I am all for real free speech about anything. It's just never real free speech; it's always censored and influenced (drowned out or amplified which is basically the same thing) in some direction. X is not free speech and this won't be either.
What I do hope is that this will drive the banning of Meta, X and others from the EU. I know this will hurt a lot of people short term, but long term, we might be the only part of the world without a severe mental illness epidemic.
I think the people most influenced be terrible influences by people like Musk are those that mirror this opinion.
Banning social media sites is a pretty draconian approach that probably will not work anyway and I believe it to be completely reactionary. The EU formerly did have influence on Twitter content. They lost that and aren't too happy about that.
I think it was a necessary correction and I don't want to live in the EU silo and I don't trust their DSA "trusted flaggers". What do they ban next, HN? I don't think it has official fact checkers either.
EU as in some bureaucrats in Brussels ain't too happy. As a citizen of EU member, I'm pretty happy some little known societal control by non-elected bureaucrats is gone.
Do you mean free speech as in not getting the government after you, or free speech as in not getting beaten by the guy next to you? Because I cannot imagine the second category ever happening - if you live in a society you must weigh your words. Internet made spewing hate around a viable option (difficult to get beaten when you swear at people online) so now some expect it also in their real lives.
When Zuck said on Jan 7th, 2025, that he wants to work with President Trump to oppose states threatening free speech, he wasn't talking about China. It was 100% the EU and its regulations. The quid pro quo starts to emerge.
I wonder what strange little people this rule was removed for. Sexism just stupefies me and I wonder how someone with the intelligence to breath could render such words.
Looks like there was no specific rule. But some so-called journalists tried to think of what some people they dislike might say now that a rule they like is gone.
If a rule blocks someone from saying something then that rule is for that. There is a specific rule if they couldn’t say it before. What are you saying what does that mean?
I can understand simplifying moderation rules (making the less verbose, but by extension seemingly allowing some new things) but actually taking the time to spell out that these things are allowed, as the article alleges, seems bizarre.
What happened to Zuckerberg? I thought they were the Democrat side, they had to testify in congress about it, and now Musk bought out twitter and the Republicans won the elections. Is this a move to avoid getting facebook and instagram getting killed somehow by twitter and the republican government?
He's on the "winning" side. Even Apple (Tim Cook) along with all the other major CEO's are groveling understandably since the upcoming administration could severely damage any of their businesses once in power.
The turning point had been last year when Zuckenberg explained to Congress that Administration forced Facebook to manipulate public opinion but he now regrets it.
E.g. FB was banning people for using a historical term when discussing Russian-Ukraine war - „Muscovite“. Which has no derogatory connotations mind you. Besides reminding that modern Russia started as Duchy of Moscow. And to make distinction between Rus/Ruthenian people (e.g. Kievan Rus) and modern Russia. Yet FB considered it hate speech for some god forsaken reason.
FB moderation has been a complete failure compared to Twitter’s community notes system. This is Meta switching from authoritarian moderation to community-driven notes. This should be presented as a good thing, but every news outlet out there is spinning it negatively as “Facebook is removing all moderation.” No mention of what they are adding in its place.
What I do hope is that this will drive the banning of Meta, X and others from the EU. I know this will hurt a lot of people short term, but long term, we might be the only part of the world without a severe mental illness epidemic.