Elon Musk's Twitter Is A Monster Of The Left's Own Making
As the left points a finger at Elon Musk, three more fingers point back at them. Twitter being run by Elon Musk doesn't happen unless the left offers an impetus for it...and they did.
It’s funny to watch the left go up in arms about how Twitter has been “unleashed” by Elon Musk.
Putting aside your thoughts about Musk, of which I have many, it has been amusing to watch a triggered left attempt to cancel and boycott Twitter - from hearing how the platform was going to shut down once layoffs were made, to advertisers dropping off the platform, to “activists” using the platform to freak out about it every day, other “activists” leaving the platform, to companies like CBS stating their intentions to leave the platform, only to come back to it just hours later.
The main gripe? That Elon Musk allowing more people back on the platform, while moderating less speech, is harming free speech. The Guardian called free speech a “dangerous fantasy”, for example.
I’m sure that most of my readers are enjoying the chaos, too. The experiment of Musk taking over the platform, no matter what type of entropic ending it eventually leads to, has been a fascinating experiment in human psychology to watch. And, to be frank, it’s been downright hilarious at times. For example, CNN “fact checked” an obviously fake meme that Musk himself posted just yesterday.
It’s even more hilarious when you see that the Washington Post (above) posted almost the exact same headline for real, justifying Musk’s satirical take on the issue.
I don’t believe Musk about everything, as my long-time followers know, but I do believe him when he says the platform has become more popular since he took it over. Not only is it more entertaining than its ever been, it’s simply a nice feeling not to have to run my Tweets over in my head before publishing them, thinking: “What would some hyper left-wing hipster in a beret in an office in San Francisco working a 4 hour work week as a content moderator think of what I’m about to post?”
But this article isn’t just for those who are enjoying Twitter’s re-birth. More importantly, it’s for those who are having emotional meltdowns over it.
What these users, former users, advertisers and general fragile individuals need to understand is that Elon Musk buying Twitter never even happens without an environment that creates the impetus for it to take place. Putting Musk’s actual motives aside (I have often wondered if he actually wanted to buy Twitter when it came down to brass tacks), he projected publicly that his interest in taking a stake in the company was because they were actively suppressing free speech.
Soon, a public discussion about Twitter’s censorship - which had kicked off years prior when Tim Pool publicly skewered head Twitter censor Vijaya Gadde on Joe Rogan’s podcast - was on the table. The social media platform had been the topic of political discussions about censorship, but no one had really done anything about it. Nobody made drastic moves to affect change.
And love him or hate him, that’s exactly what Elon Musk did.
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The impetus for Musk to throw his hat in the ring on the discussion wasn’t just run-of-the-mill moderation issues, either. It was, instead, an incessant and burning need to eliminate content that Twitter didn’t view as favorable to its political leanings. No matter what side of the aisle you’re on politically, it’s tough to push back against the idea that conservatives were targeted for suspension disproportionately on the platform.
Furthermore, legitimate news stories that otherwise would have been worthy of Pulitzer Prizes - like the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story - were actively blackballed from the platform and users who discussed them risked being suspended or banned. These are nearly the very same actions that Beijing takes on Chinese social media when a story or narrative gets out that isn’t stamped with the government’s approval.
Now, it looks as though we’re going to find out exactly what was going on behind the scenes at Twitter when the decision to actively censor a major story that could have had an impact on the 2020 election was made. And I don’t care who is running the platform, that type of transparency is sorely needed.
Further, it’s become clearer by the firing of thousands of employees with no real effect on the platform’s performance that Twitter was simply a poorly run and mismanaged company. It was unable to generate any real shareholder return for investors since its inception as a public company - and now we have proof positive of why.
A large part of the company’s mismanagement didn’t just have to do with babying its employees, some of whom admittedly worked 4 hours a week while having meals catered to them, but also from the inefficiencies created by trying to moderate and micromanage all of the content on the platform all of the time.
Regardless of his true intentions, Elon Musk did what a free market usually does: it snapped up an opportunity to rid a company of its excess and malinvestment. Whether that’s a turnaround plan that can work for the long-term remains to be seen. But either way, it was high time for a changing of the guard at a company that was constantly under fire for investors for becoming complacent with its own mediocrity.
Musk will at least speed up the clock to Twitter’s demise, bankruptcy and re-re-birth, or he’ll shock the world and allow the platform to flourish in a way many didn’t think possible.
Either way, we don’t get to this inflection point without the left creating a reason for Musk to take such drastic action. And so the next time, Democrats “investigate” or “keep an eye” on Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, hopefully they remember that when one finger points at Musk, three more point back. Even more important, the entire situation will be a great case study to recall the next time anyone in Silicon Valley, the government or the media, decides to embark on a crusade against objective truth to further their political ideology.
To those on the left: do you not like what Twitter has become? Next time, instead of ostracizing those who don’t agree with you, try engaging in actual discourse.
That’s what I’m about to go do…on Twitter.
i think Musk really bought Twitter cause it was something for the rich to play with......just like a billionaire would buy a baseball team.........
Musk's purchase of Twitter has laid bare the ugly tendencies of the left. Much like Trump's election brought the corrupt deep state into plain view. You can argue about their motivations, but both have done important services.