{"id":1453691,"date":"2022-04-26T07:59:52","date_gmt":"2022-04-26T11:59:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1453691"},"modified":"2022-04-26T08:00:03","modified_gmt":"2022-04-26T12:00:03","slug":"heres-how-elon-musks-free-speech-gambit-can-succeed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/heres-how-elon-musks-free-speech-gambit-can-succeed\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s How Elon Musk\u2019s Free-Speech Gambit Can Succeed"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fheres-how-elon-musks-free-speech-gambit-can-succeed%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1453691&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Elon-Musk-talks-tech-in-August-2020.-Photo-by-Steve-Jurvetson-Flickr.-e1650935562275.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>It\u2019s been a wild week for free speech; or free-speech-control, at least. That\u2019s because while most Americans don\u2019t care about Twitter, our society\u2019s broader social media habits (and their frequent exaggerations) means that control of it still matters a great deal.<\/p>\n<p>How? Aside from its fun and investigative uses, Twitter is where much of <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2022\/tv\/news\/elon-musk-new-york-times-documentary-fx-1235239488\/\">corporate media messaging<\/a> is crafted and honed; where thoughts and ideas that deviate from the ruling class are suppressed; and where left-wing cancel mobs are empowered, and thereby able to lead America\u2019s business and political elites along by the nose.<\/p>\n<p>The coming days, weeks and months will give a clearer idea of what\u2019s coming, but far from spectators, we are all players in the drama. While all eyes are on Elon Musk, Twitter\u2019s employees, the federal government, and the American entrepreneur all have a role to play.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s start with Musk. <\/p>\n<h2><strong>Elon Musk<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>While Musk\u2019s generally pro-Bill of Rights, anti-censorship, and anti-technocrat musings have gone on for some time, his <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1518677066325053441\">Monday announcement<\/a> gave the clearest sign yet of good things to come. After restating his commitment to holding his now-private company to the Bill of Rights, the Tesla billionaire proposed a number of policy changes, including \u201cdefeating the spam bots\u2026 authenticating all humans,\u201d and \u201cmaking the algorithms open source to increase trust.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The first two are important steps: If successful, these changes will make the service far more usable, tame bot-driven mobs, and finally and permanently deflate the censors\u2019 favorite \u201cRussian bots\u201d bogeyman (as well as future bot boogeymen to come).<\/p>\n<p>Publicizing algorithms, however, is essential. Silicon Valley\u2019s algorithms have achieved near-mythic status within the censorship regime, catching fact and fiction, journalists and politicians, Christians and activists, scientists and concerned parents alike in their nets.<\/p>\n<p>The ensuing censorship, observers note, leans heavily toward viewpoints that dissent from the left-wing narrative, but each time a decision turns out to be indefensible, the blame is placed on \u201cthe algorithm\u201d \u2014 with zero insight or accountability offered.<\/p>\n<p>The result: A censorship bureau where the means, methods, culprits, and officers are all hidden from public view. Musk wants to change this. If he does, he\u2019ll expose other companies\u2019 algorithm  excuses as the lies they are \u2014 and drive a stake into the beating heart of regime suppression.<\/p>\n<p>What he can accomplish, however, will depend on how much time he can commit, who he puts in charge of daily operations, and who he fires. The obvious fact is the man has commitments elsewhere. His time is currently split between SpaceX, Neuralink, The Boring Company, and Tesla, which lacks a COO while it\u2019s fighting well-funded marketplace competition.<\/p>\n<p>Markets go up and markets go down, but if Monday\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.albanyherald.com\/news\/business\/why-tesla-investors-may-need-to-worry-about-elon-musks-twitter-distraction\/article_49f0a326-666a-5671-997f-1e80d2ad7322.html\">.7 percent drop<\/a> in Tesla\u2019s stock means anything, some investors are spooked. (The electric car company is now down <a href=\"https:\/\/www.albanyherald.com\/news\/business\/why-tesla-investors-may-need-to-worry-about-elon-musks-twitter-distraction\/article_49f0a326-666a-5671-997f-1e80d2ad7322.html\">7 percent<\/a> since the year began.)<\/p>\n<p>True, the richest man in the world has thus far impressed (and thus far, gone undefeated), but the Twitter fight poses a real challenge. Far from welcoming their new owner, employee meltdowns <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/04\/14\/internet-pokes-fun-at-twitter-employees-over-elon-musk-takeover\/\">have made headlines<\/a> since Musk announced his initial stake in the company.<\/p>\n<p>Based <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/talmonsmith\/status\/1518679067675009032\">on what we\u2019ve seen<\/a>, he can\u2019t rely on unsupervised cooperation with his plans. That makes the person he chooses to execute his vision all the more essential.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Employees<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>While too many American companies cave to activist employees\u2019 choruses of execration \u2014 and threats of mass resignation \u2014  Musk shows zero sign of following suit. On the contrary, their immolations will serve as a signing bonus, removing the most fanatical opponents of his vision for the company\u2019s future.<\/p>\n<p>Given the seemingly staff-wide meltdown, however, he\u2019ll need more than this in a manager; and former CEO Jack Dorsey \u2014 who <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jack\/status\/1518767238081171456?s=21&#038;t=5hi8w-FDHj5tnFtr8hyUGw\">seems pleased<\/a> with the buyout and is rumored to take over \u2014 is unlikely to cut it.<\/p>\n<p>Although Dorsey is more pro-speech <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/11\/30\/how-new-twitter-ceo-parag-agrawal-might-make-a-poisonous-platform-worse\/\">than the current CEO<\/a> (and is a friend of Musk), he\u2019s proven himself a weak manager, who will struggle greatly to rein in the company he founded. Musk\u2019s plans are going to take both serious hiring and serious firings, and few believe Dorsey has what it will take.<\/p>\n<p>As presidents from Adams through Trump have learned, personnel is policy: Weak generals will fail, no matter their devotion; bad actors will smile in your face, and work to undermine your goals when you turn away. Musk is certainly aware of this, but given the demands on his attention, his top hires will make or break his plans.<\/p>\n<p>His employees, however, are not the only force interested in derailing free-speech Twitter.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Government<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Shortly after learning they were losing a reliable censorship partner through Musk\u2019s acquisition of Twitter, the White House repeated its interest in regulating Silicon Valley in order to police \u201cmisinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While it\u2019s hard to say where bipartisan efforts to rein in Silicon Valley will ultimately go, it\u2019s easy to see how essential Twitter has made itself to the White House and its friends. From promoting helpful content to suppressing damaging content, Big Tech has done its best to apologize for its part in the election of President Donald Trump (and make sure nothing like it happens again).<\/p>\n<p>While the sale seems to be moving along despite the skeptical murmurings of most observers, it\u2019s still important to measure any optimism. The Federal Trade Commission, for example, will have a say; and while it takes a serious feat of logic to understand how owning a rocket company, an electric car company, and a free speech company represents a threat to competition, the threat that Musk freeing Twitter poses to the regime might prove too tempting a motivation to let it pass.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s wild to see, either way \u2014 the ruling class reaction to a billionaire they don\u2019t like dethroning a billionaire they do. But while it can be disheartening to so plainly see just how oligarchic the United States has become, it\u2019s crucial to remember that we still have a role: The billionaires won\u2019t solve our problems on their own.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The American Entrepreneur<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Elon Musk appears poised to do the American people a great service, but the reality is Elon Musk isn\u2019t going to save us. The reason: While Twitter is a powerful tool for our ruling class \u2014 and an important battle to wage \u2014 it\u2019s just one of many fights, even on the tech front.<\/p>\n<p>Consider the following, for example: Twitter runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS is the cloud company that would-be Twitter competitor Parler ran on too \u2014 before AWS cut Parler off from its servers on completely false pretenses, virtually destroying the company at the moment of its most meteoric growth.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, AWS\u2019s \u201chead of community engagement\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/editingemily\/status\/1518678319885176832\">tweeted an offer<\/a> to those Twitter employees who refused to work for a pro-First Amendment company: \u201cWe\u2019re hiring.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Each battle, you see, leads to the next. Social media censorship is just that part of the iceberg visible to passing ships. Beneath the surface, the left is threatening access to banks, loans, servers, investment, search and email services, office and payroll management \u2014 the list goes on.<\/p>\n<p>Fighting this will take smart ideas, hard work, and an entrepreneur\u2019s will to resist incredible pressure on every aspect of his life. But if those who can help don\u2019t work to get our own house in order, we\u2019re just trading one oligarch for a smarter, more freedom-interested one. More than that, we won\u2019t win.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s great to have the richest man in the world on the side of freedom. We need the help; but the cause of freedom needs us too.<\/p>\n<p><em>Disclosure: Christopher Bedford is a founding partner of the all-service, free-speech internet company RightForge.<\/em><\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n  Christopher Bedford is a senior editor at The Federalist, a founding partner of RightForge, vice chairman of Young Americans for Freedom, a board member at The Daily Caller News Foundation and National Journalism Center, and the author of &#8220;The Art of the Donald.&#8221; His work has been featured in The American Mind, National Review, the New York Post and the Daily Caller, where he led the Daily Caller News Foundation and spent eight years. A frequent guest on Fox News and Fox Business, he was raised in Massachusetts and lives across the river from D.C. Follow him on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CBedfordDC\">Twitter<\/a>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s been a wild week for free speech; or free-speech-control, at least. That\u2019s because while most Americans don\u2019t care about Twitter, our society\u2019s broader social media habits (and their frequent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":574,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1453691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1453691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/574"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1453691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1453691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1453691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1453691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1453691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}