Elon Musk Doesn’t Understand Free Speech
Twitter is about to turn into 8chan because Elon Musk doesn't understand how the First Amendment works.
by Bob Cesca
WASHINGTON, DC – Billionaire Elon Musk doesn’t seem to understand how free speech works, and if his purchase of Twitter is finally approved, it could mean dark days for the platform. And when I say “dark days,” I mean psychotic, ugly, and blindingly horrifying days. I’ll explain presently.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Musk wrote:
By “free speech”, I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people.
This happens to be the exact same free speech policy that was implemented on the notorious web forum known as 8chan, founded by Frederick Brennan and relinquished to a weirdo named Jim Watkins and his weirdo son, Ron Watkins. According to the documentary series Q: Into The Storm, Ron is the alleged QAnon character at the center of the worldwide conspiracy theory movement. Nice role models, Elon.
8chan was shut down after the January 6 invasion of the U.S. Capitol, and resurrected as 8kun, which was essentially the same platform. Nevertheless, the site’s anything-goes-as-long-as-it’s-legal free speech policy manifested subforums that featured the aforementioned psychotic, ugly, and blindingly horrifying posts ranging from Holocaust denial to images of tortured and dead animals, and things I can’t repeat here. It’s evidently legal to post bloody disgusting photos and memes like that, so every Nazi and Stormfront disciple was welcome to share their nightmarish thoughts on Ron and Jim’s shithole platform.
I’ve been a professional internet content creator since 1997 and the debate about online free speech has been a thing forever. And, of course, the only way to maintain a flourishing public forum is to moderate the content – from keeping an eye on foul language in some cases (Google Adsense demonetizes sites with obscenities), to white supremacist memes, to endless flame wars, and so forth. Without content moderation, forums descend into unusable chaos forcing Normals to abandon the site, no matter how useful the platform might’ve been.
This is exactly what’ll happen to Musk’s Twitter if he sticks with this childishly idealistic view of free speech.
Ask the content moderators over at Gab, Gettr, and Truth Social, all of which popped up when whiny, paranoid, disruptive Republicans were tired of being suspended on Twitter for spreading disinformation. But executives quickly discovered that content moderation was necessary after trolls started posting child porn and the like. Plus, there’s a rule on Truth Social that allows moderators to remove posts that are critical of Truth Social. So much for unrestricted free speech.
Musk seems incapable of grasping that unrestricted free speech doesn’t exist anywhere on this planet, and whenever a rube comes along and tries it, the results are catastrophic – suddenly a well-meaning discussion “free speech forum” becomes the home of Nazi death porn.
However, I don’t believe he’ll stick with the policy unless he wants to flush $44 billion down the crapper. Musk will quickly learn the same hard lessons as Truth Social and the others, and so he’ll crack down on certain kinds of posts. He may even end up suspending some wingnuts who returned to the site thinking the coast was clear. And he should. The alternative is a Twitter that becomes the new home to not just Nazi death porn, but primarily to toxic, viral disinformation that could eventually lead to people being killed. I mean, there’s no law against relentlessly doxing and bullying users, or posting revenge porn and similar.
Look, I’m no prude. I’m a creative professional and I rely on the First Amendment and free speech to do my job – to do what I love. I exist as a free man because satire is protected speech in America. That being said, I would never expect the same protections if I totally lost my mind and started posting unsavory, grisly things. I’m grown up enough to know that when I play on someone else’s turf, I’m legally bound to their rules – not mine. If a site has a zero tolerance policy against spreading disinformation, we shouldn't start whining like Don Junior when the site suspends or limits the reach of your account.
I’m not nearly as concerned about Trump returning to Twitter as I am about humans far worse than Trump returning to Twitter – humans that will pollute the most robust and important social media platform with unregulated scammers, cult leaders, Russian agitprop, screengrabs from crush videos, and mayhem of all varieties. Not that Twitter is a safe space by any stretch, but we could end up watching the platform transform in real time from merely annoying to a $44 billion horror show.
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I just deactivated my Twitter account with the news of the sale to Elon Musk. This is what happened to me shortly before: I didn't have a ton of followers, maybe around 450 or so. I mainly used the account to amplify progressive talking points by retweeting. Occasionally, I would make favorable comments on Biden's posts or Pelosi's or the like. Inevitably, when I did the latter, a troll would insult me. I expected it and ignored them, until the day one charming guy flamed me in an over-the-top screed (for telling Biden I appreciated his efforts) and ended by calling me a c**t. I decided to report him to Twitter just to spare anyone else his bile, who did in fact find him in violation of the TOS for Hateful Conduct. Two days later, someone hacked into my FB account, disabled the recovery phone number feature, and had my zombie account violate FB's TOS, which then shut down the account permanently.
The next time I posted on Twitter (and mind you, I was small potatoes, maybe even teeny potatoes), a swarm of Russian trolls piled on with a vengeance. The hacking of my FB account might have been coincidence, and I don't know how they would have known which account to go after, but it was a very strange coincidence. In any case, I'm off both platforms now. I doubt I will try to open a new account with FB, given what they've done to undermine democracy, and I was thinking about getting off anyway.
The right wing COULD NOT get their own Twitter into anything resembling success, so they finally got the notoriously thin-skinned and vituperative Elon Musk to buy it. I read one time that someone who had ordered a Tesla said something unflattering about Musk on social media and Musk canceled his order. Personally. How he finds the time to scan the Internet for anything unflattering blows me away. Then again, he probably has his people doing it for him.
I agree with you that Twitter under Musk has every possibility for turning into a nightmare. It was already unfriendly and dicey for women, POC, and LGBTQ. But given how much of mainstream media is owned by conservative corporate interests, it was nice to have something like Twitter to serve as something of a balancing influence. The fascists are leaving no stone unturned, it would seem, in their efforts to turn American society into a dystopia.
Elon's dystopian libertarian fantasy dalliance with free speech in the world of stupid is Ayn Rand's dream come true. The Idiocracy will not be stopped.