This statement makes sense when you realize Nazi speech and hate speech generally is banned in Europe, and for very good historical reasons. He wants the tools to whip up the population into a fervor so that he can grab the levers of power and take over their citizen-run democracies.
Banning Twitter links is part of free speech, actually. Part of free speech is freedom of association. If, like Elon, you claim to be an absolutist, then banning of speech/platforms of any kind shouldnât be allowed, but by the generally accepted definitions of free speech itâs pretty inline. A group of people deciding they donât want to support someone is well within their rights of free speech.
Also, to be pedantic, freedom of speech simply means you wonât go to jail for it/have legal trouble.
So all the problem stems from the word âabsolutistâ since itâs the same thing Reddit has done. The problem isnât the action but whoever does it
The problem is claiming to be one thing and then not actually being that. Itâs called Hypocrisy. If anyone âcannot even be coherent for a monthâ itâs the man who owns Twitter.
Itâs ok to not immediately agree with everything Elon and trump do, youâre allowed to have your own thoughts.
So you're saying both that "Elon Musk is a dodgy f**k who hates free speech" and "Some subreddit moderators are anti-free speech" ?
It just seems like you're trying to change the topic of the conversation away from Elon and how he hates free speech.
It's called "what-about-ism" when someone says "Elon Musk is obviously pro-censorship/anti-free-speech" and you say, "but what about that time that a reddit moderator had to delete some post".
My point is pretty simple and should be explained further but here we go: itâs exactly what many subreddits did but the fact that X is doing it makes it automatically bad
If it means what it literally means then what's the problem? They banned links to a site owned by a Nazi supporter/sympathizer, that does in fact make them the good guys.
But not everyone believes that free speech should be absolute. Many people people that there is a moral imperative to limit some types of speech.
The contradiction that people are pointing out is that Elon musk claimed that he was a free speech absolutist. He has, on multiple occasions criticized the previous leadership of Twitter for limiting and censoring speech.
Now he's doing that exact thing. Which makes him a hypocrite at best. And a purposeful propagandist for the right wing at worst.
That's kind of skirting the hypocrisy that many are upset about though. Republicans continuously claim to be for free speech, but they censor just as much as Democrats if not more.
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u/Universal_Anomaly Feb 17 '25
"Free Speech Absolutist."