I think most people that are happy about Elon taking over aren't free speech absolutists in the sense of the term you're using it.
Rather they're just tired of blatant censorship some individuals face when expressing an opinion that goes against popular politics of the time.
There's a middle ground between allowing literal nazi's to do whatever they want and blatantly influencing discussion on a mass scale by silencing those you disagree with.
Maybe they aren't but they are very vague and hand-wavy about the "blatant censorship". Without specific examples of what is being "censored" it's incredibly difficult to have a good-faith discussion on this. I'm much more forgiving of a handful of on-the-line or even "decent" content being removed if it's the exception not the rule. Like it or not a ton of moderation is fully or nearly fully automated since there isn't a viable alternative (You can argue that these companies should be allowed to exist if they can't accomplish human review/moderation, I'm speaking to the current reality).
I'll also be the first to say that Twitter (and most) moderation isn't 100% evenly handled. Just look at world leaders/political figures and what they can say that others cannot, I fully agree this is not ok and should not be allowed. My issue is that it's to the point that I can't hear "blatant censorship" in connection with social media without hearing the dog whistle. Those people who are so up in arms about FB/Twitter/etc "censorship" seem to be absolutely silent about the Gab/Parlor/Truth Socials of the world.
Unless you live in a cave you cannot possibly be ignorant of the multiple accounts of Twitter censoring people’s discussions. Examples? A quick search on Fox News:
As much as I dislike fox news (and virtually all news orgs now) they're probably among the only people actually tracking things like this. I understand if you dislike their political message, but the links the other commenter provided are all good examples of specific instances of the censorship we're discussing. That the organization as a whole is incredibly biased doesn't alter the fact that the people in those stories were actually silenced.
The fact that you can't easily find any record of these events outside of Fox News is a part of the issue and "mass scale" censorship.
Fox news, and other right-wing outlets, are the only ones who will report truthful negative stories on media companies or politicians that are Democratic party aligned. The centrists closed ranks as a result of what they consider the twinned media failures of Corbyn and Trump. They simply agree as a group not to report on things that are potentially damaging to Democratic centrist candidates or agendas, because they feel that truthful reporting is what sank H. Clinton.
Any of them will explain to you how reporting the facts created a false sense of equivalence between Clinton and Trump for voters. Voters couldn't understand how Trump bragging to a frat boy reporter that he could just grab pussy, his using a nonprofit as a vehicle to dodge taxes on a painting, and his denial that McCain was the best hero were far worse than the 1994 Crime Bill, superpredators, Clinton Foundation associations with dictators, the Iraq War, Russian uranium, Haiti, and Honduras.
That’s a fair criticism. I was looking for examples for my comment and knew that would be a good source for them knowing they are mostly politically right leaning. I just went to cnn.com to get some examples from them to kinda even it out for you. I used the same search criteria “twitter censorship”. I didn’t find a good example in the first 14 pages of search results.
Rather they're just tired of blatant censorship some individuals face when expressing an opinion that goes against popular politics of the time.
There's a middle ground between allowing literal nazi's to do whatever they want and blatantly influencing discussion on a mass scale by silencing those you disagree with.