Free speech is a threat to everyone. If it weren’t obvious, the answer is everyone intolerant of free speech, including all those who are awoken liberal elites and obsessives about cancelling culture.
That was, at least, until earlier this week when Elon Musk secured a deal to buy the social network for £35 billion and pledged to open up the site to permit more freedom of speech.
These keyboard warriors are now in complete meltdown.
Left-wing celebrities, academics, as well as left-leaning pundits and experts have all expressed concern that the most powerful man on the planet might be able to allow anyone to freely express their opinions online.
Earlier this week Elon Musk (pictured) secured a deal to buy Twitterfor £35 billion and pledged to open up the site to permit more freedom of speech
Above: Musk’s TWitter Profile. A few days ago, an especially experienced journalism professor at New York University warned that “Today’s Twitter experience feels like the last evening of a Berlin nightclub in the twilight Of Weimar Germany.”
Above: Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s CEO and cofounder. Musk is a “free speech absolutist” and has only committed to changing Twitter’s content-moderation policies. He also wants to allow more opinions.
Frightened
A few days back, a New York University journalist professor went as far as to say that “Today on Twitter feels almost like an evening spent in a Berlin nightclub at dusk.”
Washington Post columnist, a quivering Washington Post columnist said he was ‘frightened’ by Musk’s belief that anything is possible on social media. To ensure democracy survives, there must be more content moderation than ever before. (PC censorship is the alternative to ‘content moderator’.
However, amid the snowflakes’ wailing I couldn’t help but smile. This is a celebration for all those who believe in free speech and an inalienable right to it.
It is certain that the absurd warnings about a fall into unregulated fascism are nonsense. Musk claims to be a free speech absolutist. He has simply committed himself in order to change Twitter’s controversial policies on content moderation and allow for more opinions.
It is not possible to say that violent content or incitement to violence will be stopped being regulated.
To the ‘Twitterati’, though, such clarifications don’t matter — to them, the walls of their citadel are falling in and Musk, as the driver of such change, represents an abhorrent threat to their world view.
Jamela Jamil, a left-leaning twitterati, declared abandoning the social media platform after learning Elon Musk had bought it
Washington Post columnist, a quivering one, declared that he was ‘frightened’. “Content moderation” should be interpreted as “PC censorship”.
A New York University journalism professor made historical comparisons.
The walls surrounding their citadel are crumbling in on the “Twitterati” and Musk as their driver represents a grave threat to their view of the world.
A loud minority has treated freedom of speech as a contemptuous privilege for far too long, promoting Left-wing views nearly to complete exclusion.
Egging each other on in their cossetted Twitter bubble — fuelled by powerful digital algorithms that feed users a continual steam of similar content — they’ve deluded themselves that different views held by countless others are akin to ‘hate crimes’, that anyone who doesn’t agree with them is tantamount to being an enemy of the people, deserving of social ‘cancellation’.
In the meantime, Twitter’s Silicon Valley-based rulers have increased their control over what is acceptable content in recent years.
‘Free expression is a human right — we believe that everyone has a voice, and the right to use it,’ Twitter’s ‘Hateful Conduct Policy’ proudly states.
However, I think it is difficult for Twitter HQ to commit to this belief.
For there in sunny California, one of the bastions of the fashionably Left-wing, free speech has morphed into something quite foreign — no longer a universal right, but a privilege to be granted only to those who express the correct opinion.
Left-biased programming slaps any non-conformist tweet — almost always of a more Right-wing sentiment — with warning labels about ‘abuse’ or ‘misinformation’ and even blocks users from the site as a last resort.
Most famously, in January 2021 the site banned Donald Trump — then the sitting President of the United States — following the violent Capitol riots that he was accused of inciting.
Many might think that Trump should be banned from Twitter, but I disagree — you have to remember that more than 74 million Americans had recently voted for him.
Trump is banned on Twitter currently, but it’s important to keep in mind that Trump won more than 7 million votes recently.
Musk’s groupthink has become so deeply ingrained that Musk’s critics cannot see the irony in opposing his takeover.
It is the most ironic claim they make that Musk’s ownership will result in Twitter falling into fascism.
Because it is only through the free speech Musk espouses that democracy can flourish — if in doubt, just take a look at the censorship of social media that Vladimir Putin has imposed to whitewash his barbaric and criminal activities in Ukraine.
Truth be told, many Left-leaning people are upset about the planned takeover as they face losing control of Twitter’s global conversations, which is perhaps the most vocal social media outlet.
Twitterati react with astonishment and anger whenever people disagree with their views. They see the 2016 EU referendum as a clear example of a ‘wrong’ kind of democracy.
Pushback
Now, someone dares to question all of that.
Musk, while he may not be a right-wing monster, is in fact a complicated political character. He’s part green and part libertarian.
It is only through the free speech Musk espouses that democracy can flourish — if in doubt, just take a look at the censorship of social media that Vladimir Putin has imposed to whitewash his barbaric and criminal activities in Ukraine
At his core he is an engineer — and a shrewd businessman, having made billions from his Tesla electric cars and his spacecraft manufact- urer, SpaceX.
While the acquisition of Twitter is another business venture, it seems that the buyer also intends to make it a global conversation-enhancing tool.
“Twitter is becoming a kind of de facto city square,” he stated recently. It’s important to both have reality and perceive that one can freely speak within the boundaries of law.
There is not much evidence of fascism in the area, I think. Just simple common-sense — and good business-sense, too.
Musk’s purchase comes in a moment when social discourse is being dominated by the awakened. As evidenced by TalkTV and Right-wing GB News’ launch last year,
There are some caveats that we need to be aware of.
It really should not be up to any single billionaire-controlled Big Tech company to decide what we are and are not allowed to say, hear and see — whether that’s Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook or Elon Musk’s Twitter.
Mark Zuckerberg (CEO of Meta, Facebook’s parent firm) is an identical tech billionaire as Elon Musk.
Be hopeful
Musk’s promise of more transparency in the top ranks of social media seem sincere, but at least they are true on the surface.
It is also important to ask probing questions about his business relationship with Communist China, and the possible impact on his freedom of speech.
China, after the U.S., is China’s largest market for Tesla cars. There are also factories that make the batteries for Tesla cars.
Only time will show if Musk can resist the Red Dragon’s influence. But let’s judge him on what he does, not just what he says — or what others might say about him.
It’s not a bad thing that I, a free speech fundamentalist, am hopeful. The hard truth is that free speech does not mean everyone who posts, pontificates, rants or rages on Twitter shares the same opinions as you. Their rights to freedom and expression should not be diminished.
Our democracy and liberties rely on that — and that’s something Elon Musk seems to get.
Mick Hume is the author of Trigger Warning. Does The Fear Of Being Offensive Kill Free Speech? William Collins.