In the months surrounding Elon Musk’s $44 billion purchase of Twitter, a consensus seemed to hold among supporters and critics alike that he embraced a kind of free speech absolutism. To some, this was a virtue; to others, a concern. But most disagreement had to do with whether or not you were optimistic about what a less moderated and more permissive Twitter would bring.

Thus, in the weeks following Musk’s initial purchase of the platform, conservatives and self-identified free speech warriors celebrated the restoration of banned and suspended accounts and the rolling back of existing moderation policies. Critics, meanwhile, warned that Twitter’s new ethos of free speech absolutism was making the site a haven for hate speech and reactionary extremism.

The moderation of an expansive and complicated social media platform like Twitter is bound to be a contentious issue on which reasonable people can disagree. Nonetheless, in the just over five months since Musk’s takeover, it’s become clear that both his supporters and critics were incorrect about what it would actually mean. Whatever else he may be, Elon Musk is certainly no “free speech absolutist,” nor someone particularly committed to freedom of speech at all. His brief tenure as Twitter CEO has in fact broken new ground in free speech suppression and seen him turn the platform into the very thing he pledged to destroy: namely, a place where the free expression of opinion is routinely constrained by heavy-handed and arbitrary fiat.