Edward Snowden educates Elon Musk on ‘freedom of speech’ with help from McDonald’s after X owner’s proposal to temporarily ban flag replacements

On May 3, 2024By Vaseline

Edward Snowdenthe former National Security Agency contractor turned whistleblower has turned to X to give his opinion on a poll created by Tesla And SpaceX Director Elon Musk who also owns the platform formerly called Twitter.

What happened: Snowden’s post defended the constitutional right to freedom of expression, which includes acts such as replacing flags. He also asks Musk a rhetorical question, questioning the practical feasibility of his bill.

Musk had posted a survey on Thursday asking his 181.8 million followers on X about replacing the flag. He proposed a law stating that if “someone takes down the American flag and puts up another flag in its place, that person should be given a free (but mandatory) one-way ticket to the country of that flag.”

At the time of writing, the poll received more than 1.16 million votes, with 79.9% voting in favor of Musk’s proposal and 20.1% against.

Snowden responded to Musk by sharing a photo of McDonald’s flags and proposing a hypothetical scenario: If someone were to remove the American flag and replace it with a McDonald’s flag, what action would Musk take in response to such an event?

Snowden said in another article: “Because no law – not even one described, like the Constitution, as the ‘supreme law of the land’ – has any power of its own; the ink cannot jump off the page to fight for your rights. A law can only defend the people if the people defend the law. Its power comes from ours.”

It should be noted that Musk said he was not advocating a permanent ban for the people replacing the American flag.

See also: UN confirms North Korean ballistic missile landed in Kharkiv, Ukraine in January amid war with Russia

Why it matters: The tweet comes in the wake of a series of incidents at US universities where pro-Palestinian supporters replaced the American flag with a Palestinian flag during protests. These incidents have sparked debates over freedom of speech and the right to protest, according to a report by The Hill.

At the University of North Carolina, a GoFundMe was started for fraternity members who held up an American flag during a protest and received a $10,000 donation from a billionaire investor Bill Ackman.

Meanwhile, at Columbia University, New York police had to intervene during pro-Palestinian protests. In response to these protests, billionaire Leon Kuiperman has vowed to stop donations to Columbia University, calling the student protests “anti-Semitic.”

Snowden’s tweet underlines the ongoing debate over the limits of freedom of expression and the right to protest, especially in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Photo via Wikimedia

Read Next: Elon Musk Finds Constitutional Violation of ‘Smoking Gun’ as Jim Jordan Challenges Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook to Tell the Truth Behind White House Censorship of Lab Leak Theory

Shivdeep Dhaliwal

The GPT-4-based Benzinga Neuro content generation system uses the extensive Benzinga ecosystem, including native data, APIs and more, to create rich, timely stories for you. Learn more.