Love him or hate him, Elon Musk has got to make you believe there’s a little hope out there for America’s cultural future. Musk disclosed Monday, that he has a 9.2% stake in Twitter. Elon Musk is now the largest shareholder of Twitter and has a confirmed seat on the board of directors. Musk has been very critical of Twitter in the past, and has compared the current CEO Parag Agrawal, to Joseph Stalin. Although CEO Parag Agrawal will probably never admit it, he’s got to be concerned about what this potentially means. Publicly, he’s saying he likes what Musk will bring to the table, but some are saying that Musk has bigger plans for Twitter, which may include a total buy out. Musk is a big proponent of free speech, and has called Twitter out on their blatant censorship, specifically those on the right. By becoming Twitter’s biggest shareholder, Elon Musk has chosen freedom of speech over censorship, and it looks like this might just be the beginning. If I were Parag Agrawal, or a radical left employee that worked at promoting biased censorship at Twitter, I’d be worried, and would start updating my resume.
Related: Twitter Censors Free Speech…Again
Could Twitter be Elon Musk’s New Platform?
Elon Musk teased his followers on March 25th with a poll asking whether or not Twitter adhered to free speech in a functioning democracy. The results were overwhelmingly that Twitter did not, with 70.4% saying they did not vs 29.6% saying they did. Musk followed that tweet with another, saying that the consequences of the poll would be very important. Some, like New York Times best selling author and national security expert Brigitte Gabriel, responded to Musk by asking him to buy Twitter. Musk followed those tweets the next day by saying that Twitter serves as a de facto public town square that doesn’t adhere to free speech, and asked his followers if a new platform was needed. Ask and you shall receive apparently.
“Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy.”
“Is a new platform needed?”
Twitter is the Cultural Rot in Our Society
Twitter has become one of the main causes of the breakdown in our culture, despite the fact it was originally imagined to be a vehicle for bringing us closer together. It has done the exact opposite, and brought us further apart than we have ever been. Twitter might say that they are for free speech, but if that’s the case, then why was a sitting U.S, President banned from the platform, Not the Bee CEO Adam Ford, Republican Representative Marjory Taylor Greene, and The Babylon Bee’s CEO Seth Dillon locked out or suspended from their accounts? The Babylon Bee was locked out because they posted about Time magazine’s person of the year, saying that Rachel Levine, a four star admiral of the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, was man of the year instead of woman of the year. The Babylon Bee was factually correct. Even though Rachel Levine is a transgender, she is biologically a male. Marjory Taylor Greene was permanently banned because she spoke out about Covid. Twitter states that Not the Bee and The Babylon Bee were suspended for promoting hateful conduct according to their rules.
“You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.”
That’s quite a stretch. The Babylon Bee was telling a joke about an absurdity. Is Twitter going to ban everyone on Twitter that supported Will Smith’s slap of Chris Rock for telling a joke about his wife’s bald head. That would seem to promote violence. No they won’t, because Twitter is extremely selective and biased on who they suspend, ban, or lock out. If Twitter actually believed in free speech, they would accept all forms of speech, whether they liked it or not.
Is Elon Musk the Solution to Transform Twitter?
If Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, and Facebook, all disappeared tomorrow, we would be in a much better place as a society. But with Elon Musk being Twitter’s largest shareholder, might mean there is hope yet that things could change over at Twitter. Daniel Ives, who is a managing director of Wedbush Securities, said to Newsweek that everything is on the table once Musk hits 10% ownership of Twitter.
“We view this as just the start of Musk shaking things up on Twitter. The platform, the Board, and the strategy are all on the table once he goes above 10 percent ownership with a buyout and M&A possibly on the horizon depending on the next steps.”
It’s probably pie in the sky, but if anyone could manage to change Twitters maniacal reign over our culture, it would be Elon Musk. America would get a much needed cultural win if that rot could be excised.
