Musk Can Salvage Free Speech in America

Of all places around the world, the right to free speech is under attack in the most unexpected place on earth: the United States of America.

In a poll taken by The New York Times/Siena College Research Institute, with the results published in a New York Times editorial piece, “only 34 percent of Americans said they believed that all Americans enjoyed freedom of speech completely.”

That same poll found that 84% of Americans view it as a “very serious” problem that people cannot speak freely because of fear of “retaliation” or “harsh criticism.”

Consider what James Madison, editor of the Bill of Rights had to say about free speech:

“Our First Amendment freedoms give us the right to think what we like and say what we please. And if we the people are to govern ourselves, we must have these rights, even if they are misused by a minority.”

Today however, those rights have not only been misused, they’ve been taken away.

The censorship of free speech taking place on social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter is unamerican and a violation of our First Amendment rights.

A fact that must have Madison rolling over in his grave.

Think about this.

The spokesperson for the Taliban — a known terrorist organization has a Twitter account, but the 45th President of the United States Donald J. Trump does not. In fact, President Trump is banned from Twitter.

Permanently.

As a conservative radio show host, this writer sees firsthand the censorship of conservatives in America in real time. It’s no secret that during the pandemic, social media platforms would either remove content or suspend accounts if someone dared to question the vaccines.

Or as Twitter policy refers to it, “COVID-19 misinformation.”

Conservatives like Juanita Broderick, My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, former Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon, Project Veritas and Project Veritas president James O’Keefe have all been permanently banned from Twitter.

And just last month, Twitter suspended the accounts of the Babylon Bee, Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk for referring to Biden administration official Rachel Levine, who transitioned to a woman in 2011, as a man.

Throughout history, the United States Supreme Court has repeatedly referred to the counterspeech doctrine, which is a principle within the First Amendment where you counter negative speech with a positive expression.

Justice Louis D. Brandeis summarized this best in 1927 in Whitney v. California when he wrote:

“If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”

In 2012, in United States v. Alvarez, a case about a man who lied about receiving military medals, Justice Anthony Kennedy applied the counterspeech doctrine by writing, “the remedy for speech that is false is speech that is true.”

On Thursday, the world’s richest man Elon Musk made a $43 billion offer to buy Twitter, saying, “I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.”

But Musk wasn’t done, concluding, “However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.”

Maybe Elon Musk can save free speech in America after all.

A majority of America is rooting for him.