MSNBC host worries Elon Musk will suppress free speech on Twitter
MSNBC’s Ari Melber worries Elon Musk will "ban one party’s candidate’ or ‘turn down the reach of their stuff’ on Twitter.
Twitter employees are maintaining their torrid pace of 99 percent of their political donations pouring into Democratic campaigns and committees for the midterm elections, filings show.
The partisan skew of Twitter employees' donations illustrates the uphill battle facing Elon Musk, who has pledged to make the company "politically neutral" in order to maintain trust.
Individuals employed by the social media giant have disbursed 1225 donations through ActBlue, the Democrats' central fundraising platform, totaling $72,296, Federal Election Commission records show.
Meanwhile, just ten donations from Twitter employees were pushed through WinRed, the Republicans' fundraising platform, for $505 through the end of March, according to the filings.
This means that Twitter employees have maintained their astronomical pace of 99 percent of their contributions going towards Democratic campaigns and committees with just over six months until the 2022 elections.
Nearly every political donation from Twitter employees went to Democrats
Democrats received the overwhelming majority of donations from Twitter employees
Musk said Wednesday that he hopes to drag the company to the political center. "For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally," he wrote on Twitter.
"From the top to the bottom, these companies are overwhelmingly liberal, overwhelmingly pro-Democrat," Dan Gainor of the Media Research Center previously told Fox News. "At the top, they contribute to Democrat causes. At the bottom, they contribute to Democrat causes in overwhelming numbers."
Twitter's board of directors, who accepted Elon Musk's $44 billion offer for the company on Monday, have also showered Democrats with tens of thousands of dollars in recent elections, the New York Post reported.
Musk's purchase of the company led to a celebration from Republican lawmakers, who frequently criticize Twitter for biased censorship of right-leaning accounts and figures.
"Twitter openly censors speech based on political ideologies and makes a mockery of our Constitutional liberties," Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz tweeted after the deal was announced.
"If Elon Musk can turn that around to actually protect free speech and encourage open discourse, Twitter's full potential will be unlocked," Cruz said.
Democrats, meanwhile, argue the platform is not biased against conservatives.
Paul M. Barrett, a liberal columnist, penned a column for The Hill this week saying it's "odd" that Republicans often criticize Twitter of censorship when they enjoy "high levels of engagement" and popularity on the platform.
LIBERAL COLUMNIST DENIES TWITTER IS BIASED AGAINST CONSERVATIVES: 'FACTS SAY OTHERWISE'
Barrett acknowledged a recent study that found Twitter censors conservative accounts at a higher rate than liberals. He justified the findings by saying conservatives are "more prone to amplify misinformation," as the study's authors concluded.
One of the most prominent cases of Twitter bias came during the 2020 election.
A few weeks before election day, The New York Post published their groundbreaking story about Hunter Biden's laptop. Twitter and Facebook immediately reacted by restricting the story from being shared. Twitter also locked the Post's account under the threat that they must delete their tweets about Hunter Biden.
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Twitter also famously banned President Trump after January 6, 2021, yet the outlet allows highly controversial figures, including dictators and users who've been accused of murder, free rein to tweet.
Trump told Fox News this week that he does not intend to rejoin Twitter and instead use his platform TRUTH Social to get his message out.
Fox News' Kristine Parks contributed reporting.
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