Why I'm Grateful For Elon Musk

I am personally thankful for the massive Twitter shakeup. I am a Christian Conservative/Libertarian. I work everyday to promote and support agriculture. I do everything I can to protect animal agriculture. I love the earth and do what I can to support us all being good stewards of this earth that God gave us, but I sure don't jump on the climate change extremist bandwagon. Given those facts that I don't hide, it's easy to see why algorithms hate me.

I've been in marketing in agriculture most of my adult life, it used to be easy. We used to be able to bid on keywords, pay for our social media ads and have them approved quickly, and get real traction on the platforms. This would help us gain exposure and grow our following and our client's followings. Then, a few years back things changed, a post's reach would be less and less despite the number of followers, I would lose massive numbers of followers in a day. First it was just Twitter, then quickly all of the platforms followed suited. I had to work harder and smarter to get the same leverage I used to get. In the last two years I've felt like I'd been put in what Glenn Beck calls, "the digital ghetto". If someone like me speaks their mind, politely defends their beliefs, or tries to promote animal agriculture, the algorithms stop showing their content. It's a blatant bias toward those who don't share the political viewpoints of those 'higher-ups'. We've all had to learn what words not to use - faith, COVID, raising your own animals for food, Jesus, prayers, Trump, vaccination, butcher, slaughter, RoundUp, animals for sale, the list goes on and on. I have the receipts, I've saved every rejection email. One was particularly disturbing, the reason alone was the use of one of my conservative guest's name's, it just wasn't allowed on Google any more.

Over the last year I've tried using the alternative platforms, but honestly I've found that they only want to talk about politics and no one wants to talk about farming, the agriculture industry, the food supply chain, or how faith plays an important role in the lives of so many in our industry - all of the things important to me. So I tough it out and keep posting in all of the places about the things that matter to me. We are so fortunate to have podcasting as a platform, so far that's our place to be able to talk feely, but it's been sad to see all other the other places that started out as the town square turn their backs on us 'outcasts'. My podcast is a constant reminder that people are hungry to hear the truth, despite what the tech monopolies want us to believe. Somehow this month my little podcast North American Ag Spotlight entered the top 1% of all podcasts online according to ListenNotes, the same week we published our 100th episode! Hope isn't gone, and we haven't completely lost our voices, thank God!

These are the reasons l why I am grateful for Elon Musk. I'm tired of working so hard just to be constantly suppressed, to be constantly getting my ads denied, and tired of knowing that the tech oligarchs don't want my voice heard. I am hoping for an open conversation once again on Twitter, where people are allowed to disagree, to ask questions and to seek truth. On my podcast I invite people of every background and belief, I believe it's healthy to hear other people's opinions and viewpoints. I get hate mail often telling me I should not have so and so on my show because we shouldn't be talking about this or that, and it comes from all sides, but that does not shake my core belief that all people deserve the right not only to speak their minds, but also need the opportunity to have their view challenged with thoughtful and respectful questions. Iron sharpens iron. We were created to have open dialogue with each other, it's healthy, it's honest and we need it to become better humans. Let's let the floodgates open, let us all commit to asking more questions and be respectful even in the face of disgruntled keyboard warriors. Let us seek the truth and keep our right to free speech sacred.

To all of our subscribers on all of our platforms, you have no idea how much I appreciate you all, your subscribes likes and follows mean the world to me. Please keep them coming and always feel free to engage and challenge us whenever you see fit.

There probably aren't too many things that we agree on, but free speech is enough. Thank you Elon for letting the bird out of the cage!