The meltdown of liberal bedwetters over Elon Musk buying Twitter is “my favourite world event of 2022 so far”, says Brendan O’Neill in The Spectator. Max Boot of The Washington Post declared he was “frightened by the impact on society and politics”. On the day Musk’s bid was announced, City University of New York professor Jeff Jarvis reckoned Twitter felt like “the last evening in a Berlin nightclub at the twilight of Weimar Germany”. Musk’s Twitter takeover is so bad it’s “lethal”, opined The Guardian’s George Monbiot. Really?
The idea that Musk liberating Twitter from some of its “stiffer forms of content moderation” will lead to “hatred, racism, actual fascism” and death is, frankly, insane. It’s also deeply revealing. It confirms, rather scarily, that many people in positions of influence now view freedom of speech as a “toxic thing that can only do bad”. These right-on types love how social media oligarchs share their moral worldview and are horrified that Musk has come along and said: “I might let people criticise and question you a bit more.” Under the guise of “preventing hate speech” or “stopping disinformation”, these authoritarian snobs really want to erect an impervious wall between the “questioning rabble” and correct-thinking, educated people. “They are a far greater menace to modern society than Elon Musk could ever be.”