My Take— 01
On Free Speech, the First Amendment, and Twitter.
We have been here before.
Historical context used to be important to us as a culture.
When we had important cultural\governmental issues to decide, we would look to the past for examples of what does and doesn’t work. So to me, the current debate over Elon Musk’s attempt to purchase Twitter, in order to allow Trump to escape his social media exile, seems very unmoored from historical context.
We used to regulate the “Press” and mediums like radio, movies, and television.
For example.
When was the last time you saw a Virginia Slims cigarette ad on television?
They were common when I was a child. So were Saturday cartoon shows for children where the main character would say something like “Kids, tell your mom that you only want Wonder Bread and that she’s a BAD Mommy if she won’t buy it for you”. You know why that kind of shit was on the air?
Because advertising\propaganda works.
When we realized that, we regulated. Because industry will abuse that power to make money. They have to be supervised. This is not a new thing.
