Is Free Speech Right Wing?
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By Keith Teare • Issue #306 • View online
Is Elon Musk a “right wing troll”? Or is he an example of real democratic thinking? How did it become “right wing” to favor free speech? Content from @ElonMusk @David Sacks @Vitalik Buterin and more
Contents
- The Battle for Twitter
- Venture Week
- All Change for Ethereum
- Web3 and the Crypto Universe
- Essay of the Week
- Startup of the Week
- Tweet of the Week
Editorial
There is almost no prior period in human history where the desire to allow free speech would be considered right-wing. Elon Musk’s pursuit of Twitter is widely believed to be driven by his desire to support open discussion in a “public square” like platform. Yet his opponents are almost entirely self-identifying as “left-wing”.
Of course, the fact that Twitter gave a permanent ban to Donald Trump, added to the likelihood of Musk rescinding that ban, which now means that anybody who wishes to see Trump’s ban continue (mainly the “left”) is an opponent of Musk. And so Musk must be “right-wing” — right?
Well, no.
There are some well-established truths in this space.
- Twitter is a private company and can do whatever it wishes within the law. Banning Trump is not illegal.
- By the same token, if Twitter decided to allow all legal points of view, that would not be illegal.
- A Twitter owned by Musk, ending all bans on individuals’ right to Tweet, would be acting entirely correctly.
As such, let’s avoid all discussions of Twitter’s rights. It can do as it wishes. That handily moves the debate to what it should do, not what it can or cannot do.
Musk believes Twitter should be an open platform for all points of view. This is similar to a human society where all points of view exist and are free to be expressed. Comparing the USA’s first amendment rights to a dictatorial society, we easily prefer the first.
Once we move into the digital realm, many who favor open societies become fans of censorship or…
