Elon Musk wants you to know that big advertisers hate free speech and want to suppress yours.
asserted
advertisers → want → yours
Now, surely part of that is a pitch — Musk wants you to pay for Twitter Premium (sorry, X premium) so you don’t have to see ads while you consume X’s content.
asserted
you → want → content
Elon Musk genuinely feels that advertisers are a threat to free speech.
asserted
advertisers → feel → speech
Because many advertisers fled X after Musk eagerly endorsed a bigot’s articulation of anti-Semitic theories, including that Jews promote hatred of whites and that Jews are importing “hordes of minorities.”
asserted
Jews → flee → minorities
That’s a mix of corporate leadership thinking that such bigotry is bad business and thinking that it’s immoral.
asserted
it → ’ → thinking
Private companies have a First Amendment right to make such a decision.
asserted
companies → have → decision
They have the right to express their values — and choose their marketing strategy — by deciding what kind of media content to promote.
asserted
They → have → content
They have freedom of association to refrain from advertising on platforms that repulse their customers.
asserted
that → have → customers
Those rights are held both by the corporate advertisers and by the individuals making decisions for them.
asserted
rights → hold → them
Elon Musk’s sullen yawp amounts to a claim that he has a right for companies to sponsor his speech, no matter what he says.
uncertain
he → amount → what
That’s nonsense, both legally and philosophically.
asserted
That → ’ → ?
It doesn’t stop there.
asserted
It → stop → ?
Musk is also a fan of the theory that when he speaks, your criticism of him violates his rights.
asserted
criticism → speak → rights
His latest articulation of this theory came after Media Matters published an article claiming that X is running ads for prominent companies next to bigoted content on X.
asserted
X → come → content
Musk responded with an extravagant, mostly incoherent threat to file a “thermonuclear” lawsuit against Media Matters and its board and donors “to protect free speech,” whose criticism “seeks to undermine freedom of expression on our platform.”
asserted
criticism → respond → platform
Last Friday night Musk announced that X would sue Media Matters “the split second court opens on Monday.”
asserted
court → announce → Monday
I’m confident that Musk’s obliging attorney, Alex Spiro, knows that complaints in both San Francisco County Superior Court and the United States District Court for the Northern District of California may be electronically filed 24/7 these days.
uncertain
complaints → ’m → California
In fact I’m confident he has e-filing accounts for both courts.
asserted
he → ’m → courts
It may be Mr. Spiro didn’t see fit to tell that to Elon Musk Friday night.
uncertain
Spiro → see → Musk
One sympathizes.
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One → sympathize → ?
Mr. Spire’s firm Quinn Emmanuel is as crowded with former federal prosecutors as a judicial convention, and carefully cultivates its reputation for being almost as good as it thinks it is.
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it → cultivate → reputation
They’re excellent trial lawyers; just look at their advertisement saying so on the concourse at Burbank Airport.
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They → ’re → Airport
Some might suggest that suing journalists to defend free speech sounds Orwellian and even unhinged.
uncertain
suing → suggest → speech
That’s because you haven’t considered that free speech also requires that journalists be prosecuted for fraud:
asserted
journalists → ’ → fraud
Just as the tree of liberty must occasionally be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants, freedom of speech must occasionally be protected by an unemployed ghoul and a personality disordered Boer persuading a bland FedSoc apparatchik to pester journalists for questioning billionaires.
asserted
freedom → refresh → billionaires
It would be easy to blame this contemptible nonsense on Elon Musk being socially inept, proudly ignorant, and grotesquely petulant.
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Musk → blame → nonsense
But when it comes to thinking that the right to free speech includes the right to silence others, Elon learned it by watching us, okay?
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Elon → come → us
He learned it by watching us.
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He → learn → us
“Your criticism violates my right to free speech” is a fatuous but common American sentiment.
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violates → violate → speech
We’ve long heard it from athletes, like John Rocker complaining of a “defective reality” in which free speech is a myth because we’ve lost the ability “to speak freely without fear of chastisement.”
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we → hear → chastisement
We’ve long heard it from entertainers, like Clint Eastwood complaining that he should be able to tell ethnic jokes without fearing he’ll be called “a racist,” or Kirk Cameron saying that he should be able to speak out condemning homosexuality without being “slandered” or “accused of hate speech.”
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he → hear → speech
Note all of those stories are more than a decade old; I raise them to demonstrate that this has been going on a while, and I’ve been complaining about it for a while.
asserted
I → note → while
“Criticism is censorship” has been a standard trope in politics and punditry even longer, and has persisted there even more consistently.
asserted
is → persist → politics
Calling Trump a racist, we are frequently told, violates his free speech rights:
asserted
we → call → rights
College presidents assert that students protesting studio executives are infringing on free speech.
asserted
students → assert → speech
Senator Ron Johnson claims that criticizing his stance on Black Lives Matter amounts to “silencing him,” and
uncertain
criticizing → claim → him
Justice Samuel Alito suggests that criticizing anti-gay political and legal positions impairs free speech.
uncertain
criticizing → suggest → speech
The trope is so embedded in the culture that even people with admirable records of free speech advocacy convince themselves that people protesting them are against free speech as opposed to disagreeing with and criticizing their speech.
asserted
people → embed → speech
Regrettably, the notion that criticism is censorship has been encouraged by the dialogue about “cancel culture.”
asserted
criticism → encourage → culture
The New York Times Editorial Board proclaims Americans are losing “ right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned.”
asserted
Americans → proclaim → fear
…and 9 more, not listed.
