Elon Musk Purchases Twitter, Leftists Rebuke Free Speech Principles
"any reasonable person can see that Elon Musk purchasing Twitter is a win for all who value free speech, irrespective of partisan affiliation."
News & Commentary
Social media giant Twitter announced on April 25th that the Board of Directors accepted Elon Musk’s bid to purchase the company. Musk will acquire the company at $54.20 per share, for $44 Billion total. Once Musk assumes control of the company, he plans to take Twitter private. The deal will close in approximately six months. At that point, the Twitter Board of Directors will cease to exist. Musk has not commented on the future of Twitter’s employees. However, it is widely assumed that he will clean house.
As the age of social media has progressed, Twitter, in part due to its broad generational appeal, has become the de facto town square for public discourse. Since the 2016 election of President Trump, Twitter began ramping up content-based censorship of conservatives on the platform. Prominent right-wing individuals and organizations who have been banned from the platform include Dave Rubin, Dr. Robert Malone, Project Veritas, the Babylon Bee, and of course, Donald Trump. Trump was banned from Twitter while serving as President of the United States.
Twitter censored and banned those who spoke out against our politicized government health agencies during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many of those individuals, such as Dave Rubin, made objectively accurate and verifiable claims – that resulted in their ban. The most notorious example of Twitter’s censorship of conservatives occurred when they actively prevented all accounts from reposting the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story – which had significant implications for the 2020 presidential election.
Those on the left have argued that private companies do not have a duty to uphold free speech. Legally, this is accurate. However, in the United States, a country that is founded on the principle of free speech, it is integral that all Americans can speak freely on social media platforms. The free exchange of ideas allows the best ideas to rise above the others.
Elon Musk has clearly stated that he is purchasing Twitter to restore free speech for all users on the platform. On April 26th, Musk tweeted,
“By “free speech”, I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes beyond the law. If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to the effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people.”
Musk is precisely correct. Big Tech should not be the arbiter of acceptable speech. The United States has well-established legal precedent which clearly outlines which speech is unprotected. Unprotected speech includes incitement, obscenity, true threats, fighting words, and defamation. These categories of unprotected speech are even more narrow than the average person would assume, due to the extremely high bar, to regulate speech.
Social media platforms, including Twitter, should not be more restrictive than the law. Twitter’s over-restriction of speech set the groundwork to weaponize social media against one political viewpoint. Musk’s vow to restore Twitter to free speech principles provides conservatives with a more level playing field to disseminate their ideas. Twitter will soon be a platform for those of all political persuasions to share ideas – without fear of content-based censorship from the Big Tech overlords.
Vivek Ramaswamy and Jed Rubenfeld perfectly categorized Twitter’s censorious behavior in a recent Wall Street Journal article. Ramaswamy and Rubenfeld said, “Twitter and others smuggle viewpoint discrimination into supposedly neutral content-moderation categories-primarily misinformation, incitement, and hate speech.” Twitter actively engages in content-based censorship of conservatives. The social media site obfuscates that fact by taking mainstream conservative or classical liberal views and categorizing them as violations of purportedly neutral categories.
The left has melted down since news broke that Musk would purchase Twitter. They are infuriated for two reasons: the left overtly opposes free speech principles, and they want to silence any person they disagree with.
One of the most shocking soundbites from the Democrats came from MSNBC’s Ari Melber. Melbure argued that Twitter, under Musk’s ownership,
“could secretly ban one party’s candidate, or all of its candidates, all of its nominees, or you could just secretly turn down the reach of their stuff and turn up the reach of something else and the rest of us might not even find out about it until after the election.”
The most unbelievable part of Melbure’s statement is that it was not satire to mock Twitter’s censorship of conservatives. Melbure purports to be entirely unaware that Twitter has been weaponized against conservatives, in precisely this way, for years. Melbure’s willful ignorance and lack of awareness are astonishing.
MSNBC’s Joy Reid joined in on attacking Musk’s free speech initiative. Reid argued that Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter shows that he misses the apartheid era in South Africa. Reid said, “Elon Musk, I guess he misses the old South Africa in the ’80s, I guess he wants that back.” Reid’s claim is not only entirely absurd, it’s disgusting. First, it is beyond the pale for Reid to equate a desire for free and open speech to white supremacy and apartheid. Second, we have no reason to believe that Musk, who is of South African descent, has ever favored apartheid. To make that assertion on frivolous grounds is reckless. Unfortunately, the left has grown accustomed to accusing those they disagree with of being vicious racists.
“The View” host Sunny Hostin continued the absurdity, claiming that Musk’s purchase of Twitter would predominantly benefit “straight white men.” Once again, this is a patently absurd contention. Free speech principles apply equally to each individual – regardless of race or skin color. The idea that free speech principles only apply to white men is an indefensible position. Hostin is giving away her game. She effectively believes that everyone except “white men” should have free speech rights. By purchasing Twitter and providing everybody with a free speech platform, including “white men,” Musk is committing a grave sin in the eyes of Sunny Hostin.
Musk responded to the left’s anti-free speech rhetoric by saying, “the extreme antibody reaction from those who fear free speech says it all.”
Despite the objectively anti-free speech rhetoric coming from the left, any reasonable person can see that Elon Musk purchasing Twitter is a win for all who value free speech, irrespective of partisan affiliation.
In addition to losing their collective minds, Democrats received a taste of their own medicine. In years past, Democrats routinely told Republicans that they should create their own platforms if they did not like social media censorship. When Republicans made substantial strides to develop their own social media platforms, Big Tech stepped in, de-platforming those sites. The most prominent example is Parler, which gained popularity amongst Republicans. However, Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store removed the Parler app from their respective stores after the January 6th riot. Additionally, Amazon Web Services de-platformed Parler entirely, rendering the platform inoperable. Big Tech worked to eliminate the only “conservative” social media site. Big Tech then used the January 6th riot as a cover to justify de-platforming Parler. While some faction of Parler users did use the app to organize at the Capitol, most rioters used Facebook and Twitter – which were not de-platformed by Big Tech.
Elon Musk purchasing Twitter is a giant middle finger to every Democrat who told Republicans to build their own platform. Now, Democrats, threatened by the prospect of free speech, can choose to either leave Twitter to join one of the numerous other censorious, left-wing social media sites, or “build their own” Twitter. The left’s disdain toward Republicans on social media has come back to bite them directly in the ass, and it is entirely deserved.
Garrett Gillespie graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Central Florida with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science.
The Gillespie Report is a weekly news and conservative commentary column written by Garrett Gillespie. Subscribe to receive the newest edition each week for free.
"Those on the left have argued that private companies do not have a duty to uphold free speech. Legally, this is accurate."
We actually have some interesting case law to look back on, which calls this into question.
The 1946 case of Marsh v. Alabama dealt with company towns -- places where virtually everything is owned by the same company, which employs everyone. In these situations, "the company" controls virtually every aspect of an employee's life, from where they shop to where they work and shop, to where they live.
The supreme court found that when companies start functioning like a community space, they become obligated to start holding up certain constitutional protections. This quote from the majority opinion sums it up nicely:
“[t]he more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who use it.”
This verdict makes sense in real-space; you don't give up all your rights when you go inside Disney World, for example.
Elon Musk, and others, have argued this should extend to the digital realm as well -- though I'm not sure they even know there is precedent for this. Elon argued, prior to his bid for Twitter, that the website had become the public square, and should match its standards to the constitution.
I've never seen this tested in court, but I'd be interested to see if it holds water. If you got a tech savvy judge and a talented lawyer, I'd see them buying the argument.
Great read, by the way. Thanks for writing!
Well written. I respectfully disagree however about Musk. Should Musk become the Thomas Paine of 2022 we are all in trouble deep. Musk with his history as a BigTech CEO, with an association with the most suspect institutions of our time - in thE US government and the World Economic Forum give me great pause. It would be as if our Revolutionary Ancestors supported an agent for the King as their free speech advocate.