Twitter suspended Aaron Greenspan’s account, a well known critic of Tesla, and its CEO Elon Musk. This move has caused a stir in the legal and tech communities. Musk, a self-described “free speech absoluteist”, hasn’t explained why he believes that banning critics is in line with his definition of free speech.
CNBC reports Twitter has suspended Aaron Greenspan’s accounts. Greenspan is the founder of PlainSite, a well known critic of Tesla, and its CEO Elon Musk, who calls himself a “freedom of speech absolutist”.
Greenspan learned on Tuesday that his Twitter account as well as the one for PlainSite, his database of legal transparency, had both been suspended. PlainSite allows users to follow litigation that involves several well-known corporations, such as Tesla and Twitter. This is done by allowing state and federal court documents to be made available to the public.
It is surprising that the suspension occurred, given previous public statements by Twitter’s CEO Linda Yaccarino and Twitter owner Elon Mush about the importance of free speech. Musk, who purchased Twitter last year, said previously, “I hope even my worst critics stay on Twitter because that’s what free speech is.” Yaccarino, in a memo to the company, noted that a healthy society needs an “unfiltered exchange and open dialog about the things that are most important to us.”
Greenspan has been a vocal Musk critic since 2018, even though he has not heard from Twitter about the suspension. Greenspan was interested in Tesla and Musk after the SEC accused them of civil securities fraud in 2018.
“I wasn’t interested in Tesla before the SEC acted against the company and Elon the following year. Greenspan stated, “I was thinking it might be overvalued because it was having trouble with the financial regulators.”
Greenspan made several significant discoveries about Tesla, and other companies, public via PlainSite. This site shared information about Tesla’s claims of self-driving cars and problems with the registration procedure for Tesla vehicles. It also revealed that more than 25 lawsuits had been filed against Twitter because it failed to pay its vendors after Musk took control.
Greenspan remains committed to his legal transparency initiative and continues to advocate for greater accountability and transparency in the tech industry, despite being suspended. Twitter has not yet responded to requests for comment about the suspension.
