by Chris Menahan, Information Liberation:
America’s tiniest tyrant Robert Reich has a new column in The Guardian calling on regulators around the world to “threaten” Elon Musk “with arrest” for allowing too much free speech.
From The Guardian, “Elon Musk is out of control. Here is how to rein him in”:
Here are six ways to rein in Musk:
1. Boycott Tesla.
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Consumers shouldn’t be making him even richer and able to do even more harm. A Tesla boycott may have already begun. A recent poll said one-third of Britons are less likely to buy a Tesla because of Musk’s recent behavior.
2. Advertisers should boycott X.
A coalition of major advertisers has organized such a boycott. Musk is suing them under antitrust law. “We tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,” he wrote on X, referring to advertisers who criticize him and X.
3. Regulators around the world should threaten Musk with arrest if he doesn’t stop disseminating lies and hate on X.
Global regulators may be on the way to doing this, as evidenced by the 24 August arrest in France of Pavel Durov, who founded the online communications tool Telegram, which French authorities have found complicit in hate crimes and disinformation. Like Musk, Durov has styled himself as a free speech absolutist.
4. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission should demand that Musk take down lies that are likely to endanger individuals – and if he does not, sue him under Section Five of the FTC Act.
Musk’s free-speech rights under the first amendment don’t take precedence over the public interest. Two months ago, the US supreme court said federal agencies may pressure social media platforms to take down misinformation – a technical win for the public good (technical because the court based its ruling on the plaintiff’s lack of standing to sue).
5. The US government – and we taxpayers – have additional power over Musk, if we’re willing to use it. The US should terminate its contracts with him, starting with Musk’s SpaceX.
In 2021, the United States entered into a $1.8bn classified contract with SpaceX that includes blasting off classified and military satellites, according to the Wall Street Journal. The funds are now an important part of SpaceX’s revenue.
[…] 6. Make sure Musk’s favorite candidate for president is not elected.
The way Reich spins it, the US government shutting down all free speech is actually a revolutionary people’s movement rising up against the “world’s richest man!”
Reich, who is Jewish, wrote an article in April on the pro-Palestine protests claiming he’s for free speech on college campuses — though he added there must be “a limit.”
“[U]niversities should go out of their way to tolerate expression that may make some people uncomfortable,” Reich wrote. “To tar all offensive speech ‘hate speech’ and ban it removes a central pillar of education. Of course, it’s offensive. It is designed to offend.”
“There is a limit, of course,” he continued. “Expression that targets specific students, ‘doxes’ them, or otherwise aims to hurt them as individuals doesn’t invite learning. It is a form of intimidation. It should not be allowed.”
In other words, he supports the free speech carveouts for college campuses that the Anti-Defamation League lobbied for to make criticism of Jews and “Zionists” a form of “hate speech” (by claiming such criticism creates a “hostile environment” for Jewish students in violation of Civil Rights law).
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