The Guardian brands Elon Musk "Worlds Richest Pub Bore"

Iam64 she may well have apologised after the event, but the clip of her saying what she did will be out there now forever.

And here is the crux of the matter. There is very offensive language but there is also language that crosses our existing laws about inciting hatred, violence, death threats, etc and now appear in Social Media.

What happening is that those who want to paint a picture of freedom of expression threatened by "tyranny" are using the term "hurty words" for both these occurrences, in order to try and trivialise the really serious cases.

I recognise instances you mention Galaxy where posts should not have been taken down, at the same time I believe strongly in protecting people.

There are no plans to further extend the Online Safety Bill which was brought in by a Conservative government in October 2023 with the aim of "delivers its “manifesto commitment to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online while defending free expression”.

The OSA is a law that aims to protect people online, especially children, and to hold tech companies more responsible for the content on their platforms.

The OSA includes the following duties:

Search services and peer-to-peer platforms must have systems to prevent and remove illegal content

Services must perform risk assessments for illegal content

Services must have ways for users to flag illegal content

On 6th December 2024 Ofcom published plans "Ofcom has today, four months ahead of the statutory deadline[1], published its first-edition codes of practice and guidance on tackling illegal harms –

such as terror, hate, fraud, child sexual abuse and assisting or encouraging suicide.

Maremia

Galaxy, the difference is that you are stating your belief about Jess Philips, in a reasonable way, and who else will see it? Just us GNs on this thread. But with Musk it is an amplified command, 'Jess Philips should be in jail.' It is no longer an opinion, it is dangerous mysoginistic hate speech.

Because what Musk said was about a woman doesn't automatically mean it was misogynistic.

Even if it is misogynistic hate speech, it's still an opinion if he really thinks it.

Lots of people have opinions which, under current laws, could be defined as hate speech if they were spoken in public.

This is not a defence of what Musk is reported to have said.

She was cack handed in my view, but it is a demonstration of the difficulties of controlling speech. For the victims those comments probably did feel like hatred.
Someone has to interpret a law on speech and that causes me great concern. You are using terms such as incitement, hatred, etc as if they are simple terms, they are not.
Baggs has interesting things to say in her analysis. I think it is further complicated by misogyny not being included in hate crime legislation.

Elon Musk is censoring people on X who he disagreed with. He is allowed free speech but clearly that does not apply to other people!

"At least 14 conservative accounts who criticised Musk's pro-legal immigration views said X revoked their blue tick, a verification badge given to premium account holders that lets them monetise their accounts" Sky news

I have wondered that too: these were the reasons given

www.gov.uk/government/publications/law-commission-review-of-hate-crime-legislation/government-response-to-recommendation-8-of-the-law-commissions-review-of-hate-crime-legislation-accessible

(I think all the word boil down to "it's too complicated and people can't agree). But its important to have legislation to use against the Andrew Tates of this world.

(that was a response to Galaxy)

foxie48

Elon Musk is censoring people on X who he disagreed with. He is allowed free speech but clearly that does not apply to other people!

"At least 14 conservative accounts who criticised Musk's pro-legal immigration views said X revoked their blue tick, a verification badge given to premium account holders that lets them monetise their accounts" Sky news

Yes: Musks "Free speech" isn't free at all. He can downgrade accounts so they have less attention, and more importantly, he can upgrade algorithms so that his own account and similar others pop up more often as links.

I wonder if all GN's are aware of this latest issue you allude to?

Trump's policy of zero immigration, a major if not the major policy in the election, has been challenged by Musk who has said that there should be an exemption to attract high tech workers - and only those. Ie, think Musk, Tesla, Musk profits.

Its caused a split in the party who'v been promised "Amercian jobs" on principle

www.cbsnews.com/news/musk-vivek-ramaswamy-h1b-visa-maga-immigration-what-to-know/

Hold on I thought censoring speech was fine.

If he is doing this then he is wrong as are all those who try to control speech. I must say I see lots of posts on X calling Musk all sorts of things.

Elon Musk is censoring people on X who he disagreed with. He is allowed free speech but clearly that does not apply to other people

Absolutely foxie.

There’s a long list of law suits that he’s brought against companies and individuals who have said things he doesn’t like.

The judge, in his summing up of one of these cases, said that Musk’s motive for bringing the case was to suppress freedom of speech.

I’ll find the article again and post it for info.

Toxic gonad was trending a minute ago in reference to Musk so some criticism seems to be getting through

Champion of free speech - ha!

fortune.com/2024/08/20/elon-musk-litigation-lawsuits-x-spacex-tesla-legal-federal-court/

Saw on a Facebook post, but can't verify the info, that Musk was subpeaned during the Epstein trial. Just throwing this into the mix.

Baggs, I don't think he means anything else but to stir up trouble.

Tweets from Wes Streeting going back to 2009, are being reposted this morning on X

They definitely incite violence, if not death. Tweeting how you will push a journalist under a train, along with loading your gun ready to use and slapping people…

I will not post the actual tweets here the above is a précis, I am mindful of GN guidelines.

Maremia

Saw on a Facebook post, but can't verify the info, that Musk was subpeaned during the Epstein trial. Just throwing this into the mix.

He has said that he will release the so called Epstein Files once POTUS Trump is inaugurated.

Galaxy

And where is the responsibility of those who said Biden is fine, or suppressed the information on Bidens son, or who say Male rapists are women. Those lies are ok. I would suggest that is because those of the lies of the powerful and the middle class, where the lies you mentioned are the lies on Twitter which is open to the ordinary people. It is about control and power. Twitten weakens the power of some which is why they dont like it.

And where is the responsibility of those who said Biden is fine, or suppressed the information on Bidens son, or who say Male rapists are women.

I concur.

As for Twitter - or should we call it 'X' (?) - sure, it's open to 'ordinary people', but it's also owned and controlled by the world's purported richest man, who has recently announced a new "algorithm tweak"

Our goal is to maximize unregretted user-seconds. Too much negativity is being pushed that technically grows user time, but not unregretted user time.

That "negativity" appears not to have been a problem under Biden's presidency, but seems to be a problem under Trump's forthcoming..

As one X-user said, ""What's negativity? Criticism of the wrong person, persons, celebs, parties? The news (its oftentimes not cheery)? Advocacy pointing out the ugly happening in our courts? Calling out broken systems? Companies?"

I'm only posing these questions because I'm not convinced that Musk and his platform X is quite the champion of free-speech that people believe it is. The very fact that he can 'tweak' it to downplay 'negativity' - which is a subjective opinion - surely indicates that he is, basically, in control of what is and isn't amplified on X?

X is not owned or run by 'ordinary people'. Musk is not bi-partisan.

Oh it isnt perfect, I would argue that Mumsnet was much braver than X has ever been in terms of free speech, it is easy to say what you want when you are one of the most powerful men on the planet, Justine who owns MN didnt have that kind of wealth or power but still supported the right to speech, often under both financial and physical threats. She is one of those who gets overlooked as a champion of speech.

Elon Musk is a naturalized American who has made his choice of citizenship. However, it seems he is now aligning himself with Trump in pursuits that resemble empire-building, suggesting that democracy may not be a priority for either of them. This raises a critical question for British citizens: are they truly willing to relinquish their democratic rights? It appears that the current sentiment suggests they might be ready to hand that responsibility over to others.

PoliticsNerd

Elon Musk is a naturalized American who has made his choice of citizenship. However, it seems he is now aligning himself with Trump in pursuits that resemble empire-building, suggesting that democracy may not be a priority for either of them. This raises a critical question for British citizens: are they truly willing to relinquish their democratic rights? It appears that the current sentiment suggests they might be ready to hand that responsibility over to others.

hopefully not the radical right

its clear from reading about Musk its not free speech online, its speech defined by someone very rich and powerful who can actually control the structure the algorithms used on X platform, and do it outside the country where he could be legally called to account if that ever happened.

That why I support the modest already existing UK Online Safety Bill which as well as the obvious clauses that protect young people in the ways described above,
follows the law of our land in terms of serious violence, incitement, and hatred. When it goes well beyond so called "hurty words".

The reality is that we are not talking about censorship on a huge scale at all, resumes alone determine that as well as our natural wish to speak freely - not this "tyranny" suggested by some, and it is enforced by the police according to our already existing laws and justice system.

Never an ideal world, but better than control and attempts to influence by incredibly powerful, manipulative and wealthy individuals who are able to use AI, change, control, content and seek to use that power to try and influence events in other democratic countries in the West as Musk has been doing..

Second from last paragraph should read resources alone determine that as well as our natural wish to speak freely.

GrannyGravy13

Tweets from Wes Streeting going back to 2009, are being reposted this morning on X

They definitely incite violence, if not death. Tweeting how you will push a journalist under a train, along with loading your gun ready to use and slapping people…

I will not post the actual tweets here the above is a précis, I am mindful of GN guidelines.

True: unacceptable now: and if we go back that far, we find a lot of very racist quotes from Farage and others that now would not see the light of day, and certainly appalling misogyny from many: I think there is a limit on "how far back" we try to use as "ammunition".

Elon Musk has said Reform UK needs a "new leader" because Nigel Farage "doesn't have what it takes" (Sky News today)

Is it time to get the popcorn out??? I do hope so