Musk now wants people to pay for their little blue āverifiedā check marks. AOC and Stephen King and many others have said they wonāt pay for that. SK responded with:
ā$20 a month to keep my blue check? Fuck that, they should pay me. If that gets instituted, Iām gone like Enron.ā
Musk tried to publicly haggle with SK which was stupid:
āWe need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?ā
Anyone who has read SKās books knows that dickering is a huge part of New England culture, where he lives and is from. SK has said refusing to pay is less about him, as he can afford it, but more about smaller, less wealthy content creators. Because content creators, not CEOs, are a huge part of the reason that twitter has been successful.
AOCās response was even better:
āLmao at a billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that āfree speechā is actually a $8/mo subscription planā
Musk came back with:
āYour feedback is appreciated, now pay $8ā
He was trying to be witty butā¦ failed. He then posted a pic of one of her sweatshirts, which costs $58. He apparently doesnāt understand the difference between selling a product and his own attempt to sell free speech.
AOC responded to that with:
āProud of this and always will be.
My workers are union, make a living wage, have full healthcare, and arenāt subject to racist treatment in their workplaces. Items are made in USA.
Team AOC honors and respects working people. You should try it sometime instead of union-busting.ā
Musk apparently didnāt like this response but didnāt have anything to respond with, so he just went with retaliation:
AOC:
āAlso my twitter mentions/notifications conveniently arenāt working tonight, so I was informed via text that I seem to have gotten under a certain billionaireās skin š
Just a reminder that money will never by your way out of insecurity, folks.ā
This is not free speech, Lizard! This is a billionaire throwing a tantrum and punishing those who say things he doesnāt like. This is far different from removing threatening tweets or disallowing people to post certain harmful words. The way I look at free speech is yes, people have the right to say what they want and not go to jail. They donāt have a right to say things like āf**ā or ān*****ā in my house, I have the right to ask them to leave if theyāre doing that. This would not be me asking them to leave, though, this would be more like me putting dish soap in their coffee because I disagree with them, which I donāt have the right to do.
If we didnāt have the first amendment, Trump wouldāve executed everyone who said anything bad about him. These people do not support free speech, Liz, and Iām guessing you donāt really either. The way most of you seem to think of free speech is your and your associatesā ability to say whatever you want, including violating everyone elseās free speech by disallowing them to disagree with you or disassociate from you in any way.
Tl;dr Musk is retaliating when people say stuff he doesnāt like and Lizard Wheel doesnāt know what the fuck sheās talking about, as usual.