SPACE HATE (CARTOON, VIDEO AND COLUMN)
When Elon Musk purchased Twitter, he allowed racist conspiracy theory-spreading goons to return to the platform. He reinstated Donald Trump’s account which was deactivated by the previous ownership for instigating a terrorist attack. One group flourishing under Elon’s control of Twitter, now X, are Nazis.
Media Matters, a left-leaning watchdog group, released a report on ads on Twitter/X running next to posts by Nazis. This triggered an exodus of advertisers. Instead of doing something sensible, like getting rid of Nazis, which should have been done in the first place, Elon is instead suing Media Matters.
Elon is filing his lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas Fort Worth Division despite the fact he doesn’t live in Texas, Twitter/X isn’t headquartered in Texas, and Media Matters is not located in Texas. He’s filing his suit in this district because it only has one judge and he was appointed by guess who. I covered this chicanery previously. When you file a suit in this court, you are guaranteed to get a wingnut zealot as your judge.
Elon is suing Media Matters for defamation claiming they only got the result they did by “excessive scrolling.” But when I look at my own Twitter/X account, I don’t have to do anything to see these hate posts. For some reason, Elon has triggered the algorithm so that the very first posts I see are from bigots, racists, antisemites, Trumpers, and Nazis. I see more posts in my news feed from people I don’t follow than from people I do follow. In fact, I even get notifications on my phone for people like Donald Trump Jr who I definitely don’t follow, as if a new stupid hate tweet from him is breaking news.
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Conservatives are rushing to defend Elon and Ken Paxton, Texas Attorney General who recently survived an impeachment attempt for bribery and is still under federal investigation, said he’s “opening an investigation into Media Matters for potential fraudulent activity” which would be like Donald Trump investigating someone for unwelcomed pussy-grabbing.
If Musk genuinely believes he’s a victim of defamation and has a legitimate case, he wouldn’t be taking it to the goon court. This is bullying by a billionaire. Musk believes if he throws enough money at this, then he can destroy Media Matters. So much for free speech, right? Nazis get “free speech” on Twitter, but a group shouldn’t be free to point out that there are Nazis on Twitter.
But it’s not just the ads that are scaring away advertisers. It’s also the platform. Last week, a Twitter/X user who had previously praised Hitler posted a claim that Jewish communities support “dialectical hatred against whites.” Instead of slapping that shit down, Elon replied to it with, “You have said the actual truth.” Elon endorsed a trope used to justify the mass murders of Jews.
Elon later tried to backtrack and claimed his reply was about his feud with the Anti-Defamation League, who’s also criticized him for allowing Nazis to skulk around on his platform, but Elon didn’t delete his tweet. Also, the Nazis are still there.
Let’s cover this again: Giving Nazis a platform is NOT free speech. It has nothing to do with free speech. Even when a social media platform like TikTok removes one of my cartoons, like it did last week for…wait for it…criticizing Trump for channeling Hitler with his “vermin” talk, that wasn’t an attack on free speech.
You don’t have free speech on a private platform. If you come into my home and spout racist nonsense based on conspiracy theories, I have every right to kick you out. It’s the same with a private company.
Musk isn’t giving a platform to Nazis because he loves free speech so much. Musk is giving a platform to Nazis because Elon Musk loves Nazis.
Sue me.
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