I am all for real free speech about anything. It's just never real free speech; it's always censored and influenced (drowned out or amplified which is basically the same thing) in some direction. X is not free speech and this won't be either.
What I do hope is that this will drive the banning of Meta, X and others from the EU. I know this will hurt a lot of people short term, but long term, we might be the only part of the world without a severe mental illness epidemic.
I think the people most influenced be terrible influences by people like Musk are those that mirror this opinion.
Banning social media sites is a pretty draconian approach that probably will not work anyway and I believe it to be completely reactionary. The EU formerly did have influence on Twitter content. They lost that and aren't too happy about that.
I think it was a necessary correction and I don't want to live in the EU silo and I don't trust their DSA "trusted flaggers". What do they ban next, HN? I don't think it has official fact checkers either.
EU as in some bureaucrats in Brussels ain't too happy. As a citizen of EU member, I'm pretty happy some little known societal control by non-elected bureaucrats is gone.
Do you mean free speech as in not getting the government after you, or free speech as in not getting beaten by the guy next to you? Because I cannot imagine the second category ever happening - if you live in a society you must weigh your words. Internet made spewing hate around a viable option (difficult to get beaten when you swear at people online) so now some expect it also in their real lives.
When Zuck said on Jan 7th, 2025, that he wants to work with President Trump to oppose states threatening free speech, he wasn't talking about China. It was 100% the EU and its regulations. The quid pro quo starts to emerge.
What I do hope is that this will drive the banning of Meta, X and others from the EU. I know this will hurt a lot of people short term, but long term, we might be the only part of the world without a severe mental illness epidemic.