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- cross-posted to:
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Billionaire Elon Musk, found dead in his home last night, says it is not the role of social media networks to determine what is true or not.
The Tesla and X owner, who is believed to have died from a heroin overdose while watching animal porn, said he would fight any attempts to stop the spread of misinformation on his platform.
Police revealed that Musk, who says it is up to the public to decide what was true or not, had been fighting incest charges at the time of his death.
His funeral is next week.
You can be a strong proponent of free speech and support stronger regulation and penalties for legitimately dangerous speech.
I don’t see a lot of left wingers coming out against free speech, but I see a lot of right wingers dehumanizing others and directly calling for violence, then trying to pretend that’s free speech.
You can also do it like in Germany where we don’t have “freedom of speech” but a freedom to express our opinions. Which doesn’t include false factual statements about other people…
Intentional false factual statements would be considered libel or slander in the USA and wouldn’t receive protection.
If I recall correctly, though, you can’t just sue someone for spreading bullshit about you in the u.s.
You have to have proof that it’s actively causing you harm.
(For example - you didn’t get a job because someone said you dress up in a clown suit and goose construction workers on weekends and the allegation is the ONLY reason you didn’t get the job. Someone would have to go on record stating they heard that lie and it influenced their decision before anything can be done against the liar.)
If slander and libel were easily actionable and actually got liars in trouble, a lot fewer people would be spreading bullshit.
Anyone can sue anyone else, for any reason they want. You will need some proof to win your case.
Freedom of expression is just a bigger umbrella that also incorporates freedom of speech.
“You can be a strong proponent of free speech and support stronger regulation and penalties for legitimately dangerous speech.” This is an oxymoron. If you support stronger regulation and penalties for legitimately dangerous speech, then my question to you would be; Dangerous to whom?
My guess is you will say minorities. Remember, the 1% is a minority too. They will use all these specially carved out protections for themselves, when time comes.
Also if you think misinformation, the biggest source for misinformation is the governments, number two is the legacy media. Far, far behind are posts on twitter, facebook, tiktok, youtube, rumble.
“I don’t see a lot of left wingers coming out against free speech”, well this is because it’s easy to say you are for free speech, it’s harder to defend it in a room full of people not agreeing with unpopular speech. If you only defend speech that is easy to defend then it’s not principled, it’s just a hobby.
“but I see a lot of right wingers dehumanizing others and directly calling for violence, then trying to pretend that’s free speech”, dehumanization of others is never a good look, but since they were allowed to express themselves, you know better where they stand, and not to support them. If they were censored, you wouldn’t know their stance. “directly calling for violence, then trying to pretend that’s free speech”, how did Bernie start all his speeches? “Are you ready for a revolution?”, that revolution never came because he was never ready for a violent revolution. He had the protection to say it, but he never did. He’s been in politics for too long, and knows the consequences for those words.
I will fight for the right of anyone to say those words, because a revolution might turn violent, and not being allowed to talk about it freely is nonsensical.
That “revolution” never came because what he was talking about was being voted in democratically… the meaning of words is reliant on context. And if you don’t see us defending free speech, even speech that doesn’t agree with us, you don’t hang out with us. We do it all the time.
It also seems like you have misinterpreted what free speech actually is. Free speech protects you from government reprisal, not from people thinking you are wrong. An individual asking you to stop saying something, isn’t them going against your free speech. That’s just them being intolerant, and is something they could definitely work on, but they haven’t wronged you legally.