We all know by now that Elon Musk has purchased Twitter and that the reaction from the left and the MSM has been sheer panic.  According to their responses, you'd think he was removing all the politically left Twitter users and replacing them with Nazis.

This simple truth is that we are supposed to have free speech in this country...speech that cannot be stifled by any law unless it meets some serious scrutiny and is determined itself to be illegal or to be specifically inciting others to act in an unlawful manner.  It doesn't matter from which side of the political spectrum or its extremes the speech originates.

The Founders protected our speech in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights in order that no one be silenced merely because others do not agree.  It is protected to ensure that all sides of a given issue are heard, and that reasonable people can make decisions based on hearing the entire story.  Musk has made no statement or indicated that he will take action to curb anyone's free speech.  Rather, he has indicated that he wants all sides of an issue presented.

As a management consultant, I often tell my clients that if they cannot face the truth about their business's weaknesses, they cannot change it for the better.  They too are often presented with non-factual information based upon assumptions, opinions, historic information, and even lies.  During the process of investigating the business issue, we must "bust" these assumptions and drill down to the facts of the situation.  Only then can we take the appropriate action to mitigate those business issues.

Image by shurkin_son on freepik.

The very same is true for all speech.  There are facts and rumors and lies.  Responsible listeners must show that responsibility by sifting through all these data and getting to the truth.  I personally believe that most people can do this, but they likely do not have the time or desire to go to this much trouble.  They hear something someone they trust says, and they take it as fact and repeat it.  In my experience, this is the heart of the problem with social media.  Sadly, I have also found that the MSM tend to do the same thing, which is further exacerbated by the outlets' specific progressive or conservative leaning.

United States law does not recognize private companies running social media platforms as bound by the First Amendment, which was specifically a restriction placed upon the government.  That is as it should be, but all Americans should be demanding that free speech be allowed in general because so many people have come to rely upon social media as a source of important information.  It simply requires more careful consideration on the part of the reader.

The difficulty, and often the impracticality, of separating opinion from fact is something humans have always struggled with.  The new DHS Disinformation Board will have a tough time governing everything that is stated via every possible mechanism and is, therefore, an exercise in futility.  Worse yet, it is an exercise in political control of our discussions.  It cannot be allowed to curtail free speech for the reasons stated above.

Musk's stance on the issue of free speech is exactly correct, and all of us — left and right — should be thankful for his efforts and encourage more of the same.