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Liberal Bill Maher Supports Elon Musk Joining Twitter, Bringing Back Free Speech

Bill Maher, the liberal host of HBO’s “Real Time”, threw his support behind Elon Musk joining Twitter Friday evening. 

Last week, Musk announced that he had taken a 9.2% stake in Twitter, making him the social media company’s largest shareholder. The billionaire activist had been a frequent critic of Twitter, publicly asking if the company’s censorship of conservative thought was either healthy or fair. Musk also announced that he would be joining Twitter’s board of directors, giving him significant influence over how Twitter operates.

One viewer of “Real Time” asked Maher what his thoughts were on Elon Musk taking a stake in Twitter.

Maher replied, “I’m for it!”

David Leonhardt, a liberal New York Times writer and panelist on the show dryly and predictably asked, “Are we gonna have to read Donald Trump’s tweets again soon?”

No, David. No one is forcing you to read anything. If you would rather not read anything that the former president tweets, that’s fine. But you don’t have the right to prevent the rest of us from reading his thoughts.

That’s what Bill Maher should have told his snowflake panelist. But instead, the host’s milquetoast response was, “That’s a tough one. Because once they took Trump off Twitter, things did get better but it’s bad for free speech. And then they’re going to go somewhere. And then the resentment and then the idea, ‘Well, you know, the people who are ganging up against us- the media and Big Tech and Big Government.’ I mean, that’s the convoy. You know, those convoys in Canada and all over the world.”

Another leftist on the panel, author Nancy MacLean, then argued that it is fine for Twitter to censor anyone it wants since they are a private company.

But Maher replied, “We live in a different age where Twitter is the public square now. If you deny someone’s right to speak on Twitter, you’re basically saying you don’t have free speech rights. We’re not living in 1980 anymore. This is a different world we live in where social media controls this. So social media is sort of a… it’s living in a space that’s not exactly a publication, but it’s not exactly a private company either… That’s why it’s so tricky.”

The host continued his criticism of Twitter by discussing their censorship of certain discussions surrounding the coronavirus. 

“Twitter also said you couldn’t- they banned you talking about whether coronavirus came from a lab- and it may well have. And even the Biden administration admits that now. We don’t know where coronavirus came from, but there’s no reason to think it couldn’t have emerged from a lab. They have a lab in Wuhan that was studying coronavirus! And you couldn’t even discuss this! I mean, that’s outrageous!” 

“I think that’s what Elon Musk wants to fix at Twitter,” Maher added. 

 

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