The enemy is running scared.
Elon Musk’s promise to reverse a Twitter ban on Donald Trump if he completes his takeover of the social media platform has prompted warnings that it will provoke a backlash among users and could clash with new internet safety laws.
The whole point about free speech – a point Musk clearly gets – is that if you don’t allow people to speak, you cannot challenge their ideas. Trump’s ban was the result of a cooked up claim that he was inciting violence. An objective observation of the relevant tweets showed no such thing. Indeed, the raving lunatic far left that festers in the Twittersphere actually do incite violence and no one does anything about it because that’s all okay. Some of the stuff on there is downright nasty, yet calm, polite disagreement – for example pointing out that you cannot change sex – gets labelled as hate speech, while actual hate goes unchecked. Now, like Musk, I’m happy for that to happen. Rational people will look at these rants and draw their own conclusions. The more they scream, shout and call for violence against their political opponents the more that reasonable people will shy away from them. That’s how it works.
So, yes, the Trump ban should be reversed and if that sends the twitterati into a paroxysm of incandescent rage, then so be it. We just need to order in more popcorn.
The left has become so illiberal in recent times. They just can’t tolerate diversity of opinions. They prefer echo chambers.
Longrider. You said: “The whole point about free speech – a point Musk clearly gets – is that if you don’t allow people to speak, you cannot challenge their ideas. ”
100% spot on and then a bit more.
This is why I am vehemently opposed to the idea of banning things like Holocaust denial. Holocaust denial is without a doubt a stupid position to take, after all there is a mountain of evidence from a variety of sources that it occurred. However to ban these nutters from speaking publicly doesn’t make these bad ideas go away, it merely sends these ideas underground and those who hold to them do not speak of them on social media where they can be challenged and laughed at, but in analogue echo chambers of books, closed meetings, friendship groups and Samizdat literature. In these closed echo chambers, that bear a remarkable resemblance to the closed and semi-closed Jihadi groups, there is no outside challenge, no countervailing voice. They can probably radicalise far more effectively in these underground environments than out in the open.
Personally, I want to know who those who hate me and mine are. I want to know what they are saying, what or who has inspired them to say what they say, who they are speaking to and whether or not what they are saying is being taken seriously. Knowing this sort of thing is self protection. The known enemy is more often better dealt with than the hidden enemy. The known enemy can be prepared for but there is no preparation for an unknown one.
All speech short of immediate and credible threats of violence should be free. It needs to be free so that all ideas can be discussed and discussed openly and without fear. The fact that it is the Left who are so perturbed about free speech on Twitter makes me wonder whether they are worried about their own ideas being picked apart in the marketplace of ideas.
Muskets – very good Mr LR
🙂
Dorsey has now said Trump ban was ‘A Business Decision’ not censorship. Pull the other one
As for Left inciting violence, arson, ‘hate crimes’… Whitehouse PR chief Psaki has been dong exactly that since last week
Wow, I’m rapidly running out of popcorn!
I’ve posted before, maybe here and maybe on other blogs:
‘The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas,’
(Carl Sagan)
Mr S. Another on a similar line would be what Ben Shaprio said which is ‘the best counter for hate speech is more free speech’.
Pcar. The Left seem to get away with a lot more in the way of violent rhetoric on social media than conservatives tend to do.
Julia. Such is the demand for ‘more popcorn’ that it’s probably cheaper to cook your own supply.
Not that Trump would necessarily take up the offer of reinstatement, but Elon Musk is right to offer. He was still POTUS when he was removed from Twitter without any objective justification other than “Orange Man Bad” and that alone is egregious.
Similarly, if Trump gets the Republican nomination in 2024, it would be ridiculous for him to be excluded from one of the largest platforms for political debate.
Whether he actually posts anything or sticks with Truth Social is another matter. Personally, if I was Trump, I’d post everything on Truth Social and then 15-minutes later have some minion repost on Twitter. That way Truth Social has primacy in Trump messaging yet the Twitter audience is not ignored.
The idea that allowing a former President of the United States to post short messages on a website might “clash with new internet safety laws” tells you everying you need to know about these new internet safety laws.
Internet safety is stopping DoS attacks and preventing malware, not silencing people you don’t like.