Tag Archive for: elon musk

For Elon Musk and His Disciples, Mars Is Heaven

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Auguste Meyrat: The Tesla founder is one of the richest and most celebrated men in the world, yet he also has to be one of the loneliest and saddest, bereft of community, meaning, and love.

In terms of revolutionizing the world and pushing humanity forward, Elon Musk has easily been one of the most consequential figures in the last decade. Not only did he make electric vehicles profitable, but he somehow also did the same with rocket science. At the moment, Musk is busy developing self-driving cars, neural transmitters, and high-functioning androids.

Thus, it is right and just that an acclaimed biographer like Walter Isaacson tells the Musk story. The example of a self-made visionary overcoming obstacles is nothing short of inspiring. More importantly, his experience as a member of Generation X (those between 45 and 60) is representative of many in his age group.

Naturally, the biography emphasizes Musk’s technical genius and indomitable will. At so many junctures in his life, Musk drives both himself and his employees to do amazing things, like produce thousands of Teslas in an impossibly short timeframe or design a reusable rocket that can safely transport astronauts to the international space station.

These great feats, however, often come at great human cost, with Musk and his crew often hitting the breaking points of sanity and emotional stability. In such moments, Musk goes into “demon mode,” brutally criticizing and firing employees, denouncing and mocking the competition, and desperately looking to distract himself from a deep internal darkness (usually through work).

Although Musk and his biographer will attribute these manic episodes to his undiagnosed Aspergers Syndrome or his commitment to greatness, a Christian would rightly conclude that almost all of his personal turmoil stems from the absence of a spiritual life.

Musk is one of the richest and most celebrated men in the world, yet he also has to be one of the loneliest and saddest, bereft of community, meaning, and love. At one point, he told admirers: “I’d be careful what you wish for. I’m not sure how many people would actually like to be me. The amount I torture myself is next level, frankly.”

Like many of his generation, Musk, 52, grew up in a broken household. He had a callous, emotionally abusive father and a vain, passive mother. Inevitably, they divorced as their children reached adolescence. Musk technically attended a Christian school in South Africa, but his family never went to church. Instead of learning how to pray and cultivate virtue, he learned how to fight and write programs. Upon experiencing “existential depression” as a teenager, he found solace in reading The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and playing video games.

This background made him tough, resourceful, and well-positioned to thrive in America in the 90s and 00s, but it also made him temperamental and restless. Again, like many in his generation, he filled the hole in his heart with an addiction to work and video games. This led him to make his first fortune with Zip2, then another with PayPal, then another with SpaceX, and then another with Tesla. Each time, he would launch a project “surge,” mandating long hours, maximizing efficiency, berating employees, and constantly taking risks.

Rather than being motivated by fame or fortune, Musk was driven by something much greater: faith. Except that the faith he embraced was the nebulous idea of human “progress,” not organized religion. Judging from his comments, his idea of heaven includes cyborg humans, friendly non-woke robots, spaceships going to Mars, and gloriously high birthrates. It’s a vision somewhat like Ray Bradbury’s short story, “Mars Is Heaven!,” but without the tragic ending.

Despite his uncompromising disposition, Musk has disciples who look up to him as a kind of messiah. As one might imagine, those close to Musk have the same outlook on life as he does. They go “hardcore” with their duties, dispense with personal attachments, and attempt to do the impossible. In a revealing exchange between Musk’s longtime employees, one of them admitted, “I was burned out [working at Tesla]. But after nine months [elsewhere], I was bored, so I called my boss and begged him to let me come back. I decided I’d rather be burned out than bored.”

Somewhere up in heaven, Blaise Pascal, who once wrote that “All man’s troubles come from not knowing how to sit still in one room,” is likely shaking his head and sighing at these poor souls. While they have applied their remarkable brainpower to things that Musk proudly declares are “far cooler than whatever is the second coolest,” they have sacrificed the very thing that makes them human in the first place: relationships, contentment, and purpose.

At what point can people finally settle down and rest in their accomplishments? When does the constant striving end? What would have to happen to Elon Musk or his disciples for people to realize that this is not a good model for a rich and fulfilling life? If constant work is the way to heaven, does that mean retirement is the way to hell? Was Ayn Rand right after all that our world is lifted by atlases and fountainheads simply being their brilliant selves?

Put simply, the hustle never stops. Of course, it could be worse. One of Musk’s many envious opponents in business or government could take him down and impose on all of us a drab, regressive police state that opposes human achievement and independence. This possibility has made most conservatives generally supportive of Musk who at least believes in free speech, industry, free markets, and humanity.

It’s important to realize, however, that human life could be made better, yet Musk will not be the world’s savior. The real progress to be made by society does not reside in rockets and robots, but in community and contemplation. True, these goods can coincide and complement one another, but the former should not overtake the latter. Before man was made for work, he was made for love.

Let’s hope that Elon Musk and the many who share his post-Christian faith in technology and themselves will come to realize this before they burn out for good.

You may also enjoy:

Michael Pakaluk The World and Its Lockdowns

Brad Miner Godless Space

AUTHOR

Auguste Meyrat

Auguste Meyrat is an English teacher in the Dallas area. He holds an MA in Humanities and an MEd in Educational Leadership. He is the senior editor of The Everyman and has written essays for The Federalist, The American Thinker, and The American Conservative as well as the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture.

EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing column is republished with permission, © 2024 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

Elon Musk And His Businesses Faced Multi-Agency Crackdown From Biden Admin In 2023

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In the first full year of Elon Musk’s ownership of Twitter — now X, President Joe Biden’s administration repeatedly targeted the billionaire and his companies, taking regulatory action against them throughout 2023.

Several agencies under the Biden administration launched investigations and instituted other consequential reviews into Musk’s businesses. Entities including the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Department of Justice (DOJ), Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took action against them in 2023 as Musk ran X.

“I think that Elon Musk’s cooperation and/or technical relationships with other countries … is worthy of being looked at, whether or not he is doing anything inappropriate, I’m not suggesting that,” Biden said in November 2022 shortly after Musk purchased Twitter. “I’m suggesting that [it’s] … worth being looked at … that’s all I’ll say.”

Musk and his companies have since been in the administration’s crosshairs.

“I don’t think the whole administration has it out for me,” Musk stated in September on the All-In Podcast. “But I think there’s probably aspects of the administration … or aspects of interests aligned with President Biden who probably do not wish good things for me.”

Most recently, the FCC decided to rescind a $885 million award to Musk’s SpaceX for its Starlink to provide fast broadband internet service to over 640,000 homes and businesses in rural areas in December. This was an example of the Biden administration’s “regulatory harassment” of Musk, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr alleged in a statement dissenting from the decision.

“Doesn’t make sense,” Musk posted in response to the rejection. “Starlink is the only company actually solving rural broadband at scale!”

The FCC reached its decision because Starlink failed to show it could meet the requirements to provide the services with funds from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, it asserted. However, Carr says this is a standard that has never been used before.

“[The FCC’s decision] is belied by the fact that the U.S. government is entering into multimillion dollar contracts with Elon Musk, with Starlink, for high-speed connectivity when it matters the most — for military operations and otherwise — so it simply isn’t credible for the FCC to be claiming that they have concerns about this technology when other components of the federal government are leaning in so heavily,” Carr told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo in an interview.

Moreover, the DOJ filed a complaint against SpaceX  in August for alleged discrimination based on its hiring policies, according to court documents. The DOJ accused SpaceX of discrimination against individuals seeking asylum and refugees by not hiring them.

“US law requires at least a green card to be hired at SpaceX, as rockets are considered advanced weapons technology,” Musk posted on June 20. However, this is not true, according to the complaint.

The FAA blocked SpaceX from launching its Starship rocket until it completed 63 corrective actions following it bursting into flames in April, according to the agency on Sept. 8.

“Starship is ready to launch, awaiting FAA license approval,” Musk had posted on Sept. 5. He also posted a checklist of SpaceX’s progress in completing the corrective actions on Sept. 10.

The Fish and Wildlife Services (FWS), which is under the Department of the Interior, also held up the Starship launch, Bloomberg reported on Sept. 18. It had not started its official review of the April explosion at that point, which was necessary for the FAA to finalize its approval.

FWS found some charred crabs and quail eggs shortly after the April launch, according to Bloomberg.

“Once the Service reviews FAA’s final biological assessment and deems it complete, consultation will be re-initiated and we will have 135 days to issue a final biological assessment,” FWS public affairs specialist Aubry Buzek told Bloomberg. “At any time FAA and the Service can agree to extend that time if for some reason we need to gather further information or new information is presented.”

The FAA eventually approved Starship to launch on Nov. 17 and it launched the following day, according to Reuters.

When Musk received pushback in November for replying to an alleged antisemitic post about Western Jews advocating for “dialectical hatred against whites” by stating, “You have said the actual truth,” the White House joined in on the criticism.

“We condemn this abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate in the strongest terms, which runs against our core values as Americans,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates stated.

Furthermore, the DOJ and SEC are investigating Musk’s electric car company Tesla’s alleged allocation of funds toward a covert project, rumored to be the construction of a glass house for Musk, The Wall Street Journal reported in August.

“I’m not building a house of any kind, let alone a glass one!” Musk posted on X.

“[Musk] became a critic of the [Biden] administration and exposed the censorship regime,” Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie stated in September. “The DOJ has opened not one but two investigations of Elon Musk … To the American public, these look like mafia tactics.”

The EEOC sued Tesla for alleged racism in September, according to a lawsuit announced by the federal agency. Black staff allegedly dealt with many instances of racist abuse and derogatory slurs at the company’s manufacturing facilities in Fremont, California, from at least 2015 until 2023.

“Black employees at Tesla’s Fremont, California manufacturing facilities have routinely endured racial abuse, pervasive stereotyping, and hostility as well as epithets such as variations of the N-word, ‘monkey,’ ‘boy,’ and ‘black b*tch,’” according to the EEOC. “Slurs were used casually and openly in high-traffic areas and at worker hubs. Black employees regularly encountered graffiti, including variations of the N-word, swastikas, threats, and nooses, on desks and other equipment, in bathroom stalls, within elevators, and even on new vehicles rolling off the production line.”

The SEC sued Musk in October to compel him to testify in the commission’s investigation into him for his purchase of Twitter in late 2022, according to Reuters. The commission is looking into whether his public statements and filings pertaining to the purchase were deceptive.

Despite Musk’s claims to the contrary, the SEC denies this is harassment in court documents.

The FTC has investigated X’s alleged lack of adherence to a 2022 administrative order pertaining to privacy, and depositions “revealed a chaotic environment at the company that raised serious questions about whether and how Musk and other leaders were ensuring X Corp.’s compliance,” according to a September DOJ filing.

The FTC has also issued over 350 requests for information from X since Musk took over, including the company’s collaborative work with journalists, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio asserted in July. Musk enabled journalists to publish  internal documents from X which preceded his takeover, called the “Twitter Files,” revealing that Biden campaign staff flagged content related to his son Hunter for the platform to suppress in December 2022.

“You’ve asked for every single communication relating to Elon Musk, not communications that he just sent to someone or communications he received, but any time he’s mentioned,” Jordan said. “More than harassment, that seems like almost an obsession.”

The White House, X, Tesla, SpaceX, FCC, DOJ, FAA and FWC did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

The FTC, SEC and EEOC declined to comment.

AUTHOR

JASON COHEN

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Org That Defunds Conservatives Tries To

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The Elon Musk Interview that Nearly Broke the Internet

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The prestige press has its knickers in a twist over Elon Musk’s interview at the annual DealBook Summit in New York City last week — an interview that nearly broke the internet.

Lasting an hour and a half in total, it was five minutes of the tech tycoon’s interchange with New York Times journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin that really got newsrooms up in arms, in which Musk told the corporations staging a boycott against X (formerly Twitter) to “go f*** yourself.”

And no wonder they are upset: the industry pushing the boycott hardest is the corporate press, with behemoth media conglomerates Comcast, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery, along with cable networks NBC and CBS, leading the charge against Musk’s free speech platform.

“If somebody’s going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go f*** yourself,” Musk told a stunned audience at Manhattan’s Lincoln Centre.

“Is that clear? I hope it is,” he said, adding, “Hey, Bob, if you’re in the audience,” in a taunt aimed at Disney CEO Bob Iger.

Talk about poking the bear.

The X boycott picked up steam after left-wing media “watchdog” Media Matters published a hit piece against the platform last month claiming that X was placing ads for major corporations alongside Nazi-related content.

It was later revealed that Media Matters had deliberately curated its X feed to find rare instances of ads being placed next to the unsavoury content, while portraying such scenarios as commonplace for users.

In response, Musk filed a “thermonuclear” defamation lawsuit against Media Matters, arguing the company had acted deceptively in order to “drive advertisers from the platform and destroy X Corp”.

Claims that X represents a particular haven for antisemitism have been undermined by a recent survey showing that both TikTok and Instagram are much more likely to influence users towards antisemitic views.

Spending 30 minutes a day on TikTok increases the chances somebody holds antisemitic or anti-Israel views by 17 percent, in comparison with 6 percent for Instagram and 2 percent for X, according to the survey’s findings.

Indeed, the recent focus on antisemitic content on X provides more pretext than context for the establishment’s fiery wrath against Elon Musk.

Shortly after purchasing the platform, the new CEO levelled the editorial playing field by removing corporate journalists’ once-privileged identifying checkmarks, instead offering the blue badge to paying subscribers.

Musk also worked closely with exiled journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss on the Twitter Files to expose corruption in the media and US intelligence communities that saw the 2020 presidential election tipped in Joe Biden’s favour.

He has likewise overseen a substantial rewrite of Twitter’s user rules to better differentiate hateful conduct from honest dissent and introduced the “Community Notes” feature which allows X users to collaboratively fact-check news content — both moves that have angered woke gatekeepers.

While Twitter was once the platform of choice among corporate journalists, Musk has effectively pried it free of the establishment media’s stranglehold, allowing entrenched narratives to be challenged and information to flow freely — which surely always were some of the internet’s most redeeming features.

Far from being a kind of final-straw response to Elon Musk from an exasperated establishment, the recent boycott of X is only the latest in a long series of mainstream missives aimed at punishing the billionaire for his defence of free speech.

Since Musk bought X, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sued him over the purchase; the Federal Trade Commission has demanded internal X documents; Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) has sued SpaceX for not hiring refugees to work on its secret rocket technology; the DOJ and SEC have opened investigations against Tesla over an alleged misuse of funds to build a glass house; the DOJ has opened a criminal investigation against Tesla over its self-driving cars; and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has sued Tesla over alleged workplace harassment.

Is all of it just coincidence? Or payback?

Of course, billionaires shouldn’t be exempt from accountability. But nor should defenders of free speech be driven into the ground by the powers that be simply for defending free speech.

For me, the most powerful words of Musk’s interview were not his expletives, which I personally found distasteful.

They were the following: “What I see all over the place is people who care about looking good while doing evil.”

Feigning outrage at antisemitism on X while turning a blind eye to it on other platforms? Claiming to care about the truth while launching an all-out attack on one of its staunchest defenders?

There could hardly be better examples of “looking good while doing evil”.

With friends like those, Elon hardly needs enemies, and he likely is better off without them.

AUTHOR

Kurt Mahlburg is a writer and author, and an emerging Australian voice on culture and the Christian faith. He has a passion for both the philosophical and the personal, drawing on his background as a graduate architect, a primary school teacher, a missionary, and a young adult pastor.

EDITORS NOTE: This MERCATOR column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Elon Musk To Visit Israel Next Week

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Officials in Israel are preparing for a visit by Elon Musk next week.

He is expected to meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Herzog.

He is also planning on visiting the scenes of the Hamas massacre in Southern Israel

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: 80 Percent of Americans Back Israel

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©2023. All rights reserved.

Elon Musk’s X Sues Media Matters

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X, formerly known as Twitter, sued Media Matters for America in federal court for defamation Monday.

The social media site accuses the left-wing media watchdog of manufacturing images showing advertisements from major corporations alongside posts made by white supremacists and neo-Nazis in the 15-page complaint filed in the United States District court for the Northern District of Texas. Musk threatened to sue Media Matters in a Saturday post on X, following the group’s Thursday release of a report that prompted an exodus of advertisers, including Disney, Apple, Paramount and IBM.

“Looking to portray X’s social networking platform as being dominated by ‘white nationalist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories,’ Media Matters knowingly and maliciously manufactured side-by-side images depicting advertisers’ posts on X Corp.’s social media platform beside Neo-Nazi and white-nationalist fringe content and then portrayed these manufactured images as if they were what typical X users experience on the platform,” the lawsuit says.

X detailed how it believed the left-wing non-profit got the screenshots used in the report in the lawsuit.

“Media Matters accessed accounts that had been active for at least 30 days, bypassing X’s ad filter for new users,” the lawsuit says. “Media Matters then exclusively followed a small subset of users consisting entirely of accounts in one of two categories: those known to produce extreme, fringe content, and accounts owned by X’s big-name advertisers. The end result was a feed precision-designed by Media Matters for a single purpose: to produce side-by-side ad/content placements that it could screenshot in an effort to alienate advertisers. But this activity still was not enough to create the pairings of advertisements and content that Media Matters aimed to produce.”

“Media Matters therefore resorted to endlessly scrolling and refreshing its unrepresentative, hand-selected feed, generating between 13 and 15 times more advertisements per hour than viewed by the average X user repeating this inauthentic activity until it finally received pages containing the result it wanted: controversial content next to X’s largest advertisers’ paid posts,” the lawsuit continued.

Journalist Michael Shellenberger, who previously reported on the Twitter files, said in a Monday afternoon post that he was unable to replicate what Media Matters claimed it observed on Twitter.

“Public attempted to reproduce Media Matters’ methods to see if we found ads next to the content in question. We created an account and followed eleven of the neo-Nazi accounts in Media Matters’ report starting yesterday, November 19,” Shellenberger posted. “After refreshing both X’s “For You” page and “Following” page more than ten times and scrolling through the timeline each time, we did not observe ads next to white nationalist or pro-Nazi content.”

“We followed more extremist accounts and repeated this process after following thirty accounts. Still, we did not find ads on the timeline,” Shellenberger continued. “We also opened each account’s page and did not observe ads there. Nor did we find ads under the replies to their posts.”

Chris Pavlovski, CEO of Rumble, a free-speech competitor to YouTube, spoke out Monday.

“X is not alone,” Pavlovski posted on X. “I can also confirm that Media Matters has purposely misrepresented Rumble. Their dishonesty warrants an immediate investigation at the highest levels (hint, @SpeakerJohnson
& @Jim_Jordan), and I’ll bring the receipts.”

Pavlovski attached an image with a lengthier statement to the post on X.

Media Matters did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

AUTHOR

HAROLD HUTCHISON

Reporter.

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POST ON X:

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Did You Approve Hidden State Censorship?’: Musk Calls Out Schiff Over Twitter Files Revelations

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Elon, FAFO: Israel Will Use All Its Means to Prevent the Use of Starlink Satellites in Gaza

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It came as a shock when Elon Musk announced he would provide wireless communication to Gaza (invariably Hamas): Elon Hamas Collab: Elon Negotiating With Hamas Terrorists To Provide WIFI

Israel is still counting body parts and lack of WIFI is …… a humanitarian crisis?

Disgusting.

“Israel will use all its means to prevent the use of Starlink satellites in Gaza”

By: CTech, October 28, 2023:

Elon Musk announced that he would allow humanitarian organizations in Gaza to use the satellite system – after Israel cut off communications to effectively fight the terrorist organization Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip

Billionaire Elon Musk announced on Saturday that he is willing to operate SpaceX’s satellite internet system Starlink in the Gaza Strip area for the benefit of aid organizations. “Starlink will support connectivity to internationally recognized aid organizations in Gaza”, Musk posted on his X (formerly Twitter) account. However, once Starlink is introduced into this area, it may not be possible to deny the terrorist organization Hamas access to the system. This introduction could potentially provide significant assistance to the terrorist organization in its conflict with Israel.

On Friday, in preparation for a major ground incursion into the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched an operation targeting internet and media infrastructure in the region. The primary objective of this action was to disrupt communication among Hamas operatives, hindering their ability to prepare, coordinate, and respond to Israeli military activities within the Gaza Strip. While this move raises concerns about potential harm to civilians, the military viewpoint justifies it as a strategic blockade aimed at safeguarding the lives of Israeli soldiers and enhancing the effectiveness of the upcoming ground offensive.

In response to Musk’s announcement, Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karai stated on Saturday: “Israel will use all means at its disposal to fight this. Hamas will use it for terrorist activities. There is no doubt about it, we know it, and Musk knows it. HAMAS is ISIS. Perhaps Musk would be willing to condition it with the release of our abducted babies, sons, daughters, elderly people. All of them! By then, my office will cut ties with Starlink.”

Cutting off most of the communications between the Gaza Strip and the world has garnered criticism from various sides, including American Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She expressed her concerns on X, stating: “Cutting off all media access for a population of 2.2 million people is unacceptable. I cannot fathom how such an action can be justified.”

Notably, three weeks ago, on October 7, Hamas terrorists brutally massacred and murdered over 1,400 Israeli civilians (babies, children, women and the elderly) , injured 4,000 more and kidnapped over 200 innocent civilians to the Gaza Strip. Ocasio-Cortez primarily discussed the issue in the context of Israel’s response and refrained from unequivocally condemning the Hamas without reservations. Ocasio-Cortez received a surprising support from Musk, the owner of X, Tesla, and SpaceX, who pledged to deploy SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet system in Gaza.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Elon Musk: Justin Trudeau is trying to ‘crush free speech in Canada’

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The biggest accomplishment of Justin Trudeau is that he managed to make Canada a focus of intense international media attention, but not for respectable reasons. Canada’s freedoms are being severely compromised, and it is drowning economically as well. The latest out of Canada: Elon Musk tweeted that Trudeau is “trying to crush free speech“ in Canada.

The proverbial ship has sailed. It has been a long, tough process for patriotic Canadians as they watch Trudeau strip away their freedoms. Musk was responding to a new law in Canada, Bill C-18, that requires social media and streaming services with revenues over $10 million to register with the government, starting in November 2023. Subscription television services which are available online, as well as Facebook, X, Netflix, and Disney, are also included, as are radio stations that livestream online, and podcast services. Individual podcasters need not worry, unless, of course, they make over $10 million in revenue.

The wing of the Canadian government overseeing Bill C-18 is the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). Details of the requirements can be found here.

Trudeau is beyond “trying to crush free speech” in Canada, as Musk observed. He has already largely succeeded, and has trampled not only the freedom of speech. Other examples of Trudeau’s infringement of the freedom of Canadians include:

Bill C-18 did not suddenly appear in a kind of jump scare. The impetus for it was building over time, and its basis was actually formed under Canada’s anti-Islamophobia Motion, M-103, which “progressives” did everything they could to present as a benign motion which didn’t carry any legal ramifications. Everyone already knew that it wasn’t legislation, but few were willing to address its impact in laying the groundwork for a future bill, which we now see in  Bill C-18.

In February, Trudeau’s own appointed Senator David Richards described the prime minister’s sweeping censorship Bill C-11, a precursor to Bill C-18, as “Stalinesque.” Richards called it “an Orwellian attempt to force individuals to comply with government messaging.” Richards’ description may have seemed exaggerated to those who were unaware of Trudeau’s activities, but it was spot-on.

Bill C-18 followed. It was also known as the Online Streaming Act. It was an updated version of Bill C-11, which it incorporated, with an addition: it requires digital giants such as Google and Meta to pay compensation to Canadian news sites to share any of the news content that appeared on their platforms. University of Ottawa Professor Michael Geist characterized it accurately: “Bill C-18 is a shakedown with requirements to pay for nothing more than listing Canadian media organizations with hyperlinks in a search index, social media post, or possibly even a tweet.”

The response from Google, Facebook and Instagram to Bill C-18, when they were asked to compensate Canadian news outlets, elicited a meltdown from Trudeau. Did he really expect social media giants to comply with his shakedown? Meta said it would shut out news in the country, meaning that all Facebook and Instagram users in Canada would be blocked from accessing news on these platforms. Google stated:

We have now informed the Government that when the law takes effect, we unfortunately will have to remove links to Canadian news from our Search, News and Discover products in Canada, and that C-18 will also make it untenable for us to continue offering our Google News Showcase product in Canada.

When Canada’s wildfires broke out and news was fundamental to access, everyone knew exactly whom to blame: Trudeau. But he wouldn’t accept responsibility. Instead, he blamed Meta and Google for supposedly “putting corporate profits ahead of people’s safety.”

Vicky Eatrides, Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer of the CRTC, stated:

We are developing a modern broadcasting framework that can adapt to changing circumstances. To do that, we need broad engagement and robust public records. We appreciate the significant participation during this first phase and look forward to hearing a diversity of perspectives at our contributions proceeding in November.

The government further explains:

A new bargaining regime to govern the making available of news content
The operators of dominant digital news intermediaries to which the Act applies would be subject to a new duty to bargain with eligible news businesses, which may bargain individually or as a group. This duty to bargain would arise when an eligible news business initiates bargaining with a digital news intermediary organization subject to the Act. The bargaining process could involve up to three sequential steps: bargaining sessions; mediation sessions; and final offer arbitration.

Final offer arbitration
When digital news intermediaries and news businesses do not reach agreements about making news content available through bargaining or mediation sessions, outstanding monetary disputes may proceed to a final offer arbitration process if at least one of the parties wishes to initiate arbitration. Under this process, an independent panel of arbitrators would select a final offer made by one of the parties.

This gibberish not only establishes powers of the CRTC online to set up an annoyingly inconvenient system in which potential users must now compete in a bargaining process, but it leaves a lot of questions about the players who will be comprising these “mediation sessions” and this “arbitration” on the government side. And beware whenever a government uses terms such as “independent panel,” because they are never “independent”; they end up being staffed with government cronies who are paid by taxpayers to advance the interests of the regime. And as for the sections of Bill C-18 guaranteeing the “freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression,” not even the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has  stopped Trudeau from his encroachments upon Canadian freedoms.

The world is increasingly coming to know what Canadians have been enduring ever since Trudeau came to power in 2015. In a telling gesture, Trudeau shut down the Office of Religious Freedom almost immediately after taking office. Three years later, his government made a change to the Canada Summer Jobs program that required organizations to tick a box affirming that they supported abortion in order to qualify for government funding. The former head of the Office of Religious Freedom, Andrew Bennett, pointed out Trudeau’s “totalitarian tendency,” and he has been proven right.

It was inevitable that Bill C-18 would now require registration with the Canadian government. The CRTC, which has been regulating Canada’s airwaves since 1976, is the reason why Canadian productions are so limited in content. Some would even say they’re boring. There is little room for full creativity. Now the CRTC has expanded online in its attempt to tighten its grip and stymie free expression, after the fashion of China and Iran.

M-103 was passed in 2018. It was cleverly presented as only a motion — not a law — but it was part of the groundwork for something more nefarious: a broad assault upon the freedom of expression. After extensive committee hearings, the Minister of Heritage, who was Melanie Joly at the time, published a document entitled “TAKING ACTION AGAINST SYSTEMIC RACISM AND RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION INCLUDING ISLAMOPHOBIA.” It stated:

The Government acknowledges that in order to fully understand the issues and challenges confronting Canada’s increasingly diverse population, comprehensive and high quality data is required to better monitor and target policies to eliminate discrimination and inequalities.

Those policies favored the red-green axis and were grounded in wokeism. They eventually resulted in the appointment of an “Islamophobia Czar“; Trudeau’s absurd designation of the patriotic Freedom Convoy as “racist” (and his subsequent crackdown on them); and the passing of Bill C-11, which promised “greater support for Black, Indigenous and racialized people’s content and viewpoints,” as determined by the woke Trudeau government. A group aligned with Trudeau, the Racial Equity Media Collective, called for a “mandatory collection of race-based data by broadcasters…” Then came a government-funded school booklet that warned the country’s children against the Conservative Party, the freedom of speech and even Donald Trump. The booklet was entitled Confronting and Preventing Hate in Canadian Schools; it was created by the far-left “anti-hate” network led by Bernie Farber, a member of the Trudeau government’s “’expert’ advisory group on online ‘safety.’” Some highlights of this 53-page propaganda booklet:

  • Freedom of expression is presented as a cover for “hate.”
  • Trump’s border wall to stop illegals is likewise presented as “hate.”
  • Mainstream Conservative parties are singled out, and are presented as being “infiltrated” by bigots, “groypers,” and “white nationalists.” The pamphlet actually states: “While the majority of Groypers are white, there are a growing number of youth of colour involved in the movement, as they engage in antisemitism, anti- feminism/misogyny, anti-2SLGBTQIA+, Islamophobia, and anti-Black racism.”
  • It condemns a “specific Canadian flavour” of the “worldview”  that is “seen on many college campuses, often under the banner of “Canada First.”
  • In a chapter on “hate promoting symbols,” the booklet names the Red Ensign flag as offensive, even though it was used as Canada’s national symbol until 1965.
  • It condemns concerns about terrorism and crime as “anti-immigrant.”
  • It references  Trump as a “problematic politician” and condemns his border wall as “racist.”
  • It warns about students who may inquire “why there aren’t any straight pride parades, or a white history month during class discussion.”
  • Without context, anti-police sentiment is taught; the pamphlet claims that “Black residents are 20 times more likely to be shot by Toronto police than white counterparts.”
  • The booklet ironically utilizes intersectional tropes and stereotypes “people of colour,” stating that “shared beliefs in misogyny, anti-2SLGBTQIA+, Islamophobia, and anti-Blackness will often attract and unite people of colour to hate groups.”
  • It heavily promotes the Marxist, anti-nuclear family Black Lives Matter movement.

The Canadian government’s mission was clear by that point, and that mission is now broadening via Bill C-18. Trudeau has severely impaired and is now working to marginalize the freedom of speech. Trudeau, with whom Canadians are stuck until the 2025 elections, is well on his way to crushing that freedom. The leader of Canada’s official opposition Conservative Party tweeted:

As Trudeau tries to extend his egoism and oft-noted totalitarian tendencies beyond the borders of Canada itself, he may be in for a tougher ride than he anticipated. The ongoing controversy with India isn’t about to disappear, especially in light of the fact that India has just ordered Canada to remove 41 diplomats from its Delhi embassy. The Hindustan Times just published a story entitled Elon Musk’s Big Attack On Trudeau Amid India Tensions; ‘Canada Govt Crushing. Now Trudeau must contend with Facebook as well as Musk’s X. Add in the brouhaha over Canadian MP’s giving standing ovation to a prominent Nazi during a Zelensky visit to Ottawa, and the accompanying calls for accountability.

AUTHOR

CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Elon Musk Drops Vaccine Bombshell Personal Story

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The Covid shot “nearly sent me to the hospital.” There are tens of millions of post vaccine trauma stories not being told.

Elon Musk Drops Vaccine Bombshell Personal Story | Facts Matter

By: The Epoch Times, Facts Matter, September 28 2023:

2 days ago, the Vice President of the European Commission singled out Twitter as the largest platform hosting dis/misinformation — and added that they “will be watching” what Elon is doing.

This statement of hers came on the heels of an EU law recently implemented (the Digital Services Act) which—among many other things—forces social media companies to censor so-called “disinformation”.

However, as a rebuttable, Elon Musk took to his platform and started a thread wherein he exposed the hypocrisy of the government’s push to censor so-called disinformation, as well as his own experience with taking 3 doses of the mRNA vaccine.

Read more.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

‘Dirty Tricks Campaign’: Elon Musk Is Battling Biden Admin As Investigations Pile Up Since Twitter Takeover

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  • Billionaire Elon Musk is confronting numerous investigations launched by President Joe Biden’s administration, many of which have occurred since he acquired social media platform Twitter — now X — under a year ago, and released documents revealing censorship by the previous regime.
  • Musk has criticized the Democratic Party and exposed left-wing censorship through the release of the “Twitter Files.”  
  • “In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party,” Musk posted on X in May 2022, while still in the process of purchasing the platform. “But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican. Now, watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold.”

Billionaire Elon Musk has faced an investigative onslaught from President Joe Biden’s administration since he acquired social media platform Twitter — now X — less than a year ago, and exposed censorship against conservatives by his predecessors.

The billionaire has condemned the Democratic party and exposed left-wing censorship, including from Biden himself. The president encouraged investigations into Musk soon after he assumed control of X in October: Musk is currently the owner or CEO of X, Tesla and SpaceX, all of which have faced investigations from the Biden administration since his takeover of the social media platform.

“In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party,” Musk posted on X in May 2022, while still in the process of purchasing the platform. “But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican. Now, watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold.”

Shortly following Musk’s acquisition of X, Biden said that Musk’s relationships with foreign governments warranted investigation.  “I think that Elon Musk’s cooperation and/or technical relationships with other countries … is worthy of being looked at, whether or not he is doing anything inappropriate, I’m not suggesting that,” Biden said in November. “I’m suggesting that [it’s] … worth being looked at … that’s all I’ll say.”

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has investigated the company’s alleged lack of adherence to a 2022 administrative order related to privacy, and depositions “revealed a chaotic environment at the company that raised serious questions about whether and how Musk and other leaders were ensuring X Corp.’s compliance,” according to a September Department of Justice (DOJ) filing. This violation could lead to fines for the company, according to The Washington Post.

The FTC has also issued over 350 solicitations for information from X since Musk took over, including the social media platform’s work with journalists, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio asserted in July. Musk enabled journalists to release batches of internal documents from X which precede his takeover, called the “Twitter Files,” revealing that Biden campaign staff flagged posts related to his son Hunter for the company to censor.

Before Musk took over, X censored the Hunter Biden laptop story published by the New York Post in the month before the 2020 election, preventing people from sharing the link both publicly and privately. Former executives now regret suppressing the story.

“You’ve asked for every single communication relating to Elon Musk, not communications that he just sent to someone or communications he received, but any time he’s mentioned,” Jordan said. “More than harassment, that seems like almost an obsession.”

Furthermore, the DOJ and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are also investigating Musk’s electric car company Tesla’s alleged allocation of funds toward a discrete project, rumored to be construction of a glass house for its CEO, The Wall Street Journal reported in August.

The alleged project is internally called “Project 42” and involves the construction of an expansive glass building in the vicinity of Austin, Texas, according to the WSJ. “I’m not building a house of any kind, let alone a glass one!” Musk posted on X.

Moreover, Musk’s SpaceX is currently under investigation by the DOJ for alleged discrimination over its hiring policies, according to an August filing. The DOJ accused SpaceX of discrimination against people seeking asylum and refugees by not hiring them.

The U.S. mandates employees to have “at least a green card” due to rockets’ classification as “advanced weapons technology,” Musk posted on X, However, this is inaccurate, according to the lawsuit.

Musk was recently asked on a podcast if the Biden administration has it out for him. “Ha. What ever gave you that idea?” Musk joked, eliciting laughter from the hosts and live audience.

“I don’t think the whole administration has it out for me,” he added. “But I think there’s probably aspects of the administration … or aspects of interests aligned with President Biden who probably do not wish good things for me.”

The White House, DOJ, Twitter, Tesla and SpaceX did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

The FTC and SEC declined to comment.

AUTHOR

JASON COHEN

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Do Not Wish Good Things For Me’: Elon Musk Explains Why He Thinks The Biden Admin Could Be Out To Get Him

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All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Tucker Carlson Announces New Platform For His Show

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Former Fox News host and Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson announced Tuesday his show will air exclusively on Twitter going forward.

Carlson tweeted a short video breaking the news about where his program will air. “You often hear people say the news is full of lies. But most of the time that’s not exactly right. Much of what you see on television or read in The New York Times is in fact true in the literal sense,” he began.

“But that doesn’t make it true. It’s not true. At the most basic level, the news you consume is a lie. A lie of the stealthiest and most insidious kind. Facts have been withheld on purpose along with proportion and perspective. You are being manipulated,” Carlson continued.

“After more than 30 years in the middle of it, we could tell you stories. The best you can hope for in the news business at this point is the freedom to tell the fullest truth that you can. But there are always limits. And you know that if you bump up against those limits often enough, you will be fired for it.”

“Amazingly, as of tonight, there aren’t many platforms left that allow free speech,” Carlson continued. “The last big one remaining in the world, the only one, is Twitter, where we are now. Twitter has long served as the place where our national conversation incubates and develops. Twitter is not a partisan site — everybody’s allowed here, and we think that’s a good thing.”

“And yet, for the most part the news you see analyzed on Twitter comes from media organizations that are themselves thinly disguised propaganda outlets. You see it on cable news, you talk about it on Twitter. The result may feel like a debate but actually the gatekeepers are still in charge. We think that’s a bad system.”

“Starting soon, we’ll be bringing a new version of the show we’ve been doing for the last six-and-a-half years to Twitter,” he said.

Carlson concluded by teasing “some other things” and emphasizing the importance of free speech.

Fox News parted ways with Carlson on April 24, and key demographic ratings in his 8 p.m. slot have plummeted since his departure. His show, “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” was often ranked the highest-rated cable news show and beloved by conservatives.

Tapes of Carlson were previously leaked to left-wing group Media Matters, and a text message was sent to The New York Times (NYT) attempting to discredit Carlson. Fox News sent Media Matters a cease-and-desist letter Friday after conservatives praised Carlson’s conduct and criticized the leaks.

AUTHOR

JAMES LYNCH

Reporter.

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Elon Musk Meets With Speaker McCarthy And Minority Leader Jeffries. Here’s What They Discussed

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Twitter and Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a surprise visit to the U.S. Capitol on Thursday to meet with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Musk said he met with the two House leaders to discuss ways in ensuring that Twitter is fair to both sides of the political aisle after taking over as the social media company’s CEO in October.

“Just met with @SpeakerMcCarthy & @RepJeffries to discuss ensuring that this platform is fair to both parties,” he tweeted.

McCarthy exited the meeting with Musk and declined to discuss what the meeting entailed. He told the reporters that the tech mogul wished the Speaker a happy birthday.

“He came to wish me a happy birthday,” he told reporters, who turned 58 Thursday.

McCarthy said he did not discuss the debt ceiling that recently exceeded $31.4 trillion, and ignored all other questions related to the matter, Bloomberg reported. The press did not witness Musk leave the meeting or the building after their appointment together on the second floor ended.

Musk is a longtime donor of McCarthy and expressed support for him stepping up as speaker during the tumultuous, days-long speaker vote among members of the House. The California Republican finally became speaker after 15 ballots.

The tech mogul has become a popular figure among the political right since urging people to vote Republican and voting for candidates of the party for the first time in the special election held in Texas’ 34th district. He publicly shared that he cast his ballot for Republican Texas Rep. Mayra Flores.

He further became a vocal proponent for free speech amid his $44 billion purchase and eventual takeover of Twitter. He later reinstated the account of former President Donald Trump following a public poll calling for his return.

AUTHOR

NICOLE SILVERIO

Media reporter. Follow Nicole Silverio on Twitter @NicoleMSilverio

RELATED ARTICLE: Elon Musk Huddled With GOP Leaders And Donors. Here’s What He Told Them

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Elon Musk: ‘Felt Like I Was Dying’ After COVID Vaccine

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CDC V-safe data show 7-8% of Americans get so sick they have to go to the hospital. And still these Democrat villains are mandating the vaccine. It’s war-fare.

Elon Musk: ‘Felt Like I Was Dying’ After Second COVID Booster

By Sandy Fitzgerald | Newsmax, 21 January 2023 11:22 AM EST

Twitter CEO Elon Musk, a frequent critic of Dr. Anthony Fauci and COVID-related mandates, says he felt like he “was dying” after he got his second COVID booster vaccine, and that a cousin of his suffered myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart, after getting his shot.

“I had major side effects from my second booster shot,” Musk said in a tweet Friday. “Felt like I was dying for several days. Hopefully, no permanent damage, but I dunno.”

In a subsequent message, Musk said that his cousin “who is young & in peak health, had a serious case of myocarditis. Had to go to the hospital.”

The second booster shot, he explained in another tweet, wasn’t his choice but a requirement to visit one of his Tesla locations in Berlin, Germany.

Musk also said that he had contracted COVID-19 before the vaccines came out and “it was basically a mild cold,” and then he had the Johnson & Johnson vaccine with “no bad effects, except my arm hurt briefly.”

He added that his first mRNA booster “was ok, but the second one crushed me.”

His posts came after a Rasmussen Reports tweet saying that about 12 million people may have had “major side effects” after getting the COVID vaccines.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have been “rare cases” of myocarditis or pericarditis” that have occurred, most often among adolescent and young adult males ages 16 and older within a week of getting a second dose of an mRNA COVID-19 Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine. However, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has not had similar reports.

Read more.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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Elon Musk Says 100 Starlinks Now Active in Iran to Circumvent Government Internet Restrictions on Protesters

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Elon Musk has not only “dealt a body blow to the Left’s authoritarian agenda by buying one of the world’s most popular social media platforms,” Twitter, but he’s also helping to enable some ability for Iranian dissidents to communicate with the world. Musk’s Starlink, a “satellite-based broadband service could help Iranians circumvent the government’s restrictions on accessing the internet and certain social-media platforms amid protests around the country.” Thus it allows the truth about Iran to be revealed to everyone.

Musk’s Starlink is revolutionizing Internet technology globally. Last month, the UK began trials using Starlink “to beam high-speed broadband to remote areas of UK.” In 2020, Starlink was already being reported to be a possible “uncensored internet solution” for North Korea, that “could prove a game-changer.”

Elon Musk says around 100 Starlinks now active in Iran

Reuters, December 26, 2022:

SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Monday that the company is now close to having 100 active Starlinks, the firm’s satellite internet service, in Iran, three months after he tweeted he would activate the service there amid protests around the Islamic country.

Musk said, “approaching 100 starlinks active in Iran”, in a tweet on Monday.

The billionaire had said in September that he would activate Starlink in Iran as part of a U.S.-backed effort “to advance internet freedom and the free flow of information” to Iranians.

The satellite-based broadband service could help Iranians circumvent the government’s restrictions on accessing the internet and certain social media platforms amid protests around the country……

Read more.

AUTHOR

CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

‘Attempting To Discredit The Agency’: FBI Responds To ‘Twitter Files’

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The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a new statement Wednesday following the latest “Twitter Files” dump.

The FBI accused the “Twitter Files” release as an attempt “to discredit” the agency by disclosing information on the FBI’s correspondence with Twitter in October 2020. Journalist Matt Taibbi revealed that the agency warned the previous executives at Twitter of a “hack-and-leak” by “state actors” surrounding the story of Hunter Biden’s laptop to influence the 2020 presidential election.

“The correspondence between the FBI and Twitter show nothing more than examples of our traditional, longstanding and ongoing federal government and private sector engagements, which involve numerous companies over multiple sectors and industries. As evidenced in the correspondence, the FBI provides critical information to the private sector in an effort to allow them to protect themselves and their customers. The men and women of the FBI work every day to protect the American public,” the statement began.

“It is unfortunate that conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency,” the agency concluded.

The “Twitter Files” revealed that the FBI and Twitter worked closely in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election. Internal documents published Monday found that the FBI paid Twitter nearly $3.5 million between October 2019 and February 2021 for managing its financial burdens caused while complying with the agency’s requests.

Taibbi reported he found no evidence that the FBI had involvement in Twitter’s suppression of the New York Post’s report on Hunter Biden’s laptop, though new reports released by author Michael Shellenberger indicated they may have, in fact, been involved.

Former FBI Deputy General Counsel James Baker argued Twitter’s then-head of trust and safety Yoel Roth’s claim that the Post’s report did not violate the social media site’s policies on October 14, according to Shellenberger. The agency had already been in possession of Biden’s laptop since December 2019, indicating that the agency knew the Post reported the story accurately.

Musk announced Dec. 6 that he fired Baker for allegedly withholding the release of documents related to the suppression of Biden’s laptop.

The agency also flagged certain tweets for Twitter to remove from the platform, the files found. Some agents were even employed at the social media company.

Republican Kentucky Rep. James Comer, the incoming House Oversight Chair, said Tuesday that Congress should block funding of the FBI until it disclosed the alleged involvement in Big Tech censorship.

“In the beginning, I thought that there were probably two or three rogue employees who were orchestrating this cover up of the Hunter Biden laptop story, but now we know the FBI had a division of at least 80 agents,” Comer said. “We also know that the FBI paid Twitter over $3 million for their time, all the time they took over the past couple of years in telling them who to suppress, who to ban. You know, it’s just things that the government has no role in.”

“The FBI was never granted the authority to create any type of disinformation task force that policed the social media sites. Now this we know with Twitter,” he continued. “We’ve heard similar stories from Zuckerberg. Who knows what went on at YouTube and Google. This is an agency that’s out of control.”

AUTHOR

NICOLE SILVERIO

Media reporter. Follow Nicole Silverio on Twitter @NicoleMSilverio

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Political and Scientific Censorship Short-circuits the Quest for Truth

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Those who seek to streamline online discourse, according to “official standards”, end up impoverishing public debate.

Over the course of the past decade, numerous regulatory authorities, both public and private, have increasingly positioned themselves as guardians of the integrity of our public sphere, standing watch over the content of information, and flagging or suppressing information deemed to be harmful, misleading, or offensive.

The zeal with which these gatekeepers defend their power over the public sphere became evident when billionaire Elon Musk promised to undo Twitter’s policy of censoring anything that contradicted leftist ideology or questioned the safety of Covid vaccines. There was an uproar, a wringing of hands, and lamentations, as “experts worried” that Twitter would collapse into a den of “far right” extremists and misinformers.

Sound and fury

Threats by the EU Commission to fine Twitter or even completely ban the app in Europe, if it did not enforce EU regulations on hate speech and misinformation, show that the hand-wringing over Twitter’s potential embrace of free speech is much more than empty rhetoric: the European Commission has declared its intention to force Twitter to revert to its old censorship policies if it does not play ball. According to Euronews,

The European Commission has warned Elon Musk that Twitter must do much more to protect users from hate speech, misinformation and other harmful content, or risk a fine and even a ban under strict new EU content moderation rules.

Thierry Breton, the EU’s commissioner for digital policy, told the billionaire Tesla CEO that the social media platform will have to significantly increase efforts to comply with the new rules, known as the Digital Services Act, set to take effect next year.

Censorship has recently occurred principally on two fronts: Covid “misinformation” and “hate speech.” Some forms of censorship are applied by agencies of the State, such as courts and police officers; others by private companies, such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Google-YouTube. The net effect is the same in both cases: an increasingly controlled and filtered public sphere, and a shrinking of liberty of discussion around a range of topics deemed too sensitive or “dangerous” to be discussed openly and freely.

Censorship, whether public or private, has proliferated in recent years:

  • First, there was Canada’s bizarre claim that people had an enforceable human right to be referred to by their preferred pronouns
  • Next, UK police were investigating citizens for using language the police deemed “offensive”
  • Then, we saw Big Tech giants, in particular Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, censoring perspectives that dissented from their version of scientific and moral orthodoxy on issues such as transgender rights, vaccine safety, effective Covid treatment protocols, and the origins of SARS-CoV-2.

Now, advocates of censorship have argued that it is all to the good that vile, hateful and discriminatory opinions, as well as every conceivable form of medical and scientific “misinformation,” are shut out of our public sphere. After all, this makes the public sphere a “safe” place for citizens to exchange information and opinions. On this view, we need to purge the public sphere of voices that are toxic, hateful, harmful, and “misleading” on issues like electoral politics, public health policies, and minority rights.

Thin ice

While there is a strong case to be made for censorship of certain forms of manifestly dangerous speech, such as exhortations to suicide or direct incitement to violence, the hand of the censor must be firmly tied behind his back, so that he cannot easily decide for everyone else what is true or false, just or unjust, “accurate” or “misleading”, innocent or offensive.

For once you hand broad, discretionary powers to someone to decide which sorts of speech are offensive, erroneous, misleading, or hate-inducing, they will start to purge the public sphere of views they happen to find ideologically, philosophically, or theologically disagreeable. And there is certainly no reason to assume that their judgement calls on what counts as true or false, innocent or toxic speech will be correct.

The fundamental mistake behind the argument for aggressive censorship policies is the notion that there is a set of Truths out there on contested political and scientific questions that are crystal clear or can be validated by the “right experts”; and that anyone who contradicts these a priori Truths must be either malicious or ignorant. If this were true, the point of public discussion would just be to clarify and unpack what the “experts” agree are the Truths of science and morality.

But there is no such set of pristine Truths that can be validated by human beings independently of a free and open discussion, especially on difficult and complex matters such as infection control, justice, climate change, and economic policy. Rather, the truth must be discovered gradually, through the vibrant back-and-forth of dialogue, debate, refutation, and counter-refutation. In short, public deliberation is fundamentally a discovery process. The truth is not known in advance, but uncovered gradually, as an array of evidence is examined and put to the test, and as rival views clash and hold each other accountable.

If we empower a censor to quash opinions that are deemed by powerful actors to be offensive, false, or misleading, we are effectively short-circuiting that discovery process. When we put our faith in a censor to keep us on the straight and narrow, we are assuming that the censor can stand above the stream of conflicting arguments, and from a position of epistemic and/or moral superiority, pick out the winning positions in advance.

We are assuming that some people are so smart, or wise, or virtuous, that they do not actually need to get their hands dirty and participate in a messy argument with their adversaries, or get their views challenged in public. We are assuming that some people are more expert and well-informed than anyone else, including other recognised experts, and may therefore decide, for everyone else, which opinions are true and which are false, which are intrinsically offensive and which are “civil,” and which are “facts” and which are “fake news.”

Needless to say, this is an extraordinarly naïve and childish illusion, that no realistic grasp of human nature and cognition could possibly support. But it is a naive and childish illusion that has been enthusiastically embraced and propagated by Big Tech companies such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn in their rules of content moderation, and it is a view that is increasingly finding its way into the political discourse and legislative programmes of Western countries that were once champions of freedom of expression.

It is imperative that the advocates of heavy-handed censorship do not win the day, because if they do, then the public sphere will become a hall of mirrors, in which the lazy, self-serving mantras of a few powerful actors bounce, virtually unchallenged, from one platform to another, while dissenting voices are consigned to the shadows and dismissed as the rantings of crazy people.

In a heavily censored public sphere, scientifically weak and morally vacuous views of the world will gain public legitimacy, not because they have earned people’s trust in an open and honest exchange of arguments, but because they have been imposed by the arbitrary will of a few powerful actors.

This article has been republished from David Thunder’s Substack, The Freedom Blog.

AUTHOR

David Thunder

David Thunder is a researcher and lecturer at the University of Navarra’s Institute for Culture and Society. More by David Thunder

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EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.