Elon Musk Faces Free Speech Conundrum With Kanye West | Bobby Burack
Elon Musk purchased Twitter in 2022, well above its market value, vowing to restore free speech on the internet. The acquisition followed what was inarguably the most censored presidential election cycle of our lifetime, culminating with the suppression of the New York Post's expose on Hunter Biden's laptop.
Polls after the election suggested that around one in six Biden voters would have voted differently had they been aware of the accuracy of the report.
Additionally, Musk attributes his interest in buying Twitter to previous management suspending the conservative satire account The Babylon Bee for awarding trans former Assistant Secretary for Health of the United States Department of Health and Human Services Rachel Levine "Man of the Year."
To his credit, Musk has almost always upheld his promise to prioritize free speech.
His philosophy was, however, tested over the weekend as both liberals and conservatives called upon him to censor Kanye West after days of praising Adolf Hitler, referring to himself as a Nazi, posting about sex and encouraging men to "slap" women.
Most notably, Piers Morgan pressured Musk to de-platform the rapper.
"Hey @elonmusk - how much more disgustingly hateful, racist, anti-Semitic, violence-inducing stuff from Kanye are you going to allow him to spew on your platform to his 32 million followers?" Morgan asked via X.
Musk did not remove West's account, but he did censor him – sort of.
Responding to freedom advocate Joey Mannarino, Musk explained his decision to bury West's "not suitable for web" posts from mass visibility. "Given what he has posted, his account is now classified as NSFW," Musk responded to Mannarino. You should not be seeing that anymore."
(West has since deleted his own account. He will be back.)
Specifically, Mannarino's gripe was not West posting his opinions but "literal porn." And therein lies the difference.
INGLEWOOD, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 14: Rapper Kanye West performs onstage during the "Vultures 1" playback concert during Rolling Loud 2024 the at Hollywood Park Grounds on March 14, 2024 in Inglewood, California. (Photo by Scott Dudelson/Getty Images)
Let us first review the advent of internet censorship to better understand the conundrum Musk faces.
In 2018, social media services de-platformed radio host Alex Jones for "abusive behavior." The public collectively dismissed suppressing Jones as an appropriate punishment for a volatile provocateur. However, the lack of resistance empowered tech companies to escalate their crackdown on speech.
Censorship peaked in 2021 with the banishment of Alex Berenson, an independent journalist who held government officials accountable during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Moreover, internet censorship has become a tool for the government to silence its critics. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently detailed to Joe Rogan how the Biden administration pressured Facebook and Instagram to take down posts critical of the White House, including memes.
Government-pressured censorship is a First Amendment concern, and no democratic government should ever tolerate it under any circumstances. Unfortunately, ours does.
However, defending free speech does not support posting any type of content. As the Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro discussed with OutKick in 2022, there's a catch-all provision of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act that allows tech platforms to remove pornographic, criminally violent material or "anything otherwise objectionable."
The issue is that tech companies abused that provision by removing posts and accounts simply for expressing the wrong political opinion or criticizing the wrong administration.
That is wrong. That is what Musk purchased Twitter to stop.
Put simply, Kanye West should be able to praise Hitler on social media. The strongest test for free speech absolutism is tolerance for speech with which we disagree most vehemently. If you truly believe in freedom of expression, you can abhor what West says but still support his right to say it. The answer to hate speech is more speech.
Where the discussion begins with West reportedly posting a video of a woman giving a blow job and encouraging people to enslave Jews. One can still support free speech while agreeing that platforms have the right to remove pornography, calls for violence, threats of violence and the doxxing of private information.
This distinction is crucial as the American Left is almost certain to use West's manic breakdown as evidence that tech companies and even the government must police our speech.
"Kanye West is going to be used to strip our free speech. Avoid him and his demonic nonsense. He’s no rebel. He’s a tool of Satan," Jason Whitlock explained on X.
Perhaps November 2028 will be the deadline to do so. Kanye is the exact type of useful idiot whom the censors have been searching for since Musk bought Twitter.
Ultimately, Musk doesn't need to overthink how to handle Kanye West. It should be simple. Remove his porn and threatening activity, but let him continue to Spira by telling the masses what he believes.
People with truly disturbing thoughts will ultimately reveal themselves if you let them. So, let them. Kanye revealed himself over the weekend as a demon who has used his faux Christianity as a shield.
Censoring his speech would have saved him.