The only real winner here, rather ironically, is Democrats.
Elon Musk has decided to diversify his portfolio by buying Twitter for $44 billion. Some are, for obvious partisan reasons, casting this as a win for free speech. However, the reality is that Musk buying Twitter doesn’t do anything to advance free speech. What’s more, this purchase effectively works contrary to the very marketplace of ideas that the First Amendment’s speech protections were meant to advance. Republicans have been aflutter since the initial rumors of Musk buying Twitter began to swirl. Their hope is that the eccentric tech billionaire will reinstate a certain real estate billionaire and former president to the social media platform, overturning the ban imposed on him after his fomenting of an insurrection meant to overturn the results of the 2020 election. While this reinstatement is now fairly likely to happen, it doesn’t really advance free speech in any meaningful way. Free speech, particularly in the context of the First Amendment, was always about restricting what the government can do when it comes to airing our opinions. The idea was that removing government from the possible regulation of the speech of its citizenry would result in a robust marketplace of ideas. Republicans calling on the government to regulate the likes of Twitter and Facebook by requiring them to reinstate deplatformed individuals like Trump is both a violation of the spirit and the letter of the law as it regards to the First Amendment.
