What Are the Limits to Free Speech?

KEVIN BARRETT • NOVEMBER 22, 2022 

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Elon Musk restores Donald Trump’s Twitter account, but refuses to unban Alex Jones. Mainstream media crucify Kanye West and Kyrie Irving, but merely grumble at Dave Chappelle. These and other discrepancies raise the question: Who, exactly, is allowed to say what?

Elon Musk claims to be a “free speech absolutist.” He says he wants to return Twitter to its pre-2016 identity as “the free speech wing of the free speech party.” And he says he wants to run Twitter in accordance with the First Amendment of the US Constitution—for US users—and to only restrict speech that violates the law of whatever country the speaker happens to be living in. That’s a sensible, fully workable policy. And that is the only policy that would be allowed by law if Twitter were a public utility rather than a billionaire’s toy.

To his credit, Musk has reinstated Donald Trump’s account. But he only did so after holding a Twitter plebiscite, which Trump won by a 52-48 percent margin. The poll provided cover for Musk to defy the mainstream media and restore Trump’s right to free speech. But that poll should not have been necessary. The First Amendment does not say you need majority approval before you are allowed to say what’s on your mind. On the contrary, its whole rationale is to protect unpopular speech. The strongest possible argument for restoring Trump’s account would have been 100% of users voting against Trump.

So Musk isn’t following the Constitution. He made that clear by refusing to unban Alex Jones. Pressed for an explanation, Musk tweeted: “My firstborn child died in my arms. I felt his last heartbeat. I have no mercy for anyone who would use the deaths of children for gain politics or fame.”

Musk was referring to Jones’ conviction in a series of libel lawsuits filed by Sandy Hook parents, who say Jones defamed them by airing claims that the school shooting was a false flag in which “nobody died.” Whether or not those convictions and damage awards were correct—personally I think Jones was set up to play the scapegoat in what can only be called Stalinist-style show trials—the Infowars founder now stands convicted of defamation. Does that negate his First Amendment rights? Not at all. The whole point of convicting someone of defamation is to correct the record concerning their specific false and harmful statements—not to deprive them of the right to speak out on other issues in the future.

So was Musk lying when he said he wanted to restore free speech on Twitter? Probably not. He is acting under duress. The Zionist mainstream media mafia has a gun to his head. They are whipping up a witch-hunting mob and threatening to destroy Twitter if it returns to free speech. The value of the company is already cratering, and Musk is trying to stop the bleeding.

Rapper Kanye West, like Elon Musk, has lost more than a billion dollars by upsetting the self-appointed censors. Nobody has suggested that anything West said was untrue. It’s just that this particular truth hurts people’s feelings. Specifically, it offends the feelings of the Zionist billionaires who dominate mainstream media, and who feel terribly hurt when it is pointed out that they exist. It also hurt the feelings of West’s Zionist handler, Harvey Pasternak, who threatened to have West drugged and institutionalized if he didn’t stop saying true things.

Basketball star Kyrie Irving also lost a lot of money by hurting the same people’s feelings. Apparently Irving had the audacity to tweet a link to an Afrocentric documentary that portrayed the black-Jewish relationship in less than idyllic terms. That was enough to get Irving almost run out of the NBA.

Then on Saturday Night Live, comedian Dave Chappelle deviated from the prepared script and hilariously exposed the people holding guns to the heads of Elon Musk, Kanye West, Kyrie Irving, and (last but not least) Chappelle himself. Though the ADL and the other usual suspects responded by crying out as they struck at him, Chappelle doesn’t seem to have taken much of a hit. Maybe the comedy insulates him. As the saying goes, “If you tell the truth, make it funny, or they’ll kill you.”

In any case, Elon Musk and the ADL seem to agree that free speech ends where hurting billionaires’ feelings begins. But that’s not what the Constitution says. To restore the First Amendment to the new public square—social media—we are going to have to elect a Congress that will pass legislation, or elect a president who will take emergency action, to seize the social media companies and run them as public utilities in accordance with the Constitution of the United States of America.

 

(Republished from Substack by permission of author or representative)

https://www.unz.com/kbarrett/what-are-the-limits-to-free-speech/