(LifeSiteNews) – Technology entrepreneur Elon Musk revealed over the weekend that he’s mulling the creation of a new and more open social media platform to compete with Twitter, which he suggested “fundamentally undermines democracy” with its biased and restrictive approach to political speech it abhors.
On Friday, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO polled his Twitter followers on whether they “believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle,” that “free speech is essential to a functioning democracy,” teasing that the results would be “important.” Though the poll was unscientific, 70% of more than 2 million respondents answered “no.”
The consequences of this poll will be important. Please vote carefully.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 25, 2022
The next day, Musk posed the question of whether a new social platform was needed, saying he was “giving serious thought” to building a new one himself:
Is a new platform needed?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 26, 2022
Am giving serious thought to this
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 27, 2022
Without committing to doing so, Musk also took notice of a suggestion that he simply buy Twitter instead, which would enable him to directly make the platform more speech-friendly.
Doesn’t sound very balanced
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 26, 2022
Twitter, Facebook, and other major online information and communications platforms have since 2016 grown more aggressive in down-ranking and suppressing political speech at odds with their left-wing politics, most infamously on the COVID-19 debate, election integrity, damaging stories on Democrat candidates, and transgenderism. Recent high-profile targets of Twitter discrimination include Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson, conservative satirical website The Babylon Bee, and Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk.
In recent years, various contenders have launched alternative social networks with varying degrees of popularity, including Gab, Parler, and most recently Truth Social, but their appeal is largely confined to politically-engaged conservatives of various stripes.
As the current richest man in the entire world whose work on electric vehicles and private space travel have made him a household name across partisan lines, Musk’s resources and cultural standing could leave him uniquely equipped to create a Facebook or Twitter competitor capable of drawing mainstream awareness and interest.
In 2020, Musk declared that it was “time to break up” online shopping giant Amazon’s monopoly after it temporarily blocked the sale of a book by former New York Times investigative reporter and dissenting COVID-19 voice Alex Berenson.