Did You Notice How Tucker Ended His New Twitter Show? It Appears to Be a Warning to Elon Musk
From all indications, Twitter has engendered a bit of good will with conservatives by presenting itself as the free speech social media platform.
While far from perfect, since Elon Musk took over Twitter, the platform has, at the very least, not been actively hostile to conservatives — a remarkably low bar to clear, but one that Twitter appears to have cleared regardless.
Take, for instance, the unmitigated success story that The Daily Wire documentary “What Is A Woman?” has been on Twitter. After some confusion about being throttled by the leftist remnants of Twitter’s old regime, the movie was eventually released to all on the social media platform:
It’s the movie they really don’t want you to see: #WhatIsAWoman?
Watch the explosive documentary starring @MattWalshBlog FREE on Twitter for 24 hrs. pic.twitter.com/qDi7thCNid
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) June 2, 2023
That’s not a clip. That’s not a preview. That’s the whole movie available on Twitter. And look at those metrics. As of this writing, the movie is sitting at over 178.9 million views.
And that’s all happening on Twitter.
Similarly, when Tucker Carlson was unceremoniously ousted from Fox News, many wondered what exactly Carlson was planning for his next act.
That was swiftly answered when Carlson announced that he would be bringing his talents (and his show) to Twitter.
The first episode of “Tucker on Twitter” dropped on June 6:
Ep. 1 pic.twitter.com/O7CdPjF830
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 6, 2023
Without any particular hype of fanfare, Carlson’s debut episode on Twitter came with a sterling 69.4 million viewers, at the time of writing this article.
The 10-ish minute premiere also came with a stern warning — one that appears to be aimed at Musk despite conservatives thriving on the social media platform as of late.
At the end of the episode (which largely followed the same format that made Carlson a success on Fox News), Carlson finished with a monologue about the importance of genuine free speech.
“As of today, we’ve come to Twitter, which we hope will be the short-wave radio under the blankets.” Carlson said at the end of his show. “We are told there are no gatekeepers here.”
Indeed, part of the appeal of Musk’s Twitter takeover is that, finally, it feels like a massive social forum where conservatives and liberals can debate on equal footing.
Between the commitment to no censorship (save for the most egregious cases) and the addition of Community Notes to help counter leftist gaslighting, Twitter is being presented as a fairly level playing field.
“If that turns out to be false, we’ll leave,” Carlson said, with just a hint of a threatening tone creeping into that message. “But in the meantime, we are grateful to be here.”
For what it’s worth, Musk does seem genuinely committed to true free speech on his social media platform. There may be lingering pockets of resistance from the prior regime, which can lead to some confusion and ugliness, but by and large, Twitter under Musk’s stewardship appears to be an actual haven for protected speech.
And if it’s not?
Conservatives, just like Carlson, may end up leaving the platform for good.
Fool me once and all that, after all.
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