When hearing the name Elon Musk, the first few thoughts that come to mind are Tesla, Space X, and now Twitter. The billionaire closed the deal on the private company Twitter at $44 billion on October 27.
The billionaire bought the company to advance its free speech but has criticized the platform’s former rules against harassment, hate speech, and false claims about elections and public health, saying it should allow all legal speech.
Musk has already reversed bans on other controversial accounts, including the author and podcaster Jordan Peterson, and the conservative satire website, The Babylon Bee, but has recently re-banned Kayne West after he posted a Swastika on his account feed.
Elon Musk has also allowed former United States president Donald Trump back on the social media platform Twitter, reversing the ban that was implemented after his supporters raided the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Even though Trump has not yet made a post, this move is highly controversial because of the backlash it can possibly face— like encouraging his supporters to raid the Capitol or maybe even the White House this time.
Musk is trying to expand on his admiration for free speech, but is approaching the situation in a chaotic and unprofessional manner. He should be communicating with public figures, like Kanye West, and business operations outside of social media.
But why is everyone freaking out about Trump and other banned accounts that speak on conservative content being allowed back on the platform?
It’s not the end of the world, just because a select group of people does not agree with someone’s political view— unless it’s anti-Semitic or something Kanye West would say. Twitter users are not being forced to follow or view content they don’t agree with.
Social media platforms have their own rules that users agree to follow in the user agreement. Since Musk now owns Twitter, this means he has the ability to create his own rules and ban who he thinks will be a danger to his platform. This can either benefit the platform or completely destroy the visions he wanted to create. But Musk has proven he’s taking certain cases seriously by banning Kanye West after posting anti-Semitic content supporting hatred against the Jewish community.
People are going to post content that other users do not like but the only person who can do something about it is the billionaire himself.
