“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”.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • Ekybio@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • alienanimals@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • Squander@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This community has a weird fetish for anything elon musk. If he scratches his butt, this community will post and comment about how much fingernail he used. And you are correct, everyone claiming to hate twitter/musk do a great job of keeping his company and name recognition relevant.

      • CaptKoala@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Yeah I was enjoying a lot of the drama, not so now, sick of seeing his mug plastered all over Lemmy.

    • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s doubly exhausting for the hundreds of millions of people who are still there and are affected by this.

    • OskarAxolotl@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I think most people could have predicted that. Most of the things Musk removed were there for a reason (Regardless of whether they where popular with Twitter’s users or not). Mostly of economical or legal nature. You cannot simply remove them if you want Twitter to someday make a profit.

      • FrankFrankson@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Right at the beginning I said they would add it all back and/or get a never ending chain of lawsuits thrown at them and right now it’s looking a bit like both.

  • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • malcyon@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s not a law for no reason at all. Free speech is also an ideal, a principle. It can apply, as a moral, to non-legal areas.

    • sugarfree@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Free speech has nothing to do with social media or governments. Freedom of speech is a universal, natural right that has been with our species since we gained the power of speech through evolution.

      • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Sounds like it doesn’t matter what Twitter does then. Human history spans several thousand years, possibly ten thousand. If freedom of speech has been there throughout, then Twitter is completely inconsequential, considering free speech was doing fine literally thousands of years before it.

      • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You’re generally right and I have nothing to take away from that. Right now I’m talking specifically about the “law” of free speech with regard to the US Constitution.

  • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year 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.

  • GustavoM@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Since when a rule change to (any site whatsoever) related to technology in any way? Yeah, we get it, you HATE “Xtwitter” and want it to burn but please… you are beating a dead horse at this rate. Just let it go.

    That, or the mods around here need a reality check and start dropping some chill pills (i.e temp. bans) on users like OP…

    • wmassingham@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s not, but the top mod also runs a bot that automatically posts content from various news sites, probably based on keywords. And I’d bet that some of those keywords are Twitter and Facebook. So don’t expect them to follow their own rules.

      tech·nol·o·gy
      /tekˈnäləjē/
      noun

      • the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry. “advances in computer technology”

      • machinery and equipment developed from the application of scientific knowledge. “it will reduce the industry’s ability to spend money on new technology”

      • the branch of knowledge dealing with engineering or applied sciences.

      Some bozo changing the rules on his social media site is not scientific knowledge.

  • bytor9@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Everyone complaining or saying leave but nobody talking about alternatives that solve some of the problems. Mastodon exists. Nostr exists. BlueSky kind of exists.

    • vokkez@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The problem with the alternatives is there’s no draw to any of these sites. Like people aren’t going to Mastodon because it has some amazing features that everyone wishes Twitter had, they’re going because they don’t like Musk.

      There’s so much on Twitter that these other sites don’t have that it’s hard to justify leaving. There are so many politicians, reporters, athletes and teams, bands, artists, etc all on Twitter. I follow hockey pretty closely and every major trade that happened last season was first reported on Twitter. Will I get that breaking news on Mastodon? No, so what is the draw to Mastodon? What does the average user get out of moving over?

      What do content creators get out of moving? An artist can have years of their work on their account as a portfolio to draw new fans and get work, but if they move none of those posts show up on Mastodon. Now they have to post their entire portfolio again, and that doesn’t even guarantee that their audience will follow them. Now they’re on a much smaller website with a much smaller audience and they’re probably not going to get the same exposure or opportunities that they had when on Twitter.

  • Arsenal4ever@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It is a for profit place that has always put reach before speech. For-profit places are not bastions of free speech, they are bastions of making decisions that make them more money.