It was hard not to be excited by Elon Musk’s successful bid to buy Twitter on Monday. Initially, it seemed that the Twitter board would do everything in its power to stop it from happening. In the end, they decided to take the money and run.
Who can blame them? $43 billion to buy Twitter? There’s no way it’s worth that much. But I digress. Elon Musk has the money and the desire to purchase Twitter and make it a true digital town square where different opinions are welcome–not censored. I sincerely hope he succeeds in this quest.
I also wouldn’t mind my currently suspended account being reactivated, but I digress.
The news of Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter is still fresh, yet we’re already seeing signs of progress. Conservative Twitter users are reporting that they’re seeing a massive surge of followers. According to a report from our sister site RedState, “Donald Trump Jr. added a whopping 87,000 new followers Tuesday, Federalist Editor Molly Hemingway reported a surge of almost 8,000, while podcaster Benny Johnson gained 20,000.”
It would be nice if I could get in on that, but, as I pointed out, I’m still banned. Some previously banned conservatives have also found their accounts reactivated. Again, not me yet, but it’s still early.
This is all solid good news that suggests that Musk really is about to bring some real change to how Twitter tolerates opposing views. But, let’s not lose sight of the fact that Twitter isn’t the end-all be-all when it comes to internet speech.
Related: Elon Musk Is Not Your Savior
Heck, I would even argue that Elon Musk vastly overestimates Twitter’s status as the digital town square. As a content producer (in case you don’t know, I write for PJ Media), I can say that Facebook is a far more effective platform for sharing content than Twitter ever was. In 2020, an article that went viral on both platforms would result in far more clicks from Facebook than Twitter. When it comes to written content, Facebook was definitely the place where articles got shared, discussed, and clicked on.
Hey, maybe Musk has ideas on how to make it a better platform for this. He’s a smart guy, maybe he’ll figure it out. But that still doesn’t solve the problem that the internet is more than just social media. There are other types of platforms that have been hostile to conservatives.
Consider the crowdfunding site GoFundMe, which refused to pay out millions raised for the Canadian Freedom Convoy, and then had the audacity to attempt to steal those contributions and distribute them to “approved charities.” Had it not been for the incredible backlash, they might not have backtracked on that idea and issued refunds instead. GoFundMe also allowed fundraisers for violent BLM activists before deciding that fundraisers for Kyle Rittenhouse violated their terms of service because he’d been accused of a violent crime.
Google-owned YouTube has also had a habit of demonetizing conservative content creators, and house-sharing company AirBNB blacklisted conservative author and journalist Michelle Malkin because of a speech she gave.
I could go on, but the bottom line here is that Musk’s purchase of Twitter may be a good thing, but it won’t stop the systematic censoring of conservatives elsewhere online.
