And then want to ban the book "Maus", etc. etc.
Does holding freedom of speech as an ideal mean you must never dislike anything or tell anyone else that you dislike it? Is Elon giving orders to Disney+ about what they can and can't show? Is he going to ban Disney from using Twitter now because two guys kissed in a cartoon?
> and want that stuff censored off the airs.
There is indeed censorship of broadcast media but it long predates Elon or Twitter and it's done by the FCC.
> And then want to ban the book "Maus", etc. etc.
Removing a book from the curriculum and replacing it with another book that teaches pretty much the same thing is hardly "banning" it. Did students face disciplinary action or criminal charges for possessing a copy of Maus on school grounds? Did parents who bought a copy for their kids get a visit from the sheriff? Was Amazon ordered to stop selling it?
It's ridiculous. If you think about it almost all books are similarly "banned" as there are countless possible books you could have kids read and very limited time and space on the curriculum. We had the Pearson algebra textbook in high school so I guess that means the McGraw-Hill one was "banned".
No. Maus was removed from an 8th grade curriculum list because of graphic depictions of sexuality/violence/language, but the school board sought alternative, age-appropriate works to teach about the Holocaust with (<https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2022/01/27/why-did-ten...>). To say that Maus is "banned", and not any and every other book the board decides to not include on its curriculum, is inaccurate.
I consider myself somewhat of a libertarian / "classical liberal". I'm therefore something of a "free speech absolutist", have no issue with gay characters, and hate the idea of banning books. Not everyone who thinks differently than you do about free speech fits into a neat little caricature.
I'm accusing my family, friends, coworkers, of being a hypocrite. Because I know them and have seen how their values have changed on this issue. They're for "free speech" and "against cancel culture" one day, and then for "banning LGBTQ+ cartoons from Netflix" the next day.
I'd consider myself a libertarian free speech absolutist. I don't think anything should be banned from Netflix. I do think what teachers say in the classroom should be carefully controlled and parents should have a lot of control over what speech their children are exposed to more generally (e.g. filters on Netflix), because children almost by definition find it extremely difficult to separate truths from untruths and are much more impressionable than adults. Part of being a parent is deciding how to raise your kids and what beliefs to teach them. That's one reason totalitarian states always try so hard to indoctrinate children - it's easy, and they're a weak spot through which adults can be attacked in turn (see the sordid history of children being convinced to spy on their parents).
A big part of the fights in the USA at the moment and in culture more generally are about this sort of underhanded tactic - where one ideology that's losing the battle of ideas tries to short circuit it by indoctrinating children. Arguably that's where CRT came from. It's not a coincidence it emerged from academia, a place filled with impressionable teenagers.
So.... when will that guy start talking about the benefits of Free Speech in China? Particularly, the Shanghai factory that Elon Musk has been so proud of?
https://finance.yahoo.com/finance/news/elon-musk-tesla-boss-...
> Jack Dorsey
Same same. Twitter bends its "free speech" in China so that it can operate in that country. Its all about the money to them, they'd rather get that Chinese-money than to piss off their new overlords and actually make a racket about free-speech issues over there.