Elon Musk teased upcoming files on Monday that will reveal how and why Twitter has taken down some accounts at the expense of free speech.
“Twitter files on suppression of free speech will be posted on Twitter itself,” Musk tweeted Monday without elaborating. “The public deserves to know what really happened…”
The Twitter Files on free speech suppression soon to be published on Twitter itself. The public deserves to know what really happened …
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022
Critics, especially those on the right, have long criticized the platform for what they see as unfair and murky standards regarding which accounts get censored or suspended.
The tech giant permanently banned former President Donald Trump from the platform in 2021, blocked the 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop, and blocked conservative satire site The Babylon Bee from its Twitter account in March for awarding a transgender Biden administration official Rachel Levine a fictitious “Man of the Year” award.
Last week, Musk responded to a tweet from Alex Lorusso, executive producer of The Benny Report to Newsmax, who argued that Musk should join Twitter’s internal discussions to censor the Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story.
“This is needed to restore public confidence,” Musk tweeted.
Conservatives widely celebrated Musk’s $44 billion takeover of Twitter in late October, heralding it as a victory for free speech. Progressives warned that Twitter would once again become a bastion of hate speech for all.
Musk, who has described himself as a “free speech absolutist,” said he acquired the platform because “it’s important for the future of civilization to have a common digital public square, where a wide range of issues can be discussed.”. healthy way without resorting to violence.
“There is currently a great danger that social media will break into far-right and far-left echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.”
