Elon Musk has done a lot of good since he took over Twitter. 

He has restored accounts for thousands who were blocked from participating in the “de facto town square” Musk says is his goal for Twitter. He released the Twitter Files, which revealed the shocking degree to which government was participating in Big Tech censorship. He removed three-quarters of the company’s payroll, including many of those responsible for the censorship.

However, a recent MRC Free Speech America study reveals that Twitter censorship has increased under Musk’s leadership.

From November 4, 2022, to March 4, 2023, MRC documented 293 cases of censorship, an increase of 67 cases compared to the same period the previous year.

The punishments have been more severe as well. In 245 of the 293 cases analyzed by MRC Free Speech America (84%), Twitter locked users’ accounts, and in nearly all cases, users were required to delete the content to regain access to their accounts. Under the old Twitter regime, only 136 of the 226, about 60%, consisted of locked accounts.

Musk got rid of the leadership of his various content moderation operations, but the rank-and-file have proven equally able to take down or limit access to content that doesn’t fit their leftist worldview.

We don’t see as many tweets censored about COVID-19 now – the pandemic is largely over, and the people getting censored then largely have proven to have been correct. So instead, the focus has turned to items that don’t fit the left’s transgender narrative.

At least 182 of the 293 cases for Twitter under Musk involved  censorship of criticism of the left’s woke ‘transgender’ agenda. For example, conservative Christian rapper Bryson Gray was suspended in December for violating the rules against hateful conduct by calling Elton John gay.

Lila Rose, president of Live Action and a leading pro-life activist, was suspended in March without explanation or notification.

She asked why, but instead of responding, Twitter restored her account and said it was unsuspended “as it does not appear to be in violation of the Twitter rules.”

Twitter also locked the conservative account @thebradfordfile on Dec. 22 for a purported violation of Twitter’s rules, then unlocked it 12 hours later without explanation.

The MRC report found that Musk’s clearing out of the executive suites at Twitter has reduced censorship of larger accounts, such as those of Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., conservative radio host Dan Bongino and Just the News Founder John Solomon.

Decisions such as cutting off the Babylon Bee and President Trump and Dr. Robert McCullough, inventor of mRNA vaccine technology, were made by the Site Integrity Policy,

Policy Escalation Support team, which included Twitter general counsel Vijaya Gadde, head of trust and safety Yoel Roth and former Twitter CEOs Jack Dorsey and Parag Agrawal. Musk fired Gadde and Agrawal, Roth was forced out, and Dorsey resigned.

But Dan Schneider, MRC Vice President for Free Speech, said the rank-and-file at Twitter have taken the exact wrong message from what has happened at the top.

“Based on our analysis, it is clear that there is an internal revolt going on among the woke staff at Twitter,” Schneider said. “I’m sure they don’t like that their new boss has dissolved the high-level censorship team, but Musk’s actions appear to have motivated the remaining staff to be even more aggressive toward regular conservatives on the platform.

“They are undercutting Musk’s plan to foster a free speech environment on the platform. Musk has a good history of fixing problems that are brought to his attention. But it is clear that the censorship police are still on the beat at Twitter. Musk still has a lot more housekeeping ahead of him.