Elon Musk has owned Twitter less than a week, but he has already gotten his first taste of what happens when a high profile person doesn’t think carefully before tweeting.
Musk tweeted, then deleted a tweet that suggested there was “more” to the Paul Pelosi attack, namely that it was a gay prostitution event gone bad.
The tweet
“There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye,” Musk tweeted in response to a tweet by Hillary Clinton, and included a link to a story in the Santa Monica Observer titled, “The Awful Truth: Paul Pelosi Was Drunk Again, And In a Dispute With a Male Prostitute Early Friday Morning.”
Both the tweet and the original article were removed shortly after Musk’s tweet, presumably because of public outcry over his spreading of speculative information that is unproven and likely untrue.
Yael Eisenstat, vice president of the anti-Defamation League and former Facebook executive, had this to say:
When the world’s richest man/owner of this very site himself traffics in conspiracy theories days after claiming to advertisers that he’s going to be a responsible leader, all I can say is: I’m not overreacting by expressing my concerns. Actions always speak louder than words. pic.twitter.com/00RhlJa4rh
— Yael Eisenstat (@YaelEisenstat) October 30, 2022
Clinton pundit David Rothkopf said, “It’s already becoming apparent that in order to save Twitter, ultimately Elon’s going to have to ban himself.”
Of course, The Washington Post was quick to say that Musk’s behavior was horrible, and that Musk often posts “misinformation,” or at least what the liberal mainstream press labels as such.
What should happen
Here’s another perspective: what happened with Musk’s tweet and the original article is exactly what should happen when someone posts inflammatory and poorly thought-out information that is probably not true.
A number of Musk’s Twitter followers called him out on the post, and he removed it. Then a number of his followers went to the site of the article he posted, and that site took down the article.
In fact, the author of the article posted an apology on the Santa Monica Observed site, while reiterating that he has questions about what really happened during the attack.
Here is what he said: “We wish Paul and Nancy Pelosi and their family the best. We hope Paul Pelosi has a fast and easy recovery from serious injuries he suffered at the hands of a left wing criminal. If we’ve offended you, the reader; we hope that you recover from your hurt feelings quickly too.”
This development gives me great hope for Twitter, but my hope is the left’s fear because they don’t want free speech for people that don’t agree with them, and they were happy to see Twitter censor their political adversaries.