Faithful Thinkers: Censorship

So Elon Musk has finally closed his deal with Twitter. We've been anticipating this purchase for quite some time, whether your anticipation of the inevitable change has been fearful or hopeful. Many people fear that Musk's purchase of the Twitter social media platform will bring a political change in the United States of America and, possibly, the world. They fear that elections in America will be affected due to Elon Musk's claimed dedication to "free speech" and lack of censorship.

It seems that those who fear Musk's claimed dedication fear it because they do not support it. Those who fear free speech and lack of censorship do so because they know that they cannot win in the public marketplace of ideas without suppression of contrary viewpoints, evidence, and arguments. It seems that they fear that they do not have enough logical, rational points to convince an educated and thinking public to accept their policies, so they must resort to fallacious and false appeals and suppression of counter-evidence and counter-points. It seems that such fear and actions are unfounded if those who exhibit this fear truly do have evidence and logic on their side.

If Elon Musk is serious about free speech on his platform and serious about ending censorship, then let the ideas and points be heard. Let them be analyzed. Let them be judged. If you think people are judging incorrectly, educate them on the proper and logical way to judge. Be willing to be educated, yourself, and to change your mind when the evidence and logic point strongly in the other direction.

Will free speech and lack of censorship affect elections in America and around the world? It certainly could. Where there is freedom of speech and freedom to hear and analyze points of view, outcomes have a chance to be different than if the public cannot hear, much less, analyze options. But that is nothing to fear, unless you fear a land that this governed by the will of a thinking and educated people. It is nothing to fear, unless you fear a culture and society that is shaped by the majority and not the elite few who control what information is given to the public. It is nothing to fear, unless you fear open discussion of ideas and the possibility that you may be found to be wrong.

Quote from "Before You Hit Send" by Emerson Eggerichs- “We are free to reject the beliefs we deem false. But civil people do not have a right nor desire to hate those who adhere to systems of belief they find abhorrent. Civility does not mean we sanction their 'truth claims'. However, to bring them out of their false persuasions, we must show them love and respect. If we do not, we will not win their hearts. Furthermore, we sour them to what we believe. When we detest people, they will not listen from the heart to the truth claims of our faith.”

Of course, if the majority is truly wrong, then it needs to be demonstrated, and logical and moral efforts must be made to persuade the majority, not limiting freedom and censoring the false ideas. Limiting freedom and enacting censorship appears weak. If you have the true ideas, why use a strategy that appears weak when you have the strength of reality on your side?

In the Twitter world that Elon Musk claims to be intent on creating, for those who do fear a lack of censorship on Twitter and cannot defend their claims logically, a different strategy will be employed. Truth and falsehoods will be heard. But because both will be heard, they can be analyzed and will be freely accepted or rejected. Falsehood is now in jeopardy of more people on Twitter not believing it, but as a logical consequence, so is truth. Your claims and my claims will be in jeopardy on Twitter in the coming months and years if Elon Musk is serious.

Those who wish to be free thinkers and not allow those with the loudest voice to think for them must prepare themselves to properly analyze the loudest claims that will come and be prepared to accept the truth even when it is not what you originally thought. We also need to be prepared to defend the claims that we believe to be true against both logical and illogical critique. No doubt that Twitter will continue to have plenty of illogical critique of ideas (even false ones), but if Elon Musk is serious about free speech and removing censorship from Twitter, then logical critiques and truth will soon be heard on Twitter once again, and users must prepare themselves to both deliver and consume tweets appropriately.

Quote from "Time For Truth" by Os Guinness- "Truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it."

See the posts below for more on being focused on truth and using logic to judge the soundness of arguments presented.

Introduction

With all of the recent news of various social media platforms purposefully hiding and censoring Christian and politically conservative content in the name of "diversity" and "tolerance," many people have abandoned Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other popular social media outlets in protest. While I have been tempted to do the same, because of their relative popularity (compared to more traditional communication media), I do believe that if we abandon these platforms, we will not only limit our audience but encourage the behavior of limiting reasonable content to and stifling intellectual discussion among the users of these platforms. The new generation of consumers prefers social media for their news, media consumption and discussion of various issues, so it cannot be abandoned by those who hold and can defend the truth with gentleness and respect.

The Liberal View of "Tolerance" and "Diversity"

I recently heard Candace Owens interview Lauren Chen about the modern liberal view of "tolerance" and "diversity." They discuss the deliberate attempt to remove even the slightest (appearance of) disagreement from the public square. This attempted removal is targeting the internet and specifically social media. If you are considering leaving popular social media platforms (or already have), I encourage you to listen to this discussion in full and consider that removing your voice of reason from today's public squares may do more harm than good:

Christians Should Master The Media

The new culture primarily consumes image-driven messages, and social media is the primary avenue to get images before this audience. In his book "Cold Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates The Claims of the Gospels," J. Warner Wallace encourages Christians to not just embrace new media but to master them. Christians must master the content itself, the presentation of the content, and the delivery mechanisms for the content.

Quote from J. Warner Wallace from the book "Cold Case Christianity": "In a culture where image is more important than information, style more important than substance it is not enough to possess the truth. [Christian] case makers must also master the media."

Conclusion

Rather than abandoning popular social media channels, we should embrace them and utilize them to their fullest potential! If a challenge arises that limits our reach, it is not to be met with surrender, but with enthusiasm to reach the goal despite the challenges. I have written several posts and reviewed several books on the importance of discussing political and moral issues in a compassionate yet intellectual manner. I encourage you to read the posts and purchase the recommended books to equip you to "always be prepared to give a reason for the hope that you have...with gentleness and respect" (1 Peter 3:15):

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