We're rapidly coming up on the two-year anniversary of Elon Musk's initiating his bid to buy out Twitter's shares on April 14th, 2022, but today marks something of a hallmark moment in Twitter history as well. As of today it's been two years to the day since the Babylon Bee Twitter account publicly refused to take down a story congratulating Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services Rachel Levine their title of 'Man of the Year' which would lead to the satirical conservative Christian site being suspended on March 21, 2022.
While the permanent suspension of the Bee wasn't the only factor that fed into Elon Musk's decision to purchase Twitter it's generally understood to have been a contributing factor, as he considered the move by Twitter to be emblematic of a culture that reflexively suppressed free speech. So it seems fair to say that while not the anniversary of the entire reason we've entered into the online world we now inhabit, today is certainly an important anniversary for one of the major contributing factors that led to it.
To mark the occasion Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon shared screenshots of the internal group conversation at the Bee, as they decided to tell the censorious nags that ran Twitter at the time to take a hike, a move they knew would cause trouble: iacta alea est.
Dillon went on to thank the others who had contributed to the decision at The Babylon Bee:
As you might expect, the reviews are in and most everyone agrees that they made the right call.
Musk, it should be noted, was so intent on bringing the Babylon Bee back to Twitter that it was reportedly one of the first items he brought up when he walked in the door, wanting to bring them back day one. The man loves comedy!
It does indeed seem to be a rare commodity these days.
Now clearly refusing to take down a tweet isn't Leonidas and the Spartans standing their ground against the Persians at the pass at Thermopylae, but given how much of the traffic that the Babylon Bee was dependent on its social media presence there's no doubt that all of these men faced the prospect of financial ruin from this decision. Instead they stood their ground and, if you're like us you may agree, made the world all the better as the fruits of their courage.
So hats off to the Babylon Bee!
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