While the left had a full-on meltdown over billionaire Elon Musk’s $44 billion buyout of Twitter, such a breakdown is never official until the liberal co-hosts of ABC’s “The View” have their say, and they sure didn’t disappoint.
Aghast at the possibility of free speech on the social media platform — hence, no longer being confident that those who disagree with them will be silenced — co-host Joy Behar led the barrage against Musk, calling him a “Twitter troll.”
“So the richest person in the world, Elon Musk is also a notorious Twitter troll, but he won’t have to worry about being banned anymore since he just made a deal to buy the company for $44 billion,” Behar said.
She then shared a clip of Musk talking about becoming “a de facto town square” as he stressed the importance of people being able to “speak freely within the bounds of the law.”
“For some reason, a lot of people on the right are celebrating this as a big win for free speech. But the left loves free speech too, don’t we? So why are conservatives so excited over Musk taking over?” Behar asked.
Co-host Sunny Hostin answered the question by misrepresenting Musk’s intentions.
“I think Twitter can be a really horrible place, and I think people are excited because he is sort of going to unleash the trolls, right? I think he’s saying, ‘You get to say whatever you want. I’m going to take away the guardrails,’” she said. “And for me, that is something that is a bit scary.”
Predictably, Hostin would then suggest that not only is free speech misogynistic, but racist as well.
“And I think it’s going to be scary to a lot of women because there have been some surveys done and 38% of women around the world have said they’re on the receiving end of abuse on Twitter — 85% of women said they have seen the abuse,” she said.
Citing a 2019 Pew study, Hostin suggested that most Twitter users were “straight white men” — you know, like Elon Musk.
“Twitter is not the real world. In fact, on Twitter it is predominantly straight white men. So when Elon Musk says, wow, this is about free speech, seems to me that it’s about free speech of straight white men,” she said. “And so let them have it. Let them just go at it. I enjoy the block button on Twitter.”
Hostin concluded by complaining about billionaires taking over social media platforms, naming Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg among them despite the fact that he founded the site.
“I think what may happen, quite frankly, with Elon Musk taking over is that there will be other social media platforms that take over where real people are talking and there will be real freedom of speech because I’m tired of billionaires taking over our modes of communication,” she bellyached. “You have Jeff Bezos taking over The Washington Post, Mark Zuckerberg taking over Facebook and Instagram. Now you’ve got Elon Musk taking over Twitter. You know, I guess billionaires want to take over free speech and I’m not here for it.”
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Tom Tillison grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills. Tillison also contributes to BizPac Review.
Comment
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.