Elon Musk makes $43 Billion offer for private buyout of Twitter

superchuck500 said

Elon Musk commenting more about what he means by free speech - and seems to be saying what @mjcouvi was saying in that if it's consistent with First Amendment law, it should be allowed.



Apart from some basic misunderstandings about the will of the people and free speech (the government can't "pass laws" to make less speech), whether this is a workable standard for a website that you want people to want to go to remains to be seen. We already talked about hate speech and the Westboro Baptist stuff. So yes, profanity-laced tirades about Jews or homosexuals are in bounds.

Other examples of areas where the Supreme Court has said laws violated First Amendment rights:
- Crush videos (law against animal cruelty cannot apply to make illegal the possession of videos of women in heels crushing small animals to death), United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460 (2010);
- Computer-generated child pornography, Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234 (2002);

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It's an interesting position to take to treat Twitter like it's the government and will pattern it's moderation on what the government is allowed to do under the Constitution. If I didn't think Musk was smart, I might almost think he doesn't understand that he Constitution only protects us from government action, but maybe he does understand that and chooses to apply it to his private business. But, that's certainly not the level of free for all speech that people thought he was talking about. And it certainly does seem to leave room for grey areas and subjective decisions on what is and isn't allowed. As you certainly know, the Courts have moved all over the place on the restrictions they do and don't allow, but more or less only allow restrictions on time place and manner of speech.

It occurs to me that this will be less restrictions than some want and more restrictions than others want, so maybe he has found the proper balance with nobody totally happy?