Fine-grained and consistent content moderation is impossible on platforms that host hundreds of billions of posts a year. Optimists might argue that Musk is known for his ability to make seemingly improbable things happen: private space travel, mass-market electric vehicles. And some of Musk’s ideas for Twitter could open up new possibilities. He has said he wants to make the platform’s recommendation algorithm “open source” so that people can see what it is promoting or demoting. Many digital-rights activists and regulators have been calling for similar kinds of algorithmic transparency for a while. Platforms and policy makers should be thinking about new ways to empower users and the public in the governance of online spaces.

But most of Musk’s vision does not actually appear to be that novel. Instead, it’s a return to the past. In its early years, Twitter staked out a position as more hands-off than its peers. It famously pronounced itself the “free speech wing of the free speech party.” But the past half decade of public criticism, and the pandemic especially, has prompted most major platforms to shift stance. Perhaps at times they overcorrected. But if Musk has a utopian vision of a libertarian internet, he should read about the history of content moderation. Many who thought an anything-goes internet governed by its users alone was a good idea came to regret their naivete.