Live from Music Row, Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy and all-star panelist discuss Elon Musk’s response to Kari Lake’s censorship flag of Rachel Alexander of The Arizona Sun Times’ tweet which displayed a recent piece regarding Kari Lakes election lawsuit.
Leahy: Crom, we published a story by our writer Rachel Alexander late Friday night. Kari Lake Files a Lawsuit Loaded With Evidence Contesting Election Results. Then over the weekend, Kari Lake, who’s the GOP nominee, who has been declared the loser by 17,000 votes still has an election contest going in the Arizona gubernatorial election.
She responded to a tweet Rachel Alexander, our writer, put out. Rachel said, as promised, here’s my article about Kari Lake’s powerful lawsuit challenging the election results. And then there’s a copy of and then the link to the story that I just mentioned.
So Kari Lake then says, is Twitter still suppressing election criticism and news? Notice how the retweet comment like features are disabled on the tweet about my election lawsuit at Elon Musk. What’s up with this? Elon Musk gets thousands per second of tweets mentioning him, but guess what? He responded to this tweet. How about that?
I thought this was kind of interesting. And he said a couple of very interesting things about this, and in particular, I will give you the exact content of what he said. He responded at Kari Lake and he did this last night at 7:15 p.m., just as I was getting ready to go to sleep.
It ruined my sleep Sunday night, but it was worth it. Reasonable criticism of elections and judicial challenges are, of course, lawful. Lawful. That seems to be the case here in The Arizona Sun Times article. Okay, so that’s good. But then, listen to this.
Reasonable criticism of elections and judicial challenges are, of course, lawful. That seems to be the case here.
Clear incitement to violence will result in suspension and significant deception should result in a @CommunityNotes correction.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 12, 2022
He says the following: clear incitement to violence will result in suspension and significant deception should result in a community notes correction.
Carmichael: Wait, say that again. This is what he wrote?
Leahy: This is what he wrote. This is his second paragraph.
Carmichael: Second paragraph.
Leahy: And you said, say that again. That’s what I said to Elon. No, but I’m saying it to you. “Clear incitement to violence will result in suspension and significant deception should result in a cumulative community notes correction.”
Now, why did he say that? Because there’s nothing in our article about violence. And there’s no significant deception. It’s just the facts of the lawsuit.
Carmichael: As far as you’re concerned there’s zero deception.
Leahy: Zero. Negative zero. But why did he do that?
I think my theory on this. It’s cya because he’s saying, I’ve looked at this story by Rachel Alexander of The Arizona Sun-Times, part of The Star News Network, which we started here at The Tennessee Star six years ago. Almost six years ago. So he said that seems to be the case here. It’s a reasonable article. But then he lays us out what their policy is. The second paragraph is really it’s just saying what the standard is. Now, what he did, though, apparently the retweet function and the comments function had been disabled by some lower-level people at Twitter on our article.
Carmichael: On that article.
Leahy: Yes. That’s what she was complaining about that, Kari Lake. It is fully functioning now it’s been enabled. And I believe it was because Elon Musk told one of his minions there, hey, get these guys back up.
Carmichael: But somebody had to make the decision to submerge you, for lack of a better term…
Leahy: To disable the comment capability on that tweet by our reporter.
Carmichael: Even after Elon Musk has owned Twitter there are sill employees within Twitter that are suppressing?
Leahy:Â Apparently. That’s what Rachel Alexander, our reporter who tweeted it, observed that the retweet and comment function was disabled for a period of time. Kari Lake, the gubernatorial candidate in Arizona who’s filed the election lawsuit contest, brought that to Elon Musk’s attention. Apparently, Elon Musk told one of his minions to turn it back on. And so you can comment now on Rachel’s tweet.
Carmichael: Now the question becomes, does Rachel have to jump through these hoops in the future to get it turned back on? That’s what’s going to be interesting. And this, by the way, dovetails into what we’ve been talking about in previous days about federal employees, that if they won’t carry out the policies of the president, then they can be terminated for cause. If this person, whoever suppressed Rachel, if he, in the future just suppresses her again because he doesn’t like what she is saying, the question is whether or not Elon Musk would fire that person.
Leahy: My sense is he probably would.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Elon Musk” by Steve Jurvetson. CC BY 2.0. Photo “Kari Lake” by The Kari Lake. Background Photo “Twitter” by PhotoMIX-Company.
