These concerns have been reinforced by the sacking of staff responsible for making Twitter less toxic and more trustworthy. On Muskian Twitter, many fear that hate speech and disinformation has the potential to go more viral than fact and truth, threatening the very fabric of democracy.

Ultimately, it’s ordinary people and unpopular minorities, not the platforms and their wealthy owners, who have their speech and access to information restricted. But while elite panic may be directed at Big Tech and Silicon Valley billionaires, the consequences of this phenomenon cascades downwards. The views of Club speakers are their own and their participation does not constitute or imply endorsement or recommendation by The Commonwealth Club.Elon Musk’s chaotic takeover of Twitter has led to panic among prominent pundits and politicians horrified by prospect of Twitter amplifying the most radical voices of the unwashed online mob. Each year, we bring nearly 500 events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy to our members and the public, both in-person and via extensive online and on-air listenership and viewership. The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. The leading national forum open to all for the impartial discussion of public issues important to the membership, community and nation. Mchangama's Free Speech demonstrates how much we have gained from this principle-and how much we stand to lose without it. Yet the desire to restrict speech is also a constant, and he explores how even its champions can sometimes be led down an authoritarian, restrictive path when the rise of new and contrarian voices challenge power and privilege of all stripes. Mchangama describes how the free exchange of ideas underlies all intellectual achievement and has enabled the advancement of both freedom and equality worldwide. Jacob Mchangama traces the fascinating legal, political and cultural history of this idea by telling stories of free speech’s many defenders-from the ancient Athenian orator Demosthenes and the ninth-century freethinker al-Rāzī, to the anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Today, both in democracies and in authoritarian states around the world, it appears to be on the retreat.

But it is a challenging principle, subject to erosion in times of fear and upheaval. Hailed as the “first freedom,” free speech is one of the bedrocks of democracy.

Mchangama free speech