Sen. Elizabeth Warren attempted to take a shot at Elon Musk on Wednesday over his acquisition of Twitter. Instead, the Massachusetts Democrat accidentally exposed the problem with Twitter that Musk is seeking to correct.
What did Warren say?
After Musk bought Twitter, the world’s richest man became public enemy No. 1 for Democrats, who fear Musk’s ownership of the social media platform will devolve Twitter to the internet’s version of the wild wild west. Warren herself admitted last month she has a “real problem” with Musk.
On Wednesday, Fox Business reporter Hillary Vaughn asked Warren if Democrats are being overly harsh with Musk.
“Elon Musk is doing just fine,” Warren snarked in response.
But it was Warren’s response to Vaughn’s follow-up question that told the true story of Democrats’ outrage against Musk and the changes he is implementing at Twitter.
“Do you think that users have a right to freedom of speech, even if what they’re saying is wrong or offensive?” Vaughn asked.
“I think that one human being should not decide how millions of people communicate with each other,” Warren responded. “One human being should not be able to go into a dark room by himself and decide: ‘Oh, that person gets heard from, that person doesn’t.’ That’s not how it should work.”
But one of the reasons that Musk purchased Twitter was to reform it from the inside out.
Twitter is widely seen as the digital town square, but the powers that used to be moderated the content posted to Twitter in a way that often cohered with the progressive agenda. Far-right personalities were often banned, and conservatives at large complained of being shadow-banned. And who can forget how Twitter censored the now-vindicated Hunter Biden laptop story?
Thus, what Warren alleges Twitter will be under Musk’s control is what Twitter already was under previous management. Musk, in fact, has promised to do the opposite of what Warren now expresses concern over.
Ironically, Warren and other Democrats outraged about Musk’s Twitter takeover were not angry when, under previous management, Twitter decided who should and should not have a voice on its platform.