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Elon Musk ,Twitter, and Free Speech

Elon Musk closed his deal to buy Twitter. The purchase announcement in April produced a storm of fears from liberals- Democracy was under assault, fake news would be spread, people of color and vulnerable groups would be harmed. Liberals in particular believe Musk's purchase will infringe upon free speech rather than further it. 

What does 'free speech' even mean in America? What does it mean on Twitter?

Our Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, but this is not absolute. There are  limitations based on the time, place, and manner of speech; ie, you can't shout 'fire' in a crowded theater. You cannot make threats, slander or libel, post copyrighted or classified information, trade secrets, or a host of other items. You cannot post hate speech.

The constitutional guarantee of free speech applies only to government vis-a-vis citizens. It has no meaning for a private company operating an internet platform. Twitter has terms of service to which subscribers must adhere. While these generally follow federal speech laws, a private company may enforce any limitations on speech it wishes.

Twitter was founded as an electronic public square, a place where users could interact with people of differing views. There was virtually no censorship; views were sometimes extreme, or expressed with hostility. As an open place for discussion, issues of free speech and site moderation became an important Twitter topic in themselves.

The controversy is over misinformation, disinformation, and fake news. Some web sites are virtually nothing except fake news (One America Network is one such site). Others, like The Babylon Bee, are satire sites rather than fake news; they exist to poke fun at current events rather than to deliberately mislead readers. There is broad agreement that disinformation should be kept off public platforms. What about misinformation, satire, and strongly held opinions contrary to generally held public beliefs? Are they permissible on a site dedicated to open public discussion?

A concept underlying these questions is the Overton Window. This is the range of ideas and policies that are publicly acceptable for discussion, sometimes called the window of discourse. Ideas are on a spectrum from unthinkable to policy. For example, legal marijuana went from unthinkable to radical to publically acceptable and now is policy in several states. Should an open discussion platform like Twitter allow discussion of unthinkable ideas?

Prior to 2020, virtually all ideas not banned by federal law could be broached on Twitter. Beginning that year, however, certain types of posts began to be taken down, their posters suspended or banned. Most of these were about election fraud, covid vaccines, and covid origins, largely conservative issues, and their banning seen as a politically based censorship. Are liberals censoring conservatives?

This long and superficially careful article says Twitter users have far more conservative interactions, but this is misleading, however, as the on-line community is distinctly more conservative than the general population, and Trump was by far the largest topic of conversation, one in which liberals and conservatives alike engage. Interactions also say nothing about silencing and banning. The silencing of a few critical sources and individuals has an outsized effect on overall content for a site. Here is a brief summary of significant silencing and banning events. 

All these actions have been done under the terms of service. These are interpreted by staff at the various social media platforms, and those staffs are heavily liberal. Opinions that disagree with the prevailing beliefs on vaccination, or the 2020 election, have led to platform suspensions. Other opinions have been speciously labeled hate speech, leading to bannings.

Such censorships may have been popular with the staff of Twitter, and with liberals, but it perverted the concept of Twitter as an open forum. Large portions of the US population believe covid vaccines are dangerous and/or ineffective, or that the 2020 election was manipulated. These ideas are not out of the Overton Window of acceptable public discussion; indeed, they are among the issues many want to discuss. But they are outside of the values of company staff and the liberal mainstream, thus labeled disinformation and fake news, and banned on that basis.

Now, in the wake of Musk's purchase of Twitter, we learned how these things happened. Musk fired Twitter's CEO, CFO, its head of legal policy, and general counsel almost literally immediately upon completing the purchase. They were escorted out of the building, implying malfeasance. It turns out the head of legal policy was solely responsible for the permanent banning of Trump and other conservatives. Was this a reason Musk tried to cancel his purchase? 

The liberals fear free speech will mean toleration of hate speech. Musk himself said that would not happen in his statement after purchase. Here it is. He overtly calls for open dialogue. Musk said Twitter will welcome all, be a place where you can "choose your desired experience according to your preferences". This sounds just like the older liberal answer to media censorship- if you don't like what you're hearing or seeing, you can turn it off. 

The classic view is that the best weapon against false speech is more speech, not censorship. It is to me very revealing that liberals are upset that views with which they disagree might get more air time. Are they afraid they cannot combat them? As the Marquis de Sade said in 'Quills'- "Is your God so weak that he cannot stand in opposition to mine?" The US is about to see what truly open discussion is like. That doesn't mean advocation of violence or threats, or other appropriately illegal speech. It means that everyone's ideas get a hearing, and rejected or accepted. Everyone's- space aliens, anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists. Let those who have silenced these ideas present their evidence and arguments, and the public will decide, not the Twitter staff or an attorney. That is what open discussion and a free society mean.

You don't win arguments by silencing your opponents. You win with the quality and desirability of your ideas in an open market of ideas. Twitter is going to be that place again.

Ted

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