Uncategorized
Should Everyone Be Afraid of Elon Musk Buying Twitter? – Jewish Exponent
By Jonathan S. Tobin
In February, the Anti-Defamation League announced that it had developed what it called an “online hate index” to monitor antisemitism on social media platforms. The effort was conceived as a way to adequately measure the amount of hate speech being posted on sites like Twitter and Reddit, which the group thinks are not vigilant enough about detecting and removing such offensive material.
ADL CEO and national director Jonathan Greenblatt conceded that Twitter had “made substantial strides” towards shutting down those posting vile content; still, he believed they had a lot more to do in order to address a growing problem of online hate. The index was intended to assist the social-media giants in policing their users.
Get Jewish Exponent’s Newsletter by email and never miss our top stories
We do not share data with third party vendors. Free Sign Up
It was just the latest evidence of the ADL’s support for more online censorship. Actor Sacha Baron Cohen caused a stir with a 2019 tweet and a subsequent speech at an ADL event where he was honored, in which he torched Facebook for allowing its users to post antisemitic context. The internet and social media had helped heretofore isolated extremists to amplify their voices. And a time when antisemitism is on the rise — largely fueled by hatred for Israel on the left as well as traditional tropes of Jew-hatred on the far-right — most Jews agreed that something ought to be done to crack down on those who spread it.
In the years since then, ADL has been increasingly vocal about the issue and sought to pressure Big Tech companies to engage in more content moderation that would silence bad actors. It has also devoted more of its resources to technological fixes that would create partnerships with Internet giants that would, at least in theory, guide them towards creating a less friendly environment for neo-Nazis.
So the news last week that the richest man in the world is trying to buy Twitter in order to reverse the company’s embrace of censorship would seem to be bad for the ADL.
To date, ADL has kept quiet about Musk’s bid, but the group has become a pillar of the left/liberal consensus about the need to squelch free speech on the internet. As part of its general shift from a Jewish defense agency to a highly partisan liberal advocacy group, the ADL’s traditional stand in favor of curbing hate has been weaponized in order to support Silicon Valley censorship.
Were the targets of this effort solely neo-Nazis, far-right extremists or their counterparts on the far-left, along with Black nationalists and Islamists who also spread hate and antisemitism, the ADL’s stance in favor of restricting online speech might be more defensible, though such power could just as easily be deployed against pro-Israel Jews. But as some of us predicted only a few years ago, legitimizing censoring of speech never stops with just the most egregious speakers. The slippery slope from censoring Nazis to shutting down any political speech or reporting that powerful people dislike was always apparent.
And the trip down the slope was faster than many of us thought.
While conservatives are the main targets, it’s clear that no one can be considered safe from the same treatment if their views fall out of fashion.
That’s where Musk comes in. The 51-year-old native of South Africa has successes at PayPal, Space X and Tesla that have given him an estimated wealth of $270 billion. Musk is far from a doctrinaire conservative. His mostly libertarian beliefs are hard to pigeonhole, and at various times, he has shown as much sympathy for the Democrats and the left as Republicans and the right. But he does seem fairly consistent in his belief in free speech. While it’s difficult for most people to muster much interest in a battle of billionaires, there is more at stake here than just the considerable egos of those involved.
For the first time in American history or that of the world, almost the entire means of mass communication are now under the control of only a few people. While early 20th-century media barons like William Randolph Hearst were immensely powerful, their stranglehold on communications seems paltry when compared with the owners of Twitter and Facebook. And given the political/cultural bias they have demonstrated, the question is now not so much whether, as the ADL claims, they are allowing outlier extremists to vent their spleen but the threat posed to democracy by the ability of these oligarchs to shut down political speech they don’t like.
We can’t know whether Musk would keep his word to make Twitter a free-speech-friendly forum. But the fact that supporters of censorship who claim that defending democracy requires its destruction — such as The Washington Post’s Max Boot or a George Soros-funded leftist website like Free Press — are so frightened by his effort makes it difficult not to root for him.
Whatever we may think of Musk, his bid for Twitter highlights both the dangerously untrammeled power of Big Tech and the need to ensure that they are not controlled by anti-democratic forces determined to shut down public debate in order to advance a specific political agenda. It was already obvious that ADL’s partisanship and dangerous advocacy of censorship had little or nothing to do with the best interests of Jews. It’s equally clear that their stand is harmful to democracy unless you define that as the ability of leftist idealogues to control public discourse. As much as we may view the ability of antisemites to post hate on Twitter with dismay, the survival of free speech is far more important to defending both democracy and Jewish security.
It’s a shame that we must currently depend on a single wealthy individual to try to protect those values. But in 2022, Elon Musk may be all we’ve got.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS.
If Elon Musk did anything it was to expose just how much censorship we have been subjected to in this nation and just how rattled the left was by his action to buy twitter. I think he is a hero The man is smart enough to run an open forum and cautious enough to know when some cross the line At least a plethora of views can be considered evn if they don’t follow the status quo opinions
Baltimore’s Child
Baltimore Jewish Times
Baltimore Style
Consumer’s Eye Magazine
Frederick’s Child
Home Services Magazine
MetroKids
Montgomery Magazine
Washington Family Magazine
Washington Jewish Week
PHILADELPHIA JEWISH EXPONENT IS HERE FOR YOU
Your voluntary contribution supports our efforts to deliver content that engages and helps strengthen the Jewish community in the Philadelphia area.
CONTRIBUTE
PHILADELPHIA JEWISH EXPONENT IS HERE FOR YOU
Your voluntary contribution supports our efforts to deliver content that engages and helps strengthen the Jewish community in the Philadelphia area.
CONTRIBUTE
