To Fight Censorship Order, X.com Announces It's Ending Business Operations in Brazil (engadget.com) 163
X.com "says it's ending business operations in Brazil effective immediately," reports Engadget, "but the service will remain available to users in the country."
The company says Alexandre de Moraes, the president of the Superior Electoral Court and a justice of the Supreme Federal Court, threatened one of X's legal representatives with arrest if it did not "comply with his censorship orders." According to Reuters, de Moreas demanded that X remove certain content from its platform.
Rather than comply, X has opted to end its local operations "to protect the safety of our staff."
According to X, de Moraes made the threat in a "secret order," which it shared publicly. X owner Elon Musk claimed that the demand "would require us to break (in secret) Brazilian, Argentinian, American and international law."
Rather than comply, X has opted to end its local operations "to protect the safety of our staff."
According to X, de Moraes made the threat in a "secret order," which it shared publicly. X owner Elon Musk claimed that the demand "would require us to break (in secret) Brazilian, Argentinian, American and international law."
The hypocrite strikes again (Score:4, Informative)
Here is how ol Musty caved to Turkey [imgur.com] when told he had to censor posts by opposition candidates.
Funny how he had no problem breaking American or "international law" back then to enable censorship.
Re:The hypocrite strikes again (Score:4, Informative)
The fact that Musk does censor twitter (try entering the words "cis" or "cisgender") is going to scupper his lawsuit against advertisers. Clearly he does recognize the need for some moderation, even if it's the wrong moderation.
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Also, some of the types of censorship they perform still technically allows a user to speak, but their posts are essentially hidden. I've managed to earn myself one of those types of shadowbans, ostensibly because my usage patterns on X lead to my account being falsely flagged by their bot detection algorithm. I say "ostensibly" because I'm unapologetically a gay man who doesn't have much love for what passes for right-wing politics these days.
That being said, it's Musk's dime and he can run the site the
Re: The hypocrite strikes again (Score:2)
Re: The hypocrite strikes again (Score:4, Informative)
Re: The hypocrite strikes again (Score:3)
Re: The hypocrite strikes again (Score:2)
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it's Musk's dime and he can run the site the way he wants to.
This also means everyone else is allowed to criticize him all the want about it. Which seems to offend some people that liberty runs two ways. It's "cancelling" if they disapprove, but a mere "boycott" if they do approve. Musk can be pro-liberty one day and anti-liberty the next, depending upon how he thinks the money will flow, but everyone else can call him out on it if they want.
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A bit like round here where trolls like to mod things they disagree with down.
At least on Slashdot users are allowed to choose how they want moderation to affect their viewing experience. Back in the day when it was primarily shitposts consisting of ASCII art, copypastas, and goatse trolls earning a -1 score, I used to hide those. Nowadays, it's mostly a result of moderators with a political axe to grind, so I no longer hide them.
I think even Facebook allows you to rawdog the replies to a post, but you have to click to enable it each time. Letting the user optionally bypass modera
Re: The hypocrite strikes again (Score:2)
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That being said, I still don't see the censorship here - https://x.com/search?q=cisgend... [x.com]
Based on the rather low view impressions, I'd say it's a good bet that "cis" and "cisgender" are among the list of magic words that gets your Tweet deprioritized. Of course, whether or not having the algorithm bury your Tweet truly constitutes censorship, is in the eye of the beholder.
In an ideal world, I'd like to see X publish an honest explanation of its political biases right up on the front page. Then you can nope out of using it in exchange for a competing service if you don't like the cut of their
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Totally support the '"under the hood" labelling shenanigans' being out in the open where we can all see it, and if it's leading to shadow-banning - again, not a fan.
But considering the shit that used to get pulled on Twitter censorship, with AmiMoJo clapping like a rabid seal - I'll take the current as an improvement.
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In an ideal world, I'd like to see X publish an honest explanation of its political biases right up on the front page. Then you can nope out of using it in exchange for a competing service if you don't like the cut of their jib. That's the way the internet is supposed to work.
California tried making that a law (list the moderation rules) ... it's part of the reason Musk decided to run away to Texas.
Re: The hypocrite strikes again (Score:4, Interesting)
Given your post above, I assume when this troll ass post gets modded troll, you will just think the moderator was reacting to your politics.
I guess when your default mode of communication is trolling, you must be unaware of when you are doing it.
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I see https://www.sorryantivaxxer.com/ [sorryantivaxxer.com] ceased updating a year ago, and Laura Loomer (the one Marjorie Taylor Greene considers a right-wing whacko!) recovered.
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(try entering the words "cis" or "cisgender")
"Those damn alphabet people with their pride parades and special labels. Why can't we have the same thing for us straight folks?"
"Okay. You're a cisgendered heterosexual. Feel free to have your own parade whenever you want."
"What did you just call me?!"
"sigh"
Re:The hypocrite strikes again (Score:5, Insightful)
It's all because his estranged daughter is trans and he's very upset about it. Things she is a victim of the "woke mind virus".
Most parents would be happy if their children are happy, but not Musk.
Re:The hypocrite strikes again (Score:5, Interesting)
Most parents would be happy if their children are happy, but not Musk.
Most parents wouldn't name their kids Azure, Exa Dark Sideræl, or X AE A-XII. Though maybe he's so upset at the very normally named "Vivian" being transgender than he figured if he fucked up their lives enough with a completely batshit name they would be too mentally pre-occupied to consider a sex-change.
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At least there's plenty of precedent for males being named Vivian, if he doesn't want to change that.
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It's all because his estranged daughter is trans
I have a hunch this offends him due to his deep belief Earth is suffering from an underpopulation crisis. He's helping with this "cause" by trying to have tens of children, and he certainly expects those children will follow his footsteps and do similarly.
Now, going through surgery generally causes a trans person to become infertile, which means Vivian would have violated Musk's desire for her to father him 15 grandchildren, 225 great-grandchildren, 3375 great-great-grandchildren etc. Hence his hate: "the w
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Perhaps, but I think it's just that he considers himself to have superior genetics and thinks he has a duty to spread them far and wide. Many of the mothers of his children are senior staff at his companies too. Grimes in currently in a custody battle with him over their children, who she alleges that he neglects.
Given Musk's vast wealth, if he was really that concerned about his genetic legacy, he could have had his daughter's sperm frozen for use later. A lot of trans people have sperm/eggs frozen before
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Yeah, I'm sure someone somewhere said this at least once.
As a matter of fact, yes. They even had their parade, too. [usatoday.com]
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The fact that Musk does censor twitter (try entering the words "cis" or "cisgender")
https://x.com/search?q=cisgend... [x.com]
Someone said it 5 minutes ago?
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If you tweet "cis" or "cisgender" your post will have limited visibility. You can appeal it and they almost always grant the appeal.
There are also some accounts that are exempt. They are all conservative/far right accounts, and they can use things like the n word without their posts being restricted. They are generally speaking able to break most Twitter rules with impunity.
That's what passes for free speech on Musk's Twitter.
Re:The hypocrite strikes again (Score:4, Interesting)
If you tweet "cis" or "cisgender" your post will have limited visibility.
To be fair... those are considered pejorative terms by many of the people they apply to.
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To be fair... those are considered pejorative terms by many of the people they apply to.
That'd be like a Christian being offended by someone saying "Merry Christmas", because hearing it also happens to remind them of all the religions that don't celebrate.
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I think the offense taken is at the implication that a term was even needed to indicate that someone identifies as the sex they were assigned at birth. In their minds, they'd prefer to imagine that people who identify differently didn't exist, and the "cisgender" label exists as a stern reminder that isn't the case.
A similar sort of offense is taken by the use of pronoun labels too, despite the fact that online it's actually kind of helpful to know when you're responding to somebody behind a pseudonym that
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I find Latinx offensive. I'm a Brazilian of European descent, so were I in the US, by American cultural standards I suppose I'd classified as white, but I'm culturally Brazilian, and I share in the distaste for the word.
It isn't as much that having a neutral term for native speakers and, er, "culturees" of a few Latin-derived languages is by itself offensive. It's that the "-x" ending is utterly alien to them. It fits neither the languages nor the cultures it's trying to cover, while simultaneously paying z
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Yes, and Musk is one of those who believes that "cisgender" is a slur. Of course it's not, in the same way that describing someone as straight or heterosexual isn't.
We had all this with gay people. Some people just wanted it to be "normal" and "pervert", for their own bigoted reasons.
What does moderation have to do with antitrust? (Score:2)
> The fact that Musk does censor twitter (try entering the words "cis" or "cisgender") is going to scupper his lawsuit against advertisers. Clearly he does recognize the need for some moderation, even if it's the wrong moderation.
What does that have to do with a lawsuit over collusion in the advertising market by an organization that controls most of the online ad spend?
I mean, you can read it right here [courthousenews.com]. I've gone through it and I really can't see how deciding that certain words may be forbidden when u
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I recommend Lawful Masses video on YouTube about it. He's an actual lawyer and explains the weaknesses of the lawsuit.
Another example is Musk said that he wouldn't tolerate calling conservatives "weird", when that was trending on Twitter. So he clearly recognizes the need to limit the content on the platform, because he finds some of it offensive to the point of being unacceptable even to Mr. Free Speech Absolutionist.
Which rather undermines his argument that advertisers shouldn't care about the Nazis and o
They don't need to collude to do that (Score:2)
I'm sure there are many arguments they can go over in court, but that is a very weak argument, because individual advertisers could simply have their own standards to protect their own brands. Why does a need for moderation mean that competitors controlling the majority of online ad spend need to work together on this? Can't they set their own standards and agree or disagree on whether to advertise in a place?
The legal issue isn't that they want to protect their brands, the legal issue is because you have
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A court isn't going to care that they outsourced their standards vetting to an industry body. Not only is that pretty much standard practice in the business, not least because they want to say to offer their clients the standard safe option that guarantees they won't be getting bad publicity by appearing next to Nazis.
It's not a conspiracy, it's how industries work. Musk thinks that major brands would choose to show up next to the N word and worse if only it wasn't for the "conspiracy", but the reality is t
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The fact that Musk does censor twitter (try entering the words "cis" or "cisgender") is going to scupper his lawsuit against advertisers. Clearly he does recognize the need for some moderation, even if it's the wrong moderation.
And lets not forget his buddy DeSantis [nbcnews.com] literally burning... sorry, "hauling" books away to the landfill [apnews.com]:
“We abolished the gender studies program. Now we’re throwing out the trash,” Christopher Rufo, a DeSantis appointee to the Sarasota college’s governing board, posted Friday on X, formerly Twitter.
That's not to say that Brazil is in the right here... but the post makes no mention of what this content is, so it could be anything from legit opposition speech to neo-Nazi's making death
CIS (Score:2)
I can remember when CIS stood for Commonwealth of Independent States
but I don't think that Tsar Vladimir bothers with the name these days
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Cis- is from Latin, as is trans-. Both were widely used as prefixes in chemistry, before being applied to people.
In any case, words change meaning. When most people say gay, they aren't describing a state of happiness anymore.
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And in geography for millennia before that. Viz., Transylvania (beyond the woods), Cisalpine Gaul (Gaul on this side of the Alps).
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I literally just posted "some nutter claims you can't post the term cisgender on x."
It posted just fine and has been up for a while with no repercussions.
Try again? Maybe you misspelled it.
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Link to this post?
Re:The hypocrite strikes again (Score:5, Interesting)
If the order aligns with Musk's politics, Twitter will follow it. If not, Twitter will refuse.
Twitter is a private business. Musk can run it his way.
He will bear the consequences for his choices, good or bad. He is wealthy and influential enough that he may be able to avoid the negative consequences coming his way... maybe. He has offended nations both friendly and unfriendly to the USA recently ("civil war is inevitable..."), that may cost him his political cover and leave him protected only by his immense wealth.
But it is still his choice.
The super rich have class solidarity (Score:2)
On the other hand among the working class the slightest faux pas is enough to get you cut the pieces by your fellow members of the working class. We have absolutely no solidarity. There are people working to change that but it's slow going. There's an entire generation that grew up thinking dog eat dog competition fighting tooth and nail for every scrap is the best way to live
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There's an entire generation that grew up thinking dog eat dog competition fighting tooth and nail for every scrap is the best way to live
Unless that whole Star Trek post-scarcity thing happens, that's just how things are. There's not enough resources to go around for everyone to have their own McMansion in suburbia, so we play our little competitive games against each other to see who gets to be among the lucky winners.
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My tune hasn't changed. It's certainly uncomfortable when the shoe is on the other foot, but that's how it goes when you're not the one footing the bills.
Of course, my perspective on this is a result of having previously run my own hobbyist dial-up BBS back in the day. When you're giving up use of some of your hardware and free time for others to use, you have every right to impose a few ground rules on how you prefer your service to be utilized.
Free speech has never meant that you have an implied right to
Re:The hypocrite strikes again (Score:5, Insightful)
How about no fucking censorship ? What a concept, eh?
It is a nice idealist thought, till all the advertisers flee because they fear being associated with all the bullshit. Which it seems is exactly what happened, and that too is freedom of speech at work.
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It's not hypocritical to support things that support your "team", and don't support the other "team."
The hypocritical aspect comes into play when you've got people who defended pre-Musk Twitter giving some of the more obnoxious members of the alt-right movement the boot, and now at least some of the same people are crying foul that post-Musk X is playing a similar censorship game against the left-wing portion of X's userbase.
Personally, I've never been naive enough to believe that the free ride would go on forever. Twitter had little path to profitability and it was inevitable that it would be enshitified
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Also worth mentioning that a lot of people on the D team were massive Elon Musk fanboys until he vaguely supported Trump during the pandemic.
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It's not hypocritical to support Twitter when it does what you want, and oppose it when it doesn't do what you want.
That depends on your position, not your perspective. If you're stanning Twitter-the-company, then sure: that's a coherent stance. Not merely "not hypocritical" for Musk etc, but practically required from him.
If it's the content that matters to you, I'm sure sufficient disho^W mental gymnastics could let you hold either position. Obviously, this is the largest cohort by a mile - as evidenced by Twitter still existing. Given all the success of politicians, lifestyle/shitcoin/etc and other scam artists on the
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Sounds a lot like the shit the anti-freedom crowd was saying in 2021. "It's a private company, Agrawal can do as he likes" They sure are squirming and crying like lil' bitches when the shoe is on the other foot. How about no fucking censorship ? What a concept, eh?
Twitter, being a private company, is allowed to moderate content, even with a political objective.
They were allowed to do that back in 2021 (though I don't think their moderation had a political objective).
And they are allowed to do it now (Musk's moderation definitively does have politics behind it).
It's also the case you're allowed to criticize Twitter for those moderation decisions. Like we do when we criticize Musk for being a fascist-adjacent hypocrite.
Why precisely? (Score:2)
Why precisely is it appropriate to censor videos that appear to show children being raped? Serious question - because it is as we unpack that question precisely, we can start to identify why censorship may be appropriate.
To be clear - since it is necessary to state what should be assumed if people are assuming the best rather than playing 'gotcha', I am of course total opposed to the rape of children or its presentation in public. But as to why this is a problem? It's not totally obvious; there are a number
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That's just a small part of it, here's how the same Musk who said he doesn't want to put his thumb on the scale is turning TwitX into a global fascism accelerator:
https://www.wired.com/story/mu... [wired.com]
https://www.wired.com/story/te... [wired.com]
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That's just a small part of it, here's how the same Musk who said he doesn't want to put his thumb on the scale is turning TwitX into a global fascism accelerator:
https://www.wired.com/story/mu... [wired.com]
https://www.wired.com/story/te... [wired.com]
Um ... supporting a politician or point of view that you don't like != "fascism".
(While ironically, censorship and trying to jail your political opponents, kind of ... is.)
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Oh look, that was a very effective way to bring them out of the woodwork!
The word "fascism" has lost all meaning
It's always been difficult to define but Wikipedia has a pretty good definition, and some common features are politics based on lies, ethno-nationalism and the glorification of political violence. Right-wing rioters carrying out racism-fueled attacks against immigrants based on lies meshes with it quite nicely.
Another meaningless phrase used a lot lately is "the end of democracy" or "protecting democracy."
I think those are shorthand for "electing for a 2nd time a demagogic strongman who tried to thwart the peaceful transfer of pow
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>"It's always been difficult to define"
Agreed
>"but Wikipedia has a pretty good definition"
Some might think so, others not.
>"and some common features are politics based on lies, ethno-nationalism and the glorification of political violence. Right-wing rioters carrying out racism-fueled attacks against immigrants based on lies meshes with it quite nicely."
Let's examine the previous administration's policies on a less biased definition:
https://ahdictionary.com/word/... [ahdictionary.com]
"A system of government marked by
Different choices for different times (Score:2)
> Funny how he had no problem breaking American or "international law" back then to enable censorship.
That was a choice between allowing the people there access to some of X or none of it, and he thought that having access to X would be beneficial because the censorship would be very leaky, as it always is.
This action is to prevent the arrest of one of his people in Brazil on the orders of the head of the SDF (essentially the Brazilian Supreme Court).
Re:The [not funny] hypocrite strikes again (Score:2)
Any bad new for the cesspool formerly known as Twitter is good news to me.
Anyway, not a joke in the discussion, though it was goodish and productive FP.
X.com Announces It's Ending Business Operations (Score:3, Insightful)
"X.com Announces It's Ending Business Operations"
Now, that is how it really should read.
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Xitter engages in plenty of censorship, just not in this one minuscule instance. How does that tech billionaire cock taste? Make room for the politicians, they've got to get their nut in too. You know family values are hot again this cycle.
Nobody is really against censorship (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody is really against censorship. They just get all upset when the *wrong things* get censored.
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True enough. But there is a huge difference between "Stop publishing things I don't like" and "Stop publishing things that are likely to cause serious harm".
That moves the question from "what constitutes censorship?" to "what is harmful enough we can all agree to ban it?", and probably opens a whole can of worms regarding what we consider as harm and what levels of harm are acceptable in the name of freedom.
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And what about convincing people horse paste cures COVID, and they should preferentially use that over doctor-recommended actions like keeping your distance from people who may be sick, or wearing masks so you don't cough virus-laden particles all over others, or (once they were available), getting vaccinated?
A lot of people died because we didn't censor those things.
Re: Nobody is really against censorship (Score:2)
Re: Nobody is really against censorship (Score:3)
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If only. It would be great if the internet led to a robust debate that quickly eliminated nonsense from public discourse. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the result. Instead, nonsense is amplified and attempts at debunking are ignored.
You didn't think an open internet contributing to the public good would last for long did you? I'm glad I got to experience that while it lasted.
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Bullshit. I'm totally against it for all partisan "sides".
You are not. Your multitudinous posts just on this page make it clear that you're smugly satisfied that Musk is now censoring views he and you don't agree with.
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Bullshit. I'm totally against it for all partisan "sides". If your argument is sound, it should withstand some questions and jeers. If it's a lie, of course you want censorship. If your ideas survive skepticism, scrutiny, and rational debate then you come out ahead. If you're someone who's offended by everyone, you simply have a pathology you need to overcome, because you are mentally ill.
It the proper forum, remember the medium is the message [wikipedia.org]. Mediums like Twitter reward quick superficial takes. Misinformation with a convincing wrapper proliferates and is hard to debunk [factcheck.org].
Scrutiny and rational debate are simply two things that are hard to have on a medium like Twitter.
That's why old Twitter started increasing their moderation, because without intervention it was turning into a cesspit and a lot of people were leaving Twitter because they didn't want to put up with the abuse [hotnewhiphop.com].
Now Musk is free t
Sorry Elon, that's not how it works. (Score:3)
They still have to follow Brazil's laws to operate at all in the country. Removing offices and employees from the land doesn't make then immune to court decisions like this.
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And the country is able to order domestic entities to block Twitter, but it has no authority to tell it what it can publish to the Internet from servers in other jurisdictions.
If people still access Twitter from somewhere Twitter has no legal presence... Not Elon's problem.
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>"They still have to follow Brazil's laws to operate at all in the country. Removing offices and employees from the land doesn't make then immune to court decisions like this."
Yes it does. If they have no business operations/holdings there (which includes taking money from any of their citizens or businesses), that is the end. If Brazil wants to try and block Twitter Twitter at the IP level, that is their prerogative. If they want to go over their own citizens for accessing the platform, that is their
Cry me a river (Score:2, Insightful)
So Elon doesn't want to comply with a court ruling that (probably) goes against his personal viewpoints? Tough shit. The 'First Amendment' doesn't apply outside of the USA (and in the USA, only to the Government). Do the world a favor and kill Twitter / X completely.
Re:Cry me a river (Score:4, Informative)
Elon doesn't want to comply with a court ruling
One of the particularly concerning things is the secret nature of the court order. The order requires that the censored people not be informed about why or by whom they were blocked.
Whether or not you like Elon Musk (I am guessing not) I think you'd agree that secret censorship is pretty scary.
Just call it twitter (Score:2)
You can still access it via the twitter URL, don't let that egomaniac win.
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Am I the only one who had to stop and think for a bit about what the hell "x.com" was?
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I had always assumed that x.com was a lighter version of xxx.com.
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I had to read the article before I figured it out.
I suspect it has less to do with censorship (Score:2)
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My guess is that twitter had very little operation in Brazil. Either in dev/op or in sales. And so cutting the operation for a handful of people and foregoing a tiny bit of ad income is not that much hurt.
So I am guessing that Elon would rather gain PR and have an inconvenience.
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Currently Brazil is 6th in number of users (https://www.statista.com/statistics/242606/number-of-active-twitter-users-in-selected-countries/).
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I didn't know, that's interesting. Though, the real question is how big is it in term of revenue?
Stupid name. (Score:2)
Beside when I visit it just says something went wrong. That warning is right on so many levels. Is it supposed to be the new twitter or something? I don't social.
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How is a one character domain name even allowed?
It was intended as the original branding for what is now PayPal. "Let me X you some money." Rolls right off the tongue, like a Luden's during a sneezing fit.
Musk just has some bizarre fascination with the twenty-fourth letter of the Latin alphabet. His obsession even went as far as naming one of his kids X.
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I'm waiting for the rebrand of Texla.
It's rich guy syndrome. When the retirement plan of so many employees to is to say "you're a genius boss!" whenever the rich guy has a dumb idea, the lack of negative feedback leads to strange behavior. A little bit of self doubt is good, it makes one try just a bit harder, and think just a bit more before speaking or acting. A lack of self doubt leads to hastily thought out decisions, failure to get advice, and having one's foot stuck in one's mouth for too long.
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Ok Z has an entry, but allowing this seems lame, or corrupt.
Different Slashdot (Score:3)
To those lurking, if the comments here read like you're on Reddit, it's because those nerds who used to host things like The Anarchist Cookbook on their ftp servers no longer post here. Now, you have a different cohort who use words that previously described physical injury ("harm") to catastrophize fleeting moments of mental discomfort.
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Why are people giving Elon Musk the time of day? They are giving him the time of day because censorship on social media is a huge frickin' problem and for a minute there, Elon was promising to take meaningful steps to fix the problem. I'd be the first to admit that he has abjectly failed to deliver on that promise (he's just swapped in a different kind of censorship).
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You can use the word n****r all day on twitter but you say cisgender and suddenly your account gets a penalty. It turns out big companies don’t like seeing racist comments next to their products.
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TBH, I think bringing out the banhammer demonstrates slightly more integrity than letting users believe they still have an account while they Tweet to themselves under a shadowban. An outright ban amounts to at least publicly owning up to your commitment towards censoring the viewpoints you don't want on your platform. Shadowbans and deprioritizing Tweets is much more Orwellian, because you're attempting to gaslight people into believing you're not actually censoring.
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>"Shadowbans and deprioritizing Tweets is much more Orwellian, because you're attempting to gaslight people into believing you're not actually censoring."
The surprising part is just how biased and short peoples' memories apparently are. Pre-Musk, Twitter was happily banning and shadowbanning and deprioritizing like crazy, and much of it based on political ideology. Now it is MUCH less, but also in a different direction. Where this will end up is hard to say.
Those who don't believe it either weren't su
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I didn't say Twitter was doing less censorship in pre-Musk, I said they were doing it in a far more obvious manner when they were showing some of the more obnoxious right-wingers the door. That essentially amounted to having a big sign out front saying their kind wasn't wanted, so if that's the way your political flag flew you could instead find a happier home over at somewhere like Truth Social.
It's quite a bit more wishy-washy when you claim you're all about free speech*, and then don't bother telling yo
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>"I didn't say Twitter was doing less censorship in pre-Musk, I said they were doing it in a far more obvious manner"
I believe they were doing far, far more under-the-table censorship pre-Musk than post-Musk. They had lots of nefarious code that Musk had them dismantle and rip out. Musk is far from right-wing. Twitter was just so far off the leftist deep-end that moving it more towards the center was a huge shift.
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They are giving him the time of day because censorship on social media is a huge frickin' problem and for a minute there, Elon was promising to take meaningful steps to fix the problem.
It's not a problem in the slightest. We have shown quite clearly that if you don't like what is or isn't said you can just start your own. And that is the ... "Truth".
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False. Being forced to censor by the US government breaks the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution. I know the 1st amendment is 45 words long and thus longer than a tweet and thus a bit of a hefty read for some, but you could at least read the first 5 words of it, they alone will tell you why you're wrong.
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Pressure doesn't make something illegal, even if your conspiracy theory were true (note none of your links talk about X). You're not right. The first amendment isn't relevant ... not even to the links you posted ... have you read the first at all?
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In the hours following publication of the Post’s story, Twitter blocked the story from being shared, while Facebook deamplified the story, significantly reducing its circulation and prevalence in users’ newsfeeds. As the federal court in Missouri v. Biden explained in damning language, the FBI’s actions prevented millions of Americans from having a clear understanding about a salient issue in the 2020 presidential election:
The FBI’s failure to alert social-media companies that the Hunter Biden laptop was real, and not mere Russian disinformation, is particularly troubling. The FBI had the laptop in their possession since December 2019 and had warned social-media companies to look for a “hack and dump” operation by the Russians prior to the 2020 election. Even after Facebook specifically asked whether the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation, Dehmlow of the FBI refused to comment, resulting in the social-media companies’ suppression of the story. As a result, millions of U.S. citizens did not hear the story prior to the November 3, 2020 election.
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They have cheap gasoline and that's just as good as freedom, right?
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