Glenn Greenwald:
It is hard to overstate how manic, primal and unhinged is the reaction of corporate media employees to the mere prospect that new Twitter owner Elon Musk may restore a modicum of greater free speech to that platform. It was easy to predict — back when Musk was merely toying with the idea of buying Twitter and loosening some of its censorship restrictions — that there would be an all-out attack from Western power centers if he tried. Online censorship has become one of the most potent propaganda weapons they possess, and there is no way they will allow anyone to dilute it even mildly without attempting to destroy them. Even with that expectation in place of what was to come, the liberal sector of the corporate media (by far the most dominant media sector) really outdid itself when it came to group-think panic, rhetorical excess, and reckless and shrill accusations. [More...]
Heather and Bret at around 21:00 talk on the issue.
More from the Glenn link:
I know it can be hard to believe, or at least it should be hard to believe, but the wealthiest, once most prestigious and most mainstream news organizations really are explicitly and earnestly insisting that Elon Musk is about to have large amounts of blood on his hands. Why? Because he intends to allow a broader range of political opinions and perspectives to be heard. There's nothing else to it than that.
To these people, free speech is not a fundamental right. It is not the linchpin of political liberty enshrined in the First Amendment to the US Constitution. It is to them what it is to all petty tyrants and authoritarians: Free speech is a danger. It is a hazard, a menace, something that frightens them to their core. They see free speech the way most people see a raging forest fire or a contagious fatal illness or a violent prison riot, as something that is scary, fatal, and that therefore must be controlled and then extinguished at all costs. And to be fair to these censorship advocates, which I will never tire pointing out that the leaders of this protesters movement are the people who call themselves journalists a state of affairs. It's as surreal and bizarre as if the leading advocates of more cigaret smoking were cardiologist. To be fair to them, there is a grain of truth in what they are saying to those who seek to preserve status quo power structures.
We are in the middle of a major battle over free speech. And it’s happening at Twitter. And the main man is Elon Musk. And the main opponents to the main man are the WaPo, New York Times, LA Times, CNN, MSNBC, etc...
