The enemies of free speech have relentlessly targeted Elon Musk since he acquired Twitter, rebranded it to X, and did away with the politically driven censorship that was once rife on the platform. The Australian government has been trying to meddle with what its citizens can and cannot post on the social media site, and, most recently, X was shut down in Brazil by an overzealous judge. Still, one would have thought that here in the United States – the last bastion of free speech on the planet – Musk would be on safe ground. That's not the case, however, and one political operative even went as far as to call for the billionaire’s arrest.
Robert Reich served as Bill Clinton's Labor secretary. He's no moderate, and he's not a fan of the First Amendment. In particular, he is not at all happy with Elon Musk, who has become one of the most well-known advocates for free speech on the Internet. But people like Reich want social media platforms censored, filtered, and regulated so that only news and opinions approved by progressives and globalists are disseminated to the general public.
“Musk wants to ‘free’ the Internet,” Reich once wrote. “But what he really aims to do is make it even less accountable than it is now.” One hardly needs to read between the lines to understand what the man is implying here: Free speech should no longer be a universal right. Instead, people must be held accountable for what they say and write. But accountable to whom? That's the scary part.
The Pursuit of Elon Musk
Another prominent advocate for free speech is Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. Turley, who is a long way indeed from being a right-wing “extremist,” recently reminded us of the perilous state of our constitutional and, quite frankly, human right to free speech. As he recounted, Reich went on yet another enraged rant against Elon Musk, writing that the entrepreneur “may be the richest man in the world. He may own one of the world's most influential social media platforms. But that doesn't mean we're powerless to stop him.” Stop him from doing what, exactly? Reich went on, “Regulators around the world should threaten Musk with arrest if he doesn't stop disseminating lies and hate on X.”
No objective observer could reasonably claim that Musk has ever disseminated lies and hate on his social media platform nor produce evidence to back up the allegation. He has simply shared news and expressed opinions that some leftists associated with and in the current US administration don't like. And for that, he should be arrested?
Meanwhile, another Elon Musk story that has gone largely under the radar – and is again brought to us by Turley, writing for The Hill – is the lawsuit brought by the X and Tesla boss against Media Matters. The progressive activist site has been waging a campaign to drive advertisers away from X. One of Media Matter's tactics was to publish a report that claimed some advertisements from major corporations appeared on X alongside pro-Nazi posts. Elon Musk is accusing Media Matters of manipulating the algorithms to create these pairings of corporate ads with pro-Nazi content. A federal judge recently ruled that Musk's lawsuit can go ahead, and the leftist media outlet may well find itself in hot water.
Without free speech, there is no democracy. America is in grave danger because the very people who portray themselves as defenders of democracy are the ones behind an apparently growing campaign to end free speech in this country. It's not only about Elon Musk and his social media platform. The whole of America – and, indeed, the world – is facing a dark future so long as people who share Reich’s philosophy continue to push for the suppression of the most fundamental of rights.
Liberty Vault: The Bill of Rights
