Why Musk’s takeover of Twitter and the layoffs will shrink free speech

Twitter Inc. — now under new management, if that’s the right word — fired about half its workers over the weekend, a big story by anyone’s standards. Yet some teams and countries suffered worse — and that is a story with global political implications.

In India, for example, Twitter seems to have laid off 90% of its employees. In Brazil, a team of 150 was let go, according to Bloomberg Línea. Shortly after Elon Musk took over the company, the number of employees with the ability to suspend or ban an account for breaches of user policies was at least temporarily reduced from “hundreds” to about 15.

Musk’s vision for Twitter is not particularly complex. He views it as a software platform first, and only then as a social network.