Elon Musk Is an Influential Idiot Who Should Not Be Arrested for Being Dumb ⇥ theguardian.com

Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor for the Clinton administration and Sam Reich’s dad, wrote about Elon Musk’s political influence in an editorial for the Guardian. It begins as a decent piece, comparing the power of owning a social media platform with Musk’s childlike gullibility — my words, not Reich’s. But, in a section of ideas about what to do, one suggestion seems particularly harmful:

3. Regulators around the world should threaten Musk with arrest if he doesn’t stop disseminating lies and hate on X.

Global regulators may be on the way to doing this, as evidenced by the 24 August arrest in France of Pavel Durov, who founded the online communications tool Telegram, which French authorities have found complicit in hate crimes and disinformation. Like Musk, Durov has styled himself as a free speech absolutist.

There are places where U.S.-style interpretation of free expression is contradicted by local laws and, so, X’s operations must comply. Maybe Musk could be legally responsible in some jurisdiction for things he has said, or for things hosted on a platform he owns. But we should almost never encourage the idea of arresting people for things they say. Yes, there are limits: threats of violence and fraud are both types of generally illegal speech. Yet charging Musk for being a loud public idiot is a very bad idea.

Also, while details about Pavel Durov’s arrest are still solidifying, it does not yet appear he is being held responsible for “hate crimes and disinformation”. According to French prosecutors (PDF), which I translated with DeepL, his charges are mostly about failing to comply with subpoenas and other legitimate legal demands. If X follows legal avenues for either complying with or disputing government demands, then I do not see how Durov’s arrest is even relevant. And, for what it is worth, neither Durov nor Telegram have been “found complicit” in anything. The United States is not the only country which has legal procedures.

In response to Reich’s article, a troll X account posted a screenshot of a 4chan post about “low T men”, itself containing an arguably antisemitic meme, which was quoted by Musk calling it an “interesting observation”. Just more evidence Musk is a big, dumb, rich, influential moron.