How to win the Free speech Kobayashi Maru test

Elon Musk tweeted a few days ago that Being a free speech advocate these days is increasingly feeling like a Kobayashi Maru problem — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 25, 2024. 

 As those of us who remember the original StarTrek know: This was an unwinnable dilemma that officer candidates were faced with, and was essentially a psychological test to see how these candidates would react to failure.

Until one uppity undergrad refused to play their game:

By reprogramming the test, James T. Kirk became the only cadet to overcome the Kobayashi Maru simulation. The phrase "Kobayashi Maru" has entered the popular lexicon as a reference to a no-win scenario. The term is also sometimes used to invoke Kirk's decision to "change the conditions of the test."'

but actually, this was not the only time Captain Kirk got out of a similar unwinnable situation: 

In the Corbamite Maneuver, Kirk was again given a choice: Surrender or die. A perfect checkmate, as Spock pointed out. but then Kirk changed the game 

 Capt. Kirk: Not chess, Mr. Spock. Poker! 

 and bluffed his way out of the dilemma by telling them he would blow up the Enterprise and the explosion would kill them too.

the back story of this is that Europe is arresting people for nasty racist tweets, 

and has now arrested the guy behind the Telegram App.   LINK2

A case was opened last month to investigate child pornography, drug sales, fraud and other criminal activities on the platform. The app’s founder, Pavel Durov, was detained over the weekend near Paris.

given that it is easy for governments to post such stuff and then point to these posts to use it as a case for your arrest, it does make you wonder. 

All the social media including Facebook is full of similar stuff, And much of it uses code words or pretends that innocent words are used to mask crime (Pizzagate anyone?) one suspects there is more to this than trying to censor crime.

AlJ's take on the story:

I don't know much about the Telegraph APP: I did read that it was beaming Russian propaganda against the Ukraine, so was seen as beaming disinformation, but on the other hand, one of my updates from an African human rights organization was very upset at the prospect that Telegraph could be shut down: Because apparently it not only allowed free speech but was a way for activists to get around government censorship of stores in these countries.

Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, has been arrested in France on charges including aiding terrorism, drug trafficking, fraud, and money laundering, potentially facing up to 20 years in prison. This action seems to stem from his refusal to censor content on Telegram,…

— Bella (@stockbella) August 24, 2024

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Pavel Durov left Russia when the government tried to control his social media company, Telegram. But in the end, it wasn’t Putin who arrested him for allowing the public to exercise free speech. It was a western country, a Biden administration ally and enthusiastic NATO member,… https://t.co/F83E9GbNHC

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 24, 2024

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it is easy for trolls and government activists to place child porn and other horrid stuff on any web app, but where do you stop? and I do know that censorship about covid by public health physicians who disagreed with the shutdown, or the vaccines, or the denial about the money funding the gain of function research that might have been behind the covid epidemic has resulted in a huge distrust of all vaccines (similar to the distrust here after the Dengue vaccine killed some kids), and even a distrust of modern medicine.

Sigh.