As victims of the practices of the social network giant, Twitter, we welcome the purchase of that institution by Elon Musk. We look forward to his restructuring that organization to reflect what it once was, a democratic, open to all to feel free to voice any opinion, including politics, that an individual or party felt was important and vital. Our own Jewish Voice itself, its publisher specifically, was banned from their site because his opinions and beliefs were not acceptable to those of the corporation or merely of that particular person whose job was to review all inputs. Basically, Twitter was run by censors. We and other media outlets were silenced and banned. Dangerous.
Mr. Musk’s promotion of free speech for Twitter users scares the, you now what, out of those particular progressives who want to limit speech they don’t like. We congratulate him because we understand that before this move he was the darling of the Left. But once he made his move to unload $43 billion to buy the business, he suddenly and to be more dramatic, at once, became a right wing extremist to be attacked, libeled and of course destroyed. We congratulate, support and respect him for his holding his democratic, American principles above those of fascist-like extremist censors who are endangering our democracy.
More to the point, Mr Musk now must face the scrutiny and hostility of those in power who will go after him, tooth and nail, all out to wreck his business. Twitter’s former owner Jack Dorsey, from what we now know, catered to the whims of the Left to censor anything they considered “dangerous” to their causes. For instance, the “Hunter Biden Laptop” was not to be discussed on its site. Similar to what Marc Zuckerberg, the boss at Facebook, told us all two weeks ago, the FBI “cautioned” him to censor any discussion of that sensitive topic on its site because it was “Russian disinformation” and not suitable for Americans to hear about. A falsehood! This agency which should have been outside of politics was used to manipulate free speech. As a result, the presidential election was in a sense, fixed, by the forced censorship on social media sites. Dangerous to democracy as we know it.
We, as a publication believe in the freedom of expression. We print the truth. Our news articles are a reflection of reality. Our “Letters” section is open to all our readers’ views and opinions. Our editorials are of course, statements of our feelings, interests and values. We draw a thick line between the two. But for social media giants such as Twitter and Facebook to slant and even censor the news, goes too far.
Hopefully, Mr. Musk’s brave effort to open Twitter to all is a breath of fresh air to the media. In fact, it probably saved it from self destruction. We look to Mr. Zuckerberg and his Facebook giant to also bravely tell its users that they will not be censored or warned that their input is not satisfactory for political or social norm reasons. We, at the Jewish Voice, as former victims of censorship, firmly believe that the rest of the world needs more freedom online. We remember the days of the Soviet Union’s publication, Pravda, which was the laughing stock of the world. Such censorship, partisan style reporting is dangerous to democracy. The rest of the world needs more freedom of expression in the media. And we will be the first to fight for right to free and open speech. We applaud Mr. Musk and his brave and patriotic move to open up the media to all forms of free speech.
