I'd never heard of All in Pod, and so I listened to the section from 43:00 on about this being a 'free speech' issue.
Quick takeaways:
- The frequent pejorative use of the term 'elites' as a catchall for literally anyone they disagree with is hilarious. Their explanation of Musk being the iconoclastic 'anti-elite elite' sounds like Ayn Rand fan-fic written by a 14 year old who just read the Wikipedia plot summary for Atlas Shrugged.
- What does 'inverting history' even mean? It seems to be another example from Glenn Greenwald's vast and vitriolic argot. (I'm sure Glenn Greenwald is another commendable 'anti-elite elite').
- Paraphrasing: "journalists 20 years ago would have been defending the first amendment!" -> this is not about the first amendment. The first amendment protects your ability to speak freely from government imposed restriction or suppression. Ironically, twenty years ago the press/journalists and even government officials were experiencing one George Bush's sweeping censorship efforts (https://www.americanprogress.org/article/think-again-the-bus...).
Anyway, the hosts wistfully allude to the past, with references to society's 'public square' and people having the ability to say whatever they wanted with no repercussions. This is nonsense. Broadly, you can absolutely say whatever you want online — it's easier than ever.
That doesn't mean:
1) Twitter is required to provide a platform for you to abuse and harass people, or spout opinions they deem to be offensive, damaging, or misleading. That's their choice.
2) Free speech has never been consequence-free. To quote Michael Hobbes: "Voicing your opinion in public has always carried the risk of being shamed or shunned."
Finally, I will concede that twitter has suffered from poor growth, and a change in leadership could be a good thing for the company. But the board also has a responsibility to protect minority shareholders from people exactly like Elon. Their resistance to his efforts may have nothing to do with the vague, insulting and unsubstantiated allegations you and the podcast hosts make (It's a 'country club', board members are only acting against musk to protect their 'status', etc). Rather, they may quite reasonably believe that a vainglorious egomaniac who has been repeatedly sanctioned by the SEC may, in fact, not be the ideal owner of a social media company.
Ps.
> 4. One AI engineer from Tesla could solve Twitter's bot and spam problem.
Do you really, seriously think this is true? It comes across as deliberately inflammatory, and you and I both know it's not true.