Discussing the Elon Musk acquisition with former ACLU president Nadine Strossen, Carleton College professor Amna Khaled, and host Nico Perrino of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
".....I’ve been working on a research-heavy story...." Yeah baby, that's why I signed up.
I know by the overinflated and constantly flogged Elon Acquisition that the world of journalism seems to think the world turns on Twitter, but every time I see "Elon" and "Acquisition" in a sentence, I pour myself another drink and go looking for something that matters. Research-heavy is one of my favorite words. Twitland is the Bizarro World of research-heavy...
CNN and MSNC have so few viewers - who cares what they say?! - even Twitter is dominated by the left-wing and rather far left...REAL PEOPLE are not listening to these people...
40:20 Great, funny point about how they chose 8chan as their example rather than the United States. Also, you spoke to how "thumb on the scale" and suppression are every bit the tinder-box they consider "free speech" to be.
An amazing example is the situation of the violent attacks on Asians. The media/woke practice free speech by (falsely) ascribing the violence to "white supremacy," often linking this to Trump's "hateful rhetoric." This is also thumb on the scale because the reality is that Blacks are the primary group attacking Asians. This is clearly shown in the 2018 Department of Justice Criminal Victimization report in Table 14, "Percent of violent incidents, by victim and offender race or ethnicity." (In the following years, to the surprise of no one paying attention, that table -- and the listing of Asians as a separate entry -- have been disappeared from the Criminal Victimization report.)
Clearly in this example the media/woke consider lies to be free speech, but the truth something to be censored. And, yeah, as a white person, I'm not super thrilled that I'm being blamed for Black people attacking Asians just because it suits the "white supremacy" campaign slogan of the Democrats/media.
I don't think I'll ever forget how Trump saying, offhandedly, "Be careful, it's not always what you think," the day before it was announced that the person making a series of threats to synagogues was a Jewish citizen of Israel, led to the media savaging him. (And of course when Trump said that, he probably had already been told who the culprit was.)
Speech has always been free. There is no assault on free speech. If you doubt it just start talking. Preferably to yourself. In a closet would be best. See, no stormtroopers raided your home.
There is only an assault on disinformation. That's it. Really. Ask Mary Poppins. Mary Poppins would never lie. Or leave the house without an umbrella.
When people complain about the "privatization of speech" all they really mean is that they want speech to be a more DIY effort rather than bothering crowds of people with your speech. They obviously have speech of their own so it's just common sense to regulate it.
Look at it this way, if everybody keeps talking, the arteries of civilization will clog up with all of that intellectual cholesterol. No one wants that. Especially the elite. Our mental, emotional & physical health have always been their top priority. Anyone who doubts that is spending far too much time thinking & too little time standing in a closet & talking.
If you doubt this thesis just look at free speech advocates versus the "ve must control ze lips & ze tongue & ze teeth & ze brain" crowd. In the first camp I offer Jimmy Breslin. Just examine any photo of Jimmy Breslin and you'll see a paunchy, slovenly man, addicted to alcohol & cigars, obviously collapsing under the weight of all of that "free speech."
In the other camp, I offer Rachel Maddow, a perfect example of joy through control & freedom through bondage. Just watch her show if you doubt me. She is always cackling madly over something as her joy infects the viewer, making them cackle madly also. I have never seen Mxyzptlk Maddow smoking a cigar or drinking hard liquor. She has no need for those crutches because she is free. Free of speech. Free of thought. Free of...well she's just damn free.
So I leave it to you. Would you rather be a slovenly addict weighed down with truth, whatever the hell that is? Or would you rather be a shiny happy Rachel Maddow cackling madly at life's joie de vivre, bouyantly turning frowns upside down wherever she goes?
Oh yes, and always remember:
Questions are a burden to others; answers are a prison for oneself.
And just keep repeating "I am not a free man, I am a number."
The future will be much much more palatable if you do.
Given what I've heard out of Mistress Nina, Dominatrix of Disinfo, the Dems will be deciding that, thank you very much.
I saw a video where she explained, hypothetically, that if Trump got back on Tweeter and mentioned voter fraud or a stolen election, Mistress Nina & her Minions Of Pain would slather onto the Tweet what she described as "Context."
Of course Hillary and the Dems still yammer on about how the Russians stole the election in 2016. I recently heard Adam Schiff use the imaginary Russian election theft as partial justification for why they want regime change in Russia.
So I'm going to go out on a sturdy limb and say that all of the Dems non-partisan blather about the Ministry of Pain is, what my old man would have called, bullshit.
"President Biden on Tuesday blamed Russia's war in Ukraine, corporate greed, the pandemic and the policies of "ultra-MAGA Republicans" for causing record-high inflation, and insisted that Democrats' big spending didn't spur the highest price increases in 40 years."
Where is the disinformation department when you need them?...
It's crazy talk, literally crazy talk, when the liberals are so fearful of ideas they deem "wrong" think infecting people and don't understand the thumb on the scales is the REAL scary thought that "they" just don't see!! Wow!
The two most surprising development in my recent world experiences are: the deeply felt racism in the West and the overtly nastiness of some social media (as well as its opposite)... it has a lot to do with unquestioned "rightness" of one's arguments. "Of course I'm right! I'm well intentioned , so how could I possible be wrong?"
Our powerful conscious perspective leads one up to this precipice, and w/o some necessary humility we simply fall off into grievous error, unfortunately.
Hi Matt, I appreciate your work and feel like you're a rare voice on the left. I'm a little over 4 minutes into this podcast and already feeling it's waste of time. I notice in the description it says Twitter is becoming 8chan (presumably because of Musk); the panel is you, an ex-ACLU president and an academic. I'm betting I can guess pretty much what will happen here and it's kind of disappointing. I'm an independent and feel neither party represents me; I think BOTH parties are thoroughly corrupt. I've read your work for a long time and though you are on the Left, I consider you more balanced and fair. Maybe I'm misunderstanding something or just plain wrong but isn't this an echo chamber? I'm going to listen to the rest, hope i'm wrong....
I haven't listened to the "on the media" podcast they're addressing, but it seems odd to me that Natalie Wynn is featured heavily in the clips they've chosen and made out to be anti-free speech. Wynn's history is as a YouTube creator who makes long, well-reasoned arguments against extreme right-wing views by engaging with thim seriously as arguments (she has a philosophy background and her arguments are very well researched and credited with steering a lot of those "angry white boys" away from right-wing extremism). She's also done some fantastic, again very long-form, pieces against aspects of "cancel culture" from a left-wing perspective. She's faced down her own angry twitter mobs on several occasions -- as a trans-woman who has at times faced the wrath of bandwagon trans-twitter mobs. So I just don't buy that she's in any way against free speech as a concept, and now feel I need to know more about the context of those clips that were shared. I'd absolutely love to see a discussion between Taibbi and Wynn on these issues -- I think that would be very thought-provoking and enlightening.
There's something that Matt (and others are missing). Private companies care more about who is on their platform, than about what speech is allowed.
How I've seen this manifest as (when I've been involved in running platforms): Private companies will censor images and speech they see as unwelcoming to members of certain groups that they want to welcome. This generally is an attempt to be welcoming to minorities and women and other protected groups who won't stick around if they experience what they feel to be bigotry.
This is similar to right of admission at a nightclub, which is also a private company - it's a concern with who is inside. Nightclubs don't care about bad fashion and think that it will catch on and influence others, they think that poorly dressed people will cause the fashionably dressed people to leave.
What I'm getting at is: Matt says that people are concerned with ideas being so powerful and contagious that their dangerous. But that's not really what's going on. Maybe that's the language that's being used, but it's not the reality of the situation. It's sort of a straw man of the social media platform position.
I don't think running social media like a nightclub with a right of admission is a great idea in terms of free speech. I just think that's what is going on and avoiding talking about it makes it easy to win an argument.
Re: adhering to the legal framework as Matt mentions: One problem we face is that technology has allowed for the exponential increase in the amount of "published" material, most of it *not* by journalists who are trained to avoid things like libel and we haven't had the increase in capacity of the court system to handle it all. If agrieved people can't sue the platform (which I think is probably a good rule to keep in place), then we are left with millions of people whose only redress is against millions of posters, often anonymous.
That's one reason I'm in favor of increasing the size of the court system by an order of magnitude. It would drive down the costs, and most lawyers would be reduced to the status of functionaries. We could also then do things like require felony charges to almost always be taken to trial. This might address the practice of overcharging defendants with the goal of plea bargaining, removing the sentencing penalties for going to trial etc.
Is the expansion of the Nazis into The Ukraine during WWII connected in any way to the expansion of NATO into the same area? Are the NATO Nazis to blame? The Pope thinks so.
This was a great talk, and I've enjoyed seeing this group speak together. Hopefully it will continue to happen as the deadbrain mediasphere continues its voyage to meaninglessness.
One note from the (terrifying) NPR broadcast that nobody mentioned: when they discussed 8chan and the "harmful" speech there (along with the implication that it will happen everywhere if left unmoderated), they specifically mentioned incitement to violence, direct threats and the sharing of child pornography. These have become the common refrain with those scared of the "harms of free speech." Problem is, those things are already illegal. This has become a common trick with this new hall-monitor-cum-Stasi: mention a bunch of really bad things that are already illegal, as if not having censors (and they usually mean themselves being said censors) will somehow allow those things to be suddenly legal and be freely out in the open. There's also usually the implication of new laws being passed, along with new committees and bureaucracy created to slow the spread of this wild menace of... things that are already illegal, often very much so.
I fully support the idea of "free speech" on Twitter.
But 1st, we don't really know what his true, inside motives are for buying this platform.
I suspect he's thought this through more carefully in a business sense. Ostensibly, he's promoting free speech, but I have a feeling this is an deft investment in a vast storehouse of rich social data - ripe for further leveraging.
2nd, some of us don't want to - directly or indirectly - support the money making efforts of, quite frankly, a douche bag.
I'm fine with him buying this, but I will be exercising my prerogative to delete "his" platform from my devices.
But bully for you Elon, you smarmy, pompous, greasy, hair mess. :-D
Well, yes, I have several - but I'm still not sure how to answer your question. Again, how does one show "evidence" of Douche Baggery? Or "Ass-holiness"? :D
What's the atomic weight or chemical compound of an insult? Is it quantifiable? Clearly outlined by definition?
I DO have my reasons based on certain actions and words of his. But would they really make any difference to you? I somehow doubt it.
Hey, if you like the greasy DB, good for you. Your prerogative.
".....I’ve been working on a research-heavy story...." Yeah baby, that's why I signed up.
I know by the overinflated and constantly flogged Elon Acquisition that the world of journalism seems to think the world turns on Twitter, but every time I see "Elon" and "Acquisition" in a sentence, I pour myself another drink and go looking for something that matters. Research-heavy is one of my favorite words. Twitland is the Bizarro World of research-heavy...
Hate speech and incitement are being pursued right now against Supreme Court justices. Haven’t seen any arrests.
"".....I’ve been working on a research-heavy story...." Yeah baby, that's why I signed up. "... Same here. Thanks Matt!
CNN and MSNC have so few viewers - who cares what they say?! - even Twitter is dominated by the left-wing and rather far left...REAL PEOPLE are not listening to these people...
Yup. It's show business.
Agreed. And it's still dumbshit where a verified extremely small minority of voices prevail. It's not the world, and everyone acts like it is.
40:20 Great, funny point about how they chose 8chan as their example rather than the United States. Also, you spoke to how "thumb on the scale" and suppression are every bit the tinder-box they consider "free speech" to be.
An amazing example is the situation of the violent attacks on Asians. The media/woke practice free speech by (falsely) ascribing the violence to "white supremacy," often linking this to Trump's "hateful rhetoric." This is also thumb on the scale because the reality is that Blacks are the primary group attacking Asians. This is clearly shown in the 2018 Department of Justice Criminal Victimization report in Table 14, "Percent of violent incidents, by victim and offender race or ethnicity." (In the following years, to the surprise of no one paying attention, that table -- and the listing of Asians as a separate entry -- have been disappeared from the Criminal Victimization report.)
Clearly in this example the media/woke consider lies to be free speech, but the truth something to be censored. And, yeah, as a white person, I'm not super thrilled that I'm being blamed for Black people attacking Asians just because it suits the "white supremacy" campaign slogan of the Democrats/media.
Similar to the giant thumb on scale that Trump supporters and Trump are the primary purveyors of antisemitism.
I don't think I'll ever forget how Trump saying, offhandedly, "Be careful, it's not always what you think," the day before it was announced that the person making a series of threats to synagogues was a Jewish citizen of Israel, led to the media savaging him. (And of course when Trump said that, he probably had already been told who the culprit was.)
Speech has always been free. There is no assault on free speech. If you doubt it just start talking. Preferably to yourself. In a closet would be best. See, no stormtroopers raided your home.
There is only an assault on disinformation. That's it. Really. Ask Mary Poppins. Mary Poppins would never lie. Or leave the house without an umbrella.
When people complain about the "privatization of speech" all they really mean is that they want speech to be a more DIY effort rather than bothering crowds of people with your speech. They obviously have speech of their own so it's just common sense to regulate it.
Look at it this way, if everybody keeps talking, the arteries of civilization will clog up with all of that intellectual cholesterol. No one wants that. Especially the elite. Our mental, emotional & physical health have always been their top priority. Anyone who doubts that is spending far too much time thinking & too little time standing in a closet & talking.
If you doubt this thesis just look at free speech advocates versus the "ve must control ze lips & ze tongue & ze teeth & ze brain" crowd. In the first camp I offer Jimmy Breslin. Just examine any photo of Jimmy Breslin and you'll see a paunchy, slovenly man, addicted to alcohol & cigars, obviously collapsing under the weight of all of that "free speech."
In the other camp, I offer Rachel Maddow, a perfect example of joy through control & freedom through bondage. Just watch her show if you doubt me. She is always cackling madly over something as her joy infects the viewer, making them cackle madly also. I have never seen Mxyzptlk Maddow smoking a cigar or drinking hard liquor. She has no need for those crutches because she is free. Free of speech. Free of thought. Free of...well she's just damn free.
So I leave it to you. Would you rather be a slovenly addict weighed down with truth, whatever the hell that is? Or would you rather be a shiny happy Rachel Maddow cackling madly at life's joie de vivre, bouyantly turning frowns upside down wherever she goes?
Oh yes, and always remember:
Questions are a burden to others; answers are a prison for oneself.
And just keep repeating "I am not a free man, I am a number."
The future will be much much more palatable if you do.
"There is only an assault on disinformation." LOL LOL LOL
..and who's to define 'disinformation' - the crux of the issue entirely...
Given what I've heard out of Mistress Nina, Dominatrix of Disinfo, the Dems will be deciding that, thank you very much.
I saw a video where she explained, hypothetically, that if Trump got back on Tweeter and mentioned voter fraud or a stolen election, Mistress Nina & her Minions Of Pain would slather onto the Tweet what she described as "Context."
Of course Hillary and the Dems still yammer on about how the Russians stole the election in 2016. I recently heard Adam Schiff use the imaginary Russian election theft as partial justification for why they want regime change in Russia.
So I'm going to go out on a sturdy limb and say that all of the Dems non-partisan blather about the Ministry of Pain is, what my old man would have called, bullshit.
I look forward to the availability of a manuscript of this podcast. I typically prefer reading to listening, and this looks to be a fascinating read
Meanwhile at the asylum...
"President Biden on Tuesday blamed Russia's war in Ukraine, corporate greed, the pandemic and the policies of "ultra-MAGA Republicans" for causing record-high inflation, and insisted that Democrats' big spending didn't spur the highest price increases in 40 years."
Where is the disinformation department when you need them?...
If the law is not enforced, or enforced unequally it is worse then useless; it is unjust.
It's crazy talk, literally crazy talk, when the liberals are so fearful of ideas they deem "wrong" think infecting people and don't understand the thumb on the scales is the REAL scary thought that "they" just don't see!! Wow!
The two most surprising development in my recent world experiences are: the deeply felt racism in the West and the overtly nastiness of some social media (as well as its opposite)... it has a lot to do with unquestioned "rightness" of one's arguments. "Of course I'm right! I'm well intentioned , so how could I possible be wrong?"
Our powerful conscious perspective leads one up to this precipice, and w/o some necessary humility we simply fall off into grievous error, unfortunately.
Hi Matt, I appreciate your work and feel like you're a rare voice on the left. I'm a little over 4 minutes into this podcast and already feeling it's waste of time. I notice in the description it says Twitter is becoming 8chan (presumably because of Musk); the panel is you, an ex-ACLU president and an academic. I'm betting I can guess pretty much what will happen here and it's kind of disappointing. I'm an independent and feel neither party represents me; I think BOTH parties are thoroughly corrupt. I've read your work for a long time and though you are on the Left, I consider you more balanced and fair. Maybe I'm misunderstanding something or just plain wrong but isn't this an echo chamber? I'm going to listen to the rest, hope i'm wrong....
I haven't listened to the "on the media" podcast they're addressing, but it seems odd to me that Natalie Wynn is featured heavily in the clips they've chosen and made out to be anti-free speech. Wynn's history is as a YouTube creator who makes long, well-reasoned arguments against extreme right-wing views by engaging with thim seriously as arguments (she has a philosophy background and her arguments are very well researched and credited with steering a lot of those "angry white boys" away from right-wing extremism). She's also done some fantastic, again very long-form, pieces against aspects of "cancel culture" from a left-wing perspective. She's faced down her own angry twitter mobs on several occasions -- as a trans-woman who has at times faced the wrath of bandwagon trans-twitter mobs. So I just don't buy that she's in any way against free speech as a concept, and now feel I need to know more about the context of those clips that were shared. I'd absolutely love to see a discussion between Taibbi and Wynn on these issues -- I think that would be very thought-provoking and enlightening.
There's something that Matt (and others are missing). Private companies care more about who is on their platform, than about what speech is allowed.
How I've seen this manifest as (when I've been involved in running platforms): Private companies will censor images and speech they see as unwelcoming to members of certain groups that they want to welcome. This generally is an attempt to be welcoming to minorities and women and other protected groups who won't stick around if they experience what they feel to be bigotry.
This is similar to right of admission at a nightclub, which is also a private company - it's a concern with who is inside. Nightclubs don't care about bad fashion and think that it will catch on and influence others, they think that poorly dressed people will cause the fashionably dressed people to leave.
What I'm getting at is: Matt says that people are concerned with ideas being so powerful and contagious that their dangerous. But that's not really what's going on. Maybe that's the language that's being used, but it's not the reality of the situation. It's sort of a straw man of the social media platform position.
I don't think running social media like a nightclub with a right of admission is a great idea in terms of free speech. I just think that's what is going on and avoiding talking about it makes it easy to win an argument.
Re: adhering to the legal framework as Matt mentions: One problem we face is that technology has allowed for the exponential increase in the amount of "published" material, most of it *not* by journalists who are trained to avoid things like libel and we haven't had the increase in capacity of the court system to handle it all. If agrieved people can't sue the platform (which I think is probably a good rule to keep in place), then we are left with millions of people whose only redress is against millions of posters, often anonymous.
That's one reason I'm in favor of increasing the size of the court system by an order of magnitude. It would drive down the costs, and most lawyers would be reduced to the status of functionaries. We could also then do things like require felony charges to almost always be taken to trial. This might address the practice of overcharging defendants with the goal of plea bargaining, removing the sentencing penalties for going to trial etc.
... pl stop sending links to podcasts -- I HATE PODCASTS!!
Is the expansion of the Nazis into The Ukraine during WWII connected in any way to the expansion of NATO into the same area? Are the NATO Nazis to blame? The Pope thinks so.
This was a great talk, and I've enjoyed seeing this group speak together. Hopefully it will continue to happen as the deadbrain mediasphere continues its voyage to meaninglessness.
One note from the (terrifying) NPR broadcast that nobody mentioned: when they discussed 8chan and the "harmful" speech there (along with the implication that it will happen everywhere if left unmoderated), they specifically mentioned incitement to violence, direct threats and the sharing of child pornography. These have become the common refrain with those scared of the "harms of free speech." Problem is, those things are already illegal. This has become a common trick with this new hall-monitor-cum-Stasi: mention a bunch of really bad things that are already illegal, as if not having censors (and they usually mean themselves being said censors) will somehow allow those things to be suddenly legal and be freely out in the open. There's also usually the implication of new laws being passed, along with new committees and bureaucracy created to slow the spread of this wild menace of... things that are already illegal, often very much so.
I fully support the idea of "free speech" on Twitter.
But 1st, we don't really know what his true, inside motives are for buying this platform.
I suspect he's thought this through more carefully in a business sense. Ostensibly, he's promoting free speech, but I have a feeling this is an deft investment in a vast storehouse of rich social data - ripe for further leveraging.
2nd, some of us don't want to - directly or indirectly - support the money making efforts of, quite frankly, a douche bag.
I'm fine with him buying this, but I will be exercising my prerogative to delete "his" platform from my devices.
But bully for you Elon, you smarmy, pompous, greasy, hair mess. :-D
;-D
Why is Elon Musk a douche bag? I'm aware of no evidence of that.
Do tell? What does "evidence" of "douche baggery" look like? lol.
You called him that, so you tell me. Do you have a reason?
Well, yes, I have several - but I'm still not sure how to answer your question. Again, how does one show "evidence" of Douche Baggery? Or "Ass-holiness"? :D
What's the atomic weight or chemical compound of an insult? Is it quantifiable? Clearly outlined by definition?
I DO have my reasons based on certain actions and words of his. But would they really make any difference to you? I somehow doubt it.
Hey, if you like the greasy DB, good for you. Your prerogative.