Freedom of speech is constantly embattled.
Just one example: government-instigated stomping on social-media speech in recent years, proof of which has been revealed thanks to litigation, freedom of information requests, and the purchase of Twitter by a friend of free speech.
But the embarrassing revelations have not caused our censors to retreat.
They’re not trying to censor people, they suggest, just trying to stop lies, hate, misinformation. And now Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, wants to arrest Elon Musk for resisting censorship as Twitter’s new owner.
Reich says: “Regulators around the world should threaten Musk with arrest if he doesn’t stop disseminating lies and hate on X.”
Reich has also said that we must regulate speech to “direct people’s attention … to a healthy public conversation that is most participatory.” As Jonathan Turley observes, “the ‘healthy public conversation’ with Robert Reich increasingly appears to be his talking and the rest of us listening.”
Would “regulators around the world” include U.S. regulators? Since the First Amendment has yet to be rescinded, perhaps Reich would prefer other countries to handle imprisoning Elon Musk for letting people speak “too” freely. But I’m guessing Reich would be fine with a U.S. arrest.
Reich would fit right in with a Harris administration, if we get one, led by a woman who calls the First Amendment a “privilege” and has lamented that social media sites are “directly speaking to millions and millions of people without any level of oversight and regulation.” Which, she declares, “has to stop.”
Something has to stop.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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