One needs deep pockets to fight for God-given freedoms against the global forces of darkness, lawfare and tyranny. Where would we be without freewheeling billionaires like Donald J. Trump and the new owner of X?
Elon Musk's fight for freedom of speech has made him Public Enemy No. 1 to authoritarians abroad and in the U.S.
As Americans were enjoying the long Labor Day weekend, a judge in Brazil was ordering the country's 40 million X users cut off from the platform. Brazilians were threatened with fines three times the average amount they make in a year.
Brazil’s Supreme Court on Monday upheld Justice Alexandre de Moraes’ order banning X in the country "because Musk refuses to block speech on his site from individuals Moraes wants silenced," the New York Post Editorial Board noted.
Musk responded by establishing an X account dedicated to exposing what he said are Moraes' misdeeds and abuses of power. The account is called the Alexandre Files and Musk has promised a "daily data dump" of the "crimes" the judge has committed in response to the nationwide ban of X in Brazil.
"He can block this platform in Brazil, but he can’t stop the whole world from knowing his illegal, shameful & hypocritical deeds. Karma’s a b*tch bro," Musk wrote.
Today, we launch the daily data dump on the crimes – under *Brazilian* law – that fake “judge” @alexandre has committed!
He can block this platform in Brazil, but he can’t stop the whole world from knowing his illegal, shameful & hypocritical deeds. Karma’s a b*tch bro. 🍿🍿🍿 https://t.co/hoxcpmkzOK — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 1, 2024
As independent media and free speech advocates worldwide are rallying to Musk's defense, the American Left is cheering Brazil's actions.
In column for The Guardian, Clinton era Labor Secretary Robert Reich called for “regulators around the world” to “threaten Musk with arrest if he doesn’t stop disseminating lies and hate on X.”
Reich also insists: “Musk’s free-speech rights under the First Amendment don’t take precedence over the public interest.”
Then there is Keith Ellison, attorney general in Democrat Gov. Tim Walz's Minnesota. Ellison took advantage of the free speech platform established by Musk to applaud Brazil's censorship:
obrigado Brasil!
— Keith Ellison (@keithellison) September 2, 2024
During her 2020 presidential campaign, Kamala Harris slammed the lack of “any level of oversight or regulation” of speech on social media.
The Biden-Harris administration infamously tried to set up a Ministry of Truth. Public outrage shamed them out of it.
As the Post Editorial Board notes: "And as Musk bought Twitter and made X a safe haven for free speech, the administration has slammed his companies with investigations and lawsuits, waging 11 different regulatory and legal assaults to date."
But the censorship movement is not the juggernaut it believes it is.
Last week, a federal judge ruled that a lawsuit by Musk against Media Matters can move forward in what legal analyst Jonathan Turley said "could prove a significant case not just for the liberal outlet but the entire media industry."
Musk’s lawsuit "may be the most defining for our age of advocacy journalism," Turley wrote in an Aug. 31 op-ed for The Hill.
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Musk is suing Media Matters, the leftist outlet founded by David Brock, whom Time magazine once described as “one of the most influential operatives in the Democratic Party.”
Media Matters has long been accused as being a weaponized media outlet for the Left.
After Musk dismantled the censorship system at Twitter, Turley noted, "he became something of an obsession for Media Matters, which targeted his revenue sources."
Media Matters ran a report suggesting that advertisements of major corporations were being posted on X next to pro-Nazi posts or otherwise hateful content on the platform.
"This effort mirrored similar moves by the anti-free speech movement against Musk to force him to restore censorship systems," Turley noted.
Companies including Apple, IBM, Comcast and Lionsgate Entertainment quickly joined the effective boycott to squeeze Musk.
"The problem is that it is hard to squeeze the world’s richest man financially. Musk told the companies to pound sand and told his lawyers to file suit," Turley wrote.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas rejected an effort to dismiss the case on jurisdictional and other grounds. Musk will be able to continue his claims of tortious interference with existing contracts, business disparagement and tortious interference with prospective economic advantage.
Musk is also suing the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, which also targeted advertisers to choke off targeted sites.
Other court wins for free speech include former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's lawsuit against The New York Times and a Navy veteran's case against CNN.
Palin recently won a major appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which found that she was denied a fair trial in her case against the Times.
In 2017, liberal activist and Bernie Sanders supporter James T. Hodgkinson attempted to massacre Republican members of Congress on a baseball diamond, nearly killing Rep. Steve Scalise.
"The New York Times, eager to shift the narrative, ran an editorial suggesting that Palin had inspired or incited Jared Loughner’s 2011 shooting of then-U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords," Turley noted.
The Times’ editors stated that SarahPAC, Palin’s political action committee, had posted a graphic that put a crosshair on a U.S. map representing Giffords’ district before she was shot, suggesting that this was direct incitement to violence.
"In reality," Turley noted, "Palin’s graphic 'targeting' about 20 vulnerable House Democrats all across the country is typical of graphics used in political campaigns by both parties for many decades. No evidence has ever been offered that Giffords’ deranged shooter even saw it."
CNN is now facing a trial in a lawsuit by Navy veteran Zachary Young, the subject of an alleged hit piece over his work to extract endangered people from Afghanistan after the botched Biden-Harris withdrawal and surrender to the Taliban.
In a Nov. 11, 2021, segment on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” the host tells his audience ominously how CNN correspondent Alex Marquardt discovered “Afghans trying to get out of the country face a black market full of promises, demands of exorbitant fees, and no guarantee of safety or success.”
In his report, Marquardt named Young and his company in claiming that “desperate Afghans are being exploited” and need to pay “exorbitant, often impossible amounts” to flee the country.
Discovery in the lawsuit revealed how Marquardt said that he wanted to “nail this Zachary Young mfucker.” After promising to “nail” Young, CNN editor Matthew Philips responded: “gonna hold you to that cowboy!” That sentiment was echoed by other CNN staff.
In allowing the case to go to trial, a judge found not just evidence of actual malice by CNN but grounds for potential punitive damages.
Turley concluded:
It is not hard to see why. The Media Matters lawsuit directly challenges the ability of media outlets to create false narratives to advance a political agenda. As with the CNN and New York Times cases, it can expose how the media first decides on a conclusion and then frames or even invents the facts to support it.
While rejecting the longstanding principles of journalism such as objectivity, these media outlets are citing the cases and defenses secured by those now-outdated media organizations. They want to be advocates, but they also want to be protected as journalists. These cases still face tough challenges, including challenging jury polls in places like New York. However, they are exposing the bias that now characterizes much of American journalism. In the age of advocacy journalism, a bill has come due.
That is why Musk’s lawsuit against Media Matters . . . well . . . matters.
