Yet, despite warnings that censorship is necessary “
for democracy to survive,” neither the Tesla CEO and billionaire nor ordinary citizens appear to be sufficiently terrified of free speech. Twitter confirmed Monday that Musk will acquire the company in a deal worth $44 billion. Once the deal is complete, Twitter will become a privately held company.
Progressives, in the meantime, have adopted a dangerous shift in their strategy of calling for corporations to censor speech.
Last week, former President Barack Obama made this shift clear in his much covered
speech at Stanford University. Just days after Musk re-enforced his bid for Twitter with the support of many in the free speech community, Obama warned that social media was “tilting us in the wrong direction.” He called for more censorship of disinformation while calling himself “pretty close to a First Amendment absolutist.”