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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   29558 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 26, 2024

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It is telling, though, that Musk is regularly in Europe and yet has never been arrested, while Durov has avoided it for some time and was arrested upon landing in France for the first time in a while.

In reality, everything that the EU wants Durov to remove from Telegram is stuff Musk’s X already does remove and is happy to remove if a takedown notice is filed.

In reality, everything that the EU wants Durov to remove from Telegram is stuff Musk’s X already does remove and is happy to remove if a takedown notice is filed.

As someone who's never used Telegram, to what extent do you think this is due to right-leaning Western content, versus its affiliations and use by the Russian military and PMCs?

From the comments I've seen on this topic, it's probably at least 90 % the latter. I share the view that Durov's arrest is very worrisome from a free-speech perspective vis-a-vis Europe, but it's almost guaranteed to be because they think he's hiding some secret connection to the Russian government and think they can wring info or concessions out of Telegram on that font. The European elites absolutely care way more about foreign policy and the Russia-Europe conflict more than they care about "dissident Right" or what have you.

The appeals by Russian opposition inside of Russia are probably going to be of scant help to Durov, since the standard European view is that pretty much all oppositional figures remaining inside Russia are fake opposition that actually serves Putin. Again, that's not the smartest way to view it, but that's how it is.

In reality, everything that the EU wants Durov to remove from Telegram is stuff Musk’s X already does remove and is happy to remove if a takedown notice is filed.

That's only if you take the EU and US at face value, that they are just really passionate about fighting pedophilia and terrorism, and don't assume that they are also trying to disrupt dissident political communication and organization. Which they obviously are. Musk made headlines just last month by claiming:

The European Commission offered 𝕏 an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us.

The other platforms accepted that deal.

𝕏 did not.

So the EU is obviously pressuring Musk to remove content which is not already removed, at least according to his perspective.

There has also been a lot in the news about the EU and US pressuring Musk:

Elon Musk is under renewed pressure from the US and EU over his ownership of Twitter, as regulators clamp down on the billionaire’s push to transform the social network into a freewheeling haven of free speech.

The European Commission on Wednesday threatened Musk with a ban unless Twitter abides by strict content moderation rules, as US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen indicated that Washington was reviewing his purchase of the social network.

The warning from Brussels came in a video call between Musk and Thierry Breton, the EU’s commissioner in charge of implementing the bloc’s digital rules, according to people with knowledge of the conversation.

Breton told Musk that Twitter must adhere to a checklist of rules, including ditching an “arbitrary” approach to reinstating banned users, pursuing disinformation “aggressively” and agreeing to an “extensive independent audit” of the platform by next year.

Musk is also a much, much harder target than Durov. They can't arrest him, but they probably can get away within giving X huge fines or banning it, and they have threatened to do both on many occasions since his acquisition of the platform.

The CEO of Rumble has fled Europe. Reminder that this is the "liberal free world."

So you have TikTok- forced divesture clearly going to be banned. Telegram, founder arrested. Rumble CEO has fled Europe. Musk is battling the NGOs and EU as well. This is not just about illegal content, it's about buckling down internet discourse for good.

They can't arrest him,

Why can’t they arrest him? Will Joe Biden sanction France if they do?

They can't arrest him, but they probably can get away within giving X huge fines or banning it

The problem with Musk is that he's actually pretty well leveraged into their national security and other policy objectives (and to a point, this affects the US as allied with Europe as well); SpaceX's products outperform the Ariane 6, and then there's Tesla (whose cars could be bricked on Musk's whim; they have been before).

I absolutely do believe the Europeans (though really, this is just the Americans by proxy) are stupid enough to try that (the UK has already made overtures in this direction), but Musk is simply too useful to the Americans (who, bipartisanly, have outsourced a significant chunk of their policy goal accomplishing infrastructure spending to him) to allow that, at least for now.

I would suspect Musk of having built in a dead man switch of some sort into some of his products. It's the kind of Bond villain thing I can easily imagine him nerding out about, and I'm sure he understand that riding the edge of "being too useful for the regime" and "being a thorn in their side" requires some sort of insurance policy as some in the regime might think that they can keep the upside if they get rid of him.

some sort of insurance policy

Which is also why EU regimes can't just outright ban Twitter or enforce the policies they want upon it; that has a 100% chance of causing a riot (and it's also how the higher-ups already coordinate their human botnets and I don't think they want to give up their brownshirts). That's also why if other countries want to enforce their desired policies they have to target the [domestic] posters themselves.

Which is also why EU regimes can't just outright ban Twitter or enforce the policies they want upon it; that has a 100% chance of causing a riot

Banning Twitter wouldn’t cause a riot, this hugely misunderstands the rioters and their motivations.

They've already threatened Musk several times and are taking action against X; there's no arrest warrant for him for two reasons

  1. He's not as far along in the process and

  2. He's an American citizen. The Biden and Harris administrations may not like him, but it would still be a problem if France arrested him for this sort of thing.

In reality, everything that the EU wants Durov to remove from Telegram is stuff Musk’s X already does remove

No, this blue-pill stuff wore through a long time ago. It's about not tolerating right-wing speech, not about whatever fig-leaf they put on it.

I think in Telegram’s case it’s about more than just right-wing speech, to put it mildly.

He's an American citizen. The Biden and Harris administrations may not like him, but it would still be a problem if France arrested him for this sort of thing.

It would be no problem at all. American citizens are arrested abroad for crimes that are not crimes in America all the time, and beyond some vague consular action that occasionally partially (but not wholly) limits a sentence the US is often fine with it.

The EU would certainly have a problem if it tried to extradite Musk, but arresting him? That would not affect the status quo.

American citizens are arrested abroad for crimes that are not crimes in America all the time, and beyond some vague consular action that occasionally partially (but not wholly) limits a sentence the US is often fine with it.

But how often does this happen for speech made in the US?

The backlash to arresting musk would be much, much worse than the backlash to arresting a literally who?.

I'm not so sure. The media hate machine has, I think, been extremely effective against Musk. I think most Americans would enjoy seeing him in jail.

You think?

I could see it among the Extremely Online crowd, but nothing close to a majority. Ex. neither of my parents, their coworkers, maybe their whole generation. People are still buying Teslas and such.

Buying a tesla is hardly a vote on the personal approval of its CEO. People just don't look at major purchasing decisions that way.

I’d argue they don’t look at arrests that way, either.

Musk has earned personal disapproval for appearing abrasive and immoral. He doesn’t have the criminal reputation that would make people say “ah, I knew it.”

for appearing

For being portrayed as. Show me a man as prolific as him, whom the journalists couldn't sic the public on. Even Scott's reputation is ruined due to them, and he one of the most gentle spoken public intellectuals I know, and his behaviour is immoral only in the eyes of tradcons.

And sometimes the US is not fine with it, as we saw with Brittney Griner. That arrest certainly affected the status quo. What elements of the situation would make Musk's arrest by a US ally over twitter moderation less disruptive to the status quo than Griner's arrest by an enemy for narcotics possession?

my assessment is that this is an example of the regime laundering nakedly illegal abuses of the criminal justice system against law-abiding dissidents through the cutout of a close ally. I do not believe the existing harassment happens without regime approval, and certainly an arrest would not. I think the regime should be held directly responsible for such harassment. does that seem wrong to you?

What elements of the situation would make Musk's arrest by a US ally over twitter moderation less disruptive to the status quo than Griner's arrest by an enemy for narcotics possession?

Race, gender, and sexual orientation, for three.

American citizens are arrested abroad for crimes that are not crimes in America all the time, and beyond some vague consular action that occasionally partially (but not wholly) limits a sentence the US is often fine with it.

Sometimes. But sometimes it causes minor diplomatic incidents: the Executive Branch pulled at least a few strings to get Brittney Griner and Evan Gershkovich home. Or five US citizens imprisoned in Iran. The State Department presumably has some judgement in terms of what they consider "wrongful detention," though.

Do we think the Biden / Harris administrations are as favorable to Griner as they are to Musk?

Given the news recently about NASA turning to SpaceX to help bring the two stranded astronauts back to Earth, and pointedly rejecting Boeing's pleas that their Starliner capsule was fit for the task, I'd say they'd probably be more favorable to Musk if he were detained on foreign soil. They clearly don't like the guy, but it would require pigheaded dogmatism to overlook his benefit to the US government and leave him to languish in a foreign prison.

Then again, pigheaded dogmatism would not shock me from these people.

NASA is definitely likely to be his biggest ally for sure, but who listens our cares about what NASA has to say? They are politically irrelevant except as a pork delivery system, which SpaceX a actually threatens. DOD might actually be the most influential voice urging his indispensibility, though their influence over State is likely weak and not enough to overcome the political hatred of Musk combined with the lobbying of the traditional defense contractors. The voting public are largely convinced that Musk is a grifter and a loud mouth, and that the companies he heads would be much better off without him.

I think that almost exclusively is going to depend on how many voters would be incensed or placated by that decision. Biden's supporters are perhaps more sympathetic to Griner than Trump's, but Gershkovich is a WSJ reporter. Musk has -- and I say this as someone who isn't a particular fan of the man -- managed to make himself centrally important to very public facing political objectives (NASA ISS/Artemis, DOD space launch) and employ tens of thousands of Americans in a way that would almost certainly haunt any politician and his or her party stupid enough to not bail him out.

But Musk is also a rather volatile figure and I could imagine quite a few scenarios in which he loses that central importance pretty quickly and becomes unsympathetic to the average voter.

That pretty clearly isn't supposed to matter. If it does matter, the fact that it matters should be made as legible as possible, to remove as much misunderstanding as possible from what follows.

To be explicit, you believe that the US government can extend or withdraw protection from foreign laws as it sees fit, more or less arbitrarily, that this power is likely to be used to reward domestic allies and punish domestic opponents, and that this is the normal state of affairs we're currently living in, such that Musk's arrest shouldn't cause an update.

Specifically, you believe that Musk being arrested for first-amendment-protected behavior would be fine, provided it's not the US government arresting him, and despite the fact that it is entirely within the US government's power to prevent his arrest.

Further, you believe this reality to be common knowledge.

Would that be accurate?

Yes? If an American is arrested for hate speech ‘committed’ while in an allied Western country in Europe, what does the US government do? Presently the answer is almost certainly nothing.

I don't have much evidence to support this, but my gut feeling -- which is probably representative of the voters that the politicians are at least a bit responsible to -- is that this will depend on context quite a bit. An American citizen arrested for "hate speech" that happens in Europe and is relevant to European politics (say, participating in a riot in the UK) would be treated very differently than an American tourist arrested for something they posted in America on Twitter last year.

Extraterritorial jurisdiction is complicated and probably doesn't have broad support on either side of the Pond. Europe complains when the US does it, too: the entire Assange extradition thing wasn't, from what I can tell, particularly popular in Sweden or the UK.

In reality, everything that the EU wants Durov to remove from Telegram is stuff Musk’s X already does remove and is happy to remove if a takedown notice is filed.

Interesting. My guess would be that Musk has more money / allies, which is why a minor country like France won't touch him, even if he allows more illegal content.

Most of the content in the leaked quasi-indictment is stuff that is explicitly banned on X to no lesser extent than it is on Facebook.

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