Theory: not that I'm really complaining because it's hard to imagine how he could make things any worse, but I believe Elon Musk might have been smart enough to notice that there were more people upset about censorship on Twitter than not. So he knew that in addition to everything else he'd get from buying the platform, it would be good PR for him if he came in promising to stop the censorship. Sure, elites might scream their heads off, but most people would be happy to see what appeared to be someone saving them from being dragged out of the new town square.
And okay, if he's sincere about preventing stuff like the censoring of an entire newspaper for reporting on Hunter Biden, that's good. But he still remains a powerful person, and as such he is at *minimum* enormously tempted to control certain narratives that he has an interest in, as you said. So while he may be an improvement, what happens if someone digs up some dirt on his company or on him personally, and tweets about it to a very large number of followers? Will he be a big enough person to let that stay up? Or, what if the same pressure is brought to bear on him as was brought to bear on Jack Dorsey ("Censor more, or kiss your liability shield goodbye and get sued into oblivion")? Will he be brave enough to refuse to start censoring again?
I'd love for it to turn out that he's actually as good as his word here and that I had nothing to worry about, but I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Regarding "Censor more, or kiss your liability shield goodbye and get sued into oblivion”….
For now, Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act actually prohibits suing a social media company so long as the social media company did not create the offensive content or edit the content posted by a user. So, content creators are liable for what they post, not content hosts. Commenters here on Substack can be sued for what they post (if they can be identified), but Substack cannot.
With regard to Musk, the jury is still out on whether he will use Twitter for his own nefarious purpose. At the moment, I’m hoping for the best, but I won’t be surprised when his companies—Tesla, Neuralink, StarLink, The Boring Company, and SpaceX—are given top billing in everyone’s feeds, and that Twitter will somehow be used to hypnotize us all into becoming volunteer transhumanist lithium miners on some nearby dead planet.
Theory: not that I'm really complaining because it's hard to imagine how he could make things any worse, but I believe Elon Musk might have been smart enough to notice that there were more people upset about censorship on Twitter than not. So he knew that in addition to everything else he'd get from buying the platform, it would be good PR for him if he came in promising to stop the censorship. Sure, elites might scream their heads off, but most people would be happy to see what appeared to be someone saving them from being dragged out of the new town square.
And okay, if he's sincere about preventing stuff like the censoring of an entire newspaper for reporting on Hunter Biden, that's good. But he still remains a powerful person, and as such he is at *minimum* enormously tempted to control certain narratives that he has an interest in, as you said. So while he may be an improvement, what happens if someone digs up some dirt on his company or on him personally, and tweets about it to a very large number of followers? Will he be a big enough person to let that stay up? Or, what if the same pressure is brought to bear on him as was brought to bear on Jack Dorsey ("Censor more, or kiss your liability shield goodbye and get sued into oblivion")? Will he be brave enough to refuse to start censoring again?
I'd love for it to turn out that he's actually as good as his word here and that I had nothing to worry about, but I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Regarding "Censor more, or kiss your liability shield goodbye and get sued into oblivion”….
For now, Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act actually prohibits suing a social media company so long as the social media company did not create the offensive content or edit the content posted by a user. So, content creators are liable for what they post, not content hosts. Commenters here on Substack can be sued for what they post (if they can be identified), but Substack cannot.
With regard to Musk, the jury is still out on whether he will use Twitter for his own nefarious purpose. At the moment, I’m hoping for the best, but I won’t be surprised when his companies—Tesla, Neuralink, StarLink, The Boring Company, and SpaceX—are given top billing in everyone’s feeds, and that Twitter will somehow be used to hypnotize us all into becoming volunteer transhumanist lithium miners on some nearby dead planet.