He's complied with Indian and Turkish authorities, choosing to censor. I'm sure he'd comply if asked by the trump admin and fight if asked by the Harris admin.

I think all instances of censorship are bad, personally. However, it isn’t as simple as comparing cases in different countries. Twitter/X has a policy of abiding by local laws. So if they feel government ordered censorship is legal, they’ll comply. Otherwise, they’ll refuse and challenge it. If there is no way to challenge an illegal order, they’ll refuse it and go public as they have in Brazil.

One difference in India is that the orders are not secret - they don’t come with gag orders to hide censorship from the public. Another difference is that they are legal, due to a number of regulations their government passed over the last several years. That doesn’t mean Twitter accepted these censorship demands because they (or Musk) are friendly with that government, which is a conspiracy theory I’ve seen spreading in recent times. Twitter/X literally sued the Indian government over these orders and lost back in 2023 (note Musk acquired the company in 2022), at which point they had to pay fines and comply. It’s not just Twitter/X either - Google also complies with the same orders in India and other countries, for example removing content from YouTube.

It's not the same

The dude burned a huge pile of money and fought a lot of opposition just to end censorship on Twitter, at least in the US. He does have his pet issues that face very minor censorship but I think he would fight any further attempts for illegal and unconstitutional government censorship. If he censors now, it will defeat his stated purpose and be just as bland as other establishment-run social media.

What do you think you're saying here? If Elon's companies were ever served a US warrant, it wouldn't be a FISA warrant. Telecommunications providers are compelled to provide information under FISA, but this has nothing to do with FISA warrants. FISA warrants are simply a method for government agencies to obtain permission to perform surveillance on the entity specified by the warrant. They aren't served to domestic companies. The idea doesn't even make sense.

FISA only applies to domestic companies, it’s not enforceable anywhere else. According to https://www.zdnet.com/article/when-the-feds-come-knocking-th... the orders (warrants?) are served to ISPs but they’re too secret to be kept by them.

Would you even have a way to know if he fought a secret order or not without someone breaking the law? Also, a Brazilian judge can't do much harm to him personally. On the other hand, even a lower court in your own country can put you in jail (for at least a little while) for essentially nothing.

Then why does he comply with Indian or Turkish orders?

Because those are lawful orders that he can't fight, I assume. Or maybe it's an issue of money. Who knows. Let's hope he means what he says.

Is there any similarly-sized tech company doing as much for free speech as X, including not complying with court orders?