The ongoing panic among liberal Democrats and their mainstream media stenographers over Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter is continuing through the weekend with no signs of slowing down. Each of his new tweets is being analyzed for indications that he’s preparing to destroy the world by allowing people to post their own views and opinions without being shadow banned, deleted, or outright canceled. The clear and present danger is that people will somehow be “harmed” by viewing speech that they disagree with or find offensive.

These innocent victims must be protected, so Elon Musk must be stopped! That’s what we’ve always been told, right? “Harmful, dangerous misinformation” is a threat to anyone unfortunate enough to stumble across the website. And who does such a thing? Racists, of course. Business Insider rushed to report that “experts” found the use of the N-word rose by 500% in the first twelve hours after Musk took over.

The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), a research group that analyzes social media content to predict emerging threats, said that use of the N-word on Twitter increased by nearly 500% in the 12 hours immediately after Musk’s deal was finalized.

The newspaper also noted that several online trolling accounts called on others to use racist language in the aftermath of the deal.

“Elon now controls twitter. Unleash the racial slurs. K—S AND N—–S,” said one account, using slurs for Jewish and Black people, per the outlet.

Here’s a quick question for anyone who tracks this sort of thing. Was anyone tracking the use of the N-word on Twitter before Musk started circling the platform like a lurking megalodon? And who is suddenly using it? We already know that some people are allowed to say or write it while others are not. Only a couple of weeks ago, Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) tweeted at another famous person, “I thought you was my n****r?” Sadly, the tweet is now lost, but it drew a lot of buzz at the time.

But let’s get back to the actual “crime” that is taking place here and what everyone is supposed to do about it. If you’re “protecting” any other users from “harmful content,” you’re protecting some fairly clueless people who probably shouldn’t own a laptop. If you’re “protecting yourself” you clearly don’t understand how Twitter operates. You don’t have to see tweets from anyone you don’t want to. Just don’t follow them.

You don’t even have to block them or mute them. If you don’t want to read what they talk about, you won’t be aware of them if you don’t follow them. You can join Twitter and not follow anyone. Just don’t look at your mentions or replies. You can post cat pictures all day every day and never even know anyone else uses the service. (You might even do well. Pet pictures are very popular.)

But here’s the key point that needs to be made, even though all of the panicked masses attacking Elon Musk already know this, but won’t admit it. “Protecting others” was never what this was about. As I just pointed out, everyone is automatically protected if they’re not following the “dangerous” people. What these liberal censorship fans actually wanted was to make sure that nobody heard you. Not just them. Not their friends. Nobody. They wanted to silence you. That’s why they call it censorship.

The most likely reason is that they were terrified that some of the marginal members of the herd might read some of your arguments and realize that the progressives from the echo chamber they’ve been following are idiots. They didn’t want anyone to see you linking to respected news outlets or scientific journals that published information raising questions about the efficacy of the vaccines, the dangers of giving puberty blockers to healthy children, our collapsing energy grid, Hunter Biden’s laptop, or any number of other very real reports that didn’t fit the liberal narrative.

But all of that news is out there for those who care to do actual research and make up their own minds. And now that information will once again be available on the platform that is arguably what its new owner refers to as the global, digital public square. And this simply terrifies those who live and die by the narrative. This is what Elon Musk might bring to the table if we’re lucky and the socialists trying to cancel his advertising don’t manage to drive him out of business.

Don’t let them do it. And when they try, keep this in your back pocket and remind them of one very simple thing. This is Twitter. You only see what you choose to see. Put on your blinders if you wish. But you can’t make reality go away by shadow-banning it.