A couple weeks ago, Elon Musk expressed that he would suspend accounts that use the phrase “from the river to the sea” on the platform X, most commonly known as Twitter. This is quite ironic considering that his aim with purchasing Twitter was supposedly to be a “platform for free speech around the globe” as he claimed in a TED interview. 

“From the river to the sea” has been misconstrued as a chant for destruction and incitement for violence, but it is far from that. The river part of the phrase comes from the Jordan River and the sea refers to the Mediterranean Sea. Everything between the Jordan river and Mediterranean Sea includes Gaza, the West Bank and the rest of the territory that is controlled by Israel. The chant follows with “Palestine will be free” which calls for the freedom of the Palestinians from Israeli occupation. It is no surprise that such a phrase was interpreted into alternative meaning. It gives people the ability to justify their hate against Palestinians.

This is not the only censorship we have seen concerning the topic of Palestine. Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 234-188 to censure Palestinian-American Rep. Rashida Talib due to her stance on the ongoing violence in the Gaza strip. For a country that preaches freedoms of all kinds, including freedom of speech, it is hypocritical to only censor certain speech while protecting others. Regardless of what she said, I do not think it is fair that she was censured for stating her beliefs.

Additionally, over the last couple of weeks we have seen individuals such as Melissa Berra who was set to be starred in the anticipated movie “Scream 7,” get dropped from the cast due to speaking up on the ongoing violence in Gaza. Berra said that Israel is “brutally killing innocent Palestinians, mothers and children, under the pretense of destroying Hamas.” 

However, Noah Schanpp, a main character on the show “Stranger Things” posted a video waving stickers that read “Zionism is sexy” but faced no repercussion like Berra and got to keep his role in the show. It is appalling that chanting for people’s freedom is interpreted to violence but openly showing support for a group that occupy indigenous land is protected under freedom of speech and Schanpp’s rights to express his views. 

While I am not insisting that free speech should have no limits and that you should get away with hate speech without consequences, I think it should apply fairly to everyone and one group should not be censored for practicing their rights while the other group gets unlimited support. As of now, it is apparent that free speech only applies if it goes with the media’s narrative. 

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