The billionaire businessman, who claims to have bought Twitter to turn it into a bastion of free speech, has just lost one of his most ardent defenders.
When Elon Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion last October, many conservatives cheered.
The CEO of Tesla (TSLA) – Get a free reporthe had promised to make the platform a bastion of freedom of expression, of which he calls himself absolutist.
The era of censorship was over, he promised. Now, users of the social network could tweet freely, as long as their messages did not violate the law. To show that Twitter 2.0 was to mark a break from Twitter 1.0, she removed most of the safeguards meant to limit hate speech, racist and anti-Semitic speech, as well as those meant to prevent the spread of misinformation.
To top it off, he announced the publication of the so-called Twitter Files, which include information from the platform intended to show that Twitter 1.0, before Musk, had implemented practices to silence conservative voices.
Twitter Archives
Musk opened up the Twitter documents to a small group of journalists, including Matt Taibbi, a freelance writer. Twitter worked with them directly for several reveals.
“More Matt Taibbi Twitter files,” the billionaire tweeted last February to promote a new article about the Twitter files.
While the Twitter files led to a hearing in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, they revealed nothing not already known. Both Taibbi and Musk saw it as an exposure of the Democratic bias of Twitter 1.0 and great technology in general.
“Most people don’t appreciate the importance of the point Matt was making: *All* social media companies are engaged in heavy censorship, with significant involvement and sometimes explicit government direction,” Musk argued. . “Google frequently makes links disappear, for example.”
The two men saw themselves as upholding an important principle for the functioning of a democracy. For them, they were on the same side, there was no doubt. They were allies.
“I was alarmed”
But this alliance now seems to be over. Taibbi has just announced that he is leaving Twitter because it is no longer possible for her to promote his articles on the platform, articles that she usually publishes on Substack, a popular subscription platform for writers.
The journalist explained that the reason for his departure is the censorship imposed by Musk’s Twitter, which now blocks the promotion of Substack.
Musk denied the accusation. He said that Taibbi was wrong.
“Of all things: I found out today that Substack links were blocked on this platform,” Taibbi tweeted on April 7. “When I asked why, I was told it was a dispute over the new Substack Notes platform.”
He does not specify who he asked.
“Since sharing links to my articles is the main reason I come to this platform, I was alarmed and asked what was going on. They gave me the option to post articles on Twitter,” he continued.
He then concluded, “Obviously I’m staying on Substack and moving to Substack Notes next week.”
Musk then responded.
“The substack links were never blocked. Matt’s statement is false,” the tech mogul exploded. “Substack was trying to download a large chunk of the Twitter database to start their Twitter clone, so their IP address is obviously not trusted. Turns out Matt is/was a Substack employee.”
This statement by Musk contains several inaccuracies, as pointed out by Community Notes, the fact-checking service he created on Twitter.
“Substack links have been sped up on Twitter and Substack’s Twitter account has been restricted,” Community Notes wrote below Musk’s tweet. “Matt Taibbi is not a Substack employee, he writes a newsletter there.”
‘True friends’
Substack, the popular subscription platform for writers, has just released a new feature called Notes, which looks and competes with Twitter. Twitter responded by beginning to block likes and retweets of posts that contained the word “Substack.” The platform has also set up a warning message whenever a user clicks on Substack links. Twitter even went so far as to block the search with the word “Substack”.
In the face of public outcry, Twitter removed the warning telling its users that Substack links were “unsafe.”
Substack co-founder Chris Best also weighed in. He disputed Musk’s claim that Taibbi is an employee of the platform and that his company violates the terms of service by using the Twitter API.
“We’ve used the Twitter API for years to help writers,” Best wrote in Substack Notes. “We think we’re in compliance with the terms, but if you have any specific concerns, we’d love to hear about them. We’d be happy to address any issues.”
He added that Taibbi “is not and never has been a Substack employee. He writes a Substack and gets paid directly by his readers. Writers making money seems to be such a strange concept it’s telling.”
Musk later tweeted words of wisdom that appear to be a reference to his former alliance with Taibbi.
“Friendship takes work, enmity is easy,” he said, adding that “true friends are true fortune.”
