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Comment by yucky | Hacker News Reader

I'm old enough to remember when we were told Twitter isn't the government so this isn't a free speech issue and if people don't like it they can build their own platform and blah blah blah..

Does that still hold now?

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Yes, that still holds. Nobody is forcing Twitter to be a free speech platform. It was Elon's claim that it would become one under him, and he garnered a lot of support on the basis of that idea, only to repeatedly make fools of people who fell for it.

So, the people who were defending Musk before now finally "see" the difference between moderation and free speech, and even point it out. So, was that "free speech absolutism" even argued in good faith, I wonder, or was it at all performative outrage at nothing, to own the libs?

I think most people against censorship are still against it. I just find it ironic that the people who supported censorship before are now up in arms.

I’d like to hear more about this kind of thing. Has Twitter censored brands like this in the past?

No. Not before Musk took over.

For one, it’s the kind of thing likely to get you sued for anti-competitive practices.

They banned NY Post for reporting on Hunter Biden's laptop and the contents showing "10% for the big guy" in reference to his father getting kickbacks on some shady Ukrainian and Chinese deals that Hunter facilitated.

Wrong. They suspended linking to the story for 24 hours - a story that had very shady sourcing and which the New York Post did not even put an author's name on.

Shady sourcing = the actual laptop and the contents which later proved to be 100% correct. Also, Zerohedge was banned for quite awhile for the same thing.

Case in point, using "moderation" and government censorship as if they were the same. This is not a good faith argument.

We are "up in arms" about the hypocrisy and dishonesty, not the decision itself. It's Musk's company - no one cares. But let's not call it "moderation", ok? Taking away the NYT blue check is petty revenge, but whatever.

Talk about a bad faith argument. Nobody took away NY Times blue check except themselves when they refused to pay for the subscription like everyone else. Just like they won't let me view their articles without a subscription, so they should understand how that works as well as anybody.

No one says Musk can’t do these things. He has that right.

People are pointing out he promised not to, and that that makes him an enormous hypocrite.

Only when it's on my team.

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