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Prominent "free-speech absolutist" threatens to sue Jewish anti-hate group because it engaged in free speech he didn't like. (aus.social)
submitted 1 year ago by ajsadauskas@aus.social to c/technology@beehaw.org
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Prominent "free-speech absolutist" threatens to sue Jewish anti-hate group because it engaged in free speech he didn't like.

"Elon Musk has threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League after accusing the civil rights group that campaigns against antisemitism and bigotry of trying to “kill” his X social media platform.

"The owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, said the ADL was trying to shut down his company by 'falsely accusing it and me of being antisemitic'."

If your list of enemies includes the ADL, then there's a more-than-reasonable chance that you're an anti-semite.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/05/elon-musk-sue-adl-x-twitter

@technology #twitter #musk #ElonMusk

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[-] Cube6392@beehaw.org 110 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

So lemme get this straight. Elon Musk is accusing the Anti Defamation League of Defamation, not because their accusation that hate speech has a platform on twitter is false, since be knows exactly who let the hate speakers onto the platform as the "free speech absolutist", but because they pointed it out?

And then he jumps to "they're calling me an antisemite" which feels like hanging yourself by your own rope by jumping to conclusions.

Yeah dude. Gotta tell ya. If the ADL, ACLU, or Southern Poverty Law Firm say you suck, I'm going to side with them

Edit: spelling mistakes

[-] Landrin201@lemmy.ml 52 points 1 year ago

The thing is this shit works for right wingers. They genuinely believe that the ADL calling someone an antisemite, or even suggesting they might be, is the same as the government kicking your door down and murdering you because you used "free speech"

[-] floofloof@lemmy.ca 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If there's one characteristic I've found to be widespread among right wingers, it's black-and-white thinking. They don't do "sometimes" or "partially" or "60%". They just do "is" and "is not". Vaccines either work or they don't. Immigration is either bad or it's good. Climate change is either 100% there today or it's not happening, and if not every climate phenomenon is humans' doing then none of it is humanity's fault. Either every government regulation and law is good or government is simply bad. Either everyone gets guns or no one does. They apply this same black-and-white thinking to free speech.

[-] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 year ago

"Only a sith deals in absolutes."

Obi Wan's not a bad guy, but it's important to note the irony of such a statement.

[-] x3i@lemmy.x3i.tech 5 points 1 year ago

While I see where you are coming from, I don't think this is a pattern of thinking that applies only (or primarily) to right wingers but rather to political radicals of all sorts. We see similar bullshit coming from the far left with "all straight white males are oppressors" and similar statements. Might also be a result of social media echo chambers, who knows...

[-] Ganbat@lemmyonline.com 6 points 1 year ago

It definitely happens with extremists on both sides, but I think it's much more common on the right. Like, I encounter it on streets all the time from the right. I recently had a "climate change doesn't exist because a day was cool last week" conversation with someone on the fourth-straight record high day in a row.

[-] HerrLewakaas@feddit.de 6 points 1 year ago

Might also be because there are more radical right wingers than left wingers where you live

[-] sparklepower@beehaw.org 20 points 1 year ago

i'm looking forward to hearing his made-up defense against this made-up attack, like "this is hurtful, i am not antisemetic, i love the Jewish people".

Elon, the federal court does not exist to validate your feelings. you are wasting peoples' valuable time and resources.

[-] loki@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago

"I'm not antisemitic, Kanye is one of my best friend"

[-] phillaholic@lemm.ee 20 points 1 year ago

It’s long past the time to stop caring what they think. They’ll make themselves the victim no matter what, there’s no reasoning with them.

[-] baggins@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago

You didn't find all the spelling mistakes..

[-] Cube6392@beehaw.org 9 points 1 year ago

The curse of exclusively using mobile. The message still gets through

[-] baggins@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

That was rather petty of me. Need to get rid of old reddit habits 😒

[-] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 44 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Gee I wonder where they would have gotten the idea that the owner of the company that allowed a promoted post featuring the 14 words to be run on their platform would be anti semitic?

[-] curiosityLynx@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago

I quoted your comment to ChatGPT 3.5 and asked what you were referring to with "the 14 words". I've never seen it take so long to answer, and when it finally did, it was like watching someone else write in a shared Google doc, including watching words getting replaced. Maybe my question triggered a reply by an actual human?

[-] Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org 16 points 1 year ago

That’s why us old folks just use the regular internet. Wikipedia has no shame.

[-] curiosityLynx@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In this regard, I'm probably part of the old folks. I'm older than the WWW at least. I just figured I'd try asking ChatGPT with context instead of Google because I didn't want something I suspected to be Nazi terminology in my search history.

I was just surprised by how differently it reacted compared to when I tested it with alt history scenario requests a few months ago.

[-] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 year ago

If you’re asking ChatGPT on a Google device, that’s absolutely in your history anyway haha

[-] curiosityLynx@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

Yes, but there's context about why I asked

[-] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago

Damn dude that was half a month ago

[-] Bene7rddso@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

Just use a private window

[-] Dr_Cog@mander.xyz 11 points 1 year ago

For the love of... stop using generative AI to give you answers to questions! If it doesn't have an answer it just makes it up completely.

It took long because you're on the free tier and you were rate limited. The idea that a human is writing your answer is so laughably absurd I genuinely don't know if you're serious.

[-] abhibeckert@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Chat GPT does know the answer to this particular question, and provides a very good answer. Why stop using something that works so well?

[-] Dr_Cog@mander.xyz 1 points 1 year ago

I assume you looked up if it was correct to be able to say that does know the answer. In that case, why did you bother with ChatGPT?

Never take anything generative AI produces as factual unless you check it. It is not designed to produce factual information and is very often wrong and confidently incorrect.

[-] dangrousperson@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago

Since you also didn't answer what it was and I also didn't know.

https://www.adl.org/resources/hate-symbol/14-words

[-] abhibeckert@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Nah - sometimes you just get a server that's overloaded and slow. Hit stop, then regenerate, it'll be fast.

[-] acastcandream@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago

Oh god when did this happen

[-] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 year ago

Oh it was like this month

[-] acastcandream@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago

Ohhh was this when a bunch of advertisers pulled out because they saw right wing/Nazi ads? I didn’t look at the specific ads. 

[-] MonsiuerPatEBrown@reddthat.com 41 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

that is a basic rule of white supremacy.

if non-white people do it then the whites get to do it.

but just because the whites get to do something doesn't mean non-white people get to do it.

[-] sparklepower@beehaw.org 28 points 1 year ago

rich person threatens legal action because he is losing income due to his own actions. got it.

Yaccarino, a highly respected TV advertising executive, was appointed in May with the task of restoring relationships with advertisers a priority. In 2021, advertising accounted for 90% of X’s revenue but that income stream has been hit by companies pausing ad spending over doubts over Musk’s leadership.

i'm also curious how long Linda Yaccarino is going to last. she's been around since May, given the job of cleaning up messes after Elon. her pay and benefits are probably very good, but what's the real cost of this bullshit? is it worth it? is it possible for her mental health to remain in good condition while she deals with this? we'll see!

[-] PotentiallyAnApricot@beehaw.org 19 points 1 year ago

I know little about her and I definitely don’t want to excuse her actions in defending twitter, but this is such a glass cliff situation. (Hiring a woman or other marginalized person to take the heat after basically destroying the company by himself)

[-] curiosityLynx@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago

I would be surprised if she came into this position without being either a psychopath or a sociopath. As such, all that truth distorting wouldn't damage her mental health. At worst she might feel overworked.

[-] PotentiallyAnApricot@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think people with psychosis or mental illnesses are actually the least likely to want to fuck over others. But if you mean that she probably wouldn’t have taken the job without already being a giant asshole who doesn’t care about others, I would say you are very likely to be right. Twitter under musk is absolutely not a force for good in the world, and working there is a tacit endorsement of checks notes oh my god so many bad things.

[-] PostmodernPythia@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

As someone who has extensive personal experience with severe mental illness, I appreciate very much your desire to defend us (your instinct would usually be right), but psychopathy is a weird one. If the previous commenter had said “mental illness” instead of psychopathy specifically, I’d be pissed. But there is evidence that psychopaths advance in business management. I realize it’s not exactly JAMA, but here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephaniesarkis/2019/10/27/senior-executives-are-more-likely-to-be-psychopaths/?sh=24aa505d47c4

[-] PotentiallyAnApricot@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Thanks for the context! I was responding more to how loosely diagnosis words are used to describe people we don’t know, in not always accurate ways - word drift I guess? So someone with a clinical diagnosis and someone who seems like they could from the outside are two different things, in the popular imagination, even if in both cases people use the same word. I know people have different experiences and I didn’t mean to seem nitpicky. But, I have to believe there are plenty of diagnosed psychopaths out there who do not make the choice to do evil hypercapitalism, and there are plenty of people without any kind of disorder who do. That’s why I’m a bit reticent about generalized statements, even if there may be grain of truth in some cases.

[-] TJmCAwesome@feddit.nu 11 points 1 year ago

Oh man, he even points out that it's ironic, but doesn't quite understand why. I'd argue it isn't ironic, since one should expect him to be a gigantic hypocrite.

[-] Can_Utility@beehaw.org 9 points 1 year ago

If your list of enemies includes the ADL, then there’s a more-than-reasonable chance that you’re an anti-semite.

Likewise if your loudest defenders are, themselves, loud and proud anti-semites.

[-] Uniquitous@lemmy.one 5 points 1 year ago

Why hasn't James Bond snuffed this fool yet?

[-] WingedObsidian@feddit.ch 3 points 1 year ago

NIMBY….

[-] wagoner@infosec.pub 2 points 1 year ago

Ok, so is musk a natural born citizen of the US?

this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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