What does Elon Musk's Twitter Buyout Mean for Jews?

As of October 28th, Elon Musk will officially own a controlling stake in Twitter.

This has potentially devastating consequences for Jews and other marginalized communities online as Musk has made it clear that he wants to see Twitter become a “Free Speech Zone”, where if something is not explicitly illegal, it should be allowed.

But as we know, the line for illegality differs between nations, and in even the best case, taking someone to court takes time and money. With the ADL reporting millions of antisemitic tweets, there is no practical way that Twitter would be a safe platform. This point has been made ad-nauseum, by opinion peices in the LA Times¹, Wired Magazine², and the New Republic[^new-republic].

Musk himself has expressed support for both Kanye West and Trump in the wake of their antisemitic tweets³.

The question of whether or not Twitter will become increasingly bad for Jews is secondary to what we Jews will do in response. Our options are to try to convince Musk to reconsider his views on free speech absolutism, or to build something better.

I vote for the second, which is why am working on launching Babka, an online space for Jews that includes Twitter-like functionality. I’m working on making Babka as strong a platform as I can, and I invite you to join me, and to send me your thoughts on the Twitter aquisition, as well as on what technologies or policies would make a better site for Jews.

Join the list, get involved. You deserve better than to be marginalized. You deserve to be heard.

We don’t need to accept hate on our feed, and we don’t need to beg for better. We can make this happen, and you can be part of it.

(Photo of Elon Musk - Steve Jurvetson, Elon Musk 2015, CC BY 2.0