In case you forgot, last week America was in a panic over a judge lifting the mask requirement on airplanes. That got put on the back burner quickly as we learned that Elon Musk was purchasing Twitter, and panic over that has absolutely dominated social media this week. The former CEO of Reddit tried to warn us about those āfree-speechers,ā who āreally just want to be able to use racist slurs.ā Cenk Uygur couldnāt believe the irony of right-wingers thinking they championed free speech while celebrating a law called āDonāt SAY Gay,ā while Robert Reich put in an equally lazy take about the right cheering for free speech for Elon Musk but not for Colin Kaepernick.
Now we have TIME Magazineās Charlotte Alter to explain that āfree speechā means something entirely different now than it did when the First Amendment was ratified. We havenāt read the piece yet, but weāre guessing sheāll say something about the Founders not knowing about āassault weaponsā when the Second Amendment was ratified.
.@CharlotteAlter: āFreedom of speechā has become a paramount concern of the techno-moral universe.
But āfree speechā in the 21st century means something very different than it did in the 18th, when the Founders enshrined it in the Constitution https://t.co/UKjEfuWiJg
ā TIME (@TIME) April 29, 2022
Oh, and āfree speechā (in scare quotes) is a ātech bro obsession.ā
Alter, fantasizing about how sheād spend her $44 billion, writes:
ā¦ protecting āfree speech,ā which Elon Musk has cited as a central reason he agreed to buy Twitter for $44 billion this week, may be worth twice as much as solving Americaās homelessness problem, and seven times as much as solving world hunger. Itās worth more (to him, at least) than educating every child in nearly 50 countries, more than the GDP of Serbia, Jordan, or Paraguay.
ā¦
But āfree speechā in the 21st century means something very different than it did in the 18th, when the Founders enshrined it in the Constitution. The right to say what you want without being imprisoned is not the same as the right to broadcast disinformation to millions of people on a corporate platform. This nuance seems to be lost on some techno-wizards who see any restriction as the enemy of innovation.
In a culture that places a premium on achieving the impossible, some tech titans may also see the liberal consensus on acceptable speech as yet another boundary to break. In Silicon Valley, bucking the liberal conventions about harmful speech can seem like the maverick move.
āThe liberal consensus,ā āthe liberal conventionsā ā¦ not about free speech, but about acceptable speech and harmful speech.
If you want to oppose free speech and support censorship, please do so without gaslighting people with the claim that the meaning has suddenly changed. https://t.co/hjJUQS0P3J
ā AG (@AGHamilton29) April 30, 2022
The entire article is just a genocide of strawmen. The beliefs attributed to the people they disagree with donāt even remotely match reality.
Try asking the people youāre writing about what they actually think instead of making it up to paint them in the worst possible light.
ā AG (@AGHamilton29) April 30, 2022
Iām seeing this āfree speech is different nowā talking points a lot, and it is one of the lamest rhetorical moves ever
ā Prangles (@Prangles2) April 30, 2022
She's right in that for more than the first century of our nation, free speech just meant not needing permission to speak not freedom from any legal consequences. It took a long time until we reached what we now know as free speech. I like the improvement.
ā Eric Greenbaum (@EricGreenbaum) April 30, 2022
How do you define ādisinformationā Charlotte? Would it be ādisinformationā if someone argued that only women can get pregnant and give birth, for example?
ā Christina Pushaw š šŗšø (@ChristinaPushaw) April 30, 2022
No. It hasnāt changed. Not at all.
ā bluska (@bluskabucknut) April 30, 2022
At our founding: The printing press allowed almost anyone to reach large populations cheaply. Pamphlets were all the rage and debated politics and other issues of the day. This is the same today with tech. Just admit you want to censor speech you donāt like.
ā Vince Galilei II (@VinceGalilei) April 30, 2022
The founding fathers only intended free speech for single words. They did not forsee it's use in modern high capacity tweets.
ā Moon Cube Appreciator (@Gr8Blep4ward) April 30, 2022
Please tell me this is satire
ā Mike Pearson (@mike_fortiuscap) April 29, 2022
The only thing thatās changed is that common people can now more freely exchange ideas- a very scary idea for those at the top who have enjoyed narrative control for so long. Framing this as some sort of danger is ridiculous.
ā Jim Garver (@Jimbo222012) April 30, 2022
You deserve this epic ratio.
ā O Tromp. (@TheTal2495) April 30, 2022
This is a "journalist's" opinion. I think it is the journalists who have dramatically changed, not the meaning or importance of the 1st Amendment.
ā Michael Whitchurch (@MikeWhitchurch) April 30, 2022
This article is a disgrace and for it to come from someone who purports to be a correspondent.
ā Mike Glenn (@mrglenn) April 30, 2022
Free speech should be left in the hands of those with the responsibility to wield it properly, like TIME columnists.
Related:
Former Reddit CEO manages to make āfree-speechersā a derogatory term https://t.co/RAgdiYGxai
ā Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) April 7, 2022
