When Trump right-hand man and walking midlife crisis Elon Musk set in motion his purchase of the social media platform then known as Twitter, he tried to portray himself as the world’s leading champion of free speech. Indeed, his first post after making a $44 billion offer was: “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy.”
That free speech only extends so far though – and woe betide you if you use the rebranded X to criticise the strongman authoritarians Musk and his boss are so fond of. Last week Musk’s platform shut down the accounts of a number of opposition activists in Turkey supportive of the riots triggered by the arrest of Ekrem İmamoğlu, mayor of Istanbul.
The majority of the suspended accounts belonged to grassroots activists with followers in the low tens of thousands who shared the locations of protests, usually at or near universities. Many have been fully suspended, while others appear to be restricted only within the country. According to X’s own transparency report, it complied with 86% of requests made by Turkey’s authoritarian government to take down posts in the second half of 2024.
Away from social media, Musk is busying himself by threatening to sue Kamala Harris’s running mate Tim Walz for accurately claiming Musk made a Nazi salute at Donald Trump’s inauguration, calling for a boycott of Wikipedia after his page was updated to include mention of an “alleged Nazi salute” and now says he will take legal action against Democrat politician Jamaal Bowman, who called Musk a “Nazi” and a “thief” during a recent appearance on CNN. It’s clear that Elon loves free speech – as long as he agrees with it!
