Techdirt: Hey Elon: The ADL Convincing Advertisers to Run Away From Your Site Is Part of the Free Speech You Pretend to Support
Over the past few days, Elon [Musk] has gone to war with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The ADL is kinda similar to CCDH, just much larger and more well respected. While I appreciate it’s purpose and mission of fighting anti-Semitism, the organization has a long history of being overly aggressive, and coming down on the wrong side of pushing for laws that would be damaging to free speech online, including stupidly attacking Section 230 (even though, without Section 230 it would be much more legally risky for websites to take down the type of content the ADL reasonably dislikes).
In the midst of all of this, Musk egged on a silly, idiot-driven campaign to #BanTheADL, which he can do if he wants, but kinda puts the exclamation point on how Musk’s conception of “free speech” on exTwitter is entirely driven by his own personal views, not any kind of principled stance.
But, then, on Monday, he went a step further. Egged on by more nonsense peddlers, Musk started talking about suing the ADL for defamation (a claim he found hilarious in his own mind, given that the organization’s own name is the anti-defamation league).