Joe Rogan likes Elon Musk. A lot. The JRE podcast host, who is friends with the Tesla CEO, has credited him for “saving free speech” with his acquisition of Twitter and subsequent content moderation policies where he promised a more open platform.
Rogan, of course, has been an ardent supporter of free speech since before his podcast days, has spoken out repeatedly against ‘cancel culture’ and the allegedly high-handed manner in which social media platforms handle controversial speech. And the UFC commentator sang Musk’s praises again in a recent episode of his podcast, as he does every so often.
Joe Rogan thinks Musk “saved humanity”
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Elon Musk bought Twitter back in April 2022 and promised he would promote free speech and make it a much more ‘free speech maximalist’ platform, where users and content would only be banned in case of exceptional violations of community guidelines.
Joe Rogan had comedian and podcaster Andrew Schulz on episode #2132 of his JRE podcast. The duo got to talking about the SpaceX CEO’s acquisition of Twitter and how the platform is much different than it was under the previous ownership. Rogan was, as usual, hyperbolic in his praise of the South African billionaire.
“He may very well have saved humanity in some way because by providing this one platform where people can actually speak their minds — up to a point. There are still some rules. But up to a point, you can get away with a lot of sh*t,” he told Schulz.
While he did admit to seeing a lot more unsavory content on the platform, Rogan felt that this was ultimately for the greater good since, according to him, “the answer to bad speech is not silencing speech it’s better speech it’s more compelling better speech.” While Rogan has been very complementary of Musk’s takeover of Twitter, he does not seem to have paid attention to all of Musk’s actions that have belied the self-proclaimed ‘free speech absolutist’s claims.
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Elon Musk called out for hypocrisy after making tall claims to Rogan
Elon Musk joined Joe Rogan on episode #2054 of the latter’s podcast, six months after he took over Twitter. During the course of their conversation, the SpaceX CEO spoke about why he bought the social media platform.
The 52-year-old said that he was worried about the “woke” “mind virus” and saw it as an existential level threat to humanity. “This is going to sound somewhat melodramatic, but I was worried it [wokeness] was having a corrosive effect on civilization,” he said.
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And Musk felt that social media platforms were furthering ‘wokeness’ and unreasonable political correctness. And while Musk has talked a big game about making Twitter a free speech platform, his actual actions have not lived up to the hype. The former richest man of the world has been criticized for being hypocritical and wildly inconsistent when it comes to platforming users. But, Rogan, not the most critical of thinkers or very well-informed about current events, thinks Musk is some kind of savior of free speech and humanity.
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