Elon Musk is upset with Apple for pulling most of its advertisements off of Twitter in the wake of Musk’s purchase of the platform.
Apple has mostly stopped advertising on Twitter. Do they hate free speech in America?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022
Since taking the reins at Twitter, Musk has put an emphasis — at least rhetorically — on allowing users to speak freely, without intervention on the part of Twitter itself, prompting progressives to call on advertisers such as Apple to distance themselves.
Billy Binion at Reason and David French at the Dispatch have objected to Musk’s logic.
Free speech is: A company being able to decide where to put its money in coordination with its values
Free speech is not: obligating companies to spend money in places it doesn’t want to because it hurts your feelings https://t.co/fpm7OIkjEF
— Billy Binion (@billybinion) November 28, 2022
A private corporation’s decision to advertise (or not) on a given social media platform is an exercise of free speech. So are Musk’s/Twitter’s moderation decisions. If Twitter wants to be more like Gab, it can be! But other free citizens get to choose their level of participation https://t.co/eoqzuXuemc
— David French (@DavidAFrench) November 28, 2022
But neither of these points constitutes a response to what Musk actually said. He didn’t say that Apple had violated his First Amendment rights, or that the government needed to step in to force it to carry on its business relationship with his own firm. He only suggested that Apple appears to be philosophically opposed to free speech. And to whatever extent Apple’s decision to spend less money advertising on Twitter is a product of Musk’s pro-free-speech tack, it is.
I don’t see how the use of speech rights to advocate for less expression is in any way exonerating of the charge Musk makes.