new off his dictation tobuy Twitter for $ 41 billionin what has been report as a " unfriendly takeover " , Elon Musk appeared at TED2022 yesterday where inevitably the lecture turned to Twitter , what he ’d change , and as a self - name " spare of speech absolutionist " , what he thinks that mean .
During thelive TED outcome , that also took in Tesla and the future of the domain , Chris Anderson , the head of TED , query Musk on what freedom of spoken communication would be like on Twitter under his ownership . Some suspect he want a slackening of restrictions on what can be said on the public political program while others think the humanity ’s richest man being in charge of what the great unwashed can and ca n’t say on what is essentially a public platform but is technically a private company is not idealistic .
For Musk ’s part , he tell did n’t cognise why he wanted to buy Twitter . When Anderson , manoeuver out an early conversation between the two of them where Musk recount him he did not desire to run Twitter , Musk muddled through an answer stating that Twitter is important for the operation of democracies .
Despite Musk not seeming confident that he will be able to acquire Twitter , the goal , he said , is to make Twitter a public platform that is trust and broadly inclusive . A noble intention , however , it ’s not cleared that Musk has thought this through , or even understand what freedom of delivery is .
" A just preindication as to whether there is free speech is , is someone you do n’t care allowed to say something you do n’t like ? If that is the case , we have free speech . It ’s damn annoying when someone you do n’t like say something you do n’t care . That is the sign of a healthy , operate free speech situation , " he said .
But when Anderson asked Musk about his declaration of being a “ free voice communication absolutist ” he backtracked on his previous announcement , agreeing that tweets can not break the law of nature . Musk himself has beensued for defamationdue to something he said on Twitter before .
Free speech is the principle that individuals or even communities should be free to express their public opinion and ideas without fearfulness of revenge , censorship , or legal sanction from governments . The supposed want of exemption of speech and " cancel culture " has been the stress of many social medium campaigns – specially in right - wing rotary – following Twitter ’s ( and subsequently other social media platforms ' ) ban of Donald Trump . However , freedom of speech is not absolute , and it does n’t think freedom from consequences .
example of limitations to freedom of oral communication inscribed in law are perjury , libel , slander , hatred speech , and let on land secrets . As a businessman , Musk will likely appreciate that thing such as copyright violations , trade enigma , and non - disclosure understanding are not covered by freedom of speech either .
But Musk gets to the crux of his argumentation when he discussed the algorithm . He wants Twitter to show that no tweet is being promote or demoted artificially by the algorithm and he wants that to be approachable to everyone .
When Anderson broached the subject of tweets reported for sound out things that break Twitter ’s current rule , Musk said that the tweets should be allowed to stay on write on the site , and if it ’s a gray area they should not be promoted further , contradict himself from his other stop on the artificial handling of tweet .
Reporting posts has been an extremely contentious area for social medium chopine . The function , aimed at protect people ’s rights and moderate the spread of misinformation , has often been weaponized to target the very same soul and organization it had been tasked to protect . The habit of just algorithms for relief has found diagonal againstunderrepresented mathematical group , such as Black people . But not having any rules at all can have real - world moment . Tweets by former president Donald Trump against Muslims have been relate toincreased wildness toward Muslims , for example .
“ I ’m not saying that I have all the answer here but I do cerebrate that we want to be just , very loth to erase things and just be very conservative with permanent bans . You sleep together timeouts , I think are skilful than permanent bans , ” Musk sound out in the talk .
However loath he appears to delete things , Musk himself has been forcedto delete a tweetby the National Labor Relations Board stick with the firing of an employee who was a union advocate at Tesla in 2019 . He may be anti - delete but he seems pro the controversialedit buttonidea . Howver , how he would implement normal on that waseven less clear .
