

Why TWITTER has to stand for free speech and all.

It is a platform to express opinion done form the purpose of generating wealth for its owners some how. Its business. What ever helps business, they will lean that way. They are no way the legal guardians of free speech and all and we should not expect a company to be.

It is not like a elected representative who is made to uphold the constitution, freedom. It is a business entity.

Hell, the elected representatives of the populace don't do their job spectacularly.

As long as TWITTER does not hurt someone or violate any laws, it should be ok. If they are seen violating, book them under appropriate LAW of the LAND.

These are business houses and should be regulated according as per the law of the land. Rest they are free to do anything, lean left right center anything...

Information is the new oil my friend. Apply your logic to Oil and Gas, and you will know where you stand.

[ABHI_1512]

So now, Elon Musk wants to have the final say in everything, starting from formation of Governments of various nations. Twitter or for that matter any social media application has now turned into a cess pool with no one to clean it. It would take more than just intention to clean it. Every social media application has now turned into a monster that no one can tame. With blatant use of disinformation,lies and anonymity, Musk might be in for surprise, should he actually gets to own Twitter !!

[v1p3r]

Originally Posted by norhog

I do not understand one point. Please enlighten me.

Why TWITTER has to stand for free speech and all.

It is a platform to express opinion done form the purpose of generating wealth for its owners some how. Its business. What ever helps business, they will lean that way. They are no way the legal guardians of free speech and all and we should not expect a company to be.

It is not like a elected representative who is made to uphold the constitution, freedom. It is a business entity.

Hell, the elected representatives of the populace don't do their job spectacularly.

As long as TWITTER does not hurt someone or violate any laws, it should be ok. If they are seen violating, book them under appropriate LAW of the LAND.

These are business houses and should be regulated according as per the law of the land. Rest they are free to do anything, lean left right center anything...

Good question.

The simple answer is - when something can upset the balance of society, it gets regulated.

The balance of society is nebulous and thus often subject to nonsensical and abusive interpretations by those in power - think of the many bans that we see locally. These are made to placate votebanks or reinforce social contracts with citizenry - the Saudi muttawa enforced such contracts, as an example.

Valid examples would be prescription drugs, alcohol, firearms and weapons, and even speed limits. Just because there are companies doing business by selling guns or drugs, does not mean they have unfettered access to the market.

I am not one for excess regulation, but there cannot be absolute laissez-faire.

[norhog]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Permit me to respond to your point of view. I'm sure many citizens might think alike and it is a perspective that deserves debate. Though I'll admit at the start there are no clear cut answers and while my perspective differs from yours I respect your point of view which has its merits.

Dear Sir.

A response by you respected sir is one event that makes my day.

I fully agree with your point of view that the technology is ahead of the regulations in this case. In such a scenario, lack of laws governing social media platform, it is upto the following points that govern its content.

1. Ethic of the person or group in charge of such a social media platform.
2. The desire to generate business. The company will take sides or lean towards activities that attracts more views, in turn more ad revenue, stopping short of antagonizing the general populace for the fear of backlash.

As these above are the driving factors as of now, the discussion that preceded my post gave me the impression that a platform like TWITTER should be completely neutral. In real world it will never be.

No body ever self regulates for something for some ones good, especially when that someone cannot bite back.

Hence I made that statement that why TWITTER will stand for free speech and all equality just by itself, when it has a company and shareholders and employees to pander to.
In the vacuum of regulations, it will take the course that generates revenue for the corporation, notwithstanding its corporate statement and all.

We all know that these statements and visons in minds of clever people, lawyer types, can be made to imply any meaning they want.

[bull8e]

https://investor.twitterinc.com/cont...q/default.aspx

Aha, that explains why certain individuals get away with anything on that platform, while tweets and RT by some others are always marked "sensitive content".
Twitter, tere hypocrisy ka jawab nahi ! (Twitter, hats off to your hypocrisy)

[ringoism]

I had just stumbled upon an article yesterday that offered a view to where some of this is being driven - or at least where some people in high places - not just corporstions but even governments want it to be going. Not a conspiracy theory, mind you, just documentable realities:

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/what-is-the-great-reset/

The section describing the Fourth Industrial Revolution is pretty pertinent here. Also pertinent to consider in that context that heads of bodies like the World Economic Forum (Klaus Schwab in that case) are openly in favor of bridging that brain-to-WWW barrier, something Musk has also been involved in.

I think what we're starting to catch a vision of is a transhumanist "existence" controlled by whomever thinks they know better than average humans.

Seems there's generally a fine line between corporate do-gooders and self-serving, democracy-hating, totalitatian technocrats who really DO want to rule the world.

The claim is that they want the world to be a better, more equitable place, but ask any of them how much they'd be willing to personally sacrifice, with no personal benefit, for the sake of that "leveling" and I think you'd hear some long pauses...

If there are positives to the rise of nationalism we've been seeing worldwide as of late, it's probably that it could serve as a counterbalance to this kind of attempted globalist takeover... some have even called it an attempted coup, where indeed laws, Constitutions, and especially voters, really don't have to be considered at all. A move towards Chinese-style socialism and control, essentially, driven by powers that wish to transcend anything like elected, representative governments.

-Eric

[digitalnirvana]

Originally Posted by warrioraks

Because they claim it in their mission statement.

https://investor.twitterinc.com/cont...q/default.aspx

I'm waiting for the day that they change it. Like Google quietly removed their "Do no evil" mission.

They always do.

Beyond a certain point money is no longer money. It's power. And what better way to project power than by influencing the world?

Murdoch showed the way with Fox. It's absolutely no surprise that Zuckerberg, Bezos and Musk all are interested in media - they have disproportionate control of the narrative with incredible reach.

Closer home too we have examples.

[download2live]

I hope he buys and shuts it down for good. There is no more potent context stripping media outlet like Twitter. The origin might have been for a noble cause but today it has become a cesspool of lies and deception.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by download2live

I hope he buys and shuts it down for good.

If he does that, it will create a vacuum and some other company will quickly take that place. Remember when whatsapp tried to put some restriction on users, and there was a mass migration to signal? WA quickly had to back-off, to retain the users.

Musk wants to open up twitter, not shut it down. He is not a fool.

[norhog]

While at it, I like to make one more observation that is talked about on the web.
Mr E.Musk's companies DO NOT do any advertisement. (May be one off here or there but a conglomerate of this size, if you compare to others, there are no adverts in print of television media)

There are no ads of the TESLA car.

All the dissemination of information is all by TWITTER and other Social media platforms. It is mainly tweets and retweets by Mr Musk.
So if Mr Musk gets TWITTER, he gets complete control over media outreach of his corporations.

[anivy]

Negotiations between Twitter & Musk in the final stretch. That was fast! New number is $43 billion.

Source.

[BoneCollector]

So finally, Elon Musk takes over.



Let's see how things go on from here. Hope it becomes a better place than a platform which has been spreading hate too. And I also hope he doesn't use it only for his own gains by twisting facts and building his own narrative.



Link

[Venkatesh]

Jack Dorsey says Elon is the singular solution I trust for Twitter’s future.







Tweet made by Elon Musk back in 2017 is now trending on Twitter.

[avira_tk]

This is a wonderful development, Twitter is just a woke echo chamber now, Elon should ensure free speech in the American tradition.

The first amendment is something Americans can be rightly proud of, no other country has it. The out of control censorship had to be taken down. There is no guarantee this will happen, but this is better than continuing with the current situation.

[ValarMorghulis]

Interesting times ahead for Twitter and social media. Since Twitter is now private, the entire control lies with Musk.

He can literally ban anyone (with few guidelines) or any country with zero pushback as free speech directive isn't valid for private organizations. Interesting times...