#twitter freedom speech

[swampthingking]

andrew’s definitely gotten in trouble with his pr manager for tweeting things along the lines of:

“no mania inducing medication will compare to the euphoria i will feel the day donald trump drops dead”

[queerism1969]

[odinsblog]

First Apartheid Clyde helped authoritarian governments spread known propaganda, and now he’s ratting out civilians, dissidents and journalists.

The company has not refused a single request since Musk took ownership, according to self-reported data. Before Musk, Twitter's full compliance rate hovered around 50%; since the takeover, it is over 80%.

It’s been exactly six months since Elon Musk took over Twitter, promising a new era of free speech and independence from political bias. But Twitter’s self-reported data shows that, under Musk, the company has complied with hundreds more government orders for censorship or surveillance — especially in countries such as Turkey and India.

The orders vary widely in scope and subject, but all involve a government asking Twitter to either remove content or reveal information about a user. In one case from January, India’s information ministry ordered Twitter to take down all posts sharing footage from a BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Dozens of posts were removed, including one from a local member of parliament.

Most requests came from a handful of countries

Turkey, Germany and India have sent the most requests since Musk took ownership of Twitter on October 27th, 2022.

Under previous ownership, Twitter actively resisted requests from many of these same regimes. For two weeks in 2014, the platform was banned from Turkey, in part due to its refusal to globally block a post accusing a former government official of corruption. (The executive who led that charge was Vijaya Gadde, one of the first executives fired after Musk took over.)

In July 2022, the company sued the Indian government over an order to restrict the visibility of specific tweets. After Musk’s takeover, however, Twitter complied with more than 100 block orders from the country, including those against journalists, foreign politicians, and the poet Rupi Kaur.

(continue reading)

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[feminismisstillahatemovement]

Just imagine if Tumblr had your back like this guy, instead of looking to arbitrarily terminate your account for any opinions its admins personally disagree with.

[archive-pl]

[troloyunu]

Dear god elon musk is the most annoying cunt ever, looking at his twitter for 5 minutes made me wish desperately for another submarine incident with him in it

[xx-slug-xx]

Hey y’all, my furry nsfw Twitter got suspended and you guys should read the bellow screenshots and spread this information to others so that this doesn’t keep happening to people. (I wrote the tweets, but censored my name for privacy’s sake lol)

Again, I’ve seen this happen to other people, but it’s still on the down low, from what I know. Either this is Elon’s bot system not working correctly, and nothing more. Or, on a more dangerous note, it’s Elon trying to censor the “undesirables”.

With all the alt right shit going on, and with all of these accounts usually being left leaning and/or queer of some sort (because most furrys fall into that category), it would be plausible. He says he wants freedom of speech on Twitter, but he’s already made “cis” a slur that can be reported. People are also spreading around hate of all sorts right now too, and it all seems to revolve around conservative rhetoric. This could be me being a crazy conspiracy theorist, but I feel that it’s plausible enough, based on what we’ve seen on Twitter lately, for it to happen. It certainly doesn’t help that people’s posts on the site that mention this issue get shadow banned, Twitter staff refuses to look into this issue, and it seems to be getting more frequent on top of that. I will not just go down silently because freedom of speech for some means freedom of speech for all. I will not go down silently, like others would, because silence gets nothing fixed. Plus, if this is a simple issue, then Twitter needs to look into it. Full stop.

[aif0s-w]

On July 29 russians executed 40 Ukrainian prisoners of war, violating the Geneva conventions and tried to blame Ukraine for this.

Then, russian embassy in the UK posted this

They are literally promoting violence. They killed people, and now they’re saying they should’ve killed them in a better way.

You know what that text in Ukrainian is? “This tweet violates Twitter Rules about violence. But twitter decided it should remain available for the public interest”

Apparently, they don’t delete politician’s accounts anymore. Even if they post fantasies about war crimes.

Meanwhile, the accounts of Ukrainian volunteers (who are raising money for the army on twitter) get suspended for nothing, because russian bots mass report their accounts. Twitter does nothing to change this.

[galerymod]

A country for old men.

Who would have thought that you would call a coup after a regular election and not be imprisoned or even shot! No, instead you get to reach for power again and stand for election.

Just imagine if the film hero had instigated a coup d'état based on his ability to lie constantly, sexism was his daily business and deception and fraud his modus operandi coupled with homophobia and racist insinuations. Think the film would be a flop..... but wow in reality no problem.

What is wrong in a country when the poor and religious people believe that the devil's right hand is the saviour?

mod

This type of leader appears everywhere in history and is always extremely destructive",

Do not sin when you become angry! The sun must not set on your anger! Give the devil no place in you!

Ephesians 4:26-27

Because, of course, Satan does not arrive "in person". He has his servants - and they can use wise words - mixed with a little bit of poison. And already their whole message is poisoned! Again, it was the apparent wisdom of the Corinthians that made them impervious to these attacks from the devil. They honoured people as apostles who were in reality false workers, false apostles, servants of the devil. If they had exchanged the wisdom of this world for the wisdom of God, they would have remained "simple-minded towards Christ". And that alone would have preserved them, because they would have recognised that Satan looked like an angel of light on the outside, but that the voice of the good shepherd did not speak from him. In truth, this light is darkness - and corrupts our attitude, our thoughts and our way of life.

I find it fascinating that the basic attitude towards alternative lifestyles of religious people in American society drives them right into the hands of the servants.

[killerpancakeburger]

There's something tragicomic about all the people who are shocked/revolted by Elon Musk suppressing freedom of press, freedom of speech, etc, on Twitter. Like what did you think would happen babe? Billionaires and millionnaires who purchased medias have ALWAYS used them for for their own benefits, their own freedom, NEVER for anyone else. And when their freedom end where yours start, then making their own freedom absolute require abolishing yours!

[queerism1969]

[derekbnerdy]

AP confirms that Elon has been suspending the accounts of journalists who have been writing about him. Not Tweeting but but writing about him...on their news sites...ya know...doing their jobs. What's wrong musky? What happened to "free speech" and there's also this thing called "freedom of the press" why do you have to be such a little pussy?

[thebillyengland]

Cry harder, liberals. Your tears are delicious.

[pharosproject]

Spending your own money vs government spending

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Before Elon Musk bought Twitter, slurs against Black Americans showed up on the social media service an average of 1,282 times a day. After the billionaire became Twitter’s owner, they jumped to 3,876 times a day.

Slurs against gay men appeared on Twitter 2,506 times a day on average before Mr. Musk took over. Afterward, their use rose to 3,964 times a day.

And antisemitic posts referring to Jews or Judaism soared more than 61% in the two weeks after Mr. Musk acquired the site.

These findings — from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the Anti-Defamation League and other groups that study online platforms — provide the most comprehensive picture to date of how conversations on Twitter have changed since Mr. Musk completed his $44 billion deal for the company in late October. While the numbers are relatively small, researchers said the increases were atypically high.

The shift in speech is just the tip of a set of changes on the service under Mr. Musk. Accounts that Twitter used to regularly remove — such as those that identify as part of the Islamic State, which were banned after the U.S. government classified ISIS as a terror group — have come roaring back. Accounts associated with QAnon, a vast far-right conspiracy theory, have paid for and received verified status on Twitter, giving them a sheen of legitimacy.

These changes are alarming, researchers said, adding that they had never seen such a sharp increase in hate speech, problematic content and formerly banned accounts in such a short period on a mainstream social media platform.

“Elon Musk sent up the Bat Signal to every kind of racist, misogynist and homophobe that Twitter was open for business,” said Imran Ahmed, the chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate. “They have reacted accordingly.”

Mr. Musk, who did not respond to a request for comment, has been vocal about being a “free speech absolutist” who believes in unfettered discussions online. He has moved swiftly to overhaul Twitter’s practices, allowing former President Donald J. Trump — who was barred for tweets that could incite violence — to return. Last week, Mr. Musk proposed a widespread amnesty for accounts that Twitter’s previous leadership had suspended. And on Tuesday, he ended enforcement of a policy against COVID misinformation.

But Mr. Musk has denied claims that hate speech has increased on Twitter under his watch. Last month, he tweeted a downward-trending graph that he said showed that “hate speech impressions” had dropped by a third since he took over. He did not provide underlying numbers or details of how he was measuring hate speech.

CHANGES AT ELON MUSK’S TWITTER

A swift overhaul. Elon Musk has moved quickly to revamp Twitter since he completed his $44 billion buyout of the social media company in October, warning of a bleak financial picture and a need for new products. Here’s a look at some of the changes so far:

• Going private. As part of Mr. Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, he is delisting the company’s stock and taking it out of the hands of public shareholders. Making Twitter a private company gives Mr. Musk some advantages, including not having to make quarterly financial disclosures. Private companies are also subject to less regulatory scrutiny.

• Layoffs. Just over a week after closing the deal, Mr. Musk eliminated nearly half of Twitter’s work force, or about 3,700 jobs. The layoffs hit many divisions across the company, including the engineering and machine learning units, the teams that manage content moderation, and the sales and advertising departments.

• Verification subscriptions. Twitter began charging customers $7.99 a month to receive a coveted verification check mark on their profiles. But the subscription service was paused after some users exploited it to create havoc on the platform by pretending to be high-profile brands and sending disruptive tweets.

• Content moderation. Shortly after closing the deal to buy Twitter, Mr. Musk said that the company would form a content moderation council to decide what kinds of posts to keep up and what to take down. But advertisers have paused their spending on Twitter over fears that Mr. Musk will loosen content rules on the platform.

• Other possible changes. As Mr. Musk and his advisers look for ways to generate more revenue at the company, they are said to have discussed adding paid direct messages, which would let users send private messages to high-profile users. The company has also filed registration paperwork to pave the way for it to process payments.

On Thursday, Mr. Musk said the account of Kanye West, which was restricted for a spell in October because of an antisemitic tweet, would be suspended indefinitely after the rapper, known as Ye, tweeted an image of a swastika inside the Star of David. On Friday, Mr. Musk said Twitter would publish “hate speech impressions” every week and agreed with a tweet that said hate speech spiked last week because of Ye’s antisemitic posts.

Changes in Twitter’s content not only have societal implications but also affect the company’s bottom line. Advertisers, which provide about 90% of Twitter’s revenue, have reduced their spending on the platform as they wait to see how it will fare under Mr. Musk. Some have said they are concerned that the quality of discussions on the platform will suffer.

On Wednesday, Twitter sought to reassure advertisers about its commitment to online safety. “Brand safety is only possible when human safety is the top priority,” the company wrote in a blog post. “All of this remains true today.”

The appeal to advertisers coincided with a meeting between Mr. Musk and Thierry Breton, the digital chief of the European Union, in which they discussed content moderation and regulation, according to an E.U. spokesman. Mr. Breton has pressed Mr. Musk to comply with the Digital Services Act, a European law that requires social platforms to reduce online harm or face fines and other penalties.

Mr. Breton plans to visit Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters early next year to perform a “stress test” of its ability to moderate content and combat disinformation, the spokesman said.

On Twitter itself, researchers said the increase in hate speech, antisemitic posts and other troubling content had begun before Mr. Musk loosened the service’s content rules. That suggested that a further surge could be coming, they said.

MORE ON ELON MUSK’S TWITTER TAKEOVER

• An Established Pattern: Firing people. Talking of bankruptcy. Telling workers to be “hard core.” Twitter isn’t the first company that witnessed Elon Musk use those tactics.

• Resolving a ‘Misunderstanding’: After Mr. Musk accused Apple of threatening to pull Twitter from its App Store, it appears that a potential feud between the tech titans has been avoided.

• A ‘War for Talent’: Seeing misinformation as a possibly expensive liability, several companies are angling to hire former Twitter employees with the expertise to keep it in check.

• Unpaid Bills: Mr. Musk and his advisers have scrutinized all types of costs at Twitter, instructing staff to review, renegotiate and in some cases not pay outside vendors at all.

If that happens, it’s unclear whether Mr. Musk will have policies in place to deal with problematic speech or, even if he does, whether Twitter has the employees to keep up with moderation. Mr. Musk laid off, fired or accepted the resignations of more than half the company’s staff last month, including those who worked to remove harassment, foreign interference and disinformation from the service. Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of trust of safety, was among those who quit.

The Anti-Defamation League, which files regular reports of antisemitic tweets to Twitter and keeps track of which posts are removed, said the company had gone from taking action on 60% of the tweets it reported to only 30%.

“We have advised Musk that Twitter should not just keep the policies it has had in place for years, it should dedicate resources to those policies,” said Yael Eisenstat, a vice president at the Anti-Defamation League, who met with Mr. Musk last month. She said he did not appear interested in taking the advice of civil rights groups and other organizations.

“His actions to date show that he is not committed to a transparent process where he incorporates the best practices we have learned from civil society groups,” Ms. Eisenstat said. “Instead he has emboldened racists, homophobes and antisemites.”

The lack of action extends to new accounts affiliated with terror groups and others that Twitter previously banned. In the first 12 days after Mr. Musk assumed control, 450 accounts associated with ISIS were created, up 69% from the previous 12 days, according to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that studies online platforms.

Other social media companies are also increasingly concerned about how content is being moderated on Twitter.

When Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, found accounts associated with Russian and Chinese state-backed influence campaigns on its platforms last month, it tried to alert Twitter, said two members of Meta’s security team, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The two companies often communicated on these issues, since foreign influence campaigns typically linked fake accounts on Facebook to Twitter.

But this time was different. The emails to their counterparts at Twitter bounced or went unanswered, the Meta employees said, in a sign that those workers may have been fired.