Persons who skip social media or who spend their time on Twitter and Facebook discussing lunch or the weather may not realize how anti-speech such big-tech forums have become.
If you disagree about what’s better for breakfast, eggs or oatmeal, no problem.
But despite their putative pretense of providing open forums, the dominant social-media companies routinely ban discussion of touchy subjects like Hunter Biden laptops, pandemics, and and the politics of race and gender. As the satire site Babylon Bee discovered, even calling a man a man, apparently quite a controversial observation, can get you in hot water with Twitter censors.
We have ways of combatting the censorship. One is using alternative platforms that do regard open discussion as a value. Another is becoming a major stockholder and disrupting the anti-speech agenda from within.
Is this what Elon Musk is up to? Bee CEO Seth Dillon says that after Twitter suspended Babylon Bee for calling a man a man, Musk called him about the suspension and said that “he might need to buy Twitter.”
Presumably in order to put a stop to such censorious shenanigans.
Now Elon Musk, who has 80.6 million followers on Twitter, has bought the company. Or rather, he has acquired a big stake in it, a 9.2 percent stake. This apparently makes him Twitter’s largest stockholder. Maybe we can dare to hope that he will eventually become the majority stockholder.
Good first step, Mr. Musk.
Next? Get Twitter to remove the gags.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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5 replies on “Will Elon Liberate Tweeting?”
Someone wishing to reverse Twitter’s policy may not need to acquire a majority of its stock. Some other shareholders may likewise wish it were a more open forum, and still others may be indifferent. Further, the shareholder with the most stock might be such a source of embarrassment or other nuisance that those with a plurality of stock and otherwise favoring censorship surrendered.
But for how long will opponents of censorship hold onto their stock? It may be that Twitter reverses itself long enough that rival platforms committed to free expression wither, and then Musk (or whomever) departs after which the left resume their programme of censorship.
Termite conspiracies have no leaders to die.
How long will opponents of censorship hang on to their stock?
For as long as it remains profitable. I include Elon Musk in that group. Unless and until Twitter is completely abandoned by its users (not likely to happen anytime soon), it will remain dominant in American media and stockholders will gladly reap their rewards. Principles like freedom mean nothing to most big investors. If they cared about principles, we wouldn’t be doing the business we do in Communist China.
Profitability and market dominance are distinct. And investment is driven by expectation, which differs across investors; some rational investors will leave what seems a safe and profitable investment.
Is free speech the same as free lies?
Censors typically claim that they are only silencing falsehoods. Given the power to silence what they claim to be lies, they will deny us the truth. Given the power to silence what they claim to be unlikely, they will deny us the probable.