Judging Freedom - Elon_s New Rules

Episode Date: November 7, 2022

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Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, November 7th, 2022. It's a little after two o'clock in the afternoon here on the east coast of the United States. Twitter, of course, is not only back in the news, it never seems to really leave the news. This morning, the new management of Twitter, headed by Elon Musk, and as you all know, I applauded Musk's takeover of Twitter, listed rules that sound like they were written by Jack Dorsey, the person and the head of the team from which Elon Musk bought Twitter. That's not a slip of the tongue, and I apologize for that. So hereafter, no tweets about violence, extremism, abuse, harassment, no tweets that are hateful, no tweets about anything that is legally sensitive, illegal,

or legally regulated. Come on. I thought this was supposed to be the marketplace of ideas and the marketplace of free speech. Mr. Musk, I hope if you're watching this, you're looking at your next content coordinator because I wouldn't ban anything. And during the buildup to your acquisition of Twitter, you garnered a lot of public support by saying you wouldn't ban anything. Now you've written some rules, just as oppressive. They're more specific. They're more helpful, but they're just as helpful in understanding your thinking, but just as oppressive as Jack Dorsey's very subjective rules. Because one person's abuse and one person's harassment is another person's freedom of speech. And one person's sensitive is another person's not sensitive. And one person's

offensive is another person's inoffensive. We all know that. That's from the point of view of me, who judged the Politano, who does a podcast every day, who did 14,500 on-air appearances at Fox in 24 years. But I respect your private ownership of a private entity. And you can establish whatever rules you want, and you can ban whoever you want and keep whoever you want. Do I care about the authenticity checkmark? I understand people's complaints about it. I also understand your position. That's a business judgment call.

And there's nobody on the planet better than making a business judgment call, one that's good for the owners of the business and appreciated by the customers and one that the customers will believe they're going to get more in return than what they're paying for it. No one's better at making those judgment calls than you are, Elon Musk. But I don't like the idea that you claim that this is the free market in ideas, the marketplace for free ideas, and now you've listed all these categories of behavior and words, and it's just words that you will ban. Bottom line, there is no right not to be offended. If something offends you, look the

other way. Respond with your own speech. Don't silence it. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.