With Elon Musk in charge of Twitter, expect the social media organ to suddenly change — drastically.If you’re of a conservative bent — and chances are if you’re reading this column you are — your tweets will suddenly be seen by more people and retweeted and liked by dozens, hundreds and thousands more. Twitter has become intrinsically anti-conservative in its outlook and shadow bans those it disagrees with by seeing their posts are not seen by a full scope of viewers. .Also, have you noticed how Twitter will promote how a liberal hashtag is “trending” with 500 tweets while a conservative one is trending with 500,000? .Twitter will also rapidly ban you for articulating an opinion that's out of line with the hegemonic liberal establishment, but strangely will leave untouched the ravings of terrorist nations. And be very careful discussing anything to do with COVID-19 or the vaccines because that could immediately be flagged as misinformation. .Misinformation is a dangerous term because it can apply to just about anything — unlike disinformation which has to be proven to be a deliberate lie. But why should social media be deciding what misinformation — supposedly misleading or false information — is?Do you really want a bunch of woke kids in their 20s telling you whether your opinions are acceptable or not? Try hanging around a bunch of woke kids in their 20s for more than a few days. I can tell you that it is a frightening experience to understand how well our school system has completely indoctrinated them into progressive values and ideology. .When social media first exploded on the scene, none of us realized it was going to have the titanic impact it has on culture and the news. While the traditional news has been slowly strangled by online journalism, social media is increasingly a large part of how most people gather their news and are informed about everyday questions. .This is not necessarily a good thing. Personally I long for the days of relatively objective journalists like Mike Wallace reporting the news and actually believing they weren’t working for politicians or political parties, but their jobs were to keep the public informed. .But Twitter and Facebook and the other myriad social media outlets have become so large and so influential and so powerful there's really no room for censorship or people labeling things misinformation.George Orwell envisioned a dystopic 1984 where state censors would recreate the news by clipping and pasting newspapers together. Of course we do that everyday with computer copy and it’s very easy to change the news or forget it completely. .That's why when you consider how the Trudeau government is attempting to get its claws into the internet through Bill C-11, it's imperative we strengthen the private parameters of freedom with social media and not jettison them. .Yes, Musk can be a bit of an eccentric — yes, he’s more than rich enough to be called that — but he’s shown a firm commitment to free speech, unlike a lot of other billionaires who're becoming increasingly authoritarian in outlook with every dollar they squeeze out of an unwitting public. .Besides, isn’t it time former president Donald Trump was welcomed back to Twitter? But he does have his own social media site now so he might eschew the invitation when it inevitably comes from Musk. .But it’s the thought and the commitment to free speech that counts.
