Controversy has been swirling around Elon Musk and Twitter. Musk issued a tweet that was at best stupid and at worst anti-Semitic:
You have said the actual truth
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 15, 2023
Musk’s tweet apparently was part of his running battle with the Anti-Defamation League, which you can read about here.
A number of companies, including IBM and Apple, have suspended advertising on Twitter, and the Biden White House has denounced Musk. It is not clear to me whether the ad boycott relates only to Musk’s tweet, or whether companies also are influenced by the claim by Media Matters that those companies’ ads have been placed on Twitter next to pro-Nazi ads. Musk says that this claim is a fraud by Media Matters, and he has vowed to commence a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against Media Matters and others on Monday.
The White House and corporate America have it in for Musk, not because of an ill-advised (to say the least) tweet by him, but because they disapprove of Twitter’s free speech orientation. They want more moderation, and specifically they want conservative and anti-establishment voices stilled.
Which makes Musk’s vow to suspend accounts that engage in pro-genocide advocacy interesting:
As I said earlier this week, “decolonization”, “from the river to the sea” and similar euphemisms necessarily imply genocide.
Clear calls for extreme violence are against our terms of service and will result in suspension. https://t.co/1fCFo5Lezb
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 17, 2023
Musk is right: “From the river to the sea” is a call to exterminate Jews and destroy Israel. “Decolonization” is a buzzword on the Left these days that, as applied to the Middle East, means doing away with Israel and its Jewish inhabitants. (It is equally sinister as applied to its real target, the United States.)
But “From the river to the sea” is ubiquitous these days, having been voiced by members of Congress among others. And “decolonization” is advocated in countless college classrooms. Given current trends, it will soon be taught in elementary and secondary schools as well, if that is not the case already. If Musk follows through on his pledge, Twitter will suspend an enormous number of liberal accounts.
It will be interesting to see how liberals react. They have been denouncing Musk and Twitter for not acting decisively against “hate speech;” I suspect that in this case they will say, “That’s not the hate speech we meant!”
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