For almost two years, many conservatives have maintained the 2020 election was rigged ahead of time, in part by mainstream media and Big Tech corporations determined to remove Donald Trump from the White House.
Perhaps no example better makes this case than the social media censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal. The New York Post first reported on the laptop’s contents on Oct. 14, 2020 (less than three weeks before Election Day), revealing that Hunter had arranged a meeting between his father, Joe Biden, and Ukrainian oil executives while the elder Biden was serving as vice president.
Despite the story’s authenticity and importance, Facebook and Twitter censored it on their platforms.
Well, on Tuesday, Elon Musk — the world’s richest man and newly minted owner of Twitter — called out the Twitter officials who made that decision, branding the platform’s banning of the story as “incredibly inappropriate.”
Suspending the Twitter account of a major news organization for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 26, 2022
“Suspending the Twitter account of a major news organization for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate,” Musk tweeted on Tuesday.
The context of Musk’s comment suggests heads may soon be rolling at Twitter, which the billionaire acquired 100 percent ownership of on Monday.
Musk’s remark was in response to a tweet from Saagar Enjeti, co-host of the podcast “Breaking Points,” drawing attention to a Politico report about Vijaya Gadde, a “key executive” and “top lawyer” at Twitter.
According to the report, Gadde was responsible for many of the platform’s most stringent censorship moves, including the permanent banning of former President Donald Trump from the platform.
She also leads the teams in charge of content moderation on Twitter, according to Politico, which, as the report put it, “made her a target of right-wing criticism, particularly when Twitter blocked the distribution of a New York Post article about President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, in 2020.”
Gadde is apparently viewed internally as Twitter’s “moral authority,” according to Politico, which, quite frankly, explains quite a lot about the company’s record of viewpoint discrimination.
Given Musk’s criticism and outspoken support for free speech, it doesn’t look like the sort of one-sided discrimination Gadde stands for is going to fly under his leadership.
With this context in mind, it is safe to say that Musk’s comment has left Gadde’s future as a Twitter executive in question. When a company’s new owner publicly characterizes a major decision as “incredibly inappropriate,” it’s the corporate equivalent of ripping apart the record of the executives responsible for it.
And Twitter’s “moral authority” who seems to know her days at the company are numbered.
According to Politico, shortly following Musk’s purchase of the company, Gadde “called a virtual meeting with the policy and legal teams she oversees.”
During the conference, Gadde reportedly cried.
“Gadde cried during the meeting as she expressed concerns about how the company could change, according to three people familiar with the meeting. She acknowledged that there are significant uncertainties about what the company will look like under Musk’s leadership,” Politico reported.
“Twitter spokesperson Trenton Kennedy said Gadde became emotional when discussing her team’s impact and the pride she feels in them.”
Well, at least Gadde will be able to take her pride with her should she be forced out.
If Musk, a self-declared “free speech absolutist,” succeeds in transforming the company into a true free-speech platform, that’ll be all that’s left of her legacy.