The Free Press Wins a Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism

Before Elon Musk bought Twitter, America s information network our newspapers and social media companies were managed and censored along pretty obvious and blunt ideological lines. The rules for acceptable conversation on tech platforms weren t sophisticated, but they were strict. 

For example, it was impossible to question where Covid might have originated. This conversation was smeared as racist in the mainstream press and was flat-out censored on social media, which blocked any talk about a lab leak as a conspiracy theory. (Now, of course, the lab leak is the leading theory.)

For a long time too, it was verboten to talk about our president s family, specifically his son Hunter, with anyone bringing up concerns about financial improprieties immediately discredited as the lunatic fringe and of course ultimately censored on social media platforms like Twitter. 

Twitter ended up blocking a whole news organization for reporting on Hunter Biden s finances, the better to quiet them down. Never mind that our friends at the New York Post had gotten it right, and the leaked financial details and conversations from Hunter Biden s laptop have proven entirely accurate, a rare window into how our president s family benefits from his service. 

A conservative humor site called The Babylon Bee that made fun of the laptop situation and various progressive mores of the day? They were locked out of Twitter, lest they tell too many offensive jokes about the daily news, which it was important never to jest about. 

Then, as you know, a strange thing happened. Elon Musk, annoyed by all of this, bought Twitter. He paid $44 billion for it which seems like a lot unless you are the richest man in the world.

via www.thefp.com

Imagine censoring somebody for espousing the theory that Covid came from a lab! Outrageous to suggest such a thing. Maybe even . . . racist! Just kidding. That would never happen. As we all know, Covid came from the disgusting local eating habits of Chinese peasants, who eat bats. Horrible I know, but they actually do that. (/satire. The preceding paragraph is meant as a “joke.” Please don’t cut off my head.)

Whoever imagined that we’d find ourselves in such a high stakes battle over the freedom of thought? If you’re talking about the freedom of information, freedom of the press, freedom of publication, free debate, and relatedly freedom of religion, which you are, you’re pretty much talking about the whole ball of wax. I thought that this one big issue at least, a la The End of History, was settled. Apparently not! The science is settled, but your rights are not. Who knew.

And you can see why now. Whoever controls “the narrative” really doesn’t have to worry about controlling anything else. And you can hardly control the narrative if any old person can just say what they want. And if they can say what they want, who knows what they’re thinking.

So it turns out Elon was correct, though obviously he has lots of other interests at play, and bears watching. It really is about the future of civilization. Me, I like civilization, having endured several long camping trips. In any event, congratulations to The Free Press. Well deserved. They’re right up there with Elon for a nice save, if saved we turn out to be.