I guess those who want free speech are “nazis”, LOL. The guy doing more in the world to reduce carbon emissions…get humanity to Mars where an extinction even doesn’t kill all, give people with Parkinsons (like my sister) a chance to stay connected to the world…Yup, what a monster. 
For anyone who likes to think for themselves and read:
1984
Brave New World
More important books than ever.
The thing is Elon Musk is not a conservative, in fact he aligns himself with the left on every issue except the one concerning free speech.
That being, the way he is being referred to now is a good example of the weaponization of language and the rapid-fire redefinition of words and phrases that comes with it, which also means eventually getting to the point where it is no longer possible for people on two sides of an issue to even coexist (because the two sides are literally speaking different versions of English).
The problem with Musk isn’t his politics, it’s that he’s reached that point every successful person has to weather at some point, where they’re surrounded primarily by sycophants and yes men, have more money than they know what to do with, and eventually start being suckered into the myth of their own infallibility.
The cracks first started showing during the whole Thailand children’s rescue submarine debacle. While he hasn’t gone fully off the reservation just yet, I’m sure he’s already looking into jars to use for his future toenail collection.
I try to avoid these sorts of subjects on here but feel compelled to comment on this issue of free speech.
Protecting free speech is vitally important. But to protect and nurture an open society I think we also need some agreed broader based standards in public life. This does not mean adhering to a rigid formality. Simply an agreed level of what is simply going too extreme. Our private conversation is one thing. But if we want to know true freedom of expression then we must surely also need to preserve a certain sense of civic responsibility when engaging in a wider public realm. Free speech needs to be protected of course. But also open society’s need to protect themselves and all of those within those societys.
This is not about artistic or creative fredom of expression which is one thing. Simply how we directly talk to and treat each other as people on a day to day basis.
Social media is still a very new medium. The technology grew at a speed at which society’s ability to react and study the consequences and agree any safe guards against the possible worst excesses was stretched to breaking point. We are still grappling with all of this now and both society and all of us as individuals are trying to keep up and find a way through. But what is clear is that it is having a profound effect on a great many things. There are positives but also it appears there have been a great deal of negatives. Within any public forum or managed media outlet cultivating a free society also must mean protecting all of us from intimidation and persecution.
We are all the custodians of the societies in which we live. Above all I think we need to remember we all need to exist with each other. And that the world is complex and multi layered and made up of many colours and shades. There are most often no simple black and white answers and solutions. None of this is simple. None of this is ever going to be easy. None of us are perfect or have all the solutions, And I think we should always be cautious of anybody who would say otherwise or offers an easy quick fix.
Actually it kinda is, at least the problems can be identified easily from an conceptual perspective.
Solutions are the nearly impossible things.
Humans are neurologically hardwired for living in social hierarchies like most animals.
But because we are not perfect but deeply flawed and IMHO still children in the grand scheme of things - our social hierarchies are not only imperfect and deeply flawed but also deeply corrupted by maleficent individuals who abuse and take control of social hierarchies.
And we have no real solution for that problem.
Many things that humans invent that push mankind forward have in it the seed of total self-destruction.
The flaws and imperfection of humans and our hierarchies inevitably causes more problems as our ability to exercise control over the external world and nature (which we are a part of) far outreaches our capacity to control the negative effects of our ego/self.
Capacity for empathy (love 
) and solid reasoning based on true knowledge is an antidote,
Jesus and the Buddha and all the other spiritual teachers and traditions where completely right in that regard, but to make things worse there are (not few) people who lack the ability for empathy and who deliberately confuse, distract and manipulate reasoning for their own egotistical gain.
Unfortunately, the nature of our imperfect hierarchies have a tendency to allow for the washing up of these individuals on top of the hierarchy and like a clockwork they drag people into mass psychosis and delusion (mirroring their won) creating repeating cycles of war, catastrophes and destruction.
“Social” media (or rather asocial media) is just another tool of population control, conceived by the people on the top of the pyramid to distract, confuse, manipulate and spy out individuals.
They have to do that to keep control, because social media has in it the seed of freedom - free communication of people from all over the world over long distances.
They can’t have that so it must be corrupted and abused.
I will point out that “free speech” in the US refers to government entities acting in a manner to squelch people’s opinions. Social media sites are in the business to make money, and like it or not, their company name gets associated with all the bad stuff that gets amplified. If an individual keeps on spouting how he wants to “kill all the gays” it reflects negatively on Twitter and hurts business. Likewise, foreign agents like to use “troll farms” to spread lies and misinformation, none of which is protected by free speech. But the genie is out of the bottle. It is now contingent on the population to fact-check with multiple sources and rely on peer-reviewed studies to get to the facts. We get to the point where everything is “suspect” and speech becomes meaningless.
Jackson Hinkle has just been banned from Twitter.
UPDATE: Apparently he has been unbanned again after significant public outcry.
I feel like I should respond, instead I will joust with a prophetic strip, penned in 1985, from my wasted youth, courtesy of the beacon of American comic art, Epic Magazine…
Yes, I’m that old…
What is that? Is that an ad? Is it a fantasy a boy has in school when class is boring? Is it a scene from a Bollywood movie? How is it prophetic? What happens?
So many questions but I think I cut myself of the edge from that comic 
I honestly am fed up listening to nonsense like this. Everyone that doesn’t have a framed picture of Stalin over the fireplace is automatically branded some sort of ‘ist’ or ‘phobe’ with ZERO critical thinking or even mild reflection behind the insult or accusation.
Yes, there are ideological extremists of all stripes and notions all over the world. There always has been, but they are not lurking under every bed. The hyperbole has reached such bizarre levels of hysterics over the last few years that it beggars belief.
99% of people are just people. Mostly reasonable and with different opinions than yours. Why do you people put everything as either black or white, and always at the extremes of the spectrum? Why do you idly throw these terms around like ‘Nazi’ and ‘Fascist’ without even knowing what they mean? They’ve just become buzzwords at this stage, with the people using them generally ignorant of their historical context or meaning. It’s an insult to the memory of people who suffered greatly under certain regimes. Incidentally, I find it ironic that these same people don’t even realise the hypocrisy of them wearing a soviet flag shirt or professing their respect for Communism; an equally brutal ideology of pure murder and terror. This is the level of historical ignorance we’re dealing with here.
One of the primary reasons I have never had a twitter account is for this very reason. It just looked like it was filled with the most awful, hateful, and ignorant people on the internet, all gathered in one appalling place. Why would any decent person want to spend any time in such a dreadful environment of misery and hatred?
From what I can gather and the evidence I’ve seen since the Musk takeover - as a non-American and moral idealist rather than a political ideology adherent - is that for the last whatever years, twitter has essentially been an ultra-liberal/woke/post-modernist/progressist/whatever you want to call it hotbed of political activists, many of whom actively used the platform to destroy/attempt to destroy peoples’ lives whom they shared a different opinion to.
What ever happened to dignity? Polite social discourse? Agree to disagree? Respectful speech? Learning from discussion/debate? A willingness to interact with interest with those of a different opinion? Aren’t these the cornerstones of a civil society?
We live in an unprecedented age of knowledge. for the first time in human history, every person on earth with a phone and an internet connection has access to unlimited knowledge. This should have been an age of intellectual enlightenment for the masses, but instead it has led to an age of ignorance and hatred with little excuse.
I agree, but honestly I don’t think it’s possible. A wide open forum like this, with no rules and no immediate real-world consequences will always result in a vortex of insults, threats, disrespect, hatred, and extremism. It’s as if the internet switches off the ‘etiquette gene’ as soon as people log on.
Lying, hate speech, racism, homophobism and so on is bad and should not be defended by “free” speech. I know what a fascist is and is very obvious that it is getting more traction with the Musk buyout.
I have also noticed that writing long paragraphs of why free speech is good always seem to lead with agreeing with fascist ideals.
As I said, a lack of critical thinking. This single sentence pretty much sums it up without using ‘long paragraphs’. Incidentally, doesn’t twitter have some sort of 140 character limitation. 
I would also recommend the 1924 novel ‘WE’ by Yevgeny Zamyatin. Very much an early work of the same genre.
I would recommend the essay ‘Ur-Fascism’ by Umberto Eco who grew up under Mussolini.
Politics much? How has this thread not been locked?
A bit more civility would be good for this discussion, and the language of outrage and exaggeration - fascism, Nazism, and all that- needs to stop. There’s a rational way to talk about these issues and then there’s a name-calling, mud-throwing way, and right now, I’m seeing more of the mud-throwing overall.
Also the conspiracy theories- the talk of the global elite and population control and all that jazz- this discussion doesn’t need that, and it will be much better without it. Information that contradicts established fact is not allowed here, and conspiracy theories are dangerous.
Please clean up the discussion, thanks!
Twitter traffic is higher than ever. I’ve really been enjoying it…posting much more now. Seems people are flocking to truth and freedom…away from the hate and bigotry that permeates other social media. Global elites sure want Twitter smeared and shut down. Predictably they now try to assault Musk; they want to crush all narratives but their own.
Nope, this current trend of discussion is not where we are going with this. We can talk about Twitter and free speech or whatever else without bringing in conspiracy theories.
