There is no Freedom of Speech Without Freedom of Reach

Elon Musk admits to censorship of conservative viewpoints on X.

On Monday (December 23, 2024), we posted a rant on X about the platform’s relentless censorship of our page (@WTPatriotsUSA). In the five-post thread, I explained how, despite Elon Musk’s stated commitment to free speech on X, we have been consistently censored since he took the helm, perhaps worse than ever before. That’s because Musk never really made a commitment to free speech. In fact - as I also pointed out in the thread - in November 2022, he publicly declared that X (then Twitter) would have a new policy: “freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach.”

But there cannot truly be freedom of speech without freedom of reach. If the government told all of us that we could only exercise our right to free speech in deserted places, it’s pretty clear we’d have a slam dunk victory in a First Amendment violation lawsuit. Or, as Gab Founder and CEO Andrew Torba posted just this morning, “You know where you have ‘freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach?’ Prison.”

We weren’t aware that our Monday post was prophetic, but in the days that followed, X began removing “blue checks” - the purported hallmark of an “authentic” account - from accounts that posted opposition to the H-1B visa program, which allows “high-skilled” workers from other countries to take jobs in the U.S. - many of which are found in Silicon Valley. It should come as no surprise, then, that both Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy - whose Big Tech businesses have heavily utilized the program - have expressed strong support for it. But opponents are concerned that it has taken jobs out of the hands of Americans, who they say are equally qualified for the positions. Among those opponents are journalist and conservative political commentator Laura Loomer, who engaged in an open debate with Musk on his platform in which she expressed her strong opposition to the H-1B program. Her punishment for this was that she lost her premium subscription, her account was demonetized (with her paid subscriptions being removed), she lost her blue check, and her account received a 12-hour suspension (though apparently she was able to resume posting after about 4 hours).

So apparently “open debate” is only allowed when you’re on what Musk deems to be the “right side” of the debate. And perhaps the most stunning part is that he admits it. Yesterday morning, Musk reposted a post by Elon Clips, featuring an interview with Musk from May 10, 2022 in which he declared, “Victory [for X] would be that the most far-right 10% and the most far-left 10% are equally upset.”

This kind of sentiment reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of free speech. The right to free speech was included in the First Amendment precisely because the Framers of our Constitution wanted to protect unpopular speech, the kind of speech for which the colonists had lost their lives (or had them threatened) at the hands of the tyrannical British monarchy. In other words, the fringe speech. In other words, “the most far-right 10% and the most far-left 10%.” Otherwise, only the speech with which the majority agrees is protected, which doesn’t allow for any minority voices to be heard. But such a society is at odds with the Republic to which we’ve been entrusted. Contrary to what some in the mainstream media (or the government, for that matter) would have you believe, we don’t live in a “majority rules democracy.” Our representatives in government are supposed to represent all of the people, not just those in the majority (or those with the loudest - a.k.a. uncensored - voices).

And yesterday afternoon things got stranger still, when the Autism Capital account posted on X:

So basically the right split into two factions, tech right and right right, and the tech right is like "hey we need h-1b visa people to do the jobs," and the right right was like "no you need to hire americans," and the tech right is like "but you guys are retarded," and the right right is like "well you don't train us," and the tech right is like "you can't outtrain being retarded," and while all this was going on we learned some people *really* don't like Indians.

Musk replied to the post, “That pretty much sums it up. This was eye-opening.” So apparently, Musk believes that those who promote an “America-first” agenda (which of course includes giving jobs to qualified Americans before outsourcing them to qualified immigrants), are “retarded”. Wouldn’t that also include his buddy (and sort of new boss) President Trump? As far as I can tell, President Trump has yet to weigh in on all of this, but it will be interesting to see if he responds.

And all of this further underscores the point I made in my Substack article last month, “The Complacency Problem”. While many have expressed great enthusiasm for the new Presidential administration, we absolutely cannot rely on the federal government to save this country. Elon Musk has been appointed, along with Ramaswamy, to head the new Department of Government Efficiency (“D.O.G.E.”). Setting aside the irony of a new federal agency being created to reduce the size of government, I find it extremely troublesome that at least one of the guys in charge of government “efficiency” regards Americans who believe in putting America first as “retarded,” and believes that unpopular opinions should be censored. You should too. But if you don’t, that’s okay. Because my opinion isn’t really what matters. What matters is that I’m allowed to share it.

We The Patriots USA is a nonprofit public interest law firm committed to bringing litigation to protect free speech from the attacks of ruthless government tyrants. You can support our work with a tax-deductible gift to our year-end campaign here.