Thats true .... But, just because he says he did this to protect freedom of speech doesn’t mean that’s the real reason or that there isn’t some other nefarious ulterior motive.

Personally, I don’t believe him for one moment. The guy is a grifter with a bro-club following. He’s figured out some way to grift money off of this via some kind of scam. He’s pulling a Kansas City Shuffle. The rest of us are going to be a lot poorer for it, be left to clean up the mess AGAIN, and suffer the consequences of all the inevitable fallout from polarization.

It’s another catch-22.

I’m a fan of free speech as much as anyone and I recognize it’s usually not a good idea to stifle it in the long run. But when people start dying we have to take step back from being unilaterally high minded about free speech. That’s why we have the limits placed on free speech that we do.

People are dying due radicalization. As long as the algorithms make money and there is no viable way to track results of them, open to the public, there is no check, no accountability, and no brakes.

We are heading toward a civil war here in the States. Again. I don’t know that things have been in this level of unrest, suspicion of neighbor, and paranoid since the last one. Social media isn’t solely responsible but there is no doubt it played a large part of where we are now.

Like it or not, we have to consider a few things. The public was not ready for this technology or the technology is seriously flawed. Or both.

And then we need to figure out what we’re going to do about it.

The questions we need to be asking ourselves are whether or not enough people have died or been harmed to warrant intervention? If not now, at what point will we require intervention? How many dead is too many? How much damage is too much? What are our other options? Are there any? Are these our only choices? Can we nationalize Twitter or make it a Not For Profit or a Public Utility? Can we bar the sale by Elon musk or other billionaires? Can we require the algorithms and tracking metrics be made public as a condition of the sale? Can we require public oversight if some kind? Can we fine people for breaking guidelines?

What we can not do is allow ourselves to get so wrapped up in a binary argument that we fail to address a very real problem and fail to see another one closing in on us, about to bite us in the ass.

Musk IS a problem. The problem he represents IS NOT one of free speech absolutism or not.

He’s playing us with that bullshit. Again.