Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter already has produced at least one liberal casualty.
Shaun King apparently quit the platform after having claimed earlier in the day that Mr. Musk wanted to buy the platform to advance “white power.”
“At its root, @ElonMusk wanting to purchase Twitter is not about left vs right. It’s about white power. The man was raised in Apartheid by a white nationalist. He’s upset that Twitter won’t allow white nationalists to target/harass people. That’s his definition of free speech,” King tweeted just after 9 a.m. Monday, as rumors were circulating of the imminent purchase.
In another tweet, the Black Lives Matter activist noted that Mr. Musk had “openly called himself a ‘free speech absolutist’ and said that he wants to create a space where anything can be said about anyone. That’s why white nationalists are giddy today.”
Mr. King said free speech absolutism means he “wants to be sure his speech, and that of other white men, isn’t censored.”
However, by Monday evening those tweets and the rest of Mr. King’s output was gone.
His certified account @shaunking had only a standard note from Twitter saying “this account doesn’t exist.”
Had Twitter punished Mr. King for some violation of its rules it’d’ve specified the account as “suspended.”
Shortly after 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Mr. King’s account returned and he denied he had ever deleted it.
Most of his initial tweets were obscene attacks on conservatives gloating over the account’s previous status, which Mr. King attributed to death threats made against him.
“You wish … I didn’t delete my account. You literally made that up. I was getting death threats and hack attempts from your buddies who stormed the Capitol and had to make it more secure,” he wrote at multiple people.
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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