My Dear Friend of Democracy,
Have you ever posted a photo of a woman's breasts on X, Instagram or Facebook?
Maybe you should do it. It's enlightening. You then experience what Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk mean when they say freedom has finally returned to their portals.
What they mean by this is their definition of freedom. The breast image disappears pretty quickly from the platforms.
You can think that's good or bad. I don’t bring up the breast image to judge if this is right or wrong. It just shows that freedom on X and Facebook also has limits—quite a lot, in fact.
Limits to freedom are a given.
Different societies have different (moral) ideas about where individual freedom begins and ends. All societies have limits. Murder is part of this limit almost everywhere, rape increasingly. Photos of rape too.
Fortunately, that's the case.
The freedom of one person can affect the freedom of another. Good societies determine the limits of freedom using democratic methods. In bad societies, the powerful determine this.
✊ Elon Musk believes that because he owns X, he can decide what is and is not allowed on X. Elon Musk will not (want to) understand that a functioning society does not work like that. Perhaps his economic success has gone to his head, perhaps he lacks intellect, perhaps he understands it very well and, out of self-interest, refuses to publicly admit what is self-evident, namely that in a democracy, not a single person decides what is and what is not allowed, and where freedom begins and where it ends. It is high time that Elon Musk learns this. He may not be taught this lesson in the USA. In this respect, it is fortunate that X is not only used there.
See you in Democracy,
Johannes
📸 Mohamed_hassan, CCC