Since his acquisition of Twitter was finalised on October 28, Elon Musk has been eagerly introducing changes to the social media company. Apart from firing top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, Musk has also declared his intention to introduce a number of policy changes. Musk, who has previously described himself as a “free speech absolutist”, has been receiving growing demands to reinstate a number of banned or suspended accounts. One such account belongs to Babylon Bee, a Christian-conservative satirical news site, that Musk is said to have reached out to after the site was suspended from Twitter in March. The next month, Musk made his formal bid to buy Twitter. What is Babylon Bee and can its Twitter account be reinstated under Musk? The Indian Express explains. What is Babylon Bee? Babylon Bee is a satire news site that has been described in the media as a right-wing version of The Onion, one of the most popular satirical news publications. Seth Dillion, the CEO and owner of Babylon Bee, said in an interview that the founder, Adam Ford had launched the company in 2016 “because there was this massive void on the right for comedy that wasn’t cheesy.” Since Dillion purchased Babylon Bee from Ford in 2018, it has become one of the most popular conservative sites after Fox News and received as many as 25 million readers at its peak, The Economist reported. The people who run the site clearly identify themselves as Christian conservatives, and often set their sights on the left and the Democratic Party in the US. However, they have also been willing to poke fun at former President Donald Trump, the Republican Party and evangelicalism in the country. In a viral post from 2019, Babylon Bee published a satirical article saying Trump claimed to have “done more for Christianity than Jesus.” Mistaken for real news Satire has often been mistaken for legitimate news reports and Babylon Bee’s content is no exception. In October 2020, after the website published a satirical news article with the headline, 'Twitter Shuts Down Entire Network to Slow Spread of Negative Biden News', Trump retweeted the story, apparently without realising it was a parody. Other articles, such as 'NBA Players Wear Special Lace Collars to Honor Ruth Bader Ginsburg', were also shared by many people who thought it was real. Many of Babylon Bee’s viral posts have frequently been mistaken for real news, drawing the attention of fact-checking websites like Snopes, which have flagged them as false. This was the case in March 2018, when the website published an article which said CNN was using an industrial-sized washing machine to "spin" the news. This has drawn the ire of Babylon Bee, which claims it is being unfairly targetted and by rating their content as false or fake news, they get penalised and run the risk of being demonetized or even deplatformed. In 2019, The Conversation published research by scholars of communication from Ohio State University, which found that Americans frequently mistook satirical articles from Babylon Bee, The Onion and other websites as legitimate news. The study found that "stories published by the Bee were among the most shared factually inaccurate content in almost every survey we conducted". Twitter ban and the Elon Musk connection Babylon Bee’s twitter account was suspended in March this year, after it tweeted, “The Babylon Bee’s Man of the Year is Rachel Levine,” referring to the US Assistant Health Secretary, who openly identifies as a trangender woman. Twitter subsequently suspended the account, stating the misgendering was in violation of its hateful conduct policy. Babylon Bee’s CEO Seth Dillon later tweeted, "We're not deleting anything. Truth is not hate speech. If the cost of telling the truth is the loss of our Twitter account, then so be it.” In April, Dillon claimed Musk had earlier reached out to Babylon Bee. He said Musk had wanted to confirm if their account had been suspended for their post and even mused that he might need to buy Twitter. Musk in December 2021 had also appeared in a lengthy podcast with the satire news site. Elon Musk’s free speech guidelines Before his acquisition of Twitter was finalised, Musk had questioned the platform’s commitment to free speech, and has time and again said he wants to keep it a free “public space” in order to safeguard democracy and civilisation. While Musk has previously called himself a “free speech absolutist”, since the takeover was officiated, he has stated that Twitter would not become a “free-for-all hellscape”. Apart from some limitations on the content that can be posted, Musk has also said that country-specific laws on hate speech would apply to Twitter in those respective places. He has also earlier criticised Twitter’s move to ban accounts, such as Trump’s, which have led to speculations that Musk might restore his account soon. There have also been calls to remove the suspension of Babylon Bee. In a tweet from October 28, Conservative Representative Lauren Boebert congratulated Musk for his acquisition and called on him to allow the satirical news site to tweet again, calling it “America’s most trusted news source”. Despite Musk’s ostensible commitment to free speech, it remains to be seen if and when he will restore suspended or banned accounts, such as that of Babylon Bee. On Wednesday, Musk tweeted that banned accounts will not be allowed back until the platform has “a clear process for doing so," Reuters reported.
