Democrat, Robert Reich, Calls for Arrest of Elon Musk for Speech Crimes

Well known Democrat, Robert Reich, is arguing that Elon Musk should be arrested for saying things he disagrees with.

Over the weekend, I published a rare editorial pointing out that speech has become the new file-sharing “piracy”. In it, I highlighted the numerous parallels we are seeing between file-sharing of the old days and modern developments surrounding social media and expression. While there are some minor variations here and there, the two timelines are disturbingly similar.

One of the things I highlighted is how, much like file-sharing, the efforts to crack down on speech has long been a bi-partisan affair. The only thing really stopping efforts to crack down on speech is the question of what speech should a government crack down go after. Should the government go after “pornographers” or should they go after “disinformation”? The obvious answer here is “neither” given that we supposedly live in this thing called a “democracy”, but thanks to the polarized (arguably militant) nature of modern politics, such an answer, however obvious it is, almost never appears in the conversation.

If anything, it’s often two major political parties arguing that their speech is the legitimate freedom fighting speech while the speech from the other side should be silenced and its speakers arrested for thought crimes. Believe me, I hate news articles that write those BSAB (Both Sides Are Bad) stories for the sake of saying it in a sad effort to pretend that they are politically neutral, but when it comes to the angle of political parties being censorship trigger happy these days, this criticism becomes warranted. This isn’t just mindless speculation given that there are plenty of concrete examples to go around.

For right wing political parties in multiple countries, examples include various age verification laws, considerations of opening up liability laws for journalism, and multiple anti-moderation efforts. As I reported last month, age verification laws have nothing to do with supposed efforts to “protect the children” and more to do with imposing their own morality on everyone else. This includes using such laws to suppress LGBTQ+ content across the internet. In fact, Project 2025 went further to call for anyone producing so-called “pornography” to be arrested and put in jail.

Moreover, convicted felon, Donald Trump, also called for the reopening of liability laws in an effort to make it easier to file SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) suits against journalists for the crimes of published less than flattering coverage of him or anyone else. Criticize the king and expect to be ruined, essentially. This along with efforts to “defund” various news organizations for the crimes of publishing criticisms towards right leaning political parties, officials, and supporters (warranted or not).

Further, there are efforts to crack down on moderation. Laws have been passed essentially banning moderation of any kind. Such laws have been put through the legal challenge process and, last we heard, got surprisingly held up at the Supreme court. This under the false premise that social media platforms are suppressing Conservative voices through bias (even though the evidence shows that social media platforms are actually guilty of pro-conservative bias more than anything else). Moderation is something that is granted through freedom of expression, yet right wing lawmakers have sought to take those tools away so that their supporters can be free from the consequences of their own speech.

Moreover, we recently learned how Trump also called for the arrest of Mark Zuckerberg because he upset Trump supporters at one point. The suggestion being that if Zuckerberg crosses right wingers one more time, then he should be put in jail for life. It’s a piss poor reason to do so, but for some right wingers, jailing political opponents is only OK if they do it.

While I could go on about that side of the censorship coin, the other side of the political coin isn’t any better.

One of the most obvious examples is various “Online Harms” bills being pushed. Such pieces of legislation have been known to create huge government apparatuses to police social media for content that is deemed “offensive”. Such laws have been known to carry with it jail time and steep fines for any website or platform that fails to comply within a tight window of, for instance, 24 hours. While these plans have been heavily criticized by civil rights organizations for being a threat to freedom of expression as well as being ripe for abuse, left leaning government officials and supports push back, saying that this is about stopping “election interference” and “misinformation”. Often, they completely miss the fact that this all has some pretty strong 1984 undertones (Ministry of Truth, anyone?).

Similarly (and this has been bandied about by both sides of the political spectrum), there are efforts to completely gut the perfectly fine Section 230 protections. Section 230 holds that those who own websites or internet services are not necessarily liable for the speech of their users. In fact, it is the users themselves who are liable for the speech. This is just basic common sense and should continue to be the norm. However, there are those who argue that Section 230 shouldn’t apply anymore because big platforms exist today, therefore, the protections should be rescinded. This especially thanks to “misinformation” that exists today. This, of course, ignores the fact that Section 230 protects all web services both big and small. Remove those protections and you wipe out a huge swath of technological innovation in the process. This all because you happen to not like someone in the industry.

Another big example is the arrest of Telegram co-founder, Pavel Durov. Following his arrest, the left leaning mainstream media essentially praised the move, saying that arresting a founder of a major tech company for the actions of their user is “accountability“. This despite this being anything but accountability and more to do with jailing people you happen to not like personally (for whatever reason as I still don’t know what the heck the guy did wrong in the eyes of those praising the arrest beyond vague accusations of failing to moderate).

Moreover, there is some of the latest developments with ultra wealthy dumbass, Elon Musk. We’ve been covering the latest developments where his platform got banned in Brazil. The ruling was terrible as it threatened anyone using a VPN with fines should they be found to be accessing the platform through one. It marked a dramatic escalation on the war against privacy and security, though it seemed more like collateral damage rather than a concerted effort to crack down on security of any kind.

Recently, known Democrat, Robert Reich, wrote an article in The Guardian calling for the arrest of Elon Musk. Why? Because Musk said things he didn’t personally like. From The Guardian:

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.

Look, I’m no fan of Elon Musk. He’s said some extremely stupid things already, but seriously? Demand that he be jailed because he said something you personally disagree with? Are you serious? Look, I get that there are sanctions that can be put on people for saying unsavoury things. What’s more, I can even see fines against people who say unsavoury things in some parts of the world, but calling on all countries to threaten to arrest Musk? You can’t be serious. This alone is way over the top. Even worse, if this is a suggestion that we should even contemplate arresting Musk because of other people’s speech on his platform, that makes the comments all the more crazy.

While that was bad enough, Reich goes even further with this:

4. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission should demand that Musk take down lies that are likely to endanger individuals – and if he does not, sue him under Section Five of the FTC Act.

Musk’s free-speech rights under the first amendment don’t take precedence over the public interest. Two months ago, the US supreme court said federal agencies may pressure social media platforms to take down misinformation – a technical win for the public good (technical because the court based its ruling on the plaintiff’s lack of standing to sue).

OK, what exactly do we mean “likely to endanger individuals”? If we are talking about plots to murder someone or other extreme cases, then by all means, go after the people making the threats. However, if we start being soft and liberal on the term “endanger” and suggest, say, someone felt uncomfortable with a certain comment, then that is a very different thing entirely. Mike Masnick of Techdirt also had some great points on this as well:

While the “rest of the world’s” regulators aren’t bound by the First Amendment, US officials absolutely are. And, no, the FTC cannot (under the First Amendment) demand that Elon remove “lies” from ExTwitter. Reich tries to cover himself with “lies that are likely to endanger individuals,” and there is a very narrow exception in extreme cases, but most lies that are likely to endanger individuals are still protected speech.

And, while some will likely disagree, this remains important. Because lots of people will falsely claim that any sort of speech is a “lie that endangers individuals.” In this very column, Reich is lying in a way that some could argue could “endanger” Elon Musk. Should the FTC be able to order it be taken down?

Would Reich be okay with a Donald Trump-controlled FTC ordering websites to take down content it deems likely to “endanger” people? That could include information on diversity, equity, and inclusion. It could include information on LGBTQ rights and medical support. It could include information on climate change. Or abortion. And Reich is suggesting that the FTC should have the ability to order the removal of it all.

Reich then is also pointing to the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Murthy case, though it’s clear he has no idea what that case was about or what the court actually said. He claims that it made it okay for federal agencies to “pressure social media platforms to take down information,” but that’s not fully accurate. It does say they can try to persuade. “Pressure” is a bit amorphous, as pressure could violate the First Amendment if it crosses over into coercion.

And, um, demanding content be removed with a threat of a Section Five lawsuit very much crosses the very, very, very obvious line beyond persuasion into coercion. Apparently, in Reich’s skimming of First Amendment cases from the Supreme Court, he completely skipped over the Vullo case that was heard the same day as Murthy and was decided a few weeks earlier. The Vullo case made it clear that outright threats of legal action over speech clearly violate the First Amendment.

Masnick’s comments are well worth the read.

Still, this highlights yet another example of how pro censorship major political voices have become. It is anti-democratic at the very least. What’s more, such attitudes lead to authoritarian regimes. If one political side gains power, jails and silences all political opposition, then you are basically on a one way trip to a dictatorship, plain and simple. The fact that some people seemingly get a free pass because certain people happen to disagree with the targets in question is terrifying.

If you don’t like Musk’s products such as X/Twitter, SpaceX, or Tesla, then don’t use it. If there is a reason for government to either stop using SpaceX or greatly reduce using such a company, provide an actual reason. Saying that government should stop using SpaceX because you don’t like Musk personally is not a reason. It’s just throwing a temper tantrum.

To echo my comments back in July, left leaning political voices are increasingly becoming the very thing that they hate. People are rightfully fearing the autocratic ambitions of Project 2025, but certain left leaning voices are making a strong case that their side isn’t any better.

Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook.