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0 pointsthemitigating4y ago0 comments

What makes you think he is willing to sacrifice short term revenue?

- He's a businessman. You could argue that you need to be successful to have the resources to help people

- He sued Top Gear because of a somewhat negative car review of the original Tesla Roadster [1]. Would an advocate of free speech to the level some want here do that? Maybe he changed though, maybe he only wants free speech when it doesn't hurt him.

I'm honestly asking where the image of a champion of free speech comes from, besides what he says he'll do?

[1]https://www.wired.com/2012/02/tesla-vs-top-gear/ [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/elizahaverstock/2022/02/15/elon...

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staunch4y ago· 2 in thread

> What makes you think he is willing to sacrifice short term revenue?

Because we already know from his past behavior that he's willing to make long-term bets. And his statement that he doesn't view his interest in Twitter as a money-making venture.

> He sued Top Gear because of a somewhat negative car review of the original Tesla Roadster

That's a very biased way to frame it. IIRC Top Gear admits that they faked part of the review to make Tesla look bad, after Tesla proved that they had.

Believing in free speech doesn't mean you can't sue people that you believe have violated laws.

Or perhaps he simply made a mistake of judgement going after them legally and was wrong to do so. That's also not inconsistent with a belief in free speech.

ModernMech4y ago

> Believing in free speech doesn't mean you can't sue people that you believe have violated laws.

Musk doesn't just believe in free speech, he's called himself a “free speech absolutist”.

- One can either be a free speech absolutist, or not.

- If you are a free speech absolutist, you must take a position that all speech is permissible. Because if you don't then you aren't an absolutist, because one could then always take the absolute position that all speech is permissible.

- If you insist that it's okay to be an absolutist on free speech but still maintain that some speech is not permissible, then really we're not talking about free speech anymore but instead negotiating exactly what classes of speech are not permissible.

- Therefore, if Musk really is a free speech absolutist as he claims to be, he must support Top Gun's right to shamelessly lie about his product. As a matter of principle, libel is perfectly okay for a free speech absolutist. If you claim it's not, then I can find you a free speech absolutist who disagrees.

- Therefore Musk is either lying about his motives or he doesn't understand enough about the nuances of free speech to know he's doing. Either way he definitely shouldn't be trusted as a standard bearer or avatar for free speech.

staunch4y ago

Musk seems to have used the term "free speech absolutist" as a means of contrasting his First Amendment-style view of free speech with the severely qualified and diminished version currently available on platforms like Twitter.

So I agree that you're technically correct about what "absolutist" means, but I don't think it makes a difference in this case.

Anyone who is willing to run social media services as if they were bound by the First Amendment has my support. They may fail but at least they'd be trying to do the right thing, which is better than what we have today.

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