The Thinking ‘Kat: Toxic Twitter and the Free Speech Distortion
I write this post whilst feeling angry and aggrieved, on behalf of the Bear, who has provided so many intelligent, witty and evidence-led takedowns of hard-right trolls and other miscreants. I’m pretty sure the Bear doesn’t need me to feel aggrieved, but nonetheless I am annoyed because a sharp, incisive voice against ignorance has decided that they are withdrawing from Twitter, owing to the sheer weight of nasty, aggressive and misleading trolls to come his way. I in no way begrudge the Bear his decision, which he has rightly made to look after himself and his interests, but I do begrudge the cowardly trolls, and their overseer Elon Musk, who champions freedom of expression whilst throttling those he does not care for.
This double-standard forms part of a wider pattern. Those most-opposed to freedom of speech are often the first to suggest theirs is being infringed. It wasn’t too long ago that Nigel Farage travelled to the USA to give speeches that falsely implied Britain was becoming like North Korea. It greatly pleased this meerkat to see him crushed by US politicians, who condemned his misleading claims, and his arguably treacherous rhetoric. His statements can be refuted by the simple fact that he is not in chains right now. If the UK government truly is moving toward some kind of dystopian dictatorship, it’s more likely to be in the form of Reform and Farage, given the media’s disproportionate coverage of his tiny political party.
Let’s think about this logically. If the left is the force clamping down on freedom of speech, then why is the BBC willing and able to grant so much airtime to the hard-right Reform Party? How is it that Farage can openly call for a foreign power to intervene and usurp the government, and then return to the UK and be scot-free to run a political party, if our freedom of speech is under attack from the supposedly left-wing Labour government? Meanwhile, good people are being hounded off Elon Musk’s supposedly free-speech friendly social media platform, because Musk is amplifying right-wing voices above all else.
I honestly cannot fathom the gross double-standards that many on the conservative right employ where freedom of speech (and indeed, general personal freedoms) are concerned.
