Elon Musk’s Free-Speech Charade Is Over
Musk’s “‘free-speech absolutism’ was mostly code for a high tolerance for bigotry toward particular groups, a smoke screen that obscured an obvious hostility toward any speech that threatened his ability to make money.”
Adam Serwer at The Atlantic:
Conservatives built an entire body of jurisprudence around the First Amendment’s protection of corporate speech when large corporations were reliably funding Republican causes and campaigns…. But once some corporate actors decided it was in their financial interests to make decisions that the GOP disliked, conservative lawyers then turned around and argued that speech was no longer protected if it was used for purposes they opposed.
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For them, free speech is when they can say what they want, and when you can say what they want.