ACLU Comment on Elon Musk and Twitter Deal

NEW YORK — Today, Twitter announced it has struck a deal with Elon Musk for the billionaire to buy Twitter for roughly $44 billion and take the social media platform private.

Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director, had the following reaction:

“While Elon Musk is an ACLU card-carrying member and one of our most significant supporters, there’s a lot of danger having so much power in the hands of any one individual. In today’s world, a small handful of private tech companies — including Twitter — play a profound and unique role in enabling our right to express ourselves online. Social media is a critical tool used to share ideas, express opinions, and consume information that has real-life impacts in discourse in the offline world. We should be worried about any powerful central actor, whether it’s a government or any wealthy individual — even if it’s an ACLU member — having so much control over the boundaries of our political speech online.”