After purchasing Twitter, Elon Musk made it very well known that he was going to change the way Twitter not only moderated its content but also the way it banned users. With former President Donald Trump as the only President to ever be banned from the platform (and other social media sites), it was a natural fit for him to be the first test case to restoring access.
With no established advisory board left, he put it to a Twitter vote. With over 15 million accounts choosing an opinion, Trump received 51.8% of the votes, and Musk restored his account privileges almost immediately. Naturally, the left lost their ever-loving minds over this idea. Even though Trump has yet to post a new message and has firmly stated that he just wants to use his own platform instead of Twitter, the leftists started posting messages in tears and leaving the platform.
NAACP President Derrick Johnson was one of the loudest voices about Trump’s return. He claimed that if “Elon Musk continues to run Twitter like this, using garbage polls that do not represent the American people and the needs of our democracy, God help us all.” He also went on a small tirade about how advertisers need to stop working with Twitter immediately.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) served on the January 6th committee and had a lot to say about a decision he called a “terrible mistake,” while speaking on ABC’s “This Week” on November 20th. “It just underscores the erratic leadership of Twitter now under Musk, but also the security concerns, with security people fleeing Twitter, and what that means for the protection of Americans’ private data.”
Unfortunately for both of these liberals and their followers, free speech is not supposed to be censored. When speech is unpopular it can come with results, it’s still supposed to be without censorship from the government or others. In the case of Twitter, Musk is trying to take it back to the “town’s square” of free expression it was originally built to be. That means not banning people from saying something others disagree with.
It also means people on the left are being forced to learn how to accept the idea of free speech not about protecting themselves and their safe spaces. Naturally, it is a tragic day for them, but it’s a beautiful day for the rest of the country as well as the online community. Should those who choose to push nothing but the agenda of the left choose to leave as a result, Musk nor anyone else would care.
However, this would also come with a horrific downside from Musk and Twitter, and it’s already bubbling beneath the surface.
Many advertisers are pausing deals with Twitter after Musk tweeted a story about Nancy Pelosi that was untrue, and just after he took over the company. Sharing something like that without fact-checking put him in a bad place, but it also made the company look unpredictable to these big accounts.
As it stands, Twitter has been having problems with content moderation for years. While nudity and sexuality have found an immoral home on the platform since its inception, over the last few years it has become the digital safe space for the left and their overreaching opinions about what people can say. With Musk trying to change that, they are racing for the exits faster than a crowded theater when someone yells “fire!!” I hear MySpace might have a spot for them these days.
