I'm arguing that firing people over social media reveals a far more censorious attitude than blocking someone from a social media account, and it showcases that Musk primarily cares about freedom of speech in the abstract and is largely naive/hypocritical about what censorship is and what its effects are.
I'm also arguing that it's silly to say that it's an existential problem for Twitter to do moderation because it's a public square while simultaneously saying that there's no problem with denying critics access to a place of business or firing them from their jobs. I will point out that "denying people access to a private place of business" is literally what Twitter does when it bans people.
Musk has the right to fire employees that argue against company policy, but firing critics is an obvious characteristic of someone who does not actually have that radical of a view about free speech and mostly just likes to think to himself that he does. If you want to understand someone's views about free speech, don't look at how they react to far-away political discussions that largely don't affect their life, see how they react when the speech hits them closer to home. Every time that Musk actually takes offense over speech, I see him immediately lash out in a way that is uncharacteristic of a free speech advocate, and very often that takes the form of trying to financially or reputationally harm critics -- both of which are actions that are a heck of a lot worse than banning someone from Twitter.
I'm also arguing that it's silly to say that it's an existential problem for Twitter to do moderation because it's a public square while simultaneously saying that there's no problem with denying critics access to a place of business or firing them from their jobs. I will point out that "denying people access to a private place of business" is literally what Twitter does when it bans people.
Musk has the right to fire employees that argue against company policy, but firing critics is an obvious characteristic of someone who does not actually have that radical of a view about free speech and mostly just likes to think to himself that he does. If you want to understand someone's views about free speech, don't look at how they react to far-away political discussions that largely don't affect their life, see how they react when the speech hits them closer to home. Every time that Musk actually takes offense over speech, I see him immediately lash out in a way that is uncharacteristic of a free speech advocate, and very often that takes the form of trying to financially or reputationally harm critics -- both of which are actions that are a heck of a lot worse than banning someone from Twitter.