‘Free Speech Absolutist’ Elon Musk Suggests He’s Going To Sue George Soros… For His Free Speech Advocating For Certain Laws

There is no space for nuanced discussion about reality any more, as it seems that nonsense floods the zone. So, please try to follow along here as there needs to be some nuance to finally get down to the details of this issue. It's nonsense, piled on top of nonsense, piled on top of nonsense, which ends with Elon Musk suggesting he's going to sue George Soros for... advocating for laws that Elon doesn't like (for what it's worth, I'm pretty sure the laws being talked about are problematic, but the details aren't clear, and there's no law against advocating for bad laws).

Let's start here: we're extremely skeptical of any sort of hate speech law." This is not because we like hate speech, far from it. But as we've reported again and again and again, in practice hate speech laws are frequently abused by the powerful to punish the powerless and marginalized. We've long argued that there are better ways to deal with hate speech than criminalizing it. Shun it, shame it, diminish it's power, counter it, etc.

Of course, in the age of social media, some very, very silly people consider attempts to do the latter the equivalent of censorship. That is, when a private company chooses to de-prioritize hateful speech, they claim that this is the same thing as the government censoring" it. But nothing is farther from the truth. The government cracking down on hate speech is a free speech issue. A private company refusing to host or promote hate speech is a way for them to use their own speech to condemn such speech. It is a quintessential more speech" type of response.

One of the people who has a long history of misrepresenting private companies expressing their own free speech rights of association as the equivalent of government censorship is a nonsense peddler named Michael Shellenberger, one of the hand-picked nonsense peddlers that Elon gave some of his Twitter Files" to, allowing them to completely misrepresent things. Shellenberger, who has a long career peddling complete and utter nonsense, took to the job perfectly, and so completely misunderstood things in the Twitter Files that he ridiculously claimed that FBI was paying Twitter to censor accounts.

The truth was nothing of the sort, and anyone with even the most basic understanding of the law and basic facts could explain it to you (as far as I can tell, Shellenberger has yet to retract or correct his false statements on this). What he was actually reporting on were investigatory requests for data under a 2703(d) request (which require a court order or a warrant, depending on the type of data sought). These are requests for customer communications or records, not for taking down information. That law says that when the government makes a 2703(d) request, the government needs to reimburse the service provider for such costs as are reasonably necessary and which have been directly incurred in search for, assembling, reproducing, or otherwise providing such information."

Now there are lots of concerns about the 2703(d) program, and we (unlike the nonsense peddlers who are screaming today) have been calling out the problems with that program for at least a decade. But we're focused on what the program actually is, not some made up idea that this is the FBI paying Twitter to censor."

Shellenberger has continued to peddle more nonsense about social media content moderation, a concept he does not seem to understand one bit, falsely accusing researchers who study information flows of being part of a censorship industrial complex" and a bunch of other ridiculous stuff. But, of course, a bunch of very silly people eat this nonsense up and believe every word of it, because why not?

Not surprisingly, Shellenberger these days has a very popular Substack where his nonsense is often published. He probably makes more money each week from subscribers than Techdirt makes in a year, because we deal in facts, not nonsense, and facts don't seem to pay as well.

Anyway, on his Substack, he had another reporter publish an article with the headline Soros-Funded NGOs Demand Crackdown on Free Speech as Politicians Spread Hate Misinformation." The article is behind a paywall, so I have no idea what it's actually referring to. It is entirely possible that Open Society (which is funded by Soros) is advocating for hate speech laws, but the parts that are available to read are just a lot of fluff about whether or not hate is on the rise in Ireland, not the specific laws or what the various NGOs are advocating for.

So maybe Open Society NGOs are supporting hate speech laws. If true, that would be bad, as we've described above (and for years here on Techdirt) how such laws are prone to abuse and don't do much to stop actual hate. But, of course, Soros is free to spend his money as he wishes, and the NGOs he funds are free to advocate for whatever laws they want. That's part of their free speech.

Anyway, here's where we finally get around to Elon Musk, who saw this story being promoted... and claimed he's going to sue over it.

That's Elon responding to a Shellenberger tweet. Shellenberger's tweet says:

Politicians & George Soros-funded NGOs say hate incidents" are rising, but they're not. The data show the opposite: higher-than-ever and rising levels of tolerance of minorities. The reason they're spreading hate misinformation is to justify a draconian crackdown on free speech.

So... first off, an increase in levels of tolerance of minorities" (which is, by itself, an odd way to frame this) is not mutually exclusive with rising hate incidents." Both things could be true. I don't know what points are being conveyed in the article itself (again, paywall), but the Irish police have published stats saying that hate crimes" and hate related incidents" went up from 2021 to 2022.

That's not to say those stats are trustworthy. Also, hate speech and hate crime are not the same thing.

None of that means that Irish politicians aren't overhyping the matter. They may well be. They may also be pushing for laws that intend to stifle free speech. I'm sure some are, because politicians all over the world seem to keep doing that. And it's possible that Open Society funded NGOs are supporting some of those laws. And, as frustrating as that may be to us, it's still very much allowed because of free speech.

Yet, then we have Elon jumping in to respond to Shellenberger's already questionable claim by saying:

Exactly.

X will be filing legal action to stop this. Can't wait for discovery to start!

There's a lot to break down in this short tweet. What is he saying exactly" about? And what kind of legal action is he filing?

But, first, let's just make this point that I've made before, but is important to make again. It's pretty common when lawsuits are threatened for some people to say something along the lines of can't wait for discovery," which generally just shows that they have no idea how any of this works. Many people seem to think that discovery" is some magical process by which all your dirty laundry gets aired publicly.

That is... rarely the case. First off, while discovery is a total pain for basically everyone involved, discovery is (generally) limited to issues directly dealing with the legal issues at hand. Parties may seek a lot more, and those on the other side may push back on those requests. But, more importantly, most of the time, what's handed over in discovery never sees the light of day. Sometimes there are direct limits on what parties can share publicly, and often the only bits of discovery that become public are what's revealed as the case moves towards trial (if it gets that far). People who are eager" for discovery are... usually disappointed.

And, of course, in theory, any such legal action" would take place in Ireland, which seems to have fairly similar discovery rules as the US, such that any discovery has to be relevant and necessary" to the claims at hand.

Which brings us to the big question: who is he suing and for what? Many people (perhaps reasonably?) interpreted Musk's statement to mean he was going to sue Soros. But, of course, he has no standing whatsoever for that, and the only thing he could possibly sue Soros over was for his advocacy (and funding), both of which would be protected speech. If the implication is that Elon is going to sue Soros for his free speech, that will (yet again!) raise questions about Elon's actual commitment to free speech."

Perhaps a more charitable explanation here is that Elon actually means he'd be suing in Ireland (or, perhaps more likely, in the European Court of Justice?) to block any such law should it pass. But... that would require the details of the law to understand what the issue was. And, if that was the plan, then it's difficult to see what sorts of discovery" he's expecting to get access to.

And, sure, if Ireland passes a really bad law, I do hope that exTwitter challenges it in court. But that's got nothing to do with Soros, and I don't see how discovery is going to be even remotely meaningful.

Of course, even if his plan really is to challenge the eventual Irish law (should it ever become law), it's pretty clear from the replies to his tweet, that most of his gullible fans think he's talking about suing Soros directly for his speech... and they're ridiculously claiming that this shows how much Elon supports free speech. It's possible that Elon recognizes that his confusingly worded tweet implies one thing when he really means another, though he hasn't tried to correct the misperception at all. Or, of course, he really thinks that he's going to sue Soros for exercising his own free speech, and his idiot fans are insisting that suing someone for their own speech is support of free speech.