Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Elon Musk and the revenge of the gatekeepers - A coalition of big business, the media and NGOs is trying to thwart Musk’s plans.
Spiked ^ | 8 Nov, 2022 | FRANK FUREDI

Posted on 11/11/2022 4:38:31 AM PST by MtnClimber

For America’s cultural elites, it is now almost obligatory to hate Elon Musk. It is not difficult to see why they feel this way. After all, Musk is one of the very few high-profile businessmen who is prepared to publicly distance himself from the woke values that the elites hold dear.

For several years now, the man who made electric cars cool has shown a rare willingness to question social-justice orthodoxies. He has frequently referred to himself as a ‘free-speech absolutist’. And now, after buying Twitter, he has promised to make the popular social-media platform a ‘haven for free speech’.

This has terrified those who cleave to woke values. As far as they are concerned, any speech that challenges those values is ‘hate speech’. Indeed, as they see it, free speech is itself little more than an excuse for spouting hate speech. They also claim that a Twitter free of censorship will quickly become the preserve of racists, fascists and homophobes.

As it stands, Musk hasn’t yet changed Twitter’s content-moderation policies. The bird remains in the hands of the censors. But that hasn’t stopped his countless critics from claiming that Twitter has already become a cesspool of hate. For instance, pundits have cited a new ‘study’ from Montclair State University, which claims that Twitter experienced a dramatic increase in ‘hate speech’ immediately after Elon Musk’s takeover.

There is now a clear, concerted effort from America’s political, cultural and business elites to demonise Musk and Musk-era Twitter. Even US president Joe Biden has got involved. At the weekend, he branded Twitter an ‘outfit that sends and spews lies all across the world’. The New York Times similarly claims that under Musk ‘misinformation and hate speech would be allowed to proliferate on the platform’. And the NGO crowd has organised a #StopToxicTwitter campaign, calling on businesses to stop advertising on Twitter.


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: censorship; freespeech; indoctrination; musk; twitter; woke

1 posted on 11/11/2022 4:38:31 AM PST by MtnClimber
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

I don’t participate in Twitter, but watching elitist heads explode is fun to watch.


2 posted on 11/11/2022 4:38:41 AM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of Colorado scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Liberals hate all who are smarter than they are.
Which is why they hate a vast amount of the population.


3 posted on 11/11/2022 4:43:54 AM PST by Da Coyote
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

The Woke Speech Police are on the march. With flak coming in from all the usual leftist sources, you know that Musk is over the target. Pull the trigger, Elon. Make Twitter a free speech site. But please do moderate the speech of the leftists (vile, profane language).


4 posted on 11/11/2022 4:48:55 AM PST by SharpRightTurn (“Giving money & power to government is like giving whiskey & car keys to teenage boys” P.J. O’Rourke)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Can’t have Musk violating the 4th Reich’s new Gleichschaltung.


5 posted on 11/11/2022 4:54:39 AM PST by Sirius Lee (They intend to murder us. Prep if you want to live and live like you are prepping for eternal life)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

I would bet the n word has spiked in popularity on twitter all of a sudden. Funny as the only people in my experience who actually use the n word are leftists and rappers


6 posted on 11/11/2022 4:55:38 AM PST by dsrtsage ( Complexity is just simple lacking imagination)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Taxman

Ping


7 posted on 11/11/2022 4:56:38 AM PST by Taxman (SAVE AMERICA! VOTE REPUBLICAN IN 2022, 2023 AND 2024!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Da Coyote
I don't think that's it.

The reason the Left hates the rest of the world is because the Left is built on a fantasy, a fabricated reality.

They don't just hate the rest of the world, they hate reality itself. We--the rest of the world--are just messengers.

As an aside, as you and I know well, the Left appropriated the term Liberal and applied to their movement. They are not classical liberals in any stretch of the word.

8 posted on 11/11/2022 5:05:41 AM PST by RoosterRedux
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Elon Musk, if you watched Star Trek, is the BORG in this sense:

What others think is irrelevant. The efforts of the MOB, including woke businesses, are FUTILE.

When he is done correcting the course at Twitter it will be BALANCED and FREE SPEECH.

OLD Twitter allowed Leftist Extremists and, in some cases, Terrorists to access Twitter but banned the POTUS.

Keep in mind this reality -ALL of these corporations have been convinced they need to be on social media to enhance the “customer experience”. This department, like every HR department, is infested with hard left, woke, Democrats.

WHO do you think is advising corporations in the social media world. Not anyone who actually PRODUCES work.


9 posted on 11/11/2022 5:08:27 AM PST by LeonardFMason
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Mark Finchum, the Republican running for Secretary of State office in Arizona tweeted a message asking why the Arizona ballot count is taking so long. He demanded that Maricopa County stop stalling and release the vote tabulation.

The wig wearing Andrea Mitchell on MSDNC went berserk, yelling at the viewers, “Why is Twitter allowing Finchum to tweet false statements”!

This just proves that the left is using Twitter strictly for censoring conservative voices.


10 posted on 11/11/2022 5:14:23 AM PST by Flavious_Maximus (Tony Fauci will be put on death row and die of COVID!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

I’ve been on Twitter since 2009.

Yes, it turned into a cesspool, but there was still unfiltered content there if you dug. It was very difficult to find since Obozo.

I intend to stay there. And here on FR.


11 posted on 11/11/2022 5:20:19 AM PST by Texas Fossil ((Texas is not where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind & Attitude!))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: LeonardFMason

Amen! Well said.


12 posted on 11/11/2022 5:21:51 AM PST by RoosterRedux
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Flavious_Maximus

“Andrea Mitchell on MSDNC went berserk, yelling at the viewers, “Why is Twitter allowing Finchum to tweet false statements”!”

Sounds like he inadvertently struck a nerve.

You know what they say.....flak is heaviest over the target.


13 posted on 11/11/2022 5:26:45 AM PST by V_TWIN (America...so great even the people that hate it refuse to leave)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

The left HATES TRUTH.


14 posted on 11/11/2022 5:28:00 AM PST by The Truth Will Make You Free
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SharpRightTurn
I'd say "moderate nothing."

No sooner is free speech censored or moderated than some Wokester slides into the position of censor/mod.

If the law is broken, let the law take care of it.

There is a block feature on Twitter that would be used to isolate those who are profane and/or pushing porn. I use it all the time. Wokesters could use it to block free speech, but they won't. The curative powers of free speech are intoxicating. Irresistible but deadly to liars.

15 posted on 11/11/2022 5:31:54 AM PST by RoosterRedux
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

This is the new Democrat Marxist democracy.


16 posted on 11/11/2022 5:50:44 AM PST by Hattie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Flavious_Maximus

Go to hell Andera and take your crusty, old, cobweb covered kitty with you!


17 posted on 11/11/2022 6:01:07 AM PST by Abbeville Conservative
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Elon has become a Bond villain in the minds of the liberal media. I am waiting for them to publish photos of him petting a cat in the boardroom. The only problem is, much like his low rent 2 bedroom house in Texas, he probably doesn’t have a tony boardroom. The company sent him an email telling him to start a “Managing @Twitter 101” training course. Musk tweeted that he has no idea who the CEO is yet, despite calling himself “Chief Twit”. lol


18 posted on 11/11/2022 7:29:55 AM PST by chuckee
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: chuckee

He will probably end up like that Chinese guy Ma? who started Ali Baba. He disappeared for a very long time.


19 posted on 11/11/2022 7:34:38 AM PST by dforest
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: chuckee
Those huge, massive rockets that he's turning out in Boca Chica don't help much

20 posted on 11/11/2022 10:12:48 AM PST by jmcenanly (You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.” ― Winston)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson