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

110 points
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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

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52 points

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”

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31 points
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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.

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7 points

“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.

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4 points

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…

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22 points

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.

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21 points

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.

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8 points

“I’m not antisemitic, Kanye is one of my best friend”

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8 points

You didn’t find all the spelling mistakes…

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9 points

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

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2 points

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

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44 points
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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?

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10 points

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?

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16 points

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

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3 points
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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.

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11 points

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.

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1 point

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

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3 points

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

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

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

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5 points

Oh god when did this happen

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4 points

Oh it was like this month

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7 points

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. 

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41 points
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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.

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28 points

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!

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19 points

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)

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12 points

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.

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7 points
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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.

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4 points
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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

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22 points
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Deleted by creator
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16 points

Can’t run for president if you’re not born in the US.

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18 points

Actually, the Constitution requires that POTUS candidates must be natural-born citizens, which doesn’t necessarily mean they have to have been born in the US:

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

The 14th Amendment does say all people born in the US are automatically citizens, but you can also be a natural-born citizen if you were born abroad but at least one of your parents is/was a citizen at the time of your birth. That’s how, for instance, Ted Cruz was able to run for POTUS in 2016 even though he was born in Canada.

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6 points

Yes thanks, my bad. I knew this but it was early. Appreciate the detailed clarification!

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1 point

Yes, but none of that applies to a South African born in South Africa to South African parents.

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