>5. The elites have somehow inverted history so they now believe that it is not censorship that is the favored tool of fascists and authoritarians, even though every fascist and despot in history used censorship to maintain power, but instead believe free speech, free discourse, and free thought are the instruments of repression.
Fascists and authoritarians took advantage of freedom of speech to gain power, the censorship came after they seized power. Hitler promoted himself through his right to speak at his trials, and through his book Mein Kampf, things the Weimer Republic could have absolutely chosen to censor. Karl Popper made a rather infamous observation of the "Paradox of tolerance" where tolerating the intolerant could result in more intolerance, if the intolerant happened to be Hitler in Nazi Germany.
I find the biggest objection to this entire line of thought is that censors always consider themselves to be the ones resisting the next Nazi Germany rather than being Nazi Germany themselves. Anybody who openly censors others is more likely than the general person in the population to be some sort of totalitarian authoritarian, so trusting them with power so they can stop some sort of Nazi uprising is foolish. It's the same kind of issue as "Bombing for peace", pretty much 100% of the people who have ever bombed people have said they were doing it for the sake of peace.
This all being said, I don't think giving Musk 100% of twitter and the effective absolute power to censor others on the platform is a good idea.
Fascists and authoritarians took advantage of freedom of speech to gain power, the censorship came after they seized power. Hitler promoted himself through his right to speak at his trials, and through his book Mein Kampf, things the Weimer Republic could have absolutely chosen to censor. Karl Popper made a rather infamous observation of the "Paradox of tolerance" where tolerating the intolerant could result in more intolerance, if the intolerant happened to be Hitler in Nazi Germany.
I find the biggest objection to this entire line of thought is that censors always consider themselves to be the ones resisting the next Nazi Germany rather than being Nazi Germany themselves. Anybody who openly censors others is more likely than the general person in the population to be some sort of totalitarian authoritarian, so trusting them with power so they can stop some sort of Nazi uprising is foolish. It's the same kind of issue as "Bombing for peace", pretty much 100% of the people who have ever bombed people have said they were doing it for the sake of peace.
This all being said, I don't think giving Musk 100% of twitter and the effective absolute power to censor others on the platform is a good idea.