David Zurawik, a CNN media analyst, hyperventilated over the thought of billionaire Elon Musk buying Twitter because he wants more free speech and the U.S. government needs to step in to implement more regulations.
Zurawik, who is also a professor of media studies at Goucher College, told CNN host Brain Stelter on Sunday the country is going to hell because Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are following Donald Trump's lead on using social media for sinister purposes.
"I think there’s a bigger problem that when we focus on the personalities of people like Elon Musk and people say oh, I think Elon is thinking this or that, there’s a bigger problem here about how we are going to control the channels of communication in this country. In 1927 we had the Radio Act, 1934 the Communications Act. Congress stepped in. We made rules," Zurawik explained. "FCC wasn’t great but it’s still regulating the broadcast industry. You can’t use vulgar language and do all of these things with speech. We gave over our airwaves or internet waves to Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, and we are in so much trouble because those guys believe in making money."
"This is dangerous. We can’t think anymore in this country, we don’t have people – I’m serious, we don’t have people in Congress who can make regulations, that can make it work. I think we can look to the western countries in Europe for how they are trying to limit it but you need – you need controls on this. You need regulation. You cannot let these guys control discourse in this country or we are headed to hell. We are there. Trump opened the gates of hell and now they’re chasing us down," he continued.
Musk has repeatedly emphasized he wants to buy Twitter and make it a private company again to undo the some of the censorship controls the platform has implemented in recent years. He considers the issue of free speech to be one of the most critical for today's age.
