Image: The hosts of The View, Elon Musk, Twitter Bird, YouTube Screenshots.

Joy Behar Awkwardly asks Co-Hosts if ‘The Left Loves Free Speech too, Don’t We?’

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In: CULTURE, VIDEO, X/TWEET

Tuesday, on “The View”, the co-hosts talked about Elon Musk’s tentative acquisition of Twitter.

Joy Behar, leading the show in Whoopi’s absence, started the segment off. “So the richest person in the world Elon Musk, who 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 dollars. Musk laid out his vision for the social media site during a recent interview.”

They then play a clip from Musk’s Ted Talk interview from earlier this month, where he addresses his recently purchased, large position of Twitter stock, which made him the largest stockholder. In the clip, Musk calls Twitter “the de facto town square”. He then expresses he wants people to be able to speak freely within the boundaries of the law. The clip jumps to Musk saying, “A good sign as to whether there is free speech is, someone you don’t like allowed to say something you don’t like and if that is the case then we have free speech”.

Behar jumps back in with, “Well 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’s taking over?”

Behar’s amusing question blatantly ignores that Twitter has come out against free speech and silenced those it didn’t agree with such as Babylon Bee and censored the New York Post story on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Many others on the right were suspended from Twitter without much clarification.

Twitter whose employees overwhelmingly donate to democrats over 90%, has banned a former President of the United States, silenced those who speak out against the trans agenda, and banned many for “wrong think”. The current CEO has spoken out against free speech stating he wants to guide the public conversation and decide what gets seen.

Joy directs the conversation to Sunny Hostin. Sunny as usual plays the gender and race card in her response. “I think Twitter can be a really horrible place and I think people are excited because he is sorta going to unleash the trolls. I think he is saying, you get to say whatever you want, I’m going to take away the guard rails, for me that is something that is a bit scary. 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 that they have been on the receiving end of a lot of abuse on Twitter. 85% of women have said that they have seen the abuse, and what is interesting to me is that only 22% of adults are on Twitter.”

“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, it seems to me that it’s about free speech of straight white men, and so let ’em have it. Let them just go at it. I enjoy the block button on Twitter.” Sunny thinks with Musk taking over that another platform may take over where “real people” are talking with “real freedom of speech”.

Sarah Hines joins in with, “There are a lot of types of people that are on Twitter that are nasty… They are bold because they can be invisible.” She points to the fact that Musk may be going to a more verified identity for Twitter to remove anonymity. She believes that will “reduce some of the toxicity on Twitter.”

Ana Navarro steps in to answer why are conservatives happy about the Musk takeover. “It’s because they’ve been waging war against Twitter, they’ve been selling the narrative that Twitter stifles freedom of speech. They want to see Donald Trump get back his Twitter platform or they pretend to want to get, see Donald Trump get back his Twitter platform back. It’s funny because yesterday, Governor Desantis tweeted out, ‘Elon Musk’s offer to buy Twitter is a good deal for shareholders and raises the prospect that the platform will be a place where free speech can thrive not a tool for narrative enforcement.’ Well, I’d like Mickey Mouse to have free speech in Florida.” Taking a swipe at the recently passed “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

Navarro goes on to say she is concerned about “harassment and threats”. She goes on to tell a personal story about being threatened by someone who had been sending things through the mail. Musk has already addressed that the free speech will be limited if people are talking about illegal things, which threats to harm are not covered under the first amendment. Her second concern is with “misinformation” citing Covid.

Guest Host on the view Amber Ruffin then contributes her opinion to the discussion, “If you have 44 billion dollars and you use it to buy Twitter, you make bad decisions… I mean put a dent in world hunger.”

Joy jumps back in and starts talking about Musk and Jeff Bezos both going into space because they don’t know what to do with their money, “They should start giving it away” she remarks.

Sarah Hines was the only one who tried to find any positives in Musk taking over Twitter while the rest of the Hosts seemed to stick to their usual talking points. Some of them say they are okay with reading things they don’t agree with but don’t seem genuine in those remarks.

Musk has already addressed what he means by free speech on Twitter as well as he isn’t going to let it be a total free for all. “By ā€œfree speechā€, I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people.”

With every passing day Musk gets closer to taking over Twitter, tonight he joked, “Next Iā€™m buying Coca-Cola to put the cocaine back in“

Kay Williamson
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