Senate Democrats are threatening to drop the full power of the Federal Trade Commission on Elon Musk’s head if he does not turn Twitter back into a government censorship machine on their behalf. This comes on the heels of two Twitter employees quitting in a huff last week because Musk had been preventing them from censoring user content. This sounds like a really boring story on the surface. However, this is yet another example of the Democrat Party trying to reassert control over the one platform where they can no longer brazenly censor their political opponents.
Last week, Twitter’s head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, and the company’s head of brand safety and advertising quality, A.J. Brown, both quit in a huff and left the building. That was enough to cause the Democrat Party’s main censorship squad in the US Senate to spring into action.
Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ed Markey (D-MA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) immediately sent a threatening letter to Elon Musk. They claim that without those two “critical” employees, Twitter is unable to comply with a consent decree that Twitter’s old management entered into with the FTC back in 2011. (We warned you that this would sound boring but stay tuned.)
Under that 2011 consent decree with the FTC, Twitter was banned for 20 years from lying to consumers about its security and privacy protections. The old management also agreed to make the platform subject to independent audits on a regular basis. Just last year, the old Twitter management got caught violating the consent decree. They were using information they collected from users for security purposes to target ads to people. Twitter ended up paying a $150 million settlement with the FTC and the Department of Justice.
The Democrat Senators are claiming that without the vital employees Irwin and Brown, Twitter won’t be able to comply with the consent decree. In the nasty letter that the Senators sent to Musk, it says:
“These personnel changes firsthand accounts from employees, and hasty launch of new products raise questions about whether Twitter is able to comply with its obligations under the FTC consent decree. In apparent dismissal of concerns regarding reducing his workforce, Mr. Musk’s team has said he is ‘used to going to court and paying penalties, and was not worried about the risks.’”
What is really going on here?
Many people noticed right away that after Elon Musk took over Twitter, the platform was still censoring anyone with a counter opinion on the transgender weirdness. If they said anything negative about the transgenders, their account got nuked. This was despite Elon Musk’s public declarations about keeping it a free speech platform.
Musk’s employees were quietly staging a revolt against the idea of free speech. Ella Irwin and A.J. Brown did not quit last week because they’re worried about Musk’s handling of trust and safety or internet protection protocols on Twitter. They left because it’s Pride Month, and because Elon Musk forbade them from censoring opinions critical of transgenders. That was why they got all huffy and walked out the door.
The Democrats cannot stand the fact that there is one last, tiny little bastion in the social media world where they can’t censor their political opponents. It’s driving them to fits. It’s not enough that they control the content on YouTube and Facebook and Instagram and even, let’s face it, Tik Tok. Their ideas these days are so crazy that they can’t stand up on their own, and they have to censor anyone who even mildly disagrees with them.
