As a recent BFD article warned, it’s foolish to venerate Elon Musk as some kind of avenging capitalist demigod straight out of an Ayn Rand novel. When all’s said and done, the guy’s a businessman. Making lots of money is what he does.
But if, in the process of making lots of money, “Emperor Elonicus the Just” does some things that are very, very good — such as (mostly) defending free speech — then count me happy. If Musk freeing speech on Twitter, one of the contemporary public squares, is just a “marketing stunt”, then so be it.
Because we will still have (mostly) free speech on Twitter.
Much to the chagrin of Jacinda Ardern.
At the end of September, the government announced it would partner with Microsoft, Twitter and the US government to develop technologies that could reveal how algorithms influence users’ political beliefs and potential actions.
Newshub
Which sounds exactly the same as this:
From 2016 to 2022, Twitter.com […] brazenly attempted to impose and enforce ideological uniformity on the platform under the guise of “keeping people safe” and “protecting the health of the public conversation.”
This metamorphosis of a social-media company into a full-blown Orwellian Ministry of Truth was just one part of “The War on Populism” that the global-capitalist ruling classes have been relentlessly waging for the last six years.
The BFD
That global-capitalist ruling class has no more ardent bootlicker than Jacinda Ardern, who cynically exploited a grim terror attack to launch her own unconscionable attack on free speech. Even Newshub admits that Ardern’s “Christchurch Call” was part of a global-capitalist (“Microsoft, Twitter and the US government”) attempt to seek out and punish WrongThink.
Then, along came Emperor Elonicus, throwing a gigantic spanner into the spokes of little Cindy’s authoritarian tricycle.
However, one of Musk’s first actions was to fire Twitter’s head of legal, Vijaya Gadde, and people from the machine learning, ethics, transparency and accountability team headed by Rumman Chowdhury. Seemingly, Musk considers their work and advocacy for algorithmic transparency and content moderation goes against his vision of free speech on the Twitter platform.
The entire team the New Zealand government was planning to work with disappeared. And it’s unlikely any work outlined in September will actually eventuate.
Newshub
Pardon me, then, if I raise a toast to Emperor Elonicus. A glass full of Jacinda’s bitter, frustrated salty tears will go down just nicely. If it makes Elon even richer as well — well, then, good luck to him. We all win.