When Elon Musk clinched a deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion, he hailed it as a significant step in facilitating free speech.
Musk
wrote that “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy," and
hoped that his worst critics remain on Twitter, "because that is what free
speech means"
Years
after being founded Twitter became the official channel of communication for
governments, leaders, corporate houses, members of the press, and showbiz
luminaries.
However, as Twitter developed a monopoly, the abuse of privilege.
They began suppressing ideas that stood against liberal groupthink and news adverse to the Democrats.
Back
in October 2020, Twitter locked the account of the NY Post for tweeting
stories about Hunter Biden’s shady
business dealings Biden and Hunter's laptop which contained proof that
Joe Biden, as Vice President, used his influence to enrich his family.
Sharing
of these news reports was prohibited and Twitter users who clicked the link
were shown an alert the
webpage was “unsafe.”
Twitter suppressed the most important story of the 2020 Presidential elections to protect
Biden. This was an act of election meddling.
In
order to prevent this from recurring, Musk has to eliminate the
following restrictions:
· Suspension or
locking or suppression (shadow banning) of accounts that tweet information
inconvenient to the establishment.
· Suppression of
tweets that contains information inconvenient to the establishment
· Selective
application of disclaimers, fact check notes to certain tweets with information
inconvenient to the establishment
Musk promised
to enhance Twitter by adding new features and making Twitter’s algorithm open
source to "increase trust, defeating the spam bots and authenticating all
humans".
Musk
announced that he planned to give "power to the people" by making the
blue tick a paid service. So far the blue tick was a symbol that verifies the
authenticity of individuals of prominence.
Musk
rolled out the new
Twitter Blue with verification where people can pay $8 per month for
their blue tick.
But
there is a distinction.
Clicking
on the tick mark of legacy verified profiles will results in a message “notable in
government, news, entertainment, or another designated category” while for paying
subscribers, a message that “this account is verified because it’s subscribed
to Twitter Blue”
The
question remains if there has to be a distinction between what was wrong with
the previous system that verified accounts of prominent people only and free of
charge.
Musk has splurged $44 billion on Twitter perhaps he is looking for
easy ways to get some of the money back.
Musk
also announced that anyone impersonating another individual would be suspended.
‘Comedienne’ Kathy Griffin was suspended when she attempted to impersonate Musk
via her own verified account
Musk tweeted, “Going forward, any Twitter handles engaging in
impersonation without clearly specifying ‘parody’ will be permanently
suspended.”
The
Twitter blue subscription facility has given rise to other problems
A
verified fake Tesla account using the handle @TesIaReal became
active just before 1:00 p.m. Pacific on Thursday. The account has been posting
tweets that mocked Musk and Tesla among other things.
A
verified Twitter account posing as the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly tweeted
Thursday afternoon that "We are excited to announce that insulin is free
now." The account, with the handle @EliLillyandCo, used the Eli Lilly logo
and had a verified tick.
The
tweet received around 1,500 retweets and stayed up for several hours before the
account was locked by Twitter. Later in the evening, the account was unlocked.
The Eli Lilly logo was removed. The checkmark remained on the desktop version
of the site, but not on the app. Now the account has been suspended.
The
real Eli Lilly Twitter account, @LillyPad, tweeted, "We apologize to those
who have been served a misleading message from a fake Lilly account. Our
official Twitter account is @LillyPad.
An
account @BPDeezNutzz that
impersonated British oil giant BP Global also managed to secure a blue check
without any problem. This account attacked BP for environmental
issues and climate change. That account has also been suspended.
In
the past several days, fake accounts have popped up impersonating Joe Biden,
George W Bush, Tony Blair, Pope Francis, Nintendo, and others, many have been
suspended.
Musk intervened,
declaring that from now on, parody accounts must have parody in their names,
not just bios.
From
being a platform where only the left’s narrative was allowed, Twitter seemed to
have devolved into a platform where anything goes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6tA604F98s
Liberals
in the media and beyond who were furious after Musk’s takeover are driving the
narrative that Musk has presided over an implosion.
But the blame for incorrect assessment of risks lies on the purveyor
and not the customer.
Musk seems to be making things up as he goes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1xGCWHJeDY
Twitter
looks like a country that has just been introduced to Democracy after being
ruled by an iron-fisted totalitarian regime.
There
will obviously be an abuse of freedom, and there will be complete chaos and
utter anarchy. It may seem like the plot is lost. A lot of is doings of
holdovers from the previous regime and their allies
Musk
himself conceded the chaos but promise to “keep what works & change what
doesn’t.”
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1590384919829962752
When
the Berlin wall came down, it took decades of hard work to bring matters to
normalcy.
Let’s
give him time.
Also appears on American Thinker
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