It’s been said that ideas cannot be killed. They are indestructible. Bullet proof.
The Founding Fathers knew this, but they also knew that despite the innate ability of ideas to survive, they still must be protected. Not from destruction, but from an equally dangerous threat:
Censorship.
Even though ideas can exist in an unspoken state, they cannot have an impact in such a form. Enemies of free speech know this, so they don’t even bother with the futile attempts to eliminate ideas, they simply find ways to silence them.
I don’t know a lot about Elon Musk. I also don’t know a lot about the inner workings of Twitter. What I do know, is that free speech and the fair and equitable sharing of ideas in an open platform has changed considerably since the Constitution was written. Certainly the Founding Fathers could not in their wildest dreams have imagined a virtual town square like Twitter, much less all the technological advances that led to it.
This inability of our forefathers to perceive the wonders of the future is incredibly significant if one intends to discuss the freedom of speech in modern society. I keep hearing people on the left suggest that Twitter has nothing to do with free speech, that Elon Musk shouldn’t be involved, and that the first amendment has to do with government controlled speech, not some silly microblogging social media platform like Twitter.
But here’s the thing. When such a platform becomes so prominent, so popular, and so necessary to the transfer of information that anyone who controls it can influence the opinion of the masses in ways that dictate the outcomes of decisions which can cause massive cultural and political changes, that platform has for all intents and purposes become a public town square of free speech, and can no longer be viewed as just “social media.”
Think of it this way:
In the year 1780, if someone spoke out against the government in an actual public square, the only way the government could silence such a person was by sending in troops, roughing the guy up, dragging him out of the street, and throwing him in jail.
The problem?
If the government did that, multiple people would undoubtedly see it, and they could easily prove that the person’s first amendment protections had been violated. It would be an open and shut case.
Today, however, the internet has made the intricacies of free speech far more complicated.
You see, some people have quite the following on Twitter. Many users have millions of followers and some even tens of millions. These users can at any point use their platform to promote or deride just about any idea they choose, whether it be social, religious, political, or economic. They are the equivalent of modern day traveling lecturers who give speeches in 140 characters or less, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that.
But suppose some group, government or not, decided they didn’t like what some of these people were saying. Suppose this group wanted to discourage the ideas these power users were promoting, while encouraging other ideas from other users. Is there any problem with that?
Sigh.
This is where it gets complicated.
Most argue that as long as the government itself isn’t doing the censoring of ideas, the first amendment isn’t being infringed upon. I would agree with that, if we were still in the 1780 scenario discussed earlier. With the pervasiveness of the internet and social media, however, allowing any single entity to limit some free opinions while promoting others, is a dangerous path to walk.
Suppose the entity in control of such a powerful free speech mechanism only allows certain ideas to reach the public’s ears. Suppose it purposely promotes some legitimate narratives while purposely silencing others. Suppose at some point in the future the free speech mechanism is controlled by a group that uses it only to promote causes they agree with. This ability to manipulate public narrative is too great for any one entity to control.
This is why you can’t apply standard first amendment thought to social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter. Policing Twitter and free speech the way you do other privately run companies doesn’t work, because the very business of Twitter is the spread of information. People try to equivocate the policing of free speech on Twitter to shutting down a newspaper in 1780, but that’s not the right equivalent. It’d be more akin to policing the conversations of random people having drinks at the bar. The only difference is that anyone can listen in to this bar conversation if they want to.
And that’s a key phrase to remember: If they want to.
It is crucial to keep in mind that nobody is requiring anyone to listen to anything on Twitter. You are more than welcome to block, mute, or ignore any opinion you want. But just because you don’t like an opinion, doesn’t mean someone else shouldn’t be able to discuss it in what is now the world’s largest public town square.
And that brings us back to Elon Musk.
I’ll be up front with you. I have no idea what Elon Musk’s plans are for Twitter or whether they will ultimately lead the platform to a better place. More significantly, no one outside of his closest circle of confidants has any idea what his plans are for Twitter. This is why I find it bizarre that conservatives have latched onto the guy as a savior of some sort, considering how far from a right winger he is if you view his political ideology as a whole. I can’t state it any clearer: any conservative who thinks Elon Musk is now some dyed-in-the-wool Republican is going to be sorely disappointed at some point in the near future.
Having said that, I still fully support Musk’s endeavors with Twitter for one reason:
He has stated outright that his decisions concerning the platform will be guided by the notion that free speech within the law should be valued above all else, a stance that is absolutely contrary to that of the previous Twitter regime.
Look, in an ideal world, no one would have to be “in charge” of a public town square like Twitter, but that’s simply not feasible. There are too many legal and technical concerns that must be actively monitored in order for complex systems like Twitter or Facebook to operate.
So knowing that some entity or group has to handle the tough decisions regarding all the grey areas of Twitter, who do I want it to be?
It’s simple.
Someone who is legitimately going to value the foundational principle of free speech within the law as the guiding force for every decision they make.
Social media is too prominent and far reaching in our culture to have any other principle dictating how its information is handled. This is because it is plainly impossible for any individual or group to impartially parse what information is good or bad for society. America was built on the notion that the people had the right to parse the truth of information for themselves, and that shouldn’t change just because more information is available from more sources today. Whoever is in charge of the free speech mechanisms of our society must be guided by this belief.
Now, will Elon Musk remain faithful to his claim? Time will tell. At this point, no one can say anything about his influence on Twitter because he hasn’t had one yet. All we know is that he is at least claiming that the protection of absolute free speech within the law will be his objective, and that’s as good of a start as we can ask for.
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