It’s all over for Twitter, Twitter’s heaviest lefties are telling us. The shrieking is at cat-tail-slammed-in-door levels. When Elon Musk takes over, they warn, Twitter will become a flaming toxic radioactive cesspool . . . of politically incorrect jokes and links to accurate reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop.
On the right, many people I respect such as Charles C.W. Cooke of National Review and Megan McArdle of the Washington Post think Twitter is beyond saving. As McArdle points out, Musk can hardly run Twitter himself, and young, brainwashed zombies from the Cult of Woke ultimately make the uncomfortable decisions about, you know, which presidents to ban. Musk can’t possibly clean house and bring in reasonable centrists who love free speech to staff every moderating job; as is true of the media, the pool of potential employees in Silicon Valley is as blue as San Francisco. And these eager young censors grew up this century — the era of trigger warnings and safe spaces. Many of them, I’ll wager, have never had a substantial conversation with a conservative in their entire lives.
But I still think Musk can save Twitter: How about trying clear, fair, nonpartisan rules and telling content moderators to err on the side of letting people rhetorically slug it out? For those whose tweets get barred, there should be a clear and transparent appeals process. And nobody should be banned just for being a jerk. Threats? No. Doxing? Not allowed. Porn? Go elsewhere for that. But Donald Trump should be let back on. Whether something is “disinformation” or “a threat to democracy” ought not concern Twitter’s moderators, because what’s accurate will drive out the inaccurate over time. Oh, and in our glorious Muskian future, people will be free to joke again.
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