MSNBC’s Joy Reid claimed Elon Musk, a South Africa native, misses the “old South Africa of the ’80s” during a Tuesday episode of “The ReidOut.”
Reid criticized Musk’s push for free speech and less censorship on Twitter after his $43.4 billion buyout of the platform Monday, claiming the Tesla CEO will allow users to take over the platform and enjoy “being able to attack people.”
“They don’t want to just be in the club, they’ve been described as being on the outside of the culture looking in through the glass. But they don’t just want to come in, they want to come in and be able to punch people in the face and walk around and laugh about it and then not have anyone be able to stop them,” Reid told Morgan State University professor Jason Johnson. “The enjoyment they get out of being in this ‘town square’ is being able to harass people, being able to attack people.”
“There was a time when people had the double hashtags around their names because they were Jewish and right-wingers were saying ‘get in the oven’ anytime you made any benign comment on Twitter. They attacked women, the misogyny was crazy on Twitter for a while. Elon Musk, I guess he misses the old South Africa in the ’80s, he wants that back.”
Reid said Friday that Musk does not care about free speech, but rather is trying to “release” supporters of former President Donald Trump and “Nazis” to harass ordinary people. (RELATED: Liberals Absolutely Lose Their Minds About Musk’s Twitter Takeover)
“Elon Musk has spent years silencing his critics,” she said. “He doesn’t care about ‘free speech.’ This Twitter crusade is about releasing the trolls, nazis & MAGAnuts from Gab and Gettr isolation because they can only be entertained by harassing normal people here.”
Elon Musk has spent years silencing his critics. He doesn’t care about “free speech.” This Twitter crusade is about releasing the trolls, nazis & MAGAnuts from Gab and Gettr isolation because they can only be entertained by harassing normal people here. https://t.co/CqRkKE9EUO
— Joy-Ann (Pro-Democracy) Reid 😷 (@JoyAnnReid) April 22, 2022
After the deal with Twitter was finalized, Musk called free speech the “bedrock of a functioning democracy” and said the platform is a “digital town square” for open debate in a Monday statement.
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Musk said. “I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans.”
In an April 14 TED talk, Musk said a sign of “healthy, functioning free speech situation” is when one is allowed to say something another person does not like.