Robert Reich Smears Elon Musk's Vision for Twitter as 'Dangerous Nonsense'The libertarian vision of an 'uncontrolled' internet is not the dream of dictators.
ROBBY SOAVE
4.13.2022
Robert Reich is a former U.S. Secretary of Labor, having served under Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997. He has taught public policy at the University of California, Berkeley since 2006, and is one of the most influential progressive economic writers and commentators alive today.
He attracted attention on social media on Tuesday for writing a particularly awful column titled "Elon Musk's Vision for the Internet is Dangerous Nonsense." It ran in The Guardian.
Reich begins by condemning Russian President Vladimir Putin's authoritarianism: how he hides the truth from the people of Russia by outlawing dissent, jailing protesters, and prioritizing government propaganda over independent media. Reich then turns his attention to former President Donald Trump, writing that the decisions by social media companies to ban the president "were necessary to protect American democracy."
But wait a minute: Why does silencing a political viewpoint protect democracy? How is that any different than Putin saying his silencing of dissenters is necessary to protect Russia? Reich doesn't seem to realize that he is condemning one kind of tyranny while lionizing another, which leads him into a very, very odd attack on Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who recently became the largest shareholder of Twitter after buying a 9 percent stake in the company.
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Reich, unfortunately, is deeply confused. The libertarian vision of an "uncontrolled" internet is not the dream of dictators. Dictators like Putin want a controlled internet. Reich is also advocating for a controlled internet—and apparently likes the people who control it right now: i.e., the sort of progressive-minded moderators who don't want people to read about the Black Lives Matter foundation spending millions in donations to buy up real estate rather than promote change, a story that Facebook decided to suppress.
An internet where Facebook hides the truth from users is a controlled internet—it's just one controlled by people Reich approves of. Musk purports to want something entirely different: a social media site where the gatekeepers don't try to suppress information, but instead, allow users to decide what to think and believe.
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Source:
https://reason.com/2022/04/13/elon-musk-robert-reich-twitter-free-speech-putin/
