As I wrote earlier in 2022, I do not trust Elon Musk to be a champion of free speech. I will give him credit where credit is due - he made the Twitter Files story happen. He gave access to the emails and documents created by the former management team to trustworthy journalists like Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, and Lee Fang. Selecting them to investigate the story was also a good move on Musk’s part, because we can trust them to do actual journalism. What did we learn?
We learned that Twitter did in fact supress political views outside those espoused and approved by the Democratic party - and that suppression was applied to the conservatives and the left. But most damning, we learned that Twitter worked with the FBI, CIA, and even local police departments to censor views. Yes, you read that right: the former management of Twitter conspired with law enforcement and inteligence agencies to silence dissenting views. In doing so, they broke the law.
I am not holding my breath to see anyone at those government agencies get held accountable. Remember that Julian Assange remains locked up while the war criminals he exposed are walking around free.
Remember all of those Democrat PMC types who assured us that Twitter was a private company and could not violate the First Amendment? Turns out Twitter by so working with government agencies did in fact aid and abet violating the First Amendment. Bring their error to their attention, and our Democrat PMC friends will have one of two reactions. Either they will go silent and gaze at their shoes, or they will get feisty and accuse you of being a Musk Fanboy.
Or they may admit their error, but excuse the activities of Twitter and law enforcement as justified because Trump is living in their heads rent free; see Harris, Sam. You may remember Dr. Harris as a particularly obnoxious New Atheist, or for his defense of torture. Dr. Harris is despicable human being. But I digress …
Gazing at one’s shoes I understand. Our Democrat PMC friends were so vocal in their defense of former Twitter management, only to be shown up as total chumps now that we know Twitter’s former management did everything they denied doing. It sucks to have given a full-throated defense of people who lied to you. It’s one thing to admit you were wrong; its another to admit you got duped into joining an angry mob by liars. But looking up from one’s shoes and owning one’s mistakes is the first step on the path to healing. I also encourage our Democrat PMC friends to remember their error the next time someone tries to whip them up into a state of frothy rage.
Like the shoegazers, the feisty Democrat PMC types who go on the attack also know in their hearts that they were chumps who got played. But these guys have decided to double down. If you are following the Twitter files and are disgusted with law enforcement and intelligence getting away with breaking the law, then you must be a Musk fanboy. So there!
It reminds me of a joke my sociology professor told in class back in the 1990s to illustrate the pitfalls of becoming so invested in a conflict that everyone is either with you or against you. It goes like this. An American is walking bck to his hotel in Belfast from a pub at the height of The Troubles. Being a bit tipsy, he takes a shortcut through a dark alley. A gunman jumps out from the shadows and points a gun in the face of the American. The gunman asks, “Are you a Catholic or are you a Protestant.” The American starts to panic - there is a 50/50 chance he is about to get shot. But he thinks for a second, and tells the gunman, “I’m Jewish.” The gunman, unfazed, replies, “But are you a Catholic Jew or a Protestant Jew?”
So no, I can be in favor of free speech. I can be disgusted by the actions of government agencies breaking the law by using a private company to censor people. And I can even get a quick hit of schattenfreude-induced joy by asking a PMC shoegazer, “Whatcha looking at down there? Got something on your shoes?” I can do all of this and still not trust Elon Musk as far as I can throw him. As Bari Weiss made clear on her reporting, she knows Musk has his own reasons for releasing the documents, but that she is reporting the story based on the evidence. We should all follow her lead and do the same.
The moral of the story? Be mindful of your thoughts. When you observe yourself sliding into a “with us or against us” mentality. Pause and reconsider where you want to go.