The marketplace of ideas is not free for everyone. Jews are in danger of paying the price.
Picture an American industrialist who changed commerce, or cars, or maybe both. As part of his vast business empire, he is in possession of a communications platform that begins to propagate dangerous conspiracy theories about Jews across the nation and then to other parts of the world.
Who comes to mind? Is it Henry Ford? Jeff Bezos? Elon Musk? Any of these answers is the correct answer.
There has been an alarming rise in antisemitism recently, and current and former government officials are warning that the gathering online storm against Jews is likely to result in real-world harm. Aiding and abetting antisemitism’s spread are Twitter and Amazon. While Bezos has not taken a side in the so-called culture wars, as Musk has, there is no separating intent from effect when it comes to purveying dangerous views on the sites they own.
Since Musk purchased and become CEO of Twitter, hate speech toward Jews on the platform has increased by 61%. And that was before he granted amnesty to banned Twitter accounts, including that of Andrew Anglin, a Nazi who publishes The Daily Stormer and was found guilty of terrorizing a Jewish family. Musk himself initially welcomed Kanye West back to Twitter after West had appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight and espoused antisemitic conspiracy theories. (West was soon after banned again from Twitter amid his media tour of antisemitism for posting a swastika inside a Star of David to the site.) This is all after Musk kicked off his first days of Twitter ownership with a meme featuring a Nazi soldier. And he has just dissolved Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council, probably the last bastion against hate on the platform.
Read the article by Chandra Steele on PCMag.