Elon Musk Buys Twitter

[Anastacy]

Amusing the 2 specific people who say governments should have the benefit of the doubt (at least with Israel) Are the firsts ones to say the government is lying....



I smell........ hypocrisy.....

It's their body wash.

Hypocrisy, that is.

[Dontrike]

I mean yeah. And thats the reason most social media companies are banned in China too. The issue isnt that X is breaking the law, but that the laws in general are bad. But this is from my American view of freedom of speech so I understand if things are viewed differently around the world

If you're going to be ignorant about what laws those are and how they came about then you could at least say something funny instead of pathetic and sad.

[Mayhem]

Yeah as much as I dislike Elon and how much of right wing shithole X has turned into, its kind of a bad precedent to ban a social media company like this

so should social media companies just not comply with laws?

[Jessicka]

I mean yeah. And thats the reason most social media companies are banned in China too. The issue isnt that X is breaking the law, but that the laws in general are bad. But this is from my American view of freedom of speech so I understand if things are viewed differently around the world

Withholding evidence/complicity are fairly normal offences most countries have on the books. It's basically the same as what made the Telegram CEO complicit under French law. I seem to recall you were okay with him being held complicit in arms/drugs/cp/sex trafficking, or is it specifically sedition, treason and associated laws you're not okay with?

To them he's effectively a foreign agent trying to overthrown their democratically elected government. I know Americans are absolutely okay with this kind of behaviour, but the rest of the world generally has a problem with it, especially when its their democratically elected government.

End of the day, he's made the choice to withdraw his offices, and therefore his business from the country to stand by his decision to remain complicit in those actions, rather than to stand up in court and defend his beliefs. Something he's claimed he'd do repeatedly, before bottling it, repeatedly.

[Gorsameth]

The judge in question isn't exactly acting like a premier defender of free speech to my eyes, and his actions seem more than a little bit partisan. Par for the course with Brazilian politics I guess, given what I know of them.

Be that as it may, Musk has had no problem complying with a bunch of far more authoritarian governments when it came to enforcing censorship on his platform as the cost of doing business. So suddenly deciding to turn this into an internationally public game of chicken feels a lot less like a genuine move for the very existence of free speech everywhere, and far more like his latest attention-grabbing stunt. The judge probably acted more severely than he thought RE the ban tho, but it's still a wellspring of attention and right-wing brownie points for him.

The ban has nothing to do with free speech. A company needs a representative in Brazil to be allowed to operate there. Musk closed the Brazilian office, therefor Twitter is in breach of the law and got banned.

There is absolutely nothing sketchy about the decision to ban Twitter.

If Musk had kept the Brazilian offices open and this case had been about the demand to close specific accounts then you could have a talk about freedom of speech and partisan judges, but as it stands the case regarding Twitters ban as it is right now is completely black and white and entirely strait forward.

If Musk were to close Twitters EU offices the EU would also have to ban Twitter for the exact same reason.

[Doomcookie]

I mean yeah. And thats the reason most social media companies are banned in China too. The issue isnt that X is breaking the law, but that the laws in general are bad. But this is from my American view of freedom of speech so I understand if things are viewed differently around the world

You support a guy who wanted to shut down Facebook, and have the government control social media.

That's weird.

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Freedom, especially freedom of speech, yes.

I'm sure you're aware that people opine about the justice systems in other places of the world. People did that with me on a certain middle eastern country less than a week ago.

This should not come as a shock that sources and methods are not linked. And if you do some digging and "censorship" becomes more like "copyrighted materials" and "everything else," it becomes a little more clear that this figure is about as useful to this argument as if you had made one up yourself.

But the discriminating new consumer can arrive at certain conclusions about the judge and Brazil based on a single judge banning X in the entire country based on not agreeing to suspend the accounts of government opposition candidates. But maybe if this were President Bolsonaro and a judge in Bolsonaro's circle threatening the platform with a national ban if they don't ban government ministers critical of Bolsonaro, I would be seeing a little more concern.

As someone who has admitted to supporting a government takeover of social media in America, because you hate freedom of speech... doesn't this feel a but hypocritical of you?

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I'm talking in the ordinary way a random international audience responds to news that a single judge is shutting down this company's business, and what it was over. A different measure of legitimacy is whether the Brazilian people or their elected representatives agree with this style of justice.

Just did. I put it in my own words.


A single judge made the decision AND a panel upheld his decision. I'm not seeing any reporting on how that panel deliberated, or anything beyond the actual vote. Hence, a single judge. A panel did not overrule him.

I'll link you the New York Time's writeup on the identity of some of the banned accounts so you can be better informed about what the judge did. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/30/w...x-blocked.html

You're really throwing a lot of fluff around, but did you see nothing on its face absurd about the Supreme Court "the country’s Supreme Court enshrined him with expansive powers to crack down on threats to democracy online, amid fears" and "at least 140 accounts?" You're doing the "clutching pearls and policing tones" about ... a judge banning an American company because it refused to ban accounts, and "has since wielded that power liberally, often in sealed orders that do not disclose why a given account was suspended." I'd say your blase attitude is a little ridiculous. Maybe this topic is too sensitive?

As someone who supported a single man (Trump) shutting down social media companies, can you explain your much-more-obvious hypocrisy on this issue?

[PhaelixWW]

No real surprise here...

CNN: Advertisers plan to withdraw from X in record numbers

A record number of firms plan to cut advertising spending on X next year because of concerns that extreme content on the platform could damage their brands, dealing another blow to the financial fortunes of Elon Musk’s social media company.

A global survey by market research firm Kantar found that a net 26% of marketers plan to decrease their spending on X in 2025, the biggest recorded pullback from any major global ad platform. Only 4% of marketers overall think X ads provide “brand safety” — certainty that their ads won’t appear alongside extreme content — compared with 39% for Google ads, Kantar said in a report Thursday.

“Advertisers have been moving their marketing spend away from X for several years,” Gonca Bubani, Kantar’s global thought leadership director for media, said in a statement, adding that “a turnaround currently seems unlikely.”

“X has changed so much in recent years and can be unpredictable from one day to the next — it’s difficult to feel confident about your brand safety in that environment.”

Consumers, on the other hand, feel more positive about ads on X because there are fewer than there used to be, according to Kantar.

The findings suggest that Musk’s charm offensive at the world’s largest annual advertising festival, Cannes Lions, in June hasn’t succeeded. During an interview with Mark Read, the CEO of the marketing giant WPP, the billionaire struck a conciliatory tone after telling advertisers last year to “go f**k yourself.”

He agreed that advertisers “have a right to appear next to content that they find compatible with their brands.”

But his attempts to woo advertisers appear short-lived. Last month, Musk filed a lawsuit against an influential ad industry body — whose members include Unilever, Mars, and CVS — claiming the group conspired to “boycott” X.

In a statement Thursday, an X spokesperson said the platform “now offers stronger brand safety, performance and analytics capabilities than ever before, while seeing all-time-high levels of usage.”

The spokesperson added that X’s “brand safety rate is on average 99%, as validated by DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science,” companies that analyze the value of digital advertising placements.

Since Musk’s $44 billion takeover in 2022, big brands have retreated from the platform, formerly known as Twitter, over concerns about content moderation and uncertainty over the platform’s direction.

Musk’s own comments on Xhave also spooked advertisers. Last November, about a dozen prominent brands — including IBM, Disney, and Paramount — halted ad spending on X over concerns about antisemitism and hate speech, not helped by the fact that Musk himself had endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory. He later apologized.

The Kantar report, which was based on interviews with 1,000 senior marketers and 18,000 consumers in more than two dozen countries, also found that X scored outside the top 10 brands for trust and for the perception of how innovative advertising on the platform is.

According to the report, YouTube remains the ad platform marketers most prefer, while, for consumers, Amazon and TikTok share the top spot.

Separately, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said earlier this week that the world isn’t obliged to put up with Musk’s “far-right anything goes” agenda because of his immense wealth.

Brazil blocked X over the weekend following an order by the Supreme Court because Musk refused to appoint a new legal representative in the country. The move escalated a months-long feud over what constitutes free speech, as Brazil cracks down on the spread of misinformation online.

[NED funded]

You support a guy who wanted to shut down Facebook, and have the government control social media.

That's weird.

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As someone who has admitted to supporting a government takeover of social media in America, because you hate freedom of speech... doesn't this feel a but hypocritical of you?

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As someone who supported a single man (Trump) shutting down social media companies, can you explain your much-more-obvious hypocrisy on this issue?

I have never supported Trump. I got banned on this forum when I called for very bad things to hapoen to him after jan 6 lol

[Edge-]

Don't worry, that Saudi prince dude will still say he's lost no value in his investment as the only people left to advertise on the platform are the exact same people whose spending couldn't financially support sits like Gab, Parler, Frank (is that still a thing even?) and Truth Social to be anything more than tiny fringe sites with miniscule userbases

[Doomcookie]

I have never supported Trump. I got banned on this forum when I called for very bad things to hapoen to him after jan 6 lol

Uh huh... I only have your post history and started threads to go by.

[Elder Millennial]

Don't worry, that Saudi prince dude will still say he's lost no value in his investment as the only people left to advertise on the platform are the exact same people whose spending couldn't financially support sits like Gab, Parler, Frank (is that still a thing even?) and Truth Social to be anything more than tiny fringe sites with miniscule userbases

I seriously doubt the Saudis care about losing money on this shit. I don't think they were trying to make a financial return on investment here, what they likely wanted was to buy influence over Elon.

Organized crime often makes these sort of "investments", where they just want to get you in debt to get something else out of, not actually expecting to get the money back.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Freedom, especially freedom of speech, yes.

7 BRAZILIAN accounts broke BRAZILIAN LAW based on their CONSTITUTION.

A BRAZILIAN JUDGE asked Elon Musk to ban said accounts because they broke laws based straight from the Brazilian constitution for deliberate disinformation.

Musk declined to follow Brazilian law with his corporation, and got his app banned in Brazil as a result, all because he's a far right Putin shill who got the money to buy Twitter from Russian and Saudi banks.

All other Brazilian Supreme Court Judges have backed the decision of the one judge, as has the president of Brazil backed said decision and openly said that Elon Musk cannot blatantly flaunt lawless behavior.

Brazil has more balls to fight the far right's blatant disinformation than the entire Democrat party combined, and I wish the Democrat party would grow a set of balls like Brazil has.

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I seriously doubt the Saudis care about losing money on this shit. I don't think they were trying to make a financial return on investment here, what they likely wanted was to buy influence over Elon.

Organized crime often makes these sort of "investments", where they just want to get you in debt to get something else out of, not actually expecting to get the money back.

I've been saying this entire time that the Russian/Saudi banks don't care about making a return of MONEY on their investment. They wanted the influence and reach of Twitter in the west to spread their politics across the globe, and Russia/Saudis happen to be in alignment with Trump and his insanity on a great many policies. Suppression of women, suppression of minorities, suppression of LGBTQ rights.

Jack Dorsey obviously wouldn't have directly sold Twitter to Russian or Saudi agents, but Elon is an immigrant and by all rights a US citizen, but he obviously now has interests in spreading far right propaganda because it's what keeps him financially afloat with all of his bad decisions lately.

I do have to wonder how Jack Dorsey feels seeing what Twitter has become. I doubt he'd ever buy it back for 44B, considering Elon Musk has run its value into the ground. I doubt anyone would even buy Twitter for 10B at this point. But ultimately it's about spreading propaganda and influence, flaunting "Free speech" to spread pro Nazi shit. But I know a lot of people have left Twitter for other social media sites like Bluesky, but there are still a lot of holdouts that still use Twitter.

[DarkTZeratul]

7 BRAZILIAN accounts broke BRAZILIAN LAW based on their CONSTITUTION.

A BRAZILIAN JUDGE asked Elon Musk to ban said accounts because they broke laws based straight from the Brazilian constitution for deliberate disinformation.

Musk declined to follow Brazilian law with his corporation, and got his app banned in Brazil as a result, all because he's a far right Putin shill who got the money to buy Twitter from Russian and Saudi banks.

You missed the middle step, where Elon Musk closed Twitter's Brazilian office and refused to appoint a Brazilian legal counsel, both of which are requirements for doing business in Brazil, and THAT'S when the judge ordered Twitter banned in Brazil.

[Muzjhath]

No real surprise here...

CNN: Advertisers plan to withdraw from X in record numbers

Who are these people who's getting less ads? I get so many more, and more "promoted tweets" than before. They're all just AI, crypto, or right-wing grifters.

[NED funded]

Withholding evidence/complicity are fairly normal offences most countries have on the books. It's basically the same as what made the Telegram CEO complicit under French law. I seem to recall you were okay with him being held complicit in arms/drugs/cp/sex trafficking, or is it specifically sedition, treason and associated laws you're not okay with?

To them he's effectively a foreign agent trying to overthrown their democratically elected government. I know Americans are absolutely okay with this kind of behaviour, but the rest of the world generally has a problem with it, especially when its their democratically elected government.

End of the day, he's made the choice to withdraw his offices, and therefore his business from the country to stand by his decision to remain complicit in those actions, rather than to stand up in court and defend his beliefs. Something he's claimed he'd do repeatedly, before bottling it, repeatedly.

My understanding of what happened is that Musk refused to ban certain accounts of people that have used twitter to throw a coup? The withholding evidence I havent seen so maybe?

Also for the difference between like arms/drugs/cp/sex trafficking, if you are selling that stuff on a platform you are being like directly complicit in that stuff. Like using a more mundane example, if I am selling like chocolates in your platform and you havent like taken me down, it means that you are okay with me doing that. The same logic applies to like arms,drugs,cp, sex trafficking, etc. From what I understand and what Ive read, the people that spread the misinformation didnt directly call the people to attempt a coup. They questioned the legitimacy of the election (which is very harmful as is) but its not something that X or anything should get actively involved in regulating. Like take for example, the case of the election in Venezuela, the election there is obviously rigged to most outside observers but literally every branch in the government involved in the officialization of that election say it isn't. Would you be okay with Twitter obeying those requests? There is obviously harmful misinformation and stuff that a platform is comfortable with platforming or not but like that is part of having free speech.

And I do agree with you that he shouldve fought it in court before throwing his tantrum but at the same time I dont blame him. I dont know much about Brazilian laws but like it seems the judge made a correct ruling that logically follows from Brazil's laws. In the same way I wouldnt blame a company if they didnt want to fight their banning in China

[Cthulhu 2020]

You missed the middle step, where Elon Musk closed Twitter's Brazilian office and refused to appoint a Brazilian legal counsel, both of which are requirements for doing business in Brazil, and THAT'S when the judge ordered Twitter banned in Brazil.

At this point I just consider "Elon Musk closed Twitter's [Insert location] office" to be a true statement no matter what so it was a given.

[Jessicka]

My understanding of what happened is that Musk refused to ban certain accounts of people that have used twitter to throw a coup? The withholding evidence I havent seen so maybe?

Also for the difference between like arms/drugs/cp/sex trafficking, if you are selling that stuff on a platform you are being like directly complicit in that stuff. Like using a more mundane example, if I am selling like chocolates in your platform and you havent like taken me down, it means that you are okay with me doing that. The same logic applies to like arms,drugs,cp, sex trafficking, etc. From what I understand and what Ive read, the people that spread the misinformation didnt directly call the people to attempt a coup. They questioned the legitimacy of the election (which is very harmful as is) but its not something that X or anything should get actively involved in regulating. Like take for example, the case of the election in Venezuela, the election there is obviously rigged to most outside observers but literally every branch in the government involved in the officialization of that election say it isn't. Would you be okay with Twitter obeying those requests? There is obviously harmful misinformation and stuff that a platform is comfortable with platforming or not but like that is part of having free speech.

And I do agree with you that he shouldve fought it in court before throwing his tantrum but at the same time I dont blame him. I dont know much about Brazilian laws but like it seems the judge made a correct ruling that logically follows from Brazil's laws. In the same way I wouldnt blame a company if they didnt want to fight their banning in China

They asked to block them and provide identifying information, not doing so is therefore withholding evidence and that in turn is complicity. Especially when doing so on the ground of the same "free speech" the dissidents are using as a defence. The judge, and all his superiors in the supreme court agreed. He was welcome to keep the office open, do business, and have his day in court. Instead he made people redundant and ran away like a child to name call from a safe distance.

[Gorsameth]

At this point I just consider "Elon Musk closed Twitter's [Insert location] office" to be a true statement no matter what so it was a given.

Its not about if its a true statement. Its important to mention because its the crux of the entire case.

Twitter wasn't banned for refusing to censor free speech, they were banned for not having a legal representative in Brazil.

[DarkTZeratul]

My understanding of what happened is that Musk refused to ban certain accounts of people that have used twitter to throw a coup? The withholding evidence I havent seen so maybe?

And I do agree with you that he shouldve fought it in court before throwing his tantrum but at the same time I dont blame him. I dont know much about Brazilian laws but like it seems the judge made a correct ruling that logically follows from Brazil's laws. In the same way I wouldnt blame a company if they didnt want to fight their banning in China

But again, you're missing a very critical piece of information here. It wasn't just "I won't reveal these accounts" followed by "okay, you're banned." Elon Musk reacted by closing Twitter's local offices, and then refusing to appoint a local Brazilian lawyer to assist with the case, which are both strict requirements for doing business in Brazil.

[Karreck]

7 BRAZILIAN accounts broke BRAZILIAN LAW based on their CONSTITUTION.

A BRAZILIAN JUDGE asked Elon Musk to ban said accounts because they broke laws based straight from the Brazilian constitution for deliberate disinformation.

Musk declined to follow Brazilian law with his corporation, and got his app banned in Brazil as a result, all because he's a far right Putin shill who got the money to buy Twitter from Russian and Saudi banks.

All other Brazilian Supreme Court Judges have backed the decision of the one judge, as has the president of Brazil backed said decision and openly said that Elon Musk cannot blatantly flaunt lawless behavior.

I mean, yeah, this. When you play in the sandbox of a country, you play by the rules of that country. Don't like their rules? Play in a different sandbox. Feels like a capitalist would be versed in this concept.