Twitter is an online news and social networking site where people communicate in short messages called tweets. It attracts nearly 400 million users and last year brought in a revenue of nearly $4 billion. It is a giant in the world of communication that has a new chief stockholder in the form of another billionaire giant, Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla. The marriage will surely shake up the current world of “free speech” censorship. Musk, an outspoken advocate of the freedom of expression, who has used Twitter to openly express his views, to the dismay of many in the media, has already suggested he would work with the company to make “significant improvements,” although it’s not clear what they might be.
Conservatives have come out to urge him to permit Trump back on the platform after the former president was suspended for life, just after the January 6th riots at the U.S. Capitol. The firm blocked him using these terms: “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” It’s our opinion that this censorship of Trump during the campaign led to his loss on Election Day. In effect, this can be construed as a “rigging the election” process. It must never happen again and hopefully Mr. Musk will see to that. We feel that anyone, not using vulgarity or threats of violence should be permitted to use this messaging platform. It makes it more interesting and opens people’s minds to the ideas of others. That’s liberty and the freedom of speech. Sadly, most of our media leans to the Left and gives an unfair advantage to one side. This has to change.
Aside from politics, we would like to see some changes made in the Twitter process to make it a force for free speech. Firstly, do away with the censorship on this platform that is now in play. Do not take down submitted material that Twitter deems controversial. Rather, it’s better to err on the side of leaving questionable writings up and the reader judge. And have a better appeals process for banned accounts. Don’t take sides in culture wars. Let the subscribers fight it out. And ignore the demands from politicians and government officials who call for content removal. They are most always biased. Twitter should not be the judge and jury for “misinformation.” Let it all hang out for the readers to determine what’s fake news.
Now, getting back to Elon Musk and his significance in becoming a major shareholder in Twitter. His purchase comes soon after the billionaire criticized the firm for a lack of commitment to free speech. “Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles, fundamentally undermines democracy,’ he tweeted March 26. We must agree. And as an example of Musk’s statement, Twitter blocked the sharing of links to a NY Post article disclosing the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop. A major game changer in the election of Joe Biden as President. Although the mass media, led by the NYT and WAPO labeled the story as Russian disinformation, they have now admitted it was accurate. A huge mistake. We hope that Mr. Musk puts a new face on Twitter to make it the shining light of free speech in the media. We are with him.
