Where have our Right wing free speech warriors gone?

When Mr. Musk purchased X in 2022, he promised to create a free speech haven and named himself a “free speech absolutist.” Critics still feared that Mr. Musk would use his control of the app to pick and choose his favorites, amplifying voices he admired while suppressing people or topics he loathed.

The New York Times found three users on X who feuded with Mr. Musk in December only to see their reach on the social platform practically vanish overnight.

Many others who criticized Mr. Musk have claimed they were quietly suppressed on the platform, a tactic known as shadowbanning or ghost banning. Though The Times did not identify other accounts that were artificially suppressed, such changes would be difficult to spot if users did not post frequently, or did not have many popular posts.

“If he did it to small accounts, nobody would notice,” said Ms. Loupis, who has more than one million followers on her original account. “But when he starts doing it to really, really big influencers with millions of followers, everybody notices.”

The accounts are the starkest signs yet that Mr. Musk or others at the company have the power to punish critics and that they may be willing to use it, startling free speech advocates who hoped that the billionaire would be their champion.

“This is working against the type of environment that he claimed he wanted to build,” said Ari Cohn, the lead counsel for technology policy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech advocacy group. “Don’t sit here and cloak yourself in the First Amendment and free speech, and then do things like that.”