Ministry of Truth
Amotz Asa-El reveals his own bias while decrying Elon Musk’s pending acquisition of Twitter (“The war on truth (3),” April 29). He says, “Big Business [read Musk] says it, too, wants a role in the War on Truth.
Unfortunately, it’s the wrong role, and the wrong warrior.” Put more simply, for Asa-El and his cohorts on the Left, you may lie if we agree, but we will shut you down if we disagree even if what you say is true.
Thus, they are silent regarding multi-billionaires Mark Zuckerberg controlling Facebook or Jeff Bezos owning The Washington Post. What they fear most is that, if Twitter allows more diverse participation in the marketplace of ideas, their own sacred truths will no longer be accepted as gospel.
Asa-El lauds Twitter as the site that allows national leaders like Iran’s Ali Khamenei to address the entire world while erasing president Trump’s account for “spreading lies and hate.” Apparently, repeated lies about your country’s nuclear arms program and threats to annihilate Israel are acceptable, but woe betide anyone who defends himself against specious allegations of Russian collusion. (Note that the bloodthirsty Russian tyrant with whom Trump purportedly colluded retains his official Twitter account.)
Asa-El conveniently ignores several fundamental questions: Who should decide what is “true?” What if that determination later turns out to have been erroneous? Will anyone be held accountable? How will those whose lives were devastated by the “mistake” be compensated? (Consider, for example, the deaths and social dislocation that might have been avoided had Big Tech not interfered with open discussions of COVID-19 therapeutics and competing public health policies.)
In a move that should terrify us all, the US Government has arrogated to itself the role of final arbiter, creating a Disinformation Governance Board to be headed by a 33-year-old “expert” who has asserted absurdly that political censorship does not exist. Rumor has it that some government officials wanted this board to be named the Ministry of Truth. They were sorely disappointed to learn that George Orwell had stolen their thunder.
EFRAIM COHEN Zichron Ya’acov