The Financial Times reports that Elon Musk personally called the chief executives of companies pulling advertising from Twitter to complain. Media Matters released a report suggesting Twitter has now lost half of its top 100 advertisers. Ad sales account for nearly 90% of Twitter's revenue. In addition, there is also talk that Apple and Google may pull the “Twitter app” from their App Stores. This inspired Musk to tweet “Apple has mostly stopped advertising on Twitter. Do they hate free speech in America?” Musk then followed up by tweeting “What’s going on here @tim_cook?”
Wow, it seems Elon is going full “Space-Karen” on Apple, and is “demanding to speak to the manager.” Now, is it just me, or does it seem like every time some MAGA jerk doesn't get their way or someone disagrees with them, it suddenly becomes a “free speech issue?”
But I can see Elon Musk’s point. I mean, who could imagine a company that wouldn’t be thrilled to death to advertise on the same page where neo-Nazis are posting racist hate speech, misogyny, racial purity, homophobia, election fraud lies, Russian propaganda, COVID disinformation, or Marjorie Taylor Greene’s insane conspiracy theories?
That’s why Musk feels the need to inform Apple that the First Amendment requires all major corporations to advertise on hateful, bigoted, right-wing social media platforms. The Founding Fathers were quite clear about that. Put another way, if you’re not sending your advertising dollars the world’s richest billionaire’s way, then you’re obviously against free speech.
Now, not to be critical, but I’m surprised Musk is still so enthusiastic about “free speech” at this point. I mean, it appears "free speech" just cost Elon a cool $44 billion. You see, free speech only means the government cannot jail you for what you’ve said. It is not a 100% consequence-free activity. Perhaps he should have thought of that before flushing “Twitter” down the “Shitter.”
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