The Faux Free Speech Warriors Attacking Free Speech -- Part 1

[ancianita]

https://www.techdirt.com/tag/elon-musk/page/2/

There’s a particularly insidious and cynical form of censorship gaining prominence in America: the weaponization of “free speech” rhetoric, combined with abuses of the judicial system and executive power, to actually suppress speech. It’s a strategy that turns the First Amendment’s principles inside out, using the language of liberty to justify silencing critics and opponents...

Perhaps the most brazen practitioners of this strategy are those with the resources to weaponize the legal system itself. Take Elon Musk, who wraps himself in the mantle of “free speech absolutism” while filing censorial lawsuits against his critics. Or Donald Trump, who portrays himself as a free speech champion while maintaining a relentless campaign of legal intimidation—suing media properties for critical coverage, attacking CBS over 60 Minutes for a Harris interview he didn’t like, and even targeting pollster Ann Selzer for publishing unfavorable poll predictions...

Andy Craig, from the Institute for Humane Studies, has a great op-ed exploring how the MAGA world is famous for abusing vexatious lawsuits to silence speech. It’s the classic story of the SLAPP suit:

Defamation law, ostensibly meant to protect reputations against malicious falsehoods, is being twisted into a bludgeon to silence criticism and accountability — where even the threat of a defamation suit can serve to chill free speech. And in some cases, SLAPPs abuse other areas of law to target speech in order to evade the high First Amendment bar for defamation under Supreme Court precedents.
Elon Musk’s lawsuit against Media Matters, for example, epitomizes this trend. Media Matters reported on ads for major brands running next to neo-Nazi content on Musk’s X platform, formerly Twitter. Instead of addressing the substance of the report, Musk retaliated with a lawsuit, in this case based not on defamation as such but an even more outlandish “consumer fraud” theory. By allegedly presenting misleading examples, even though they were undeniably real and similar ones are easy to come by, the theory is this somehow falls under defrauding people into not using or buying ads on X. And as Musk frequently does, the case was filed in the Northern District of Texas to engage in blatant “judge shopping.” It paid off, with Judge Reed O’Connor, long known for his solicitousness toward conservative political efforts, allowing the case to proceed to trial despite its flawed premise.

The message was unmistakable: Critics calling out extremist content on his platform could come at a steep personal cost. It is not unrelated that Media Matters, faced with massive legal fees in fighting the wealthiest man in the world, was recently forced to resort to mass layoffs.

Craig’s analysis cuts to the heart of the matter: these aren’t just isolated incidents of powerful figures attempting to silence critics. Rather, it’s a calculated strategy that corrupts both legal processes and public discourse. By wrapping censorship in the language of free speech protection, these actors have found a way to make their suppression efforts appear legitimate—and much of the media has struggled to effectively challenge this framing...

Musk’s subsequent threat to sue Minnesota Governor Tim Walz for describing the gesture as a Nazi salute only underscores the pattern: using litigation threats to chill speech while claiming to champion free expression. The strategy works precisely because defending against even a baseless lawsuit can be ruinously expensive....