Free Speech Absolutist Elon Musk Keeps Using X to Suppress Views He Doesn't Agree With
Dudes Were Rocked
On Monday night, the social media platform X temporarily suspended the account of a political group supporting Vice President Kamala Harris for the presidency — another suspicious mark against self-proclaimed "free speech absolutist" Elon Musk, who has a history of vindictively wielding his power against his enemies on the platform.
The group, "White Dudes For Harris," was hosting a virtual fundraising call that featured none other than "The Dude" himself, Jeff Bridges. After a blowout turnout of nearly 200,000 people, the organization managed to raise more than $4 million to elect Harris to the Oval Office.
But soon after the fundraiser ended, the group leaders were notified that X had suspended their account, @dudes4harris.
The stated reason, according to a screenshot shared by organizer Morales Rocketto, was for supposedly "violating our rules against evading suspension" due to "a user report."
"Seems like [Elon Musk] might be a little scared," Rocketto said in a tweet sharing the ban report.
Radio Silence
Following a lot of confusion and outrage over the sudden suspension, the White Dudes account was restored on Tuesday morning. Neither Musk nor X have responded to multiple outlets inquiring about the suspension or the reinstatement.
Rocketto also says he didn't receive any further communication – and understandably, he finds this whole thing "suspicious."
"I think it's a little convenient that my [X] mentions have been full of white supremacists, saying nasty things about me and the organization," Rocketto told The Washington Post. "And our account got suspended, but somehow those accounts continue to tweet at us."
Rap Sheet
Those suspicions aren't unfounded. Musk's support of Donald Trump is well noted and may amount to millions of dollars in backing. And though he champions X as a haven of free speech, Musk has repeatedly suspended and censored the accounts of journalists who criticized him — as well as random accounts that ticked him off.
We also know that he's not above manipulating Twitter's functions behind the scenes, like when he ordered engineers to boost his tweets.
And as WaPo notes, this isn't even the first time an account supporting the Harris campaign suspiciously stopped working. When President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race last month, X users reported that they were blocked from following Harris's official campaign account, @KamalaHQ.
There's also Musk's history of using his power on the platform — and elsewhere — to personally intervene into political and even geopolitical affairs. Given that he shamelessly shared a racist, AI-doctored video of Kamala Harris just the other day, we wouldn't rule out Musk minorly screwing with supporters of his latest political enemy, either.
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