Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover Causes Progressives To Show Their Hands.

Free speech advocates, conservatives, and many (not all) Twitter users were thrilled with the announcement of a takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man. (Full disclosure: I’m active on Twitter @JamesGRickards with over 238,000 followers).

The reasons are straightforward. At one level, it’s not particularly interesting if one Silicon Valley oligarch buys a social media platform in a takeover bid. What makes the story interesting is that Musk is not doing this primarily for the money or for any strategic business reason. Musk is doing this because he places a high value on free speech.

In the past four years, Twitter has gone far down the road of censoring voices on the right and destroying free speech. The examples are many. Twitter banned Donald Trump while allowing the fanatical and violent Ayatollahs in Iran to stay on the platform. Twitter banned the humor site Babylon Bee, while allowing violent groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter to tweet to their audiences. Twitter banned the #1 cable news host Tucker Carlson while allowing neo-fascists like Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland free reign.

In addition to outright bans, the censorship included “shadow bans” where voices were allowed on the platform but their tweets were suppressed and potential followers were blocked from access.

Musk promises to end all of that. He will not ban progressive or liberal voices. Instead, he will restore access to conservative voices and let the debate begin. May the best views win!

One would think advocates for freedom of speech from both sides would cheer him on. That’s not the case.

Musk’s move is forcing progressives to show their cards, as reported in this article. Democrats and progressives are bemoaning the lack of “content moderation” that will come under Musk.

You should know that content moderation is a progressive euphemism for censorship of non-progressive views. Many progressives are admitting that they don’t want free speech if it means hearing views they disagree with. The modern progressive definition of free speech is speech they agree with and no more.

Musk’s takeover will echo far beyond the Twitter platform. As Twitter gains followers and generates revenues, other platforms like Facebook and Google may have to reduce their censorship in order not to lose market share.

Kudos to Musk for adopting a definition of freedom of speech that the authors of the First Amendment would have recognized. Let’s hope it’s the first of many developments that finally put the censorship crowd on the run.

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