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The richest man in the world just fired a shot for one of the bedrock principals of the United States, free speech. We have witnessed the massive censorship of big tech in the last few years. We can look from the lab leak theory on covid to the Hunter Biden laptop. We also see that Putin still has an account, but Trump is banned. Twitter has even banned the New York Post.
What we are watching is big tech actively involved in propaganda. This is the United States, not a repressive, authoritative country. We cherish freedom. What companies like Twitter are doing is not only repressing the free exchange of ideas, but they are massively influencing the outcomes of policy as well as elections. They are the public square, and as such, have a duty to adhere to the principals of the First Amendment. There are a couple of documentaries out there that illustrate this point very well. These types of actions should appall every American.
Freedom of speech is wonderful. The very idea that some speech is offensive is fine. You have no right to be free from offense. It is impossible to have a serious discussion about issues unless all voices are heard.
Just because something offends some people, it does not make the point they illustrated wrong. This very point is where many stray from critical thinking while committing an egregious logical fallacy. It is worth repeating, just because you find some speech offensive, it does not make the points brought up wrong.
We need to be teaching these values to our children. What we have been doing is teaching them to act with violence to things that they find offensive. We have created safe spaces as well as labeled speech as violent. College campuses that once were valued as bastions of free speech will shut down any speech they deem as bad. Words can't hurt you. People can choose to be affected by the words, and many often do, but words alone won't do any harm. Strong coping skills as well as people learning about self-worth is far more important that safe spaces.
Finally, Musk's hostile takeover of Twitter shows us hypocrisy. Hard core leftists are attacking Tesla and threatening to leave Twitter.
The message from the left has been electric cars are the future we need. Don't worry if you can't afford them, buy them anyway. Now they would love to destroy their largest innovator. It also shows us that the left is not interested in free speech, just the promotion of their speech.
In their minds, every other person should be silenced but them and their ideals. This is not what the founders envisioned and is in fact what they were against.
Jay Owens
Waterford