Elon Musk Takes Title of Twitter

"Authenticating all humans"

As those who have paid attention to the issue have noticed, there has been a great deal of talk in recent weeks about the mogul Elon Musk buying the social network Twitter in order to make it private. This notion has been covered extensively in the media, to the extent that many who know nothing of Twitter or Elon Musk have heard of the situation.

Today, our culture must confront the fact that Twitter will be acquired by Elon Musk, in a deal unanimously approved by Twitter’s board. The degree to which this great event will effect one’s psyche will vary, and will depend on, upon many things, world-views. The move is expected to close by the end of the year.

It is worth mentioning that he was pushed to do this through his aspiration to not censor user speech on Twitter, a custom that has become an ordinary function of the social network, and others.

As some have expected, the familiar tactic of accusing opponents of doing what has been done to them has been seized and executed.

As reported by CNBC, “Though Musk has indicated that his primary interest in Twitter has to do with what he views as the company’s censorship of free speech, Musk critics are justifiably concerned that the billionaire’s control over the platform will result in the silencing of their voices and others with whom he may disagree.”

Should you assume the Niagara of evidence showcasing the silencing of opinions on the so-called right from social media companies like Twitter for years would be extensively addressed by CNBC, I fear you may be disappointed.

Here is Bloomberg’s take on the subject: “The world’s richest person, who has said he ‘doesn’t care about the economics’ of buying of Twitter, is aiming to acquire a different kind of power: control one of the world’s largest megaphones and the ability to impose his libertarian ideology on questions of moderation and misinformation.”

As for the clear, present and widely-documented history of big tech rapidly imposing so-called liberal ideology on questions of moderation and misinformation, the Bloomberg article did not say.

Here is Musk’s take of his reasoning behind the move: “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Musk stated in a statement included in the press release in which the deal was announced. “I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”

The checking of user’s language, one of the defining consequences of the Digital Age, is not to be overlooked. The issue is so pressing that it has helped motivate the world’s richest man to buy one of the most prestigious social platforms to advance the idea of “authenticating all humans.”

This is what it took. This is how far our culture has come in information warfare. Let us make no mistake— this, free speech in the digital, is what this is all about.

Those who actively choose to bury the innumerable events in which social-media users have been impacted by the ramifications of posting what they want will have no part in communicating one of the most arresting instances of internet censorship— the extraordinary January 2021 event in which Twitter banned U.S. President Trump from its platform, for what they claimed was his role in inciting a riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Claims that the suppression of users being able to express particular opinions on social media does not exist can be easily corrected by simply bringing up one of the most banned people on the internet and social media, the journalist Alex Jones.

In perhaps the most high-profile instance of social media censorship, many of big tech’s key platforms moved in a highly coordinated August, 2018, effort to prohibit radio host Alex Jones and his news outlet InfoWars from exercising their opinions from their organizations. The platforms upholding the banishment were Facebook, YouTube, Spotify, Apple, Periscope, and later, Twitter. Silicon Valley’s reasoning for inhibiting Jones was that his free speech was tantamount to spreading hate, or in the case of Twitter’s deliberation, abusive behavior.

Jones’ thought crimes were evidently so egregious that Big Tech believed it necessary to interfere with his ability to pay for goods and services by banning him from the payment processor PayPal. Apparently, even that action was deemed an insufficient disciplinary measure for Jones’ grave offenses, and thus his ability to search for employment opportunities was also forbidden, in the form of the radio host being banished from LinkedIn, an online forum for job applicants.

Some have wondered if, as a result of these negotiations, that the blocked accounts of Donald Trump, or Alex Jones, or perhaps even their opinions might have hope of being restored and broadcasted fairly to users without persecution and banishment.

Such a hope might now be palpable. So might the possibility of all being able to speak freely on one of the world’s most popular social media platforms.

It is claimed that the monitoring, removal, blocking, censoring and shadow-banning of certain users, in addition to the policing of content by way of supposed fact-checkers is a necessary measure to ensure the informational integrity of digital culture. Such decisions were made to stem the flow of information, at least in part, due to violations of transmitting information that some decide falls under vague terminology like “misleading,” “hateful,” “racist,” “harmful,” or “offensive.”

Of course, I am in agreement that not all information encountered in a social network, or in a circulated meme, or in a blog post, or in a web page, or in a text message, is genuine. Nor do I contend that some content might not be open to interpretation by some users as offensive.

As we know, there are many factual things said, as there are untruths, no small matter in a medium that is home to opinions, context-free interpretations, facts, half-truths, misinformation and disinformation. As we also know, the information-culture is diverse, and there will always be those who disagree with something said or posted.

But the solution to identifying what is veritable in the digital domain and what is not does not lie in “fact checkers,” who we are made to celebrate and view as unbiased gatekeepers of what may or may not be said in the online realm. And it is manifest that the answer does not lie in the incessant dissection of every thing said by anyone at any time, or the criminalization of online statements and terminology under the banner of “terms of service.”

It should be granted by all that value can be found in hearing what people have to say in their personalized viewpoints, and it is important to remember that social media does not embolden us to behold information that opposes the popular narrative of the day, or the authority of the fact-check, or that which might be assigned the mark of being unsound, unscientific, or what is determined by social authorities, who often have their own personalized world-views, to be “conspiracy theory,” “fake news,” or “hate speech.”

And though the medium of the internet works best when its users are open to entertaining alternative sources of information, it should be incisive that we are entering a new age in both legacy media and online news sources, in which certain opinions are viewed unfavorably, where some phrases may not be uttered, where a person’s ideas in the public arena, should they be judged as being unfit to be broadcasted, are deemed inapt to even be thought. Even YouTube’s well-known “thumbs down” counts on its videos, whether natural or coordinated, came to be removed by the website, so that viewers could no longer discern how many dislikes there are on any given video.

Naturally, the historical record will show that a culture which scoffs at alternative viewpoints is one facing steep decline, and thus, my consternation is that the public has collectively forgotten the lesson once transmitted to us that it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. Some assert that people’s unwillingness to hear arguments of those they disagree with is an indication that they do not seek to engage in healthy and necessary debate, but instead seek to surround themselves only with those who think like them, in addition to stifling voices they judge as being so unsound that they may not be heard.

It is viewed as odd by some that the liberal base, who were at one time pioneers in the fight for free speech issues, have, alongside the left-leaning tech giants, decided to engage in coordinated methods of widespread social control. Indeed, that some people might say something that may be distressing, unpleasant or offensive to hear by others does not invalidate the point that free citizens must have the right to say what they will. To flourish, on a personal and cultural level, humans must have access to this ancient freedom. This is not to say that there are no costs to this sort of independence, however small, in which some will seek to exploit this sovereignty, and to use it to carry out harmful deeds. In understanding this, it should be evident that employing speech in this manner cannot simply be legislated away.

To the defenders of this mass-shunning of viewpoints labeled as “fake news,” or “hateful,” or “harmful,” big-tech companies are discerned as private companies who can allow or disallow whoever or whatever material they wish on their platform. Though one might have trouble refuting the legality of this kind of reasoning, there is, of course, much dialectic as to if this standpoint is sensible. The problem here is that our social overseers set up their own rules, under the shield of calling themselves a private company, an assessment which might be legal or truthful.

But, as proponents of free speech in Big Tech’s arena point out, they are much more than a simple platform. In the modern age, the technological titans, and their immense social media platforms, are increasingly and effectively acting the public’s town square in every town and city in the world.

Some go as far as to say that it is within the social network, not a local town hall meeting, or a community gathering at a local diner, or a conversation amongst the church pews, where the majority of important things are said, where users feel free to test their theories, where innovating media might go viral, where important discussions and debates are at their most effectual, where the very thoughts and opinions of much of the world take form, and where the clear majority of the world choose to listen. To be sure, for this is what Chinese President Xi Jinping meant when he said, of the internet, that it is “the main battlefield” for public opinion.

Some have even questioned the reasonableness of tech companies judging who is and who is not fit to vocalize their opinions on their platforms, in light of how a phone company cannot legally cut a person’s access to their service simply because they do not favor the content of their user’s speech. And because it appears that Silicon Valley plays by a separate set of rules, some purport that Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and others effectively serve as a mass-method of communication, and should consequently be viewed as utilities, to be open to all regardless of content.

I do not think it goes to far to say that this sort of technological repression of which many have been subject to is the antitheses of what the internet was proposed to be, namely a platform which was to function as a fair and open option by which users would be able to access news and other services, in addition to expressing themselves freely and without retribution for what they might say. We know that equitable mediums of communication are disdained by authorities and governments nearly everywhere they might be found, because of their aptitude in posing a threat to government narratives, pre-set talking points and cultural worldviews that have been put in place and promoted.

Just as the controlling factions of the day sought to inhibit the medium of print by restraining the shock the printing press with movable type would have on the information world in culture, authoritarian regimes often make the case that the presence of a free and open Internet stands as a direct threat to their “sovereign right” to control what information their citizens are able to absorb, much the same to how social media companies instruct us how a user’s mere opinions can violate company policy, or can be branded as “hateful,” or be labeled as “disinformation,” or something that violates popular conviction, or is an unsuitable opinion worthy of one’s account being terminated.

Fortunately, as long as any part of the Internet remains free, no sector can be completely controlled. Elon Musk appears to understand this.