Erik Uden 🚩Sep 1, 2023

A man in Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to death for his tweets, and surprise: Elon Musk is NOT funding his legal bill as promised because there's a good chance that the necessary data to identify this man came from the second largest shareholder of Twitter: the Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal.

Musk has been awfully silent about this as you can't really make your “freedom of speech!!” argument when you assist with killing a retired teacher for the regime critic posts they made on your platform, only possible because that regime owns a huge chunk of “your” platform.

Elon Musk Silent on Man Sentenced to Death for His Tweets

The incident is the latest test of the limits of Elon Musk's support for free speech.

Newsweek
Show threadErik Uden 🚩Sep 1, 2023
Mastodon has no profit motive, Mastodon has no shareholders. Why people choose a platform that needs to make money and make their shareholders happy to focus their obsession with a grotesque misunderstanding of “freedom of speech” around is, to put it best, beyond me.
Show threadSven MichelsSep 1, 2023
@ErikUden easy to use. You don't need to understand anything, you just use it. An issue a lot FOSS People and Tools have to learn, still.
Show threadMutualityWSDEs

@sven @ErikUden

Nonsense to claim Twitter doesn't have to be learned.

Sep 1, 2023 at 10:22amWeb
Show threadSven MichelsSep 1, 2023
@MutualityWSDEs @ErikUden i wonder where or who said "doesn't have to be learned". Its about the complexity that usually is higher with FOSS and do use it "right". And its often neglected that people have those issues.
Show threadMutualityWSDEsSep 1, 2023

@sven @ErikUden

FOSS etc is definitely often harder to use but to say Twitter doesnt need to be understood/learned before using is wrong.

Also, Signal Messenger is as easy to use as WhatsApp but people don't even try it, so I don't think ease of use is necessarily or even significantly the barrier - we all know all sorts of people who have learned IT-related things that 20-30 years ago, we would have said was beyond them.

Mainly our grand/parents.

Show threadSven MichelsSep 1, 2023
@MutualityWSDEs @ErikUden again: where or who said "Twitter doesnt need to be understood/learned"? Only you bring up that point all the time. I said its easier(!), that's all. Please stop making up such things.
Show threadMutualityWSDEsSep 1, 2023

@sven @ErikUden

"You don't need to understand anything, you just use it."

What's this in reference to?

Show threadSven MichelsSep 1, 2023
@MutualityWSDEs @ErikUden yeah, you don't have multiple "servers", no issues with "go to original page to see more", no "global trends". You go to a page, sign up, post stuff, world can see. Because "world" is in this case only twitter/a single platform. And this is a huge difference from Mastodon for example. Especially in the peak times of people switching, there was a lot to explain.