X, the website formerly known as Twitter, is not a free speech or First Amendment platform. Yeah, I know. Controversial!

President Elon is a liar.

First off, the First Amendment applies to the government restricting speech, which is not the case with X/Twitter. X/Twitter is not the government, and Twitter before X, as a private company, was allowed to moderate the speech on its platform. In addition, the US government was not forcing limits on what could be posted on the platform (though foreign governments may do that, as those countries do not have free speech). The most that happened back then was content requests from US government agencies, but nothing forced upon the site formerly known as Twitter.

Second, X does not allow free speech. Honestly, it never has, as there have always been moderation and restrictions on topics and words. However, when Elon took over it got much worse and much more blatantly biased towards one perspective.

Elon famously bans people who make fun of him or say things he does not like. The Blue Checkmark brigade bullies people into submission. Posts, hashtags, and people are shadow-banned all the time. Again, X has the right to do this. But pretending it is “free speech absolutism” is ridiculous.

I came across this Benn Jordan video about bots. It is a fascinating look at the reality of online mis- and dis-information via human and non-human bot accounts. While all platforms have bots, the data about X shows that it is much worse over there.

This summarizes a lot of what I have seen, read, and experienced over the past few years.

I used to be on Twitter all the time. Once Elon took over, the culture there took a dark turn and I had to step away. The data shows it has gotten so much worse.

That said, join me on Bluesky, Threads, and yes, X.