“Freedom of Speech, not Freedom of Reach - our enforcement philosophy which means, where appropriate, restricting the reach of Tweets that violate our policies by making the content less discoverable.”

Surprise! Our great 'X' CEO has brought back one more bad thing that we hated about twitter 1.0: Shadowbanning. And they’ve given it a new name: "Freedom of Speech, Not Reach".

Perhaps the new approach by X is an improvement? At least they would “politely” tell you when you’re being shadow banned.

I think freedom of speech implies that people have the autonomy to decide what they want to see, rather than being manipulated by algorithm codes. Now it feels like they’re saying, “you can still have your microphone... We're just gonna cut the power to it if you say something we don't like”.

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[–] 228 points 2 years ago (9 children)

If you're still on Twitter, you're part of the problem.

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  • [–] 34 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    People keep repeating this for easy self-righteousness. Again, what about small artists whose careers depend on their social media following?

    Fuck Musk, but for better or worse this isn't just about him.

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  • [–] 22 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Artists whose whole career depends on the whims of social media giants have dug their own hole.

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  • [–] 33 points 2 years ago* (12 children)

    Easy for you to say. Are you even an artist?

    Small artists need a convenient way to get their work to the eyes of regular people. If their self-hosted gallery is seen by no one, it doesn't facilitate their career. They generally can't afford to buy ads and are not popular enough to get a fan made groups spreading the word everywhere else.

    Not to mention that this is such a callous attitude in general. Because you in particular aren't susceptible to this manner in which wealthy assholes are screwing people, then it's their fault for needing it?

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  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    It's ouroboros.

    People don't leave which means there is an audience so people try to stay and capitalize on the audience that stayed.

    Seriously, fuck Twitter. It needs to die. That might mean that a lot of people need to change a lot of things to make their lives work.

    If you're successful you can pivot. If you're barely making ends meet and rely on Twitter to keep you afloat, I'm sorry to say this, but you're not successful yet.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    It's not ouroboros because it's not artists with 1k followers that are keeping most people on Twitter. They are just the small fishes caught in the turmoil. Rihanna and those at her level can move anywhere, anytime and they won't even notice the difference. They are likely not even handling their accounts personally.

    But I don't care to kill Twitter more than I care about smaller artists. What is it really being gained if you sacrifice them just for the satisfaction of killing a platform you don't even use? A lot of artists struggle but that doesn't make their work any less valid.

    I'd hope everyone manages to move over, ultimately it's their best hope because that place will only get worse, but even I see that not everyone will make it. The followers lost in the move might be the difference that ends the viability of their career. But it's tragic that this is the situation that they have to deal with. So, why rush them and shame them for it?

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    I don't make money as an artist, but I live with two of them. They both migrated to Mastodon, with my technical assistance, and left Twitter before Elmo bought it.

    Bear in mind I'm not the previous commenter, but I believe what they were saying is that the writing was on the wall over a year ago, and there are alternatives. Artists and computer geeks tend to get along with each other, and so most artists should have a techy friend that can help them with exposure online. I understand that switching platforms is inconvenient, and tiresome. Looking at it from a tech perspective however, it's a better ROI.

    The worst of it is the ≈week of daily posts right before you shut down your Twitter account, linking to your new account. My friends were able to direct link, but I don't know if Elmo is allowing that any more.

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  • [–] 18 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I'm not an artist but I know a lot of them and basically only use twitter to follow them. And honestly, the ball is in their court. I see a lot of them complaining about shadowbans and it being impossible to grow a following. But nobody wants to jump ship to a place without an audience.

    The problem being there will be no audience sitting around a new platform waiting for a show to start. They need to start double posting, IMO. Being the change they want in the world. They don't have to quit twitter, but posting content to twitter and mastodon (for example) would give their audience a reason to move, would give them a chance to grow, etc.

    There's even apps like PostyBirb that can do the multiposting for you.

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    [–] 203 points 2 years ago (19 children)

    So originally, it was that he was a "free speech absolutist," then it was that he was in favor of free speech "within the bounds of the law," and now he's not even in favor of that.

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  • [–] 181 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    He never was, that was just an excuse to amplify the voice of his far-right buddies.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I don't believe this because it gives Elon Musk too much credit and honestly I think he's just a big loser who will latch on to whoever likes him at the time.

    A series of stupid events led to Twitter being full of stupid far right nutjobs and stupid Elon decided they're his people now because they use his stupid platform.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    I'm not so sure about that. The big tell is that whenever a far-right user complained to him about getting a tweet removed or the account getting banned or something like that, he'd respond that he'll personally take care of it. Just imagine, a billionare running a platform with millions of users personally taking care of a single one. This never happened with other people.

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    [–] 85 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Raise your hand if you are convinced this will not impact the people who pay for the blue checkmark. Meaning that a lot of Elon Fanbois / Bots / Fascists will be seen with theit shitty takes (since the checkmark pushes your comments up), while voices of reason will be dragged down further.

    Twitter is rapidly becomming the new Truth Social and it's sad to watch.

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    [–] 85 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Literally every single day we have idiots doing Musk’s PR work for free.

    Downvote Musk spam. The billionaire doesn’t need your help ensuring his businesses stay in the 24 hour news cycle.

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    [+] 50 points 2 years ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)
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    [–] 32 points 2 years ago (17 children)

    Like it or not (I don't), free speech has nothing to do with social media. Platforms are free to do this, it's the government that can't limit your speech like this.

    Given those circumstances, I wonder if social media should be treated like infrastructure. That would fuse constitutional rights and the platform itself.

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  • [+] 37 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)
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    [–] 31 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    This is from April. Did something change with it?

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    [–] 30 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    So much for that free speech he was talking about.

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    [–] 29 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Someone predicted that they were going to slowly add back all the stuff they took out and they were right

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  • [–] 28 points 2 years ago

    You can say whatever you like... in the privacy of your own cell.

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  • [+] 22 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)
    [–] 19 points 2 years ago

    I mean, it was never about free speech. It was always about crippling a powerful communication tool that had been used to undermine Middle Eastern governments. "Free Speech" was just how Musk was able to curry favor with fascists and grift retards into paying for twitter blue.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago

    Why are there people still using that garbage? It’s fucking hilarious watching everyone complain about twitter, YouTube, etc and then continue using it.

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  • [–] 16 points 2 years ago

    I don't give a fuck about Twitter, stop posting this garbage already!

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  • [+] 15 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
    [removed by mod]
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  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago (1 child)
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