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(Video: Fox News)
Fox News host Tucker Carlson warned on Wednesday that America’s discourse is being controlled by a single man who’s not only an anti-free-speech zealot but a “woke” one as well.
Speaking on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Carlson drew attention to current Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, who’s quickly risen from being just an education-seeking immigrant to a man who now controls America’s discourse.
“Twitter is now run by a man called Parag Agrawal, who has said plainly he does not believe in free speech. Agrawal came to this country as an adult to get a degree from Stanford. Now Agrawal controls the single most important forum for America’s political conversation. That is a big and important job,” he explained.
“[Twitter’s] not just a public company. It’s much more than that. It’s a kind of public trust that allows our democracy to function. So you would think you’d want a guy like that, in a position like that, to have some respect for his adopted country’s core institutions, beginning with and primarily the First Amendment, but Agrawal has no respect for First Amendment or our Constitution.”
During an interview with MIT Technology Review conducted a few weeks after the 2020 presidential election — roughly a year before former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey stepped down — Agrawal made clear that to him, the First Amendment comes second to fostering what he described as “healthy public conversation.”
“Our role is not to be bound by the First Amendment, but our role is to serve a healthy public conversation, and our moves are reflective of things that we believe lead to a healthier public conversation. The kinds of things that we do about this is, focus less on thinking about free speech, but thinking about how the times have changed,” he said.
Jack Dorsey steps down as twitter CEO, replaced by CTO Parag Agrawal.
Censorship will get worse.
Agrawal in Nov 2020 interview:
“Our role is not to be bound by the First Amendment…focus[ing] less on thinking about free speech, but thinking about how the times have changed.”
— James Todaro, MD (@JamesTodaroMD) November 29, 2021
Carlson didn’t care for this rhetoric.
“Oh, so the new standard isn’t your right as a citizen to say what you believe is true. The new standard is achieving something called healthy public conversation,” the Fox News host complained before going on to explain why this poses a problem.
“By the way, this is not one man’s opinion. You grew up in a country where people are free to say what they wanted, but now that political speech, in fact all speech, is disseminated to other citizens via social media, this is the guy who actually controls what you’re allowed to think,” he added.
What remains unclear is what exactly Agrawal had meant by a “healthy public conversation.” Carlson, for his part, tried to ask him for some clarification, but the Twitter CEO reportedly refused to respond.
“So, what is healthy public conversation? What does that mean, exactly? We’re interested, so we texted Parag Agrawal very first thing this morning and then we emailed his office and then him personally, all to find out. Agrawal was too cowardly to respond to us. So we’re going to have to assume that a healthy public conversation is whatever Parag Agrawal wants it to be. He decides the meaning,” the host noted.
And judging by the increasingly oppressive environment on Twitter — where Carlson’s own Twitter account was suspended this week for simply drawing attention to two other accounts that’d been suspended for correctly noting “that biological sex is fixed at birth” — the meaning is “woke.”
“In other words, a single man who has total and undisguised contempt for America’s most basic values gets to decide what Americans are allowed to talk about,” Carlson continued.
“Parag Agrawal doesn’t think you should know about Hunter Biden’s laptop. That’s unhealthy. So, he censors the story. You don’t get to see it. He doesn’t think you should be allowed to discuss basic biology in public. We’re erasing all science because it’s unhealthy. So, now you’re not allowed to talk about it. In fact, you’re banned, silenced, censored,” Carlson said.
Just to be clear, the reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop was censored — and then eventually uncensored after backlash — before Agrawal took the helm.
New York Post celebrates after Twitter lifts suspension. What’s next, an apology or a lawsuit? https://t.co/2CZGo63mZp via @BIZPACReview
— Bo Snerdley (@BoSnerdley) October 31, 2020
“Not so long ago, this was a free country. Now Parag Agrawal and nine other billionaires, whose names you might not even know, who certainly were not elected to anything, get to determine the limits of your conversations,” the Fox News host added.
“Are we okay with this? What happened to all the Liberals and the self-described civil libertarians we used to have in America? They don’t seem to be fighting the power anymore. They seem to have joined it,” he noted.
Republicans, too. Or at least so-called “Republicans” like Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, whom Carlson argued are more interested in “constantly lecturing the serfs about democracy” than in actually defending democracy.
Because the current “democracy [that they vociferously support] in which a tiny sliver of very rich people control everything” sounds like anything but a democracy.
“It sounds suspiciously like oligarchy. Don’t you think? They can let us know. All those people are welcome on this show any time, including and very much including you, Parag Agrawal. We promise a healthy public conversation,” Carlson concluded.
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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