Did Musk Just Side with Kari Lake? His Tweet Is Good News for Her

By Ryan Ledendecker December 12, 2022 at 10:34am

All conservatives ever wanted on Big Tech social media platforms was a reasonable, fair chance to ask questions without being instantly censored into the ground. Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, is making sure that happens.

That was evidenced on Sunday when Republican Kari Lake, an Arizona gubernatorial candidate who lost her 2022 midterm election race, asked Musk why the ability to retweet, like or comment on a post citing an article about her recently filed 70-page misconduct lawsuit against Maricopa County was inoperable.

“Is Twitter still suppressing election criticism & news? Notice how the ReTweet/Comment/Like features are disabled on the tweet about my Election Lawsuit? @elonmusk what’s up with this??” Lake tweeted Sunday.

Is Twitter still suppressing election criticism & news?

Notice how the ReTweet/Comment/Like features are disabled on the tweet about my Election Lawsuit?@elonmusk what’s up with this?? pic.twitter.com/UfaE0EKhfH

— Kari Lake (@KariLake) December 11, 2022

Musk, who has proven time and time again that he’s accessible and willing to tackle Twitter’s various issues, responded to Lake less than two hours later, explaining his thoughts on the situation.

Reasonable criticism of elections and judicial challenges are, of course, lawful. That seems to be the case here.

Clear incitement to violence will result in suspension and significant deception should result in a @CommunityNotes correction.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 12, 2022

“Reasonable criticism of elections and judicial challenges are, of course, lawful. That seems to be the case here. Clear incitement to violence will result in suspension and significant deception should result in a @CommunityNotes correction,” Musk tweeted.

Is Kari Lake's election challenge 'reasonable'?

His response was shocking in the sense that under Twitter’s old management, it’s not unreasonable to think that Lake not only wouldn’t have received a response to her concern, but also likely would have been subjected to some level of penalization for asking.

Under the old guard, questioning any election process anywhere seemed to be an invitation for at least a temporary account suspension.

Musk identifying the issue and describing Lake’s criticism of the 2022 midterms as “reasonable” is nothing less than a game changer for roughly half of the country. It seems like the right approach to take for all of the politically white-hot issues over the past few years, especially the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this particular case, it turns out that the disabled functions on the post citing the Arizona Sun Times’ story about Lake’s lawsuit was either a glitch or a user-side error. At the time of this writing, the options to like, retweet and comment on the post are fully functioning.

As promised, here is my article about @KariLake‘s powerful lawsuit challenging the election results. The amount of illegal activity alleged is mind numbing, far worse than anything I’ve reported to date, like 90% of mismatched signatures just ACCEPTED. https://t.co/3tkKnEEt7h

— Rachel Alexander (@Rach_IC) December 10, 2022

In the comments section of the post of the Twitter user who linked the Sun Times’ story about Lake’s lawsuit, numerous users pointed out that they believed they were still being suspended and censored for certain election-related posts.

“What about posting election news stories? I’ve received 3 temporary bans for doing just that. Unless and until you get rid of the Civic Integrity Policy, Twitter cannot claim to embrace free speech and will remain biased against conservative accounts,” one Twitter user wrote.

What about posting election news stories?

I’ve received 3 temporary bans for doing just that.

Unless and until you get rid of the Civic Integrity Policy, Twitter cannot claim to embrace free speech and will remain biased against conservative accounts.

— Julia 🇺🇸 (@Jules31415) December 12, 2022

While that’s certainly a concern, if true, it seems obvious at this point that Musk is doing the right thing in fixing the absolute disaster Twitter had become under old management. Having only acquired the platform recently, there’s clearly much work to be done.

Musk has infuriated legacy media types. Hollywood celebs have left the platform. And many progressive politicians seem to be in utter meltdown mode over Musk’s mission to make Twitter a true free speech haven, which will even the playing field like never before.

The coming weeks and months on Twitter will be a gas.

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