Gavin Newsom Joins Left Twitter Alternative ‘Threads’: ‘Anyone Out There?’

California Gov. Gavin Newsom joined Threads, the new alternative to Twitter launched this week by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and pitched to leftists who are disaffected by Elon Musk’s move to greater freedom of speech.

“Test, test… anyone out there?” Newsom wrote in his first post.

He also noted on Twitter:

Just joined Threads… anyone else on there? https://t.co/ItheAUUY0s

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) July 5, 2023

Ironically, while joining the new platform, Newsom continues to posture as a champion of free speech, retweeting (on Twitter) a post by the radical MoveOn.org organization about its “Banned Bookmobile.”

NEW: Today we unveiled our Banned Bookmobile, which will kick off a 10 day tour in July distributing banned books, holding reading with banned authors, and fighting back against MAGA book bans.https://t.co/G4d0dto5iQ

— MoveOn (@MoveOn) July 5, 2023

Claims about “book bans” often fail to distinguish between books made available to children in schools and school curricula; and books available to the general public in libraries, bookstores and online marketplaces.

A recent report by the Daily Signal noted that 74% of supposedly “banned” books are actually still available in schools or currently in use by students and teachers.

Newsom also violated other First Amendment freedoms, such as religious liberty, imposing unconstitutional bans on indoor worship during the coronavirus pandemic.

As Breitbart News noted, Threads launched Thursday after a brief sneak peek online. Many critics of Musk, who preferred Twitter under the control of reliably left-wing monitors, have been searching for a new outlet as an alternative. One such platform, Mastodon, has been popular among some left-wing users but has struggled to attract a more diverse user base.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.