To put an even finer point on it, you'll never ever see Xi or Putin say "I'm a free speech absolutist" or "let's have less censorship".
That so many people are taking the position of authoritarians, but presenting it as though they are protecting democracy, is truly baffling to behold. Elon removing these authoritarians from twitter's leadership and employee base, and restoring free speech principles, will be the best thing we've seen for democracy in a long time.
You’ll also never see them say “I’m a freedom from property rights absolutist” as in no state or private ownership but that doesn’t mean anything either. Dictators not going to say “xyz” doesn’t really have any bearing on the merits of xyz, and that doesn’t even get into how dictators are loose with the truth and often will lie about “I’m for xyz” while violating the spirit of xyz. So in other words, what a dictator says is pretty irrelevant.
That so many people are taking the position of authoritarians, but presenting it as though they are protecting democracy, is truly baffling to behold. Elon removing these authoritarians from twitter's leadership and employee base, and restoring free speech principles, will be the best thing we've seen for democracy in a long time.