LAST week, billionaire Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter, and later, in a TED Talk convention, explained that he wanted to protect free speech, which is vital to democracy. Feeling threatened, Twitter is fending off the hostile takeover and in so doing, protect its decision to restrict hate speech and fake news on its platform. Earlier, Twitter drew cheers and jeers when it banned former US president Donald Trump during the far-right's attempt to topple American democracy. And since then, the platform has placed restrictions on other ultraconservatives and trolls.