What a giant steaming load of crap. Written by an idiot child it sounds like a typical dorm room bs session between privileged White dudes whose Mommies told them everything they said was "special".

Let's be clear. Elon Musk buying Twitter has NOTHING to do with FREE SPEECH and everything to do with TRUMP.

Trump the Traitor.

The man who used his "free speech" on these platforms to organize a coup attempt against our country. The man who betrayed his oath of office and engaged in conspiracy and sedition.

That's the guy Elon is buying Twitter for. So that Trump's voice to his cult can be restored. So that Napoleon can be released from Elbe. So that we can take our Cold Civil War to the next level in 24'.

Because in Mr. Skiviers juvenile mind, his "free speech" has no consequences. If people act on his inflammatory speech and say,

"go shoot up a supermarket in Buffalo because they believed him when he told them about Replacement Theory"

That's on them. Mr. Skiviers has zero responsibility in that. He was just inciting violence, he didn't actually commit any violence himself. His hands, and apparently his conscience are clean.

Mr. Skiviers, like Trump and Elon, doesn't do the dirty work. He leaves that to the people he incited with his "free speech"

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.

Disinformation is not a “new” thing. 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.

Remember “Yellow Journalism”?

Remember when a “Rogue billionaire” named Randolph Hearst used the power of his papers to start a war.

When he published lies that resulted in the Spanish American War and the United States acting like Russia is doing right now. When we attacked a foreign country so that we could seize Cuba and the Philippines.

Remember that?

You don’t?

Well, once the new Trumpublican textbook standards get implemented, no one will.

Remembering when America did evil shit, just makes White Kids feel bad about their country. It’s unpatriotic. Stuff like that, “divides us” says Ron DeSantis and the rest of the Trumpublican Fascists.

Because that kind of censorship is OK with Trumpublicans. That kind of censorship of history isn't "censorship". It's "preventing indoctrination of young impressionable minds" and "turning them against American (ie Trumpublican) values.

The hypocrisy is laughable

They think that remembering there was a reason we passed laws that didn’t allow anyone to control too much of the press should be forgotten.

Elon Musk has greater wealth and power than a feudal king. Economically he is about on par with a “god king” Pharaoh.

This isn’t because he is a genius. This is the result of our policy choices, there is nothing “natural” about this outcome.

I have no problem with Elon owning Twitter. I also have no problem with him being regulated and supervised.

Unlike Obama, Elon, and Mr. Skiviers I am not a “First Amendment Absolutist”.

I have standards. I have red lines about what should and should not be allowed in the public square.

So where is your personal, “red line”?

What forms of censorship do you accept?

Most people start with child porn.

Very few First Amendment Absolutists want to argue that child porn should be allowed. Even if, for some people it’s “artistic expression”.

How about “murder porn”?

There are people who really get off watching other people be killed. In all sorts of various ways. Sometimes quickly. Sometimes slowly, with torture included. Why should they be discriminated against by the “mainstream” culture’s judgemental views.

Actual rape videos are also very popular.

Surprisingly, a lot of real rapists video their assaults these days. They like to replay them and they like to share them with the “rapist community”.

Do you want to argue for their “right to free speech”?

I know, right now you are saying, “Sure, with reductio ad absurdum examples you can make any idea look bad”.

You would be in error if you think my examples are absurd exaggerations.

A few years ago, after reading about the suicide rate of content moderators, I signed up for a three month gig of just that. All of my examples are from content that flowed past my screen during those three months.

Lots of people, also want to learn how to make high explosives from common household products.

They would be happy to have a YouTube channel dedicated to that topic. Instead of “school shootings” we can have “school bombings”. Won’t that be fun.😁💥

I'm willing to bet if Mr. Skiviers child was killed in a school bombing, by students who made a bomb like the ones they saw on YouTube. His opinion on First Amendment Absolutism might change.

Mr. Skiviers doesn't expect any of the consequences of the things he is advocating for to ever touch him. Free Speech absolutists never do.

As he says, "free speech that comes with consequences is not free speech".

He doesn't expect to be in a supermarket when a radicalized gunman armed with a weapon he learned to make fully automatic on the internet (free speech) bursts in and shoots up the place. After all, Mr. Skiviers is White.

The people doing this, aren't coming after people like Mr. Skiviers. They only want to murder Black and Brown people. Mr. Skiviers might have a different opinion if say the "Black Panthers" started calling on POC to get a gun and "go start shooting Whitey".

The violent consequences of the "free speech" he is so passionate about aren't real to him because he isn't the target. He thinks he's safe, so it costs him nothing to take a bold stand.

Conservatives piss and moan about “Cancel Culture”. I think it’s hilarious. The unselfaware hypocrisy of it is so blatant.

Do you know what Cancel Culture actually represents?

It’s the majority of people saying “we don’t like you and so we choose to remove your message from our attention”.

When that happens, the “Market” decides that your show, or movie, or column, or “whatever” is cancelled because the majority of the culture rejects it. Wow, the "free market" at work, that's what so called "Cancel Culture" actually is.

As a culture we have always “self censored” in just the same way that we “self censor” when, we as individuals, deal with people around us.

Learning to control ourselves, to “self censor” and not say whatever pops into our heads, is part of growing up. Of becoming an adult. Children may say the darnedest things, but we expect more of adults.

At least we used to.

Right now Conservatives don’t want “Free Speech”. What they want, is the power to force all of us to have to listen to “their speech” first.

They cannot accept that the reason they aren’t on the first Google search page is that people don’t want to hear what they have to say. It must be discrimination against “Conservative Values” in the algo by the evil tech company.

Keeping Trump off Twitter and Facebook is “Cancel Culture”.

The MAJORITY of us decided we didn’t want him there. Those companies weighed the feelings of the MAJORITY and the minority (cough — white people — cough). They decided, for their own economic best interest, to kick Trump off the platforms.

That’s the way the “Free Market” works. If Conservatives don’t like it, they are free to vote with their money and shift to a platform that allows Trump to spew his lies and disinformation.

Oh wait, they tried that and it turned out that Twitter and Facebook are monopolies. It turns out, that no other “start up” has a chance against them because of the “market dominance” they were allowed to achieve as a result of Trumpublican free market economic policy choices.

Boy, talk about biting the hand that feeds you. I bet when Republicans get back in power they take “stern reprisals” against Facebook and Twitter for this betrayal.

“There will be severe consequences when we get back into power”.

Kevin McCarthy speaking about Twitter and Facebook banning Trump.

“Free Speech” is never “free”. Censorship, in some form or another, always exists. Billions are spent on propaganda\advertising because it works. The conversation about what is allowed and what should be allowed is eternal. None of what is happening now is new or unprecedented.

The delusion of zealots and cultists is always that they are being persecuted because no wants to listen to them.