Twitter/Musk : How Influential?

Elon Musk

@elonmusk

Joined June 2009

114 Following

92M Followers

"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."

"[It] won't be perfect. But I think we want it to really have the perception and the reality that speech is as free as reasonably possible."

"A social media's platform policies are good if the most extreme ten percent on the left and right are equally unhappy."

Elon Musk

"Elon's goal of creating a platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is the right one."

"Elon is the singular solution I trust."

Jack Dorsey, Twitter co-founder, former CEO

It is where people gravitate to, spontaneously and compulsively to air their opinions and equally if not more urgently, read and ponder the opinions and perceptions of other people. Often their responses are immediate and often enough to the point in either contesting or supporting or adding their own opinions to what has already been stated. These are the socially and politically engaged tweeters. Aside from those whose motivation for participating is not quite participation but a personal feeling they are 'obliged' to detail the detritus of their lives and inconsequential thoughts.

Then there are the combative types who obstinately support unpopular views and are there to defend them, facts be damned. Others whose ideological framework compels them to do battle with all others who post polarizing views to their own, taking them as personal affronts. Of course, there are personal affronts as well, those responders who, lacking a cogent argument will simply attack the source of views that they find irritating.

Analyzing mental states, types of participants, kinds of engagements and the constant spewing of victimhood's plaints alongside fulminating over 'wrongs' and 'rights', entitlements and taking sides in conflicts, claims of persecution and violent repression, they all run the gamut, including entries of accusations of human rights wrongs and rights, where ideological, tribal and religious opponents snarl at one another. all comprise the babel of voices on Twitter.

Elon Musk, evidently loves the inchoate, incoherent, frank and hostile or supportive drivel and trivia aired on Twitter. A healthy sign of an international community discussing vital issues. Discounting the venom and the baiting, perhaps yes. And he wants it to continue and to be unleashed from constraints. An exponent of freedom of speech, of thought, of expression and belief. Some levels of abuse will be tolerated, it seems, while those that knock up hard against the laws of democratic countries viewed as hate-mongering and dangerous might not be given free rein.

 

In the marketplace of ideas and conversations, of hostility and civility, Elon Musk would ideally like it all to hang out. Be visible, influencing people to either ignore or to surrender to introspection after introduction to another facet of thought illuminating other angles, not yet fully explored. The wealthiest man in the world who has dabbled in transportation, in explorations of outer space turns his attention to enabling people to speak up and out and over and around each other.

He has himself over a staggering 90 million followers. Not particularly in awe of his brilliant mercantile mind or his knowledge of science and technology, or his influence on government policies, but for reasons that always captivate the imagination of the wider public: wealth. The influence of wealth is never to be underestimated. It drives the world economy, it creates opportunities, it employs knowledge and it enjoys celebrity status like no other human condition does. It dominates peoples' dreams of success.

His vision for the future of Twitter is not embraced universally. While much of the world is curious about how matters will proceed under his ownership, control and vision, it would appear that the 'woke' democracies of the world are uneasy. The current Democratic administration in the U.S. seems to be doubtful about what a new, engaged and permissive Twitter might accomplish. They seem less than enthralled with the possibilities. 

Barack Obama, for one, links such a Twitter redesign as a potential for disinformation, therefore harmful. "Obama, like others in the Democratic party and in establishment media circles", wrote Byron York in the Washington Examiner, "is targeting some types of disinformation while remaining strikingly silent on others". The 'others', needless to say, that might do harm to the disinformation campaign that US Democrats are fond of, that turn out to be useful to their agenda.

Social media, explained Obama, was "tilting in the wrong direction". More censorship of disinformation is what is required: "content modification". The rise of social media contributed to "one of the biggest reasons for democracy's weakening", he warned. No one present to hear him speak, evidently reminded him of the Democratic allegations of a "well-developed conspiracy" between then-president-elect Trump and Russia, proven to be false.

Much less the obliging nature of America's free press given to liberal-democratic interpretations of the news, as when their role in suppressing somewhat embarrassing revelations contained within Hunter Biden's laptop fell into the category of "Russian disinformation", unworthy of any further discussion, let alone investigation to reveal potentially embarrassing details the Biden administration would flinch at making public.