<story><title>“Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted and demonetized”</title><url>https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1593673339826212864</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>phphphphp</author><text>That analogy doesn’t really fit with the model of Twitter. If we are using the town&amp;#x2F;time square example, what Elon is describing is the digital version of putting a noise-cancelling box around the people saying “bad” things so that nobody can hear them.&lt;p&gt;A message spreads on Twitter because individuals on Twitter amplify it (with engagement, retweets etc.) which is itself a form of speech: if you say something bad, and I retweet it, I am engaging in speech. Imagine a piece of land with 500 million people on it: a person 500 million people away from you cannot hear you, but if you say something and people choose to repeat it until it reaches that person… that’s Twitter. To prevent that is, in any framing, limiting free speech.&lt;p&gt;Twitter has some magical engagement-driving algorithms (for example, the homepage) but these are not the primary driver of engagement&amp;#x2F;reach on Twitter, so they could be removed entirely and this problem would remain.&lt;p&gt;So you’re probably right to say this isn’t a sudden 180 on his thoughts, but it still highlights how faulty his framing of free speech is.</text></item><item><author>boole1854</author><text>Many commentators seem to think this is a sudden, recent backpedaling from a previous absolutist view on free speech. However, Musk has been promoting the &amp;quot;freedom of speech&amp;quot; vs &amp;quot;freedom of reach&amp;quot; distinction for a while, at least months before his takeover, including describing how such a policy should be implemented at Twitter.&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s one example quote from June, 2022:&lt;p&gt;“I think there’s this big difference between freedom of speech and freedom of reach in that one can, obviously, let’s say in the United States go in the middle of Times Square and pretty much yell anything you want. You’ll annoy the people around you, but you’re kind of allowed to just sort of yell whatever you want in a crowded public place, more or less, apart from &amp;#x27;this is robbery&amp;#x27; — probably that would get you in trouble.&lt;p&gt;“So but then whatever you say, however controversial, does not need to then be broadcast to the whole country. So I think generally the approach of Twitter should be to let people say what they want to do within the bounds of the law, but then limit who sees that...”&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.teslarati.com&amp;#x2F;elon-musk-china-censorship-twitter-free-speech-vs-free-reach&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.teslarati.com&amp;#x2F;elon-musk-china-censorship-twitter...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>saurik</author><text>&amp;gt; ...so they could be removed entirely and this problem would remain.&lt;p&gt;Which problem? Seriously: the only legitimate problem I know of is that Twitter gives artificial reach to things via algorithmic engagement. They literally send me &lt;i&gt;push notifications&lt;/i&gt; for tweets their algorithm thinks is interesting.&lt;p&gt;If you retweet something some asshole says and I don&amp;#x27;t like it, I should probably just unfollow you because you could have just screenshotted the original tweet and included the image... that was you actively sending that content, and wasn&amp;#x27;t the original anymore.&lt;p&gt;(FWIW, the reason I don&amp;#x27;t trust this is because I actually further disagree with your assertion that the algorithms aren&amp;#x27;t causing reach, because Twitter no longer does linear timelines: everything you see, including from your followers, has been curated by the engagement-driving algorithm, and so if he starts down-modding stuff then it actually will work and actually will reduce reach as you will be less likely to see it even if the people you follow retweet it.)</text></comment>
<story><title>“Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted and demonetized”</title><url>https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1593673339826212864</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>phphphphp</author><text>That analogy doesn’t really fit with the model of Twitter. If we are using the town&amp;#x2F;time square example, what Elon is describing is the digital version of putting a noise-cancelling box around the people saying “bad” things so that nobody can hear them.&lt;p&gt;A message spreads on Twitter because individuals on Twitter amplify it (with engagement, retweets etc.) which is itself a form of speech: if you say something bad, and I retweet it, I am engaging in speech. Imagine a piece of land with 500 million people on it: a person 500 million people away from you cannot hear you, but if you say something and people choose to repeat it until it reaches that person… that’s Twitter. To prevent that is, in any framing, limiting free speech.&lt;p&gt;Twitter has some magical engagement-driving algorithms (for example, the homepage) but these are not the primary driver of engagement&amp;#x2F;reach on Twitter, so they could be removed entirely and this problem would remain.&lt;p&gt;So you’re probably right to say this isn’t a sudden 180 on his thoughts, but it still highlights how faulty his framing of free speech is.</text></item><item><author>boole1854</author><text>Many commentators seem to think this is a sudden, recent backpedaling from a previous absolutist view on free speech. However, Musk has been promoting the &amp;quot;freedom of speech&amp;quot; vs &amp;quot;freedom of reach&amp;quot; distinction for a while, at least months before his takeover, including describing how such a policy should be implemented at Twitter.&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s one example quote from June, 2022:&lt;p&gt;“I think there’s this big difference between freedom of speech and freedom of reach in that one can, obviously, let’s say in the United States go in the middle of Times Square and pretty much yell anything you want. You’ll annoy the people around you, but you’re kind of allowed to just sort of yell whatever you want in a crowded public place, more or less, apart from &amp;#x27;this is robbery&amp;#x27; — probably that would get you in trouble.&lt;p&gt;“So but then whatever you say, however controversial, does not need to then be broadcast to the whole country. So I think generally the approach of Twitter should be to let people say what they want to do within the bounds of the law, but then limit who sees that...”&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.teslarati.com&amp;#x2F;elon-musk-china-censorship-twitter-free-speech-vs-free-reach&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.teslarati.com&amp;#x2F;elon-musk-china-censorship-twitter...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>slg</author><text>&amp;gt;So you’re probably right to say this isn’t a sudden 180 on his thoughts, but it still highlights how faulty his framing of free speech is.&lt;p&gt;I still don&amp;#x27;t understand what his logic is.  What is the philosophical value of free speech if no one is able to hear that speech? Is his viewpoint that free speech is just about babbling on into an empty void?  What is the value in protecting that? How does one argue that shadowbanning isn&amp;#x27;t infringing on someone&amp;#x27;s speech. And for the record, I think shadowbanning is generally a good thing for online communities, but I also support outright bans and don&amp;#x27;t go around pretending I&amp;#x27;m a free speech absolutist.</text></comment>