Earlier this month, columnist Matty Yglesias and Twitter owner Elon Musk had a throwdown over free speech.
Turkey threatened to ban Twitter. Twitter had to choose between complying with Turkish law and being available in that country, giving people at least some voice before the election, or being shut down and unavailable to everyone.
But it appears that Yglesias hasn’t learned his lesson yet and is at it again.
He’s a free-speech absolutist? Funny how I don’t seem to recall Matty wading into the fray to call out Twitter 1.0 when it was suppressing people who questioned the prevailing liberal narrative.
That was real censorship that Democrats could weigh in on. But not only didn’t they fight the censorship, they attacked the people who revealed it like Musk and the Twitter Files journalists.
Musk lost some patience when he had to school him.
“You’re such a numbskull. Please point out where we had an actual choice and we will reverse it,” Elon said.
The point Musk is making is he has to act in accordance with the laws of whatever country Twitter is operating in, not all of whom have the same approach to free speech as the United States, or Twitter and its employees are in danger of arrest/getting booted completely, for everyone. Then there is no Twitter speech at all, for anyone.
But Yglesias kept digging in.
People including Elon asked Yglesias to answer Musk’s question, but he wouldn’t.
He just can’t deal with the reality of the question.
He did seem to get that he posts “slow boring” content, though.
What’s ironic is the nerve of Yglesias to try to call out Musk here. What has Yglesisas ever put on the line for free speech? Musk put himself on the line, big time, when it comes to free speech, taking a position that he knew would antagonize the powers that be and make big-time enemies of the Democrats. He brought back people censored by Twitter 1.0 and revealed the things that went on to suppress speech with the Twitter Files. He probably also overpaid with the $44 billion he spent to acquire Twitter to stick by those principles and create the town square for all.
In many ways, Musk put a target on his back in the eyes of the left. The site may not be perfect, but one of the other things that’s great is that Musk also has to be one of the most open owners of a corporation ever with how he responds to questions/concerns, even here, with Yglesias’ comments. What other head of a company has ever responded in such a way? I’m not sure I can think of one.