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Niall Ferguson Profile picture
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9 Jan, 4 tweets, 3 min read
More than two years ago, I warned of "the tendency of the network platforms to respond to public criticism by restricting free speech by modifying their terms of service and the guidelines they issue to their ... content monitors." hoover.org/research/what-…
Those unthinkingly applauding the latest actions by @Facebook, @Twitter and @Google should at least read the following paragraph:
I have read intelligent defenses of the cancellation of Trump by @mmasnick techdirt.com/articles/20210… and @benthompson: stratechery.com/2021/trump-and…
But they have not persuaded me that we have not unwittingly stumbled into a dystopia, in which a few juvenile billionaires now wield a power undreamt of by William Randolph Hearst or Rupert Murdoch.

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More from @nfergus

Niall Ferguson Profile picture
6 Jan
Today's scenes in the Capitol are a disgrace. The organizers and perpetrators of this banana republic coup attempt must be prosecuted and punished. Any politician who does not unequivocally condemn what happened should have no future in democratic politics.
Hard questions must be asked about the role of the Capitol police. Was this just ineptitude? A grave danger in a situation such as this arises if the police have been politicized to the point of sympathizing with the mob.
There is a strong temptation at this point to say that I was wrong and that this really is Weimar America, after all: bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
Read 7 tweets
Niall Ferguson Profile picture
30 Dec 20
Must-read instant history of the pandemic by @lawrence_wright: newyorker.com/magazine/2021/…
The quote that sticks with me is from Matt Pottinger on "the fading art of leadership.” It’s not a failure of one party or another; it’s more of a generational decline of good judgment.
“The élites think it’s all about expertise,” he said. It’s important to have experts, but they aren’t always right: they can be “hampered by their own orthodoxies, their own egos, their own narrow approach to the world.”
Read 6 tweets
Niall Ferguson Profile picture
30 Nov 20
We are living through a monetary revolution so multifaceted that few of us comprehend its full extent. And Bitcoin is winning it: bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
This article also contains, to my knowledge, the first reference in financial journalism to @Doug_D_Stuart's brilliant, Booker-winning novel "Shuggie Bain," which everyone should read. bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
The crux of the argument is that Bitcoin is not only scarce but (as Wences Casares argues) sovereign. “No one can change a transaction in the Bitcoin blockchain and no one can keep the Bitcoin blockchain from accepting new transactions.” bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
Read 4 tweets
Niall Ferguson Profile picture
11 Nov 20
Each Remembrance Day / Veterans Day takes us another step away from the events of November 11, 1918; each generation finds it a little bit harder to imagine what it was like to be caught up, as my grandfather John Ferguson was, in what came to be the First World War. Image
This year's pandemic has reminded us that the "Spanish" influenza of 1918-19 was a key part of the war's ghastly culmination. It may have originated in a US army base (Fort Riley, Kansas, the site of Camp Funston) but it soon spread throughout the world, killing 40-50 m. people.
Writing The Pity of War more than 20 years ago, I was intrigued by the possibility that the war had not only caused the war, by facilitating its spread via camps and troop ships, but had also helped to end it, by contributing to the German collapse.
Read 6 tweets
Niall Ferguson Profile picture
8 Jul 20
While I am on the subject of free speech, it's worth reading the deranged attempt to "cancel" @sapinker signed by 575 members of "The Linguistics Community" and sent to the Linguistic Society of America: docs.google.com/document/u/1/d…
At first I thought this was a parody. But no. The letter - demanding that Pinker be removed from the LSA's list of distinguished academic fellows because of six old tweets - exemplifies the toxic mentality that is so widespread in universities today.
The best rebuttal is here whyevolutionistrue.com/2020/07/05/the… but there are links to others here: motherjones.com/recharge/2020/…
Read 4 tweets
Niall Ferguson Profile picture
8 Jul 20
After the virtue-signaling opening paragraph, there's nothing I disagree with in the @Harpers "Letter on Justice and Open Debate." It's good to see so many prominent liberal intellectuals standing up for free speech: harpers.org/a-letter-on-ju… 1/13
So well done to @thomaschattwill for putting it together. The hostile reaction to it on the intolerant left has revealed just how necessary it was: nytimes.com/2020/07/07/art… 2/13
But as I looked down the list of signatories, I found myself wondering where all these people were when it was conservative intellectuals who were getting "canceled." Because this problem pre-dates 2020, let's face it. 3/13
Read 13 tweets

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