Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk said he wants to bring absolutism of free speech to the world, but he doesn’t get off to a good start after tapping a Jussie Smollett impostor for censorship advice.
“I spoke with civil society leaders @JGreenblattADL, @YaelEisenstat, @rashadrobinson, @JGo4Justice, @normanlschen, @DerrickNAACP, @TheBushCenter Ken Hersch & @SindyBenavides about how Twitter will continue to fight hate & harassment, elections & enforcement his policies” self-proclaimed “Twitter Hotline Operator” announced Tuesday.
Rashad Robinson, president of the left-wing group Color of Change, repeatedly posted on Twitter his support for Smollett after the “Empire” actor falsely claimed to be the victim of a racist and homophobic hate crime in 2019. At the time, Smollett claimed two assailants beat him while yelling, “This is MAGA country.” .
Politicians, celebrities, leftists and the corrupt corporate media rushed to join Smollett, who was later convicted of five felony counts of disorderly conduct for staging the alleged crime.
Even after evidence suggested Smollett was lying about the alleged assault, Robinson continued to express disdain for anyone who called Smollett a hoax.
Robinson prides itself on “Changing the written and unwritten rules in media, technology, business and government.” But given his history of receiving hoaxes and hoaxes, he’s an unworthy and unreliable source for Musk to use in his efforts to correct Twitter’s sins of censorship.
Before winning his bid to take over the Big Tech platform, Musk signaled his intention to change Twitter from the platform of smart and thought police, it has become a forum where freedom of speech reigns. After the acquisition was completed, Musk fired some of the Silicon Valley giant’s top censors but allowed others to stay.
As Musk moves forward with his plans to monetize verification, he appears to be under the watchful eye of some of those censors who were allowed to remain on Twitter’s payroll. This includes Twitter’s head of security and integrity, Yoel Roth, who was largely responsible for introducing the big tech company’s anti-information campaigns on Covid-19 and the election. It also highlighted Twitter’s decision to stop the New York Post’s bombshell reporting on Hunter Biden’s questionable overseas business deals from circulating on the site just weeks before the 2020 election.
When some users noted Roth’s history of using his prejudice against Donald Trump to justify Twitter’s oppressive campaign against Americans and the former president, Musk defended his employee.
“We’ve all made some questionable posts, me more than most, but I want to be clear that I support Yoel. “My sense is that he has high integrity and we are all entitled to our political beliefs,” Musk replied.
On the same topic, Musk said that his company “will not allow anyone who was de-platformed for violating Twitter’s rules to return to the platform until we have a clear process for doing so, which will take at least a few more weeks.”
That means users like my colleague John Daniel Davidson, who was thrown into Twitter jail for rightfully stating that a man is a man, will stay there for now.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured on The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University, where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
