Elon Musk has something of a point when it comes
to social media, censorship and freedom of speech.
Now I disagree with him on how this plays out in many ways.
However, is there a problem with regards to de-platforming
certain figures or certain arguments because
people don't like them yes there is.
If you look at the Hunter Biden story
and how that was erased from Twitter and how it
even temporarily lost the platform for the new York Post.
I don't like it it's a right-wing rag as we'd say
but it's still a newspaper and in this instance they've
done some good journalism and they've got a story.
But because that was a story which people in silicon valley
didn't like because it would bolster Donald Trump,
who they don't like I don't like him either,
they suppressed it they silenced it.
Now I think this is bad not because I'm a fan of Donald Trump
but because these things inevitably come out
and there is already a huge level of distrust
in both politicians and the media.
And if you have people like Twitter suppressing stories
like the Hunter Biden laptop that only comes out anyway
and it only makes distrust even worse.
And that is exactly the set of conditions on which
someone like Donald Trump or I think
maybe even worse in the future thrives on.
You have to have a balanced playing field you have to have media outlets
which are discernibly fair to both sides you have to have media
outlets which go out of their way to give
a platform to arguments they might not like why because you can't be sure of what you think unless
you're stress testing the very arguments that you're putting forward now how do you do that
well you put forward the opposite argument the problem is we have a media environment where
people don't want to be subject to the opposite argument they want to hear more of the same now
i can understand that to an extent in a newspaper or a tv channel because look if the washington
post says one thing you can always read the new york times or the boston globe or you can go to
another media outlet and find a different point of view with social media networks it's different
because that's the town square that's not a single outlet where you'll see competing positions and
points of view that's where everybody goes to talk and if you silence one particular argument or one
particular person you've got to have a damn good reason to do so and the truth is that elon musk is
right the threshold in terms of censoring certain people in certain arguments has been far too low
with twitter we crossed something of a rubicon when a former president of the united states is
blocked from a social media website and i'm sure some people disagree but it to
me is setting up the conditions for the utter polarization of politics it's basically saying
that man isn't going to be on twitter or on facebook or on youtube or wherever well what if
he wins the republican primary what if he wins the presidential election in 2024 what's that saying
to all the people that vote for him you don't have a voice either we decide whether or not you have
representation in the media i don't think that's wise and what we see with trump time and time
again from the media we saw it before 2016 where everything he said was sort of marked by the media
they gave him non-stop coverage because of this kind of guerrilla marketing which he's so expert
at fusing politics and celebrity they got that wrong and now with the censorship they're getting
it wrong too they've completely overcompensated what you need to do with political figures
like trump is robustly criticize the political arguments they're making that's the one thing that
the u.s media failed to do and i think removing a platform on social media isn't solving the problem
i think it's making it worse i'm sympathetic to many of the criticisms about elon musk on
twitter and i don't think the world's wealthiest person should own a social network i think this is
probably the hallmark of how backwards we've gone as a society however when i see people who work at
twitter saying that they're vomiting because this guy's buying a company or they're going to leave
or users saying i'm going to leave the platform because of the owner this isn't a workers co-op
this is a commercial profit-seeking business i don't quite understand what their misgivings
are and twitter is not acting in the public interest it's acting to make profits for people
for all kinds of reprehensible people you've got the saudis are these good people do you really
think elon musk is worse than those people because i'm no fan of elon musk and i can assure you he's
not he's not as bad as a saudi royal family so i think some perspective is needed and the idea
that you're going to leave twitter because you don't like the owner i just find strange
but in a way that's all liberals are left with right because historically it would have been
trying to cancel him well you can't cancel the guy when he owns the platform which shows the
limits of that critique of power now i believe in freedom of speech why was because i'm a socialist
and i recognize that today most people in britain the united states and europe across the world
don't agree with my views on public ownership eradicating poverty on how we redistribute
wealth the only way that's going to change is if people are persuaded that they're wrong and that
socialist arguments are right but they can't be persuaded unless you have freedom of expression
and freedom of speech that's why freedom of speech is a fundamental principle for the left
which it should defend now elon musk says he loves freedom of speech too to extend he does i'm sure
he would want a wide and vast range of people on social media making all range of arguments but
the group of people he's not fond of when it comes to freedom of speech
is workers organizing particularly in his factories zillion tesla or spacex or heaven
forbid if twitter workers start organizing for better working conditions and higher pay
he'll want them out on their ear so freedom of speech changes depending on who you ask if it's
on a culture wars issue and you're mocking a group of people which historically have got a really bad
deal it's freedom of speech i don't agree with it they can say it but the second it comes to workers
saying well we want better paying conditions mr mask you're worth 260 billion dollars
you have these huge companies we would want a bigger share in the wealth that we all create
no thank you so when we talk about free speech we have to listen to the person who's demanding it
what their background is and and what their material interests are when they talk about
it they don't often like free speech when it has concrete implications for their own wealth
and this is why the left is a champion of free speech because we know that it's critical to work
as organizing to marginalize minorities having a louder voice in broader social conversations and
we know that social progress can't happen without it i think one of the tragedies of the last 10
years is allowing free speech to be something of a wrecking ball for the right somehow we've ended up
in this bizarre world where piers morgan and elon musk are the avatars of free speech the minute
piers morgan hears something he disagrees with or doesn't like he has to waltz out of a tv studio
he can't take criticism but he loves free speech well he loves free speech which he agrees with so
the left has to defend this and it has to win back that concept of free speech from these charlatans
frankly who either don't know what it means or deploy it in highly instrumental self-interested
ways freedom of speech is not easy and freedom of expression is an important right you can't have
effective political debate without freedom of speech it underpins so much else you can't address
solutions you can't overcome challenges without debate so there's a real obvious continuum there
free speech debate problem solving and politics that problem solving is is pointless now some
of the sort of answers around this is that while elon musk if he becomes the owner of twitter he
can guarantee freedom of speech and in many ways these are reminiscent of the arguments that you
would see in the 18th century about an enlightened despot we can guarantee the rights and freedoms
of everyone if we have this figure a monarch above everyone else and they will allow the rules of the
game to be fair they'll give a level playing field the rule of law will apply equally to everyone
now in the 21st century we know that enlightened despotism didn't work if you wanted the guarantee
of the rule of law if you wanted a society run in the interest the majority that necessitated
democracy government by the people of the people for the people looking at twitter it seems that we
have similar debates going on right now as to what we saw with 18th century politics people look at
musk as this enlightened despot and he's the one that's going to solve the problems but the idea
that the rights we all enjoy and need to create a good society will be guaranteed by a single person
well look we've got 250 years of that there's no good examples of it working so we need to start
thinking more broadly about how we regulate these systems in the public interest and
and make them accountable to democratic oversight i think that's the best guarantor of freedom of
speech and freedom of expression and it's far more likely to succeed in the long term than
relying on one person there's a reason why elon musk has just bought twitter there's
a reason why rupert murdoch owns the sun these people want media which advances their interests
now the only way we can build a society where working people have politics in their interests
is by having media outlets of our own double dan news has done extraordinary work in the last few
years on a shoestring i can't recommend them enough support them on their patreon