Truth social is a Twitter clone and about to go bankrupt, competition could be as simple as buying, firing the assholes who run it, then rename and rebrand it. Elon is doing the same thing, but he is on the wrong side of history, the internet and how commerce works on it. Elon will have competition, this shit affects celebrities, reporters, pundits and politicians, but most of all it affects advertising. People forgive honest mistakes much faster than moral failures and Elon has created a vacuum in an important niche on the internet that others will fill with twitter clones or improved versions. He can generate all the controversy he wants and capture as many eyeballs as he can, but ad revenue pays the bills and it's costing Elon a fortune in his own cash to keep it afloat. Twitter is also consuming him, his ego and hubris are the bait that's sucking him into bad decisions and dumb moves. He is spending more time on Twitter blathering and running the platform into the ground like a despot, than running the company or any of his other companies, which might be for the best.
Musk isn't the champion of free speech he claims he is.
www.msnbc.com
It sure seems like Elon Musk is purging left-leaning Twitter accounts
Elon Musk has presented his brief tenure as the CEO of Twitter as a bid to revive "free speech" on the platform. But there are signs that he is quietly suspending left-leaning Twitter accounts for ideological reasons, while
reinstating far-right accounts that broke Twitter's rules in the past.
It's a deeply worrisome development.
Musk has established himself as the fickle king of the one of the most influential public squares in the anglophone world. He currently has absolute power to silence any dissent in a space where news and commentary go a long way toward shaping political possibility.
Right now it looks he's choosing to intervene against the left, while simultaneously reactivating accounts of neo-Nazis and other far-right figures who were generally booted off the platform for hate speech or incitement to violence. The emerging picture is a political agenda to tilt the platform in favor of the far right.
One thing two accounts suspended last week had in common is that they both very recently mocked Musk.
According to a report in The Intercept,
Musk has suspended several notable left-wing accounts over the past week or so. A number of them were anti-fascist researchers and organizers who focused on documenting far-right activity.
Notably, the disabled accounts documented in the report were singled out for criticism by the far-right writer Andy Ngo, who Musk often publicly interacts with on Twitter. "Musk
invited Ngo to report
'Antifa accounts' that should be suspended directly to him," the Intercept reported. In at least once case, Ngo seems to have succeeded at directing Musk to suspend an account that Ngo failed to get suspended by Twitter before Musk took over the company.
There have been other
puzzling examples of Twitter disproportionately
suspending liberal or
left-leaning accounts — some of which are just as mysteriously reinstated later — for no obvious reason can be explained by Twitter's terms of service. But one thing two accounts suspended last week had in common is that they both very recently
mocked Musk.
These kinds of suspensions have a chilling effect on speech on the platform. I comment regularly on Musk on Twitter, and I'm now more concerned about how I word my critical posts because I fear being kicked off a platform that's essential for my livelihood. I've also noticed several examples of Twitter users who find my views objectionable tagging Musk in their responses to my tweets, with the intention of getting my account flagged or suspended.
That practice of tagging Musk to get his attention illustrates a recognition of the emerging reality that Twitter is being run as a dictatorship. Like any dictator, Musk appears sensitive about his power and arbitrary in his judgments. He's suspending accounts unilaterally without clear explanations. He
threatened permanent bans after users went wild impersonating him. He's making hugely consequential decisions about reinstating political figures who have incited violence, like former President Donald Trump, through
preposterous user polls rigged in favor of an outcome he prefers.
Twitter is in a state of unusual chaos due to Musk's managerial strategy, which has involved him
instantly laying off most of the company's staff. Theoretically, one could give him him the benefit of the doubt and surmise that
skyrocketing hate speech is a temporary hiccup that necessarily accompanies a massive rehaul of a company that's always been far from perfect.
But Musk has forfeited his right to that generosity through his own
reckless and clearly politically motivated behavior in sabotaging Twitter's verification system, his eagerness to court right-wing attention, and his
open flirtation with white supremacist ideology. In light of his embrace of an authoritarian movement, it seems more than plausible that Musk wants to run Twitter as an authoritarian as well.
