What could Musk’s purchase of Twitter mean for free speech?
Call it the $44 billion tweet. When the conservative news satire The Babylon Bee tweeted a joke that Twitter deemed offensive, it inadvertently triggered Elon Musk’s multibillion-dollar bid to buy the social media platform, which the company has accepted.
The backstory? USA Today had nominated Adm. Rachel Levine, assistant secretary for health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as one of its Women of the Year. Ms. Levine is transgender. In response, The Babylon Bee – whose motto is “Fake news you can trust” – named Ms. Levine its Man of the Year. To some, The Babylon Bee’s riposte was an assertion of biological fact. To others, it was hate speech. Twitter suspended The Babylon Bee account in March.
Mr. Musk, dismayed by Twitter’s decision, reached out to the Bee’s CEO. Shortly afterward, Mr. Musk initiated steps to buy Twitter outright. The entrepreneur behind Tesla and SpaceX has also made a point of asserting that free speech should be Twitter’s governing principle.
Mr. Musk’s proclamation sparked a backlash exemplified by Washington Post columnist Max Boot, who tweeted: “He seems to believe that on social media anything goes. For democracy to survive,
