There was a whole fad of people with verified accounts changing their name and profile picture to Elon and using this to make jokes until they got banned. Also mocking the "you can just buy a bluetick now" policy.
A few days ago Elon posted "comedy is now legal on twitter". I guess this is a caveat to that.
Yeah he said you need to clearly label your account as "parody" account if you wanted to do that. Except people got banned even though the followed this new rule. Ethan Klein aka @h3h3Productions clearly labelled his account via a big banner picture, but has been booted off the platform.
Meanwhile I'm continuing to report the pretty explicit racism, homophobia, transphobia I'm seeing in replies to some people I follow and getting the "...we want to let you know that {user} hasn't broken our safety policies..." response. So, it seems the priorities for the (presumably substantially gutted) moderation team aren't hate speech, but rather protecting Musk's feelings
I'd guess people use various twitter clients, and not all of them can show the banner clearly enough. Makes sense to require written text.
And I wouldn't complain too much about whatever is happening in the next few weeks. It's a transition period and not particularly meaningful - can't really tell if any one incident is due to deliberate policy, understaffing, work in progress or evolving goals.
There are still a few people who use third party clients. I personally Twitter's found iOS app to be annoying (I forget in what specific way) so ages ago I switched to Tweetbot. That said, I really don't think what got Ethan banned was a concern over accessibility.
Does "clearly label your account" mean "choose some way to display that you are a parody account" or does it mean "there's a checkbox labeled 'parody' that you must check if you are a parody account"?
It's quite clear that it means "whatever Elon Musk wants it to mean at any given moment in order to maximize utility for Elon Musk at the expense of his critics".
I saw one of the Ethan Klein tweets, and it was not immediately apparent as parody without clicking through to his account. Someone scrolling through their timeline can't see a user's bio or banner picture, it just looked like an Elon Musk tweet with a blue checkmark (except for the incorrect @).
It looks like they are moving to address this by making the blue check tied to a specific name, which makes a lot of sense. If someone wants to change their display name, they can go through reverification, which should also fix the preexisting issue of blue check accounts getting hacked and used for scams.
> it was not immediately apparent as parody without clicking through to his account
The tweet in question:
"Even though Jeffrey Epstein committed horrible crimes, I do still miss him on nights like this for his warmth and comradery. Rest In Peace old friend"
Parody is usually identifiable by its content, not because someone has to put a big "[WARNING: PARODY]" tag at the top.
The issue is impersonation and confusion, not parody. A significant fraction of the population, especially infrequent Twitter users, are not aware of the display name vs. handle distinction. So if someone has a blue check, the same profile picture, and the display name of another user, they are creating confusion about the source of the statement in question.
With the Onion or the Babylon Bee, they are "reporting" crazy-sounding stories with their own name and account, and thus with their attached reputation as established satire sites. That's an important distinction, in my opinion.
> it just looked like an Elon Musk tweet with a blue checkmark (except for the incorrect @).
Honestly this should have been the bannable offense. The checkmark was meant to guaranteed that you are who your claims to be (without having to check the @ on a side channel). If you intentionally use it for deceit then what is the point?
Personally I dislike both Musk and Twitter, but I hope (and also doubt) that Twitter keeps an adequate level of user verification for the checkmarks.
I believe that is what they are actually banning people for, "impersonation", as they are using a verified account to do a more convincing impersonation of another verified account.
The easiest option in my opinion would be to force verified users to submit tickets for display name changes, or warn them that they will have to reapply for verification when they try to change their display name and remove it. Musk sounds like he is choosing the latter.
>The checkmark was meant to guaranteed that you are who your claims to be (without having to check the @ on a side channel). If you intentionally use it for deceit then what is the point?
The point is that it's now possible to simply purchase a checkmark for $8.00/mo with no identity verification involved. So the checkmark is now unfit for any purpose besides impersonating other accounts. Which is why everyone is using it to shit on Elon Musk.
What if your legal name is Elon Musk. Can you pay the $8 to be verified? Will there only be one unique verified name and if so who gets to "own" it? If I get verified then someone has a hit song with my same name do I lose verification because they are now more important than me?
If you're making fun of me for reporting tweets where guys are dropping the n-bomb, and vulnerable people are getting abuse, then that says a bit more about you than it does about me.
What was emotional about that response? You're acting like I'm breaking down, weeping at the sight of some emails in my inbox. When I'm clearly just saying that they've deprioritised handling sincere complaints, and now whatever humans that remain are chasing down some jokes about a very silly man in a very silly situation.
I sincerely think you are breaking down, actually. This isn't a dig.
> whatever humans that remain are involved are chasing down some jokes about a very silly man in a very silly situation
Fake accounts and impersonating people falls under spam and misinformation. They aren't chasing jokesters for unacceptable humor (respectfully, based on your comments this reads as massive projection) and certainly not limiting this to effort to any one user. You would similarly be banned now for impersonating Kathy Griffin or some trans lady or any of the people you seem to think you are so valiantly defending.
By all means call Elon and Twitter incompetent but you are ascribing a lot of malice hyperbolically. The need for drama and eagerness to make stuff up is simply disturbing. This sort of tantrum would give me pause coming from a small child. I suggest you take a break from twitter/social and practice some self-care, I am not being sarcastic and not trying to insult you.
I promise nobody is out to mess with your favorite @h3h3Productions or even knows who he is. Nobody is ignoring your reports either because they disagree with your politics. It is just a poorly designed and managed app.
Some people made fun of the CEO and he banned them, and the reports of abuse are being handled by bots or people who don't care.
I guess I don't see anything hyperbolic about saying that. Feel free to armchair analyse commenters on an internet forum if it entertains you. But if you're genuinely concerned about my wellbeing then you can relax, I live a very fulfilling life :)
> reports of abuse are being handled by bots or people who don't care.
> I guess I don't see anything hyperbolic about saying that
Great, that's what I said to you. Glad you agree. :)
But that is not where we started, here is the aforementioned hyperbole you opened with:
> it seems the priorities for the (presumably substantially gutted) moderation team aren't hate speech, but rather protecting Musk's feelings
This sounds word for word exactly like the far right people just in the other direction. Stop making stuff up. At least you snuck an 'it seems' in there but goodness gracious. I get it, you really don't like Musk who is literally Voldermot and in your view capable of all manner of things - maybe he sits around twirling an imaginary mustache obsessing over people like Kathy Griffin and Ethan Kline looking for ways to mess with them.
The disturbing part is you hallucinate these scenarios and then write of them as if it is indisputable reality. Reminds me of an ex-gf who got mad at me for something I did to her in one of her dreams.
I mean the whole point of verification is that you "verify" who the person is.
Someone else (with a blue tick!) being able to impersonate another verified account, goes obviously against this.
It's literally the same people first complaining about "anyone can buy blue tick" and then "why am I banned by impersonating" - I guess you got what you wanted, no?
for the record, I don't think impersonators should be banned, simply that impersonating name changes should be reversed and/or impossible.
edit: on second thought, name changes of verified accounts should be disabled and/or limited (pending re-verification)
> complaining about "anyone can buy blue tick" and then "why am I banned by impersonating" - I guess you got what you wanted, no?
In a few of the cases I've seen, it's been a litmus test. Like - ok if I follow the rules, mark myself as a "parody" (rolleyes) set my name to Elon Musk and fire off a tweet about how I miss Jeffrey Epstein then either one of two things will happen:
1. I am allowed to stay - fine, I don't love Elon but I can exist here. I'll probably go back to tweeting normally now.
2. I am banned - also fine, I now understand that Twitter is a place where Elon carves out little exceptions to please himself, so I don't wanna be here
It's looking like #2 is the case for many accounts. A number of the rest of us who had no interest in doing this are a bit saddened because some people we enjoyed following are gone and the rules/TOS are now almost unknowable, because you also have to append "... or if Elon doesn't like it" to them all. That last bit has a tinge of irony to it, given one of the things he was quite vocal about was making speech more free and open, not less.
When I saw the subscription, what I thought was that some portion of that fee was going to the verification process (because it takes resources to verify whether a person is actually who they say they are).
I see now that it’s only become a verification of the fact that you’ve paid.
>A few days ago Elon posted "comedy is now legal on twitter".
To be fair, that was several days ago. Elon has had plenty of time since to change what he wants to do in life and probably change his mind on whether or not to buy Twitter.
It looks like Musk is re-inventing the wheel of community moderation with a bias in his favour.
So gone is the "anything legal goes, free speech absolutism", now jokes need to be labeled as jokes because comedy is legal on Twitter but only within the guidelines of Elon Musk.
These people getting banned for making their name Elon Musk were not defrauding anybody, a well known comedian wasn't pretending to be Musk and making people send crypto or buy stocks.
They were making comedy or a performance art, they being banned is like going around and locking down people who impersonate other people for laughs or satire as if they were stealing identity to drain out the bank account of Musk.
Its very dystopian. As I said before, most "free speech absolutists" are actually free speech NIMBYs and Elon Musk seems to be no exception.
Twitter's TOS[0]: "To avoid confusing others about an account’s affiliation, parody, commentary, and fan accounts must distinguish themselves in BOTH their account name and bio."
Ethan Klein's account wasn't noted as a parody in its name. Its name was Elon Musk.
Klein's account had Elon's account's profile picture and name, and had a verification badge. I think its totally sensible that the account got banned.
It is. And inline with Twitter's long standing position of banning people for violating their ToS.
I wonder if over time Musk will realise that maybe his utopic vision of limitless free speech is actually unworkable and harmful and maybe he should've left Twitter's moderation approach the same as when he bought it.
I'm staunchly in favour of freedom of speech and I do not have a problem with Twitter's current position on parody accounts.
I'm in favour of freedom of speech because I believe it is important that ideas must be shared and debated freely and that no one should be beyond criticism. Being allowed to impersonate others simply doesn't seem to be an important part of that.
> Being allowed to impersonate others simply doesn't seem to be an important part of that.
You forgot the "allowed to impersonate others to do parodies" part of it. I don't understand how you can be staunchly in favour of freedom of speech while holding the position that this kind of speech, blatant parody humour using impersonation as a delivery tool, is not protected under freedom of speech.
If I somehow managed to register the domain "gooogle.com" and use it for humour, to take jabs at Google by displaying loads of fake ads instead of search results, showing on purpose unrelated results to the search query, etc., should my website be banned?
Impersonation for scams and straight up deception are already punishable under other laws, why is that impersonation for parody and humour should be punished? I thought that was... Speech.
You speak of "blatant parody humour using impersonantion". That seems a confused phrase. If an account is blatantly a parody, then it is not committing impersonation, because if someone knows that an account is a parody of a person, they also know it is not the person itself. If you want to make a blatant parody account, you may do so according to the current Twitter TOS. However, if you want to impersonate someone, you may not do that.
Your gooogle.com example doesn't seem to connect to the situation at hand, which is about whether it is against the principles of freedom of speech to place limits on impersonation even in such cases where no fraud is being committed.
My goal is that people should be allowed to express all views and criticise all people. If for whatever reason impersonation must be outlawed, so be it - it may in fact further the goals for which I support freedom of speech.
I think that people should be free to express any view and to criticise any person. That doesn't mean that I think people should be able to say whatever they want in whatever way they want. I think we should be able to stop people from harassing, impersonating, shouting excessively, etc. Those things seem in opposition of those goals the hope of reaching of which is the reason I support freedom of speech in the first place. No, it would be silly in my view to support both freedom of speech and unlimited speech in all ways in all circumstances.
Seems weak. Poorly written and based on plainly false assumptions. I agree with IV that no one should be prosecuted under law for impersonation as long as nothing actually fraudulent has occurred.
Yeah but think about what could happen if you tweeted something you thought was obviously a joke and then everyone took it seriously? You might end up having to buy Twitter or something.
To be fair, the people who labelled themselves as "Elon Musk" should have labelled themselves as "Elon Musk (parody)" or similar.
That way, they automatically label their tweets as parody, and don't have to include such sentences as "this tweet was a parody" as implied in your post.
In fact I'm pretty sure that's what is meant when the Twitter TOS states "To avoid confusing others about an account’s affiliation, parody, commentary, and fan accounts must distinguish themselves in BOTH their account name and bio."
Exercising their free speech by clumsily painting "pArOdY" in mspaint on their Twitter account banner picture, but not including "(Parody)" in their account name, is in breach of the TOS.
Having to put parody so visibly kinda defeats the purpose of this type of comedy. There was a guy in my hometown who made an account the seemed to be a local police department. It was hilarious. If you somehow didn’t catch that the police would never say these things, you could go to the profile and see that it’s a parody. What’s the issue with that?
I think people who do this know what's coming. It achieves two things: it "burns their boats" on the way out of Twitter, quitting in the most irrevocable fashion, and points out the limitations of a pure free speech (except for exceptions decided by the supreme leader) approach.
The decisions are seemingly rooted in Elon's personal insecurity more than in actual consistent policy that people can get accustomed to if they choose.
After all, Elon was just projecting when he complained about accounts getting unjustly banned due to hurting feelings of <INSERT BOGEYMAN>.
The Onion actually recently submitted a hilarious satirical amicus brief to the Supreme Court for the case Novak v. City of Parma [1] that made a splash in legal Twitter, for a case where a man who was arrested for making a parody Facebook page of his local police department. The amicus brief is itself a parody, an irreverent joke that has been submitted as a sincere legal document. (Thanks to LegalEagle for making a video on this [2]).
The entire point of the amicus brief is an argument that labeling a parody as a parody destroys the point of the parody. The four arguments:
I. Parody Functions By Tricking People Into Thinking That It Is Real
II. Because Parody Mimics "The Real Thing," It Has The Unique Capacity To Critique The Real Thing
III. A Reasonable Reader Does Not Need A Disclaimer To Know That Parody Is Parody
IV. It Should Be Obvious That Parodists Cannot Be Prosecuted For Telling A Joke With A Straight Face
It seemed a bit relevant to this. It's pending certiori and might go ignored, but the Supreme Court could rule that parody is protected under the first amendment, which would make Twitter an opponent of actual free speech (the legislative definition, not the new internet definition).
If only it was limited to Twitter. I'd pay the $8/mo for an official extension that content-blocks everything emanating from that domain. Call it Twitter Pro-phylactic.
> I. Parody Functions By Tricking People Into Thinking That It Is Real
This is the opposite of what's true. Parody only functions because it's obviously NOT real, but real adjacent, a facsimile. How could it be a joke if you just think it's real and assimilate it into your world view?
Seems like very obviously labelled accounts are also being banned. H3H3 put up a banner with a poorly written bright red "parody" and replied to his tweets with "this is a parody account" and still got suspended
If PARODY between PARODY every PARODY word PARODY the PARODY text PARODY "PARODY" must PARODY be PARODY displayed PARODY that PARODY would PARODY be PARODY a PARODY really PARODY good PARODY way PARODY to PARODY ensure PARODY nobody PARODY was PARODY confused PARODY as PARODY to PARODY what PARODY was PARODY and PARODY what PARODY was PARODY real.
- Elon PARODY Musk PARODY
-- END PARODY SEGMENT --
There's naturally gonna be a lot of places parody isn't labeled parody in blinking lights. It's comedically necessary. Ultimately if it is trivially easy for an average person to realize an account is not authentic (like the twitter handle being different) I think that's a fair and reasonable burden for anyone who imagines Twitter as a place where "humor is legal".
The person who does Safety at Twitter has been there for many years and he is pretty far on the “new left” side. Apparently, even he disagrees with you.
The assumption that it is a single person taking action against mislabeled parody accounts (like you suggested, by saying even Yoel disagreed with OP) is amusing, because naturally it isn't the case.
> The person who does Safety at Twitter has been there for many years and he is pretty far on the “new left” side. Apparently, even he disagrees with you.
Did you not say this? ^ Because it is literally what this says/implies.
Well I assure you that's not the case. But you did say something that is factually incorrect (and used left/right politics on top of that) and it had to be called out. If you think I am a troll, I urge you to go through my comment history.
Back to the subject: Yoel being the lead here doesn't necessarily mean he could have done anything about it — in fact, based on what I hear through the grapevine (and trust me on this one, I have very good sources), many of these things are being done one-off by Musk himself — which is disheartening on its own.
If you're on a Mastodon instance with someone spewing hate, either the admin of the instance bans them or you can move to an instance where that hate isn't tolerated. It's the benefit of the platform, and it's why Jack is trying to build something similar (well, a protocol) with Blue Sky.
> It shouldn’t matter bc Twitter is supposed to have total and complete free speech now
Can you cite?
Last I checked "Billionaire Elon Musk has said there will be no changes to Twitter's content moderation policies for now after completing his $44bn (£38.1bn) takeover of the platform." [1]
Maybe this has changed, but I'm not aware that it did.
Sort of makes sense, although his statements are pretty ambiguous. It would make more sense to have a profile option to indicate that it is a parody account and then have some indicator. However, the people he banned were just trying to prove a point about how stupid the new checkmark system is. I don't think it is worth banning them over it until the new verification system is rolled out. He should have just put a temporary pause on name changes for checkmarked accounts.
he may be found lying again, but it's good that those accounts will be tagged as parody if they are still going to be allowed. May solve those crypto scams etc.
I wonder if @jesus will tag himself
I also suggest a <sarcasm> tag as is customary on reddit. it s time we accept that on internet humor will come with PG ratings from now on
By the way we dont need a new article every time elon posts a change on twitter. Wait a month and write an article about all of them
I wonder how Joe Rogan will react to this the next time Musk goes on his podcast. Joe has been a deep fanboy of Elon's for a while, but he also doesn't like it much when people get banned/canceled for telling jokes, especially when they are professional comedians.
I don't get how this "free speech absolutism" stuff has exceptions. Seems contradictory
For example the more left wing people don't call themselves that bc they know that banning hate speech means not having total free speech. Why do people like Elon and his fans argue that they can still vouch for total free speech while banning certain forms of expression?
EDIT: I'm rate limited so can't reply. Elon Musk has called himself a "free speech absolutist" multiple times
I don’t think anyone claims to be a “free speech absolutist.” And this instead seems to be a straw man label applied.
So it seems confusing when people talk about free speech absolutism as it’s a one sided argument.
My interpretation is that there’s a free speech principle and it’s always had limits (eg, threatening someone’s life, inciting immediate violence). But it’s about drawing the line of what speech is allowed or disallowed.
This claim is not from Musk, but the author of that article.
> But the latest twist in this ongoing saga has resurfaced questions about what the popular social media site will look like under the leadership of a so-called free speech absolutist.
I think he’s being labeled as one in this article but it doesn’t seem like Musk is claiming to be an absolutist.
Musk literally called himself a free speech absolutist and I can point to any number of HN commentators on threads involving Twitter, free speech etc that said the same thing.
There are pretty clear legal guidelines what is free speech, but I think people want to test the theory on if they ban accounts that don't violate the legal guidelines. Racism in itself isn't illegal nor being homophobic. There are plenty of right-wing grifters that make up stuff and call people pedos for being trans or gay on Twitter, and they don't get banned... I've even seen groups advocate for violence against these groups and not get banned for it. What I know for sure is that advertisers aren't going to want to deal with it becoming a polarized topic at congressional hearings.
- reduce spread of (likely intentionally created) misinformation
The think is a lot of the complains come from people doing one of the points above _intentionally and knowing_ and then complain "but free speech". In their mind it is okay to spread hate speech and harass or push harassment of certain groups of people because they _do not see them as people_. They often also come up with stupid argument why their harassment is supposedly no harassment, with nonsense like "we should be allowed to always remind a traumatized person of their trauma because thats just free speach and purely informative we don't insult them" often taking advantage of 3rd parties potentially not understanding why its harassment far worse then some childish insults.
EDIT: Or complains from people which intentional spread misinformation for other political and often market manipulation reasons and don't like when twitter labeled their tweet as misinformation.
Impersonation is somewhat different from core free speech issues. It was less of a problem in tight 18th century societies where people knew one another and strangers were viewed with suspicion anyway. On the Internet, though...
Because that thing you call "free speech absolutism" isn't about free speech.
It comes from:
- people not understanding their own constitution
- people in privileged positions not understanding why we can't tolerate hate speech, harassment and similar
- a ton of modern fascists complaining that their posts where removed by moderation, or their accounts have been suspended, when spreading hate speech and misinformation. Some of this people are rather influential in conservative circles and/or wealthy.
An account of "Elon Musk (x) @jeremyjohnson" is clearly labeled as not actually Elon Musk. Many of the accounts banned included the fact that they were a parody or someone else in their bio as well. They just changed their display name and picture to highlight the stupidity of the verification checkmark turning into an $8 a month checkmark with no verification process. It's more of Elon overreacting to the consequences of his poor planning and lack of understanding.
Yes, the solution is to label everything. You should label your comment as known to the State of California to cause cancer, or birth defects or other reproductive harm.
If the whole point of your account is to make people laugh with the imaginary pretense that your posts are coming from another person/institution then yes, the potential readers should know it's fake.
A comic strip artist that I follow constantly puts fake words into famous peoples' mouths in his newspaper sections, but even tough I know it's fake I can still partake in the momentary delusion and get a good laugh
If potential readers cannot differentiate between reality and parody they're either deep in a conspiracy rabbit hole, or reality has become too crazy. Both these cases would again be a valid reason for parody to point out this fact.
Jokes work by surprising the audience. Pretending to be someone else before revealing the truth is just one method of doing this, and requiring to label it as parody is like explaining the punchline before the joke. The Onion recently wrote an actual legal document on exactly this and how required labelling of parody violates free speech.
Can you impersonate someone as a joke? No.
Parody is not identity theft.
When a comedian "impersonates" a politicians we all partake in a temporary delusion aided by the comic's ability to mimick the politician. Everyone knows it's fake but we laugh nonetheless.
Making a hyper-realistic deep fake video of a politician saying absurd stuff is not free speech without appropriate labelling.
You've characterized this as "impersonation" in order to exclude the possibility of parody, it's merely sophistry. This is a view of parody that falls apart when you look at actual parody. There have been many times I've been absentmindedly reading an article, been incredulous, and then realize it was from The Onion.
I have characterized it as impersonation because this is exactly what has been done in this case.
It's funny that you mention The Onion, because they are impersonating nobody since there is no legitimate news outlet named "The Onion". Their articles might mimick the writing style of legitimate ones, but they are not claiming to be CNN or Fox.
> Can you impersonate someone as a joke? No. Parody is not identity theft.
Can you point to case law that makes this clear? Intent highly matters and I don't see anyone facing legal repercussions for impersonating someone for comic intent or even politically motivated intentions. Not to mention, Twitter already has a mechanism identifying verified accounts, doesn't it?
> Making a hyper-realistic deep fake video of a politician saying absurd stuff is not free speech without appropriate labelling.
Lying is mostly not against the law and is covered under free speech. In fact in 2012 the Supreme Court ruled that lying can be Constitutionally protected under free speech. [1] Whether or not such video would be ethically wrong is another matter. But I think you are wrong is in saying it is not free speech.
That line comes up as a retort when people accuse twitter of violating the first amendment (which, as a private company, it is not bound by). In this case I don’t see anyone talking about the first amendment, just Musk’s claims that he wouldn’t prohibit any legal speech and that “comedy is now legal”.
For the purposes of opening a bank account or for getting a loan then it would be considered identity theft. Pretending to be someone else online though? That's perfectly legal free speech in the US as far as I'm aware
So you'd be happy if people created social network profiles pretending to be you and posting whatever they want people to believe you said because of free speech? Sounds pretty weird, are you sure you don't have a law against such abuse?
I thought free speech was me saying what I want, not a free pass to mislead people to believe I said something I didn't.
I wouldn't be happy with it but that doesn't make it illegal. In some countries it might be considered libel/defamation depending on what was said, but those standards vary wildly between/within countries and are to my understanding generally not considered criminal
And permitting lying or misleading speech is a pretty core part of free speech, it might be socially frowned upon or disincentivised by terms of service/moderation/other methods, but it's certainly not illegal
Actually, the user was benefiting from the blue checkmark of "verified account" and changed name and photo to "Elon Musk", that's got to be clearly a violation of twitter verified account terms, don't you think?
It probably is against the ToS, but it's also perfectly legal first amendment speech, which undercuts Elon's claims that he's turning Twitter into a free speech platform. Seems more like a Elon-sanctioned speech platform
A few days ago Elon posted "comedy is now legal on twitter". I guess this is a caveat to that.