Free speech hangs in the balance, and Elon Musk is doing a lot to rescue it with the Twitter files release.

This is good for both the left and the right and everyone in between. 

Elon Musk believes deeply in free speech, which you have to trust, not something that anybody can come right out and prove. But for those who do believe him, (and he did back up his intentions by purchasing Twitter for $44 billion), Elon Musk believes in the First Amendment. This says Congress and the federal government, and any state or local government, cannot abridge or limit free speech or the press.

Elon Musk is encouraging people to correct misinformation on Twitter, using Community Notes. He even went so far as to note that a meme (above) that he tweeted about CNN, may have communicated the wrong message, and Community Notes corrected that. Of course, most people understood that it was a joke, and Elon stated,

“If Community Notes can correct me, then obviously they can correct anyone.
This is a good example.
They were right to add the label.” – Elon Musk

pic.twitter.com/KZ7jeME3AX

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022

Trump’s Account Being Reactivated is a Good Thing

Whether you like former President Trump or not, Elon Musk made sure his historical words would always be available to the public on Twitter. This is valuable information, coming from a former President.  His tweets are now available so that many people, now and in the future, can read them.  Many people are of the opinion that Elon Musk was absolutely right in inviting the former President back. Trump remains only communicating on the platform that he created in Oct 2021, called TruthSocial. (I do not use it).

Birdwatch Gets a New Life under Elon Musk

In October 2020 Twitter conceived of a program they called Birdwatch. It was supposed to be a tool to stop the rise of misinformation. In January 2021 a Birdwatch Pilot program quietly began and Few people knew it existed and it was limited on how many people could participate and write notes. When Elon Musk bought Twitter he revived this little-known tool and gave it new life under the name of Community Notes.

Twitter 2.0 Community Notes as a Tool for Free Speech

Community Notes allow people to correct information and back their claims up with documentation and proof. You can go back in time as well, for example, if you disagree with Elon Musk’s tweet from March 2020, which stated, “Maybe worth considering chloroquine for C19” with a link to a document, you can refute that, and provide evidence for your claims. Here’s a screenshot of the tweet, and access into community notes. 

A suggestion for mainstream media…

My take is that if mainstream media cares so much about the information on Twitter, about what they consider to be dangerous things that Elon Musk tweets, instead of jumping to their conclusions and writing false headlines just for clicks and to please their advertisers, they could literally go in and anonymously contribute to Community Notes.

Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – December 7, 2022. All Rights Reserved. My goal as an author is to support the new Twitter 2.0 and Elon Musk in both making lives better on earth for humans and becoming a space-fairing civilization. Updated March 7, 2023.