Elon Musk’s free speech absolutism was called into question after an allegedly shadow-banned “Twitter Files” journalist aired a falling out with the tech entrepreneur.
(Video: NewsNation)
The same week that the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly advanced legislation some contended gave the president authority to “shut down news sites,” Don Lemon’s commercial partnership with X was tanked after an interview with Musk.
Seeking reaction to that decision, NewsNation host Chris Cuomo brought in journalist Matt Taibbi who, only weeks earlier, had shared a tête-à-tête with the tech entrepreneur who’d allegedly asserted, “You are dead to me.”
“I do believe that Elon proved to be very disappointing on the free speech issue,” Taibbi told the host when asked to respond to Lemon’s short-lived post-CNN deal. “All of us who worked on the Twitter Files felt the same way. We went in feeling tremendously optimistic that he actually meant a lot of the things that he said about being in favor of all legal speech and, you know, being a free speech absolutist and all these other things. That proved not to be the case. He’s currently disenfranchising thousands of Substack writers, including me. And no one seems to care in the press.”
In February, the journalist published messages attributed to Musk from April 2023 when Taibbi had lamented the billionaire’s decision to prevent outside links to competitors, a decision that impacted independent journalists like himself who relied on platforms like Substack to share their content.
“Since [Musk] published parts of these conversations, I might as well include others. I was under a ‘blanket search ban’ at one point and a lot of my 1.9 million followers still don’t see my content,” he captioned screenshots of messages that included Musk appearing to say, “You are dead to me. Please get off Twitter and just stay on Substack.”
Since @elonmusk published parts of these conversations, I might as well include others. I was under a “blanket search ban” at one point and a lot of my 1.9 million followers still don’t see my content. https://t.co/vFRtJFierF pic.twitter.com/k29MFxLUTC
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) February 15, 2024
“On the other hand, you know, in that interview, Don was asking Elon why he wasn’t censoring speech more. He was asking about hate speech, which is legal in the United States,” Taibbi continued with Cuomo. “And the question, ‘Why aren’t you doing more to moderate legal speech?’ — it’s a little odd to complain about a free speech issue when you yourself are asking to do the same thing.”
The host replied in turn, “And that’s actually what Elon should’ve said, you know, instead of that, I don’t have to answer your questions. I’m doing you a favor, you know, hubris.”
“He should’ve said, Don, do you understand what you’re asking me? You don’t like certain ideas and certain types of speech and you want it censored. That’s not what I’m about,” he went on as he wondered if the tech entrepreneur was more interested in motivating “the marketplace of ideas or do you think he wants to control it?”
“That’s a very good question. That’s a very good way of putting it,” Taibbi responded as he suggested that in his own situation, Musk had been “very pro-speech, as long as he was actually controlling the content.”
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Author: Kevin Haggerty
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