Former Clinton Official Calls Elon’s Free-Speech Vision the ‘Dream of Every Dictator’ – Opinion

Can people believe that their freedom to express themselves is against their interests? Are they convinced that freedom is a slave scourge

In an April 12th article for The Guardian, such ideas were raised.

As you’re no doubt aware, Elon Musk has made moves toward obtaining Twitter. His idea of speech restriction is quite different to the current ones.

To put it plainly, where free speech is concerned, the billionaire’s for it.

This was a common American position, but the country appears to have undergone some changes.

This is the case with Robert Rech, University of California professor (and Clinton Labor Secretary).

“Years ago,” he writes, “pundits assumed the internet would open a new era of democracy, giving everyone access to the truth.”

In the professor’s estimation, that never occurred.

[D]Putin and Trump are two examples of how ignorant this belief was.

At least, the president was elected:

At least the US responded to Trump’s lies. Trump had 88 million Twitter followers before Twitter took him off its platform – just two days after the attack on the Capitol, which he provoked, in part, with his tweets.

That ejection was “necessary to protect American democracy,” Reich reckons.

As for Elon, he’s told “his 80 million followers all sorts of things,” in addition to denouncing Big Tech as “the de facto arbiter of free speech.”

To hear Robert tell it, the Tesla man’s a menace:

Musk advocates free speech, but in reality it’s just about power.

Robert says that Elon might try to do the devilish if he acquires Twitter.

Musk will use his influence to allow Trump to go. It is my fear that he will.

Furthermore, the Clinton-era official insists, lauded liberty online isn’t safe:

Musk has long advocated a libertarian vision of an “uncontrolled” internet. This vision is dangerous garbage. There’s no such animal, and there never will be.

“Someone has to decide on the algorithms in every platform,” he says, “how they’re designed, how they evolve, what they reveal and what they hide. Musk is able to silently exercise this kind of control on Twitter because he has the money and power necessary.

Robert is a fan of limits when it comes to ideas exchanging.

Musk never believed power came with responsibility. … During his long and storied history with Twitter, he has threatened journalists and tweeted reckless things.

It’s simple:

Musk says he wants to “free” the internet. But what he really aims to do is make it even less accountable than it is now, when it’s often impossible to discover…who is filling social media with lies, who’s poisoning our minds with pseudo-science and propaganda, and who’s deciding which versions of events go viral and which stay under wraps.

America’s journey has been short. Previously, “poisoning our minds with pseudo-science and propaganda” by way of unencumbered expression was something that might occur in any room in America. Everybody was free to express their opinions, whether they were right or wrong. Everybody else could respond the same. That’s how discussion was carried out.

These days, the nation’s “room” is largely online. And the citizenry’s been muzzled in multiple ways.

Back to the question at this article’s start — “Could people be made to believe their ability to speak is against their own interest?” — perhaps a clue comes in the form of the following:

Rebellion Ain’t What It Used to Be: College Students Protest Their Own Freedom to Unmask

Professor Worries Over What Unmasking Might Bring: ‘Freedom’

College Students Hold a ‘Die-In’ to Protest Their Own Freedom to Unmask

Either way, Robert warns against “a brave new world”:

In Musk’s vision of Twitter and the internet, he’d be the wizard behind the curtain…

In reality, that world would be dominated by the richest and most powerful people in the world, who wouldn’t be accountable to anyone for facts, truth, science or the common good.

That’s Musk’s dream. And Trump’s. And Putin’s. This is what every dictator and strongman on Earth dreams of. The rest of us would have to live in a terrifying new nightmare.

Do you want to be subject to the dictatorship of freedom? Some are, evidently, not ready for the tyranny of freedom.

MSNBC Warns That Free Speech On Twitter Would Be a ‘Danger’ to Free Speech — and It Perfectly Captures Where We Arehttps://t.co/dFDDUaBu62

— Alex Parker (@alexparker1984) April 19, 2022

-ALEX

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