Elon Musk’s free speech absolutism is supremely flawed

HARDLY a day goes by without Elon Musk trumpeting his belief in the absolute importance of free speech. He insists that “moderation is a propaganda word for censorship”, that posts should only be taken down if they break the law, and that a thousand flowers should be allowed to bloom, however ugly. If the social media site that he owns, X, is going to be a public square for the world, he declares, it has to be a free-speech platform.

Though Musk’s posts on free speech have increased in frequency since he got into a fight with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer over X’s role in the country’s recent riots, there can be no doubt that they represent not only Musk’s core beliefs but also those of Silicon Valley elites.

In 2019, fellow tech titan Mark Zuckerberg told an audience at Georgetown University that we should “fend off the urge to define speech”, and, only the other day, he said that he regretted surrendering to pressure from the Biden administration to “censor” content related to Covid-19.