Blog Post 8- Miltenberger

 In "Locating freedom of speech in an era of global white nationalism" Anjali Vats and Mohan Dutta look into the idea of free speech as it relates to the protection of hate speech, and the racial double standard of free speech. I think it was really interesting, reading about how the ACLU technically defends hate speech, especially coming from certain right wing talking head,  under the concern of slippery slope moderation of thought (Vats, Dutta, 6). The authors argue that the marketplace of ideas is already skewed, and have created this overtly racist environment online and elsewhere. The authors also look into the foundations of white liberalism, to explain that the reasons for this type of thinking have historically come from places of colonialism.

I think this article made me think of the recent purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk, because the merger will have some free speech consequences. One of Musk's biggest things he wanted to change was the content moderation, or at least loosen the moderation a bit, and has even limited employee access to moderation tools as the midterms near (Vanian, 2022). This type of rhetoric, of championing free speech has a history especially with applications online, of an underlying message of "I can't say certain hateful things and I should be able to". I get that speech has to be protected, or else it could be a slippery slope, but there are certain things that no one should be saying publicly on the internet. Just these past couple of weeks the use of the of slurs has increased on Twitter, since the takeover from Musk (Cohen, 2022). It is kind of weird, that when these people think of free speech, they go straight for slurs, it sort of shows why these arguments were being had in the first place.

Vanian, J. (2022, November 2). Twitter reportedly limits employee access to content moderation tools as midterm election nears. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/01/twitter-reportedly-limits-employee-access-to-content-moderation-tools-.html

Cohen, L. (2022, November 2). Twitter saw an “immediate, visible and measurable spike” in hate speech after Elon Musk takeover, researchers find. CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-twitter-caused-measurable-spike-hate-speech-study/