'Did your brain fall out of your head': Elon Musk restricts access to some tweets ahead of pivotal Turkey elections

Turkey held its most closely contested presidential election in years on Saturday, prompting Twitter to restrict access to some content in response to legal requests made by the Turkish government. This decision did not sit well with some observers, who accused Twitter CEO Elon Musk, a vocal proponent of free speech, of being a "free speech opportunist" for complying with the Turkish government's demands.

Musk responded to one of the criticism by tweeting, "Did your brain fall out of your head? The choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets. Which one do you want?”

California Representative Adam Schiff tweeted his disappointment with Twitter's decision, stating that Musk's promises of free speech had once again fallen away due to the lack of transparency on the platform. Musk defended his decision by stating that Twitter had to choose between throttling the platform in its entirety or limiting access to some tweets.

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, chimed in on the debate, highlighting that Wikipedia had fought for its principles and won in Turkey's Supreme Court after being banned from the country for three years. He suggested that treating freedom of expression as a principle rather than a slogan was crucial.

Defenders of Musk argued that comparing Wikipedia and Twitter was a false equivalency, given that Wikipedia operates as a nonprofit organization while Twitter is a for-profit business. However, Wales maintained that treating freedom of expression as a principle rather than a slogan should be a priority for all companies.

Also read: 'Twitter 2.0': Elon Musk's Twitter CEO pick Linda Yaccarino on future of the platform

Musk's decision to comply with the Turkish government's requests to censor political opponents is particularly striking given his business ties to the country. Forbes reported that Musk and Erdogan first met in 2017 before discussing lithium batteries for electric vehicles and launching satellites in 2021. In a move to expand its satellite communications capabilities, Turkey entered into an agreement with SpaceX to launch its domestically manufactured communications satellite, Türksat 6A. Subsequently, in 2022, Elon Musk and Recep Tayyip Erdogan were spotted shaking hands at the World Cup.

Last month, Turkey's first domestic and national observation satellite was launched into space with the help of a Falcon 9 rocket created by SpaceX. Although the details of the deal remain unclear, a single Falcon 9 rocket flight costs approximately $62 million, according to Space.com.

Also Read 

'Buying Netflix at $4 billion would've been better instead of...': Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer

ChatGPT beats top investment funds in stock-picking experiment