Musk on Freedom of Speech
Dear Reader,
I fear for his life.
On Friday evening, Elon Musk pulled back the curtain on Twitter and released the first of what is suggested to be many drops of what’s being referred to as the “Twitter Files.”
Since acquiring the company, Musk has been on a mission to clean up Twitter and return it to its original mission statement of giving its users the “power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.”
In order to do that, he’s made it a priority to find out how bad the suppression of free speech has become.
Musk on Freedom of Speech
Source: Twitter @elonmusk
To Musk, this is an existential issue for a free and democratic society. He believes, as I believe most of us do, that freedom of speech is a constitutional right. And he also believes that “the public deserves to know what really happened…”
And that’s what the “Twitter Files” are about – lifting up the carpet to understand what’s been swept under the rug.
This is one of the smartest things that any executive can do when taking over an organization that’s failing, or that’s known to be corrupt or dysfunctional. Maintain objectivity, figure out what happened, make it a matter of public record, clean it up, and get back to growth.
There’s no better way to restore trust and give new life to a company or a division of a company. And in this case, that’s the restoration of constitutional rights.
The first drop of the “Twitter Files” should be on the front page of every newspaper. None of us should be surprised that it’s not. The files document in detail the efforts of a political party – and those at the highest levels of government – to actively suppress public information.
They document how celebrities, scientists, politicians, and even those who are relatively unknown were banned, censored, or de-platformed all because of sharing factual information or opinions that ran counter to a desired narrative.
I fear for Musk’s life because the first drop of “Twitter Files” regards the documented efforts to suppress information in an effort to influence the outcome of a presidential election. And the information being suppressed details links to corrupt and illegal activities connected to a sitting Vice President and presidential candidate.
These are very powerful people that Musk is tilting against – and this is only the first of what will be shared.
The media is trying to ignore what’s happening at Twitter right now, but the numbers show us something incredible…
Twitter is now averaging more than 2 million new sign-ups every day. And user minutes has also reached all-time highs. Also positive is that hate speech impressions have dropped significantly, and great progress has been made to reduce the number of bots active on the platform.
The amount of progress that’s happened in such a short period of time has been impressive.
While dangerous, Musk is demanding transparency from his own company. The end result will be far better as a result. While the numbers are promising, there’s clearly a lot more hard work to be done.
Of course, the big question is: How deep is the rabbit hole?
Jeff Brown
Editor
The bleeding edge
5Dec2022