For some reason Elon Musk confuses child safety laws with personal persecution

Spain proposed a basic online child safety law. Elon Musk freaked out as if someone had stolen his toys and grounded him for life.

Spain proposed a basic online child safety law. Elon Musk freaked out as if someone had stolen his toys and grounded him for life. Rather than address the substance of very necessary legislation, Musk lashed out at Spain’s prime minister as if protecting children was an assault on Elon and every freedom he finds important.

Any limit on his platforms’ ability to amplify abuse is rebranded as a personal attack on Elon Musk, defender of speech, patron saint of posting, and Techno-King. Musk repeats this trick often: by centering himself, Musk never has to engage with the problem that his unmoderated systems predictably enable harassment, exploitation, and harm. When protecting children is treated as oppression, it says far more about the speaker than the law.

Elon Musk lashed out at Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on X Tuesday over the Spanish government’s proposed new laws to maintain online safety for children.

Musk shared a video of Sánchez outlining Spain’s new laws—which ban children under 16 from using social media, and allow for prosecution of tech company CEO’s for dissemination of violent and sexually explicit material on their apps—by posting, “Dirty Sánchez is a tyrant and traitor to the people of Spain,” with a poop emoji.

Later, Musk once again lashed out, saying “Sánchez is the true fascist totalitarian.”

MTN

If your first response to “let’s protect children” is to scream about persecution, you are not defending free speech. You are defending a business model that cannot survive scrutiny and telling on yourself in the process.