It seems more and more likely that Elon Musk will be forced to buy Twitter, despite his months of attempts to squirm out of the deal. If the billionaire does get handed the keys to Twitter, big changes are likely on the horizon. First and foremost is the possibility that Musk would reinstate a host of trolls, racists, misinformation hawks, and other monsters that have been banned from Twitter.
Musk, a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist,” has said he’s against the idea of perma-banning people altogether. The Tesla CEO hasn’t been clear about where he’d draw the line, but essentially he’s said that anything that’s legal to say should be allowed on Twitter, which means Musk could open the doors to a long list of figures who aren’t allowed to Tweet at the moment. Musk famously said he would reinstate Donald Trump — even though he was kicked off the platform for inciting violence, which theoretically falls outside the bounds of speech that’s allowed by the law.
But the Tesla CEO isn’t the only defender of your right to be racist that’s threatening to change the face of social media. Last year, Texas passed a law that prohibits social media companies from removing posts based on users’ political beliefs, and a similar law in Florida banned social media companies from de-platforming anyone running for office.
Legal scholars have pointed out that the Texas and Florida laws are blatantly unconstitutional. Legally, deciding what kind of posts are allowed on your platform is a form of speech in itself, and the First Amendment gives private companies the same right to free speech that citizens have. A federal judge put the Florida law on hold, but bizarrely, the Texas law was upheld by the 5th circuit court in September, clearing the way for a Supreme Court battle that will turn the internet into a toxic waste dump if these state laws aren’t struck down.
What gets lost in this debate is that, as nice as the words “free speech” sound in right-wing talking points, the market doesn’t actually want social media to be a free-for-all. Meta, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media companies were dragged into doing more content moderation kicking and screaming because that’s what users wanted. This may come as a shock, but most people don’t actually want their feeds to be polluted by hate speech and harassment. (Advertisers don’t like it, either.) Even Truth Social, Donald Trump’s armpit of a social media company, said it would roll out censorship robots to keep the app family-friendly in January.
It’s also important to remember that, of course, freedom of speech is one of the most important values in our society. But certain kinds of speech, such as racism, have the effect of silencing some people by creating unsafe environments. If you want to create a fair forum where everyone can have their voices heard, there have to be limits involved.
Elon Musk kind of… changes his mind a lot, so it remains to be seen how he’ll handle the platform if and when he takes over. But if he or the state of Texas get their way, there’s a long list of angry homunculi who might get the chance to start tweeting again.
Here are the 10 worst people who could get unbanned from Twitter if Musk buys the company.
David Duke
Here’s a champion for all the “free speech” lovers out there: David Duke, a white supremacist, convicted felon, and former Grand Wizard of the KKK. Duke had a long unpleasant run on Twitter until the summer of 2020 when he was kicked off the platform for violating the company’s policy on “hateful conduct.” It’s not clear which particular post finally crossed the line, but if we had to guess, it was probably one of the racist ones.
Marjorie Taylor Greene
There’s a lot not to love about Marjorie Taylor Greene, far-right conspiracy theorist and U.S. Representative for Georgia’s 14th district. Greene rose to notoriety for promoting QAnon and Pizzagate. She’s continued to promote ideas such as questioning the legitimacy of mass shootings, suggesting that the Rothschilds used “space lasers” to start wildfires in California, and of course, lots of antisemitism. Twitter apparently didn’t have a problem with the numerous posts she liked calling for her political opponents to be murdered, but her account was finally suspended for violating coronavirus misinformation policies in January 2022.
Jordan Peterson
Last year the New York Times opinion section described Jordan Peterson as “the most influential public intellectual in the Western world.” Peterson amassed an army of sad young men online, using bizarre analogies to call on them to take personal responsibility for their lives (and channel their disillusionment into misogyny). Like so many other people who are “just asking questions,” he’s made an effort to promote transphobia, among other hateful ideologies.
Technically, Peterson isn’t banned from Twitter. He had his account temporarily suspended for misgendering the actor Elliot Page, but he refused to take the post down. So he remains off the platform, relegating his Kermit-the-Frog-esque Canadian brogue to other parts of the internet.
David Icke
David Icke is best known for his theory that the world is run by a cabal of shape-shifting lizard people (literally), including everyone from George Bush to the British Royal Family. For years Icke enjoyed a sort of infamous celebrity and lighthearted mocking, but opinions about the conspiracy theorist soured, among anyone paying attention, as it became harder to ignore that his ideas include a lot of antisemitism. Icke was removed from Twitter, but mouthing off about reptilians apparently wasn’t the problem. The company banned him for spreading COVID-19 misinformation.
Milo Yiannopoulos
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Milo Yiannopoulos might be the best example of why deplatforming is an effective strategy. Yiannopoulos found fame and riches as part of the first wave of “alt-right” (i.e. hateful racist) influencers in the mid-2010s. Just at the moment when he seemed poised to cross over into the mainstream, his career fell apart in a spectacular flurry when it surfaced that he had seemingly promoted pedophilia on a podcast. He was subsequently fired from Breitbart, uninvited from the Conservative Political Action Conference, and had a book deal cancelled.
At that point, he had already been banned from Twitter for directing a racist hate campaign against Ghostbusters actress Leslie Jones. Eventually, he’d be removed from most other social media platforms, too. With nowhere to promote his bad ideas, the “provocateur” could no longer provoke anyone, and by 2018, he had reportedly amassed millions of dollars in debt.
Martin Shkreli
What can you say about Martin Shkreli? Shkreli became a public figure after his company bought the rights to a drug often used to treat AIDS and raised the price 5,455%. The so-called Pharma Bro spent four years in prison for securities fraud, but today he’s a free man, dabbling in the famously upstanding world of blockchain technology. He isn’t free to use Twitter though. He was kicked off the app for harassing a journalist.
Alex Jones
Like Milo Yiannopoulos, Alex Jones demonstrates that one of the best ways to deal with dangerous ideas isn’t letting them play out in the public square. You just stop listening. After Jones was kicked off of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other platforms, you really stopped hearing much about him. (But his recent court appearances indicate he’s still making quite a bit of money.) These days, when his name comes up it’s usually related to news about ways he’s humiliating himself or the numerous lawsuits he’s fighting (and losing). His Twitter account was permanently suspended for “abusive behaviour,” but the company didn’t go into specifics.
Laura Loomer
Laura Loomer, who’s made a whole career out of her hatred for Muslims, was very, very upset after she was banned from Twitter. In 2018, she chained herself to the company’s New York headquarters in protest, wearing a yellow star that was similar to those the Jews were forced to wear during the holocaust. Loomer was removed from Twitter for hate speech against Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. Loomer is particularly good at getting banned from tech platforms. She might be the only person on this list who was also kicked off of Lyft and Uber (also for hate speech).
Mike Lindell
Most famous as the CEO and weirdo spokesperson of MyPillow, Mike Lindell is enjoying a second career as a pseudo-political figure. He’s a delightful guy. When Lindell isn’t working to overturn the last presidential election, he enjoys wholesome activities like promoting unproven coronavirus cures and helping to pay bail for Kyle Rittenhouse, who killed two people at a protest. Lindell was kicked off Twitter for spreading lies about Trump’s loss in 2020 — but he seems even more upset about how he was “cancelled” by Walmart.
Donald Trump
You can’t forget the big man himself. Donald Trump, perhaps the most successful poster of all time, has been on permanent time-out since he was banned from Twitter following the January 6th attacks. Elon Musk said he’d welcome Trump back, but the former president said he won’t come back to “boring” Twitter even if they do offer him his account back. Both men are famous for always doing what they say they’re going to do, so it’s hard to predict how this one will play out. For now, anyone who misses Trump’s weird tweets about how much he hates sharks will just have to wait.