{"id":7560,"date":"2022-04-30T13:14:14","date_gmt":"2022-04-30T17:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=7560"},"modified":"2022-04-30T13:14:14","modified_gmt":"2022-04-30T17:14:14","slug":"great-news-elon-musk-committed-to-free-speech-is-buying-twitter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=7560","title":{"rendered":"Great News: Elon Musk, Committed to Free Speech, is Buying Twitter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Great News: Elon Musk, Committed to Free Speech, is Buying Twitter<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Elon Musk, CEO of electrical car giant Tesla, has bought social media giant Twitter and promises a new era of free speech. &#8221; &#8211; Elon Musk clinched a deal to buy Twitter Inc. for $44 billion cash on Monday in a transaction that will shift control of the social media platform populated by millions of users and global leaders to the world&#8217;s richest person. It is a seminal moment for the 16-year-old company, which emerged as one of the world&#8217;s most influential public squares and now faces a string of challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Musk, who calls himself a free speech absolutist, has criticized Twitter&#8217;s moderation [censorship]. &#8220;Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,&#8221; Musk said in a statement. Elon Musk clinched a deal to buy Twitter Inc&nbsp; for $44 billion cash on Monday in a transaction that will shift control of the social media platform populated by millions of users and global leaders to the world&#8217;s richest person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is a seminal moment for the 16-year-old company, which emerged as one of the world&#8217;s most influential public squares and now faces a string of challenges. Musk, who calls himself a free speech absolutist, has criticized Twitter&#8217;s moderation. &nbsp;&#8230; Political activists expect that a Musk regime will mean less moderation and reinstatement of banned individuals including former President &nbsp;Donald Trump. Conservatives cheered the prospect of fewer controls while some human rights activists voiced fears of a rise in hate speech. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/technology\/human-rights-groups-raise-hate-speech-concerns-after-musks-takeover-twitter-2022-04-25\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">(<strong>Reuters, <\/strong>April 25, 2022)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Worried thought control types fretted at the prospect of real free speech. &#8220;Human rights groups on Monday raised concerns about hate speech on Twitter&nbsp; and the power that its takeover by Elon Musk would give the billionaire after the self-described &#8220;free speech absolutist&#8221; clinched a deal to take the social media platform private.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Musk, who is also chief executive of electric car maker Tesla Inc has described himself as a &#8220;free speech absolutist&#8221; who has been critical of Twitter&#8217;s policies of moderating content on the platform. He has said Twitter needs to become a genuine forum for free speech. In a statement after securing the deal on Monday, Musk described free speech as &#8220;the bedrock of a functioning democracy.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Amnesty International said it was concerned about any potential decision that Twitter may take after Musk&#8217;s takeover to erode enforcement of the policies and mechanisms designed to moderate hate speech online. The last thing we need is a Twitter that willfully turns a blind eye to violent and abusive speech against users, particularly those most disproportionately impacted, including women, non-binary persons, and others,&#8217; Michael Kleinman, director of technology and human rights at Amnesty International USA, said on Monday.&#8221; (Reuters, April 25, 2022)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-style-default\"><a href=\"http:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/ELON-MUSK-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"700\" height=\"466\" src=\"http:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/ELON-MUSK-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7561\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/ELON-MUSK-2.jpg 700w, https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/ELON-MUSK-2-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/ELON-MUSK-2-451x300.jpg 451w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Great News: Elon Musk, Committed to Free Speech, is Buying Twitter Elon Musk, CEO of electrical car giant Tesla, has bought social media giant Twitter and promises a new era of free speech. &#8221; &#8211; Elon Musk clinched a deal &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=7560\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3606,836,4139,4140,406],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7560"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7560"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7562,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7560\/revisions\/7562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}