Elon Musk’s absolutist version of free speech has put the world’s richest man and his X social media platform in the sights of governments around the world.
In the UK, officials are considering tougher rules for sites like X after a wave of online misinformation fueled an outbreak of riots. In India, X was ordered to remove posts and block certain accounts this year in response to farmer protests. And in Brazil, Musk is locked in an ongoing battle with the country’s highest court over orders to ban users who spread fake news.
Taken together, the moves amount to a crackdown by some of the world’s largest democracies on what officials see as a surge in hate speech and disinformation. Yet any attempt to rein in expression on social media runs directly into Musk’s hands-off approach to user messaging, a “freedom of speech” pledge he passionately defends on the website formerly known as Twitter, which he bought in late 2022 for $44 billion and promptly rebranded as X.
