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** Alan Dershowitz and Elon Musk on Free Speech and Anti-Semitism ([link removed])
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by Alan M. Dershowitz • October 6, 2023 at 5:00 am
* No country in history has ever really tested free speech: has seen whether the marketplace of ideas works or whether we can really have a society without censorship; where every idea is tested only on its merits, rather than for political benefit. This cannot be a right-left issue. — Alan Dershowitz.
* You [Elon] are trying, for the first time, a great experiment to see whether we can survive with a marketplace of ideas, without censorship, where all thoughts and all ideas are treated equally. — Dershowitz
* What we need is to create a circle in which things that are illegal, such as abusing children, are outside the circle, but anything else has to be inside the circle. So if something is permitted for one idea or "-ism," it has to be permitted for the others. This is exactly what universities are failing to do. They are creating a line on which favored groups fall on one side and disfavored groups fall on the other side. — Dershowitz.
* People will always want to censor but not be censored. — Dershowitz.
* I am in favor of no prior censorship except things that are overtly illegal. Let the marketplace decide and make sure that there is an opportunity for everyone to answer. One cannot draw a line on hate speech. One person's hate speech is another person's love speech. It is important to open up the marketplace of ideas. — Dershowitz.
* [Y]ou can post anything on the platform ["X"] even if it is hateful, provided that it is lawful. But then there is a separate question of what is promoted or not promoted.... Our current approach is to say, okay, you can say things that are hateful but legal on the platform, but we are not going to recommend them to others. — Elon Musk.
* Advertisers, certainly, have a right to say what content they will appear next to because that's their right too, but not to dictate what can be said on the platform. — Musk.
* Today the greatest danger to free speech comes from the left.... At the moment, it is the left that is educating our future leaders, so the left poses a far greater danger of censoring free speech and of skewing the marketplace of ideas. "X" has to be perceived as equally open to both sides. — Dershowitz.
* That is our aspiration, that is our goal. Now the reality of it for anyone who is paying attention -- and I'm sure you saw this -- was that prior to the acquisition, Twitter was very left and getting even more left. They had a massive thumb on the scale on elections. Frankly, worldwide on the side of left, and would suppress Republican voices at a rate, sometimes perhaps an order of magnitude greater than Democrats. There was a tremendous amount of bias. Now we are moving from a system where there was a massive electoring bias to a system that is now more inclusive, where at least, say, 80% of America -- perhaps the world -- could be on the platform and feel that it is finally a level playing field, fair to people with a wide range of views. That is our goal and that is what we are doing now. — Musk.
* If you start on the left and you move to the center, you are necessarily moving right. Our goal is not to move to the right; it is that we are moving right in order to get to the center. — Musk.
* [Y]our historic neutrality might be destroyed if "X" is not perceived as being from the center. So everything you do needs to be designed to create a neutral space... where the only answer to false speech is true speech, and where the marketplace determines how many people listen to it... We have to have more confidence in our ability to answer bad speech. I do not want to censor my enemies. — Dershowitz.
* [W]e actually have massively broadened what can be said on the platform... but we have tried to guide our or algorithm to promote things that are positive more than things that are negative; frankly, to have a love bias, if you will. This is not in terms of what can be said, but in terms of what is promoted to others. If somebody wants to accuse me of saying it is wrong to have a slight bias towards love and positivity, then I am rightly accused of that. — Musk.
* As I have said, I think the overarching goal is how do how do we make this platform serve as a positive force for humanity. I think the free exchange of ideas does result in a positive force for humanity -- if somebody feels that even if their ideas are wrong, they are not being squashed or censored. I think being squashed and censored breeds hatred and resentment and simply sends people to "hate echo chambers" that are outside of the mainstream. I think where you get the sort of people who go kill and do mass shooting, is because they are in some sort of "hate echo chamber." — Musk.
* I believe one is always wrong to some degree; we simply aspire to be a little less wrong over time and eventually we can get to a really good place. The idea is how do we make "X" a positive force for humanity where we can increase the sum of human knowledge. It's a place where I hope people would know that if their ideas are based on false premises, especially hateful ideas, that perhaps we can point out that the reason that they have this hatred is because of things that are not true. It is like actually you are hating this or that group for things that are not true, or perhaps, in some cases, things that happened a long time ago for which it was a great-great-grandfather or something, that that did the bad thing. — Musk.
* I think there is a lot of wisdom in forgiveness and turning the other cheek... I think it is actually a sign of strength. By the same token if you turn the other cheek and you're just getting slapped all day, at a certain point you stop turning the cheek, but the general notion of forgiveness is incredibly important. Do not hold some grudge for you know a long time, in some cases centuries. Let it go and, to take another take a quote from the New Testament, the truth shall set you free, as John said. — Musk.

Elon Musk and Alan Dershowitz. (Photos by Joel Saget/AFP via Getty Images and Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Alan Dershowitz: Let me start with a statement that many will disagree with. No country in history has ever really tested free speech: has seen whether the marketplace of ideas works or whether we can really have a society without censorship; where every idea is tested only on its merits, rather than for political benefit. This cannot be a right-left issue. Elon, you may be the first person who has really tried. Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and Abraham Lincoln all compromised. You are trying, for the first time, a great experiment to see whether we can survive with a marketplace of ideas, without censorship, where all thoughts and all ideas are treated equally. For instance, where there are judgments on the basis of whether something is pro-right, pro-life, anti-Jewish, pro-Christian, anti-Christian. What we need is to create a circle in which things that are illegal, such as abusing children, are outside the circle, but anything else has to be inside the circle. So if something is
permitted for one idea or "-ism," it has to be permitted for the others. This is exactly what universities are failing to do. They are creating a line on which favored groups fall on one side and disfavored groups fall on the other side.

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