Free Speech Cannot Exist Under a Billionaire's Algorithm

One of the more remarkable narratives on the right at the moment is their belief that the left is chained to corporate-controlled and corrupt legacy media. While I won’t dispute the increasing irrelevance of cable news and a Los Angeles Times that added CNN’s Scott Jennings to its editorial board, how is the right so blind to the fact that their own information ecosystem is dictated by a handful of billionaires and their algorithms?

They argue that the Democratic-controlled bureaucracy somehow pulled all the levers of social media while Trump was in office. Meanwhile, they obsess over the Hunter Biden laptop story without recognizing that their so-called free-speech champion is the richest man in the world, wielding control over the same social media platform to silence dissent. Musk even admits that X throttles links, limiting access to news and opinions that don’t align with his agenda.

The same people decrying “Bluecry” as an echo chamber fail to acknowledge that their own platforms are manipulated by one man — the richest person on Earth. This isn’t free speech; it’s speech engineered by an algorithm designed to serve a billionaire’s interests. It’s Orwell’s Newspeak. And yet, they accuse Democrats of being controlled by corrupt institutions because we’d rather curate our own social media experiences than surrender them to the whims of one obscenely wealthy man.

Elon Musk’s influence over X highlights the inherent contradiction in the right’s free-speech narrative. He recently joked about buying MSNBC to shut it down—an open threat to dissenting voices, made in the name of a “marketplace of ideas.” This isn’t irony; it’s a billionaire using his immense resources to dictate the terms of discourse and suppress viewpoints he doesn’t like.

Thankfully, MSNBC isn’t for sale. Despite a post-election ratings dip — something it also experienced after 2016 — the network remains highly profitable, generating $1 billion in annual cash flow. With the cable network spin-off SpinCo, MSNBC no longer has to reinvest its profits into Peacock, leaving it flush with revenue from carriage fees (advertising accounts for only about 30%). MSNBC is far from a distressed asset that Musk can buy and dismantle.

Meanwhile, Musk’s influence extends beyond X. He’s meddling in The Onion’s bid to buy Infowars at a bankruptcy auction—a move that would’ve been widely celebrated even by Rogan Bros as brilliant a few years ago. Now, Musk is using his legal and financial power to block the purchase, effectively censoring an outlet that might mock him and his allies.

The legal argument Musk is deploying is chilling: he claims the Infowars Twitter handles involved in the auction cannot be sold because X owns them and their followers. This power grab underscores the central problem — free speech isn’t free when it’s owned and controlled by a billionaire.

(As an aside, Musk’s claim that accounts cannot be transferred without his explicit permission raises questions about X’s status under the Communications Decency Act. If X is acting as a publisher, not a platform, then it could become liable for the defamation lawsuits stemming from its content.)

At the same time, another billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg, is reportedly alarmed by the rapid growth of Bluesky. While Threads and X have far more users, Bluesky is drawing power users—those who shape discourse—at a rapid pace. Threads’ reliance on AI-driven engagement strategies has left it ill-equipped to compete.

Bluesky offers something revolutionary in today’s social media landscape: a feed free from billionaire interference. It’s proof that free speech flourishes best when users, not algorithms, dictate what they see. The right’s fixation on free speech feels hollow when their platforms of choice are designed to benefit the powerful at the expense of the people. Speech isn’t free when it’s bought and sold by billionaires.

Follow the Pajiba Staff on Bluesky here.

As always, we have substituted Lee Pace for Elon Musk in the header image for aesthetic reasons, and with apologies to Lee Pace.