Western Standard - Watching the left losing their minds over Musk.

00:00:00.000 Elon Musk has, well, so far it's not 100% cleared.

00:00:03.600 I know I'm getting all the pedantic people on Twitter saying it's not done yet.

00:00:08.700 Well, it's pretty damn near done, guys.

00:00:11.060 He's purchased Twitter.

00:00:12.920 And it's got the progressives going bananas.

00:00:16.060 And I love it.

00:00:16.740 This guy is just an amazing disruptor, if nothing else, whether you like him or dislike him.

00:00:21.260 He sure sets things up.

00:00:23.000 So why are they going so nuts, though?

00:00:24.520 Well, let's go into a bit of it.

00:00:25.720 Now, Twitter has about 339 million daily users.

00:00:30.440 And that's a large number, but it's actually dwarfed by a number of social media platforms.

00:00:35.240 Facebook has over 2 billion users.

00:00:38.360 Instagram has a billion.

00:00:39.940 Even TikTok has more than Twitter.

00:00:41.880 And I don't even really fully understand TikTok, but they've got 650 million followers.

00:00:47.280 Less than a quarter of North Americans use Twitter daily.

00:00:50.220 So, I mean, if it's a smaller social media outlet, why are the progressives losing their collective minds so badly?

00:00:55.200 Over Elon Musk's purchase of the platform.

00:00:58.580 Well, it's not so much how many people use Twitter as who uses Twitter.

00:01:02.800 Like, while most typical citizens, obviously three-quarters of them and more, don't use Twitter at all, pretty much every politician, media member, and celebrity does.

00:01:11.580 Twitter punches above its weight and influence among media and policymakers.

00:01:15.460 So, while political discourse can be found on any social media platform, Twitter by far was the most political in nature.

00:01:23.180 Now, it becomes inevitable whenever something becomes politically influential that the politically unprincipled will, of course, want to control it.

00:01:29.840 The ownership and prior management of Twitter began with a somewhat left-leaning, and they continued an evolution towards a sharp left-leaning.

00:01:38.380 The editorial leaning of Twitter went from subtle manipulation of content through methods such as shadow banning to being overtly left-leaning and banishing even moderately conservative parody news sites like the Babylon Bee.

00:01:49.300 Shadow banning, for those not familiar with it, is an odious practice where Twitter will throttle the reach of influential conservative voices without actually banning them.

00:01:58.500 Tweets from these people won't reach the scrolls of their followers and won't be widely shared.

00:02:02.380 So, it gives the illusion that the platform allows for open speech, but these voices are actually being suppressed.

00:02:10.060 There was no veneer of balance, you know, any longer.

00:02:12.680 Twitter's become an influential platform dominated by leftists, and conservative voices were becoming stifled constantly, if not banned altogether, from the platform for the most minor of apparent transgressions.

00:02:24.860 Elon Musk, you know, he's an erratic and interesting character, to say the least.

00:02:28.000 There really hasn't been any indication of some sort of hard-right inclinations on his part historically, though, and I doubt he leans that way.

00:02:34.660 He is, though, a self-described free-speech absolutist, so I can understand how he'd be annoyed in seeing an influential social media platform stepping on open discourse so blatantly.

00:02:46.160 Now, there's millions of free-speech absolutists in the world, but of course, Musk happens to be the richest man on the planet while he's at it.

00:02:52.300 So, rather than sitting back and being annoyed like the rest of us had to, Musk decided to do something about it and bought Twitter.

00:02:57.100 Now, Musk has been launching idea balloons for weeks about what he may do with Twitter, but he hasn't committed to anything solid yet at this point of his purchase.

00:03:04.580 It's only been a day, after all.

00:03:06.300 It can be safely assumed, though, that Musk is going to be acting quickly to take the restraints upon discourse from Twitter as one of his first courses of action.

00:03:13.100 I mean, this was a big move. He's not just going to buy it and sit on it and do nothing.

00:03:16.820 Now, the response to that, for many leftists, it's been nothing less than hysteric.

00:03:21.340 The usual accusations have already begun, accusing Musk of being a white supremacist.

00:03:24.100 Of course, there's utterly no evidence of this.

00:03:27.000 Those guys, their playbook is so thin, it's almost microscopic.

00:03:31.660 Others are claiming the world is going to descend into total chaos and Nazis will surely become a dominant political world force.

00:03:38.260 I wish I was exaggerating the rhetoric.

00:03:40.620 The left really has, they're getting totally unhinged.

00:03:43.360 And they must have a really ugly worldview if they really believe that there's a massive world population of Nazis and white nationalists who are only being kept in check through control and manipulation of social media platforms.

00:03:56.660 Now, many people have already decried Twitter as being something of a cesspool of political discourse, and there's some truth to that.

00:04:02.560 Twitter's loaded with anonymous troll accounts, bent on nothing more than attacking other users, and being offensive without purpose.

00:04:08.600 The thing is, though, it is and always was easy to block these accounts.

00:04:14.800 It only takes a second.

00:04:16.240 The problem, though, is blocking takes a tiny measure of effort and personal responsibility.

00:04:20.840 And both of those principles are things that run contrary to the basis of progressivism, especially personal responsibility.

00:04:28.180 More things that can be done to improve the Twitter experience, though, and Musk has hinted at some of them.

00:04:33.160 I mean, no troll is more bold or annoying than one who can wrap themselves in the cloak of confident anonymity.

00:04:39.540 The worst of accounts are almost always anonymous.

00:04:42.640 When a person has to attach their name to something, it's amazing how much more thoughtful and respectful their discourse often suddenly becomes.

00:04:49.620 Musk isn't talking about eliminating the ability to be anonymous, but he's spoken of creating ways for users to verify their identities online.

00:04:56.400 But right now, the only people who have any form of verification of identities that the platform considers to be, or was that the platform considers to be people of public interest.

00:05:06.580 The process for gaining that status is arbitrary and nebulous.

00:05:09.320 Nobody's quite sure who qualifies for and can gain the precious Twitter blue checkmark.

00:05:14.460 Not everybody who has such verification is necessarily nice or polite.

00:05:17.780 I think I'm an example of that.

00:05:19.280 But they're trackable, at least.

00:05:20.380 Now, a system can and should be created where a person can choose to verify their identity while keeping their public identity private.

00:05:27.440 This would stop the spawning of multiple accounts and add a layer of accountability.

00:05:31.260 And there's good reasons why some people may choose to remain anonymous, and we don't want to lose all those voices.

00:05:36.000 Maybe a different colored checkmark could be applied to accounts.

00:05:39.480 I'd be more inclined, though, I can say, to take suites more seriously from an account that had verified itself than one that was created with no verification, even if it remained anonymous.

00:05:47.200 So, Musk has talked about also flushing the bots and fake accounts from the system as well.

00:05:52.660 That's easier said than done, but if he can find a good way to do it, it would certainly help clean up the platform.

00:05:57.900 There's lots of other things that could be done to improve Twitter, and I hope Musk succeeds in doing them.

00:06:02.360 Twitter is a valuable platform for discourse and amplifying issues.

00:06:06.420 It morphed into a left-wing echo chamber with no regard or respect for free speech.

00:06:11.180 The only way to maintain balance is to open speech up.

00:06:14.480 I don't want to see a conservative echo chamber either.

00:06:16.760 I mean, that's what happened with Gab and Parler.

00:06:19.420 You know, they just didn't quite take off because they were so dominated by conservatives.

00:06:22.800 So, it looks like Musk is going to do that.

00:06:24.400 He's going to open speech up altogether and let the chips fall where they will.

00:06:28.620 Time's going to tell if Musk's move is going to improve the platform.

00:06:31.520 In the meantime, I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes.

00:06:34.480 I mean, I'm really enjoying watching the progressives holding a public temper tantrum over the very concept of free speech.

00:06:40.580 They're exposing themselves for the insecure authoritarians that they are.

00:06:44.440 I mean, if their case is that strong, they shouldn't need to suppress the speech of others in order to make it.

00:06:49.700 Perhaps progressives will pool their own money and buy their own platform.

00:06:53.500 There's nothing stopping them from creating the little echo chamber they desire.

00:06:57.340 Ah, but who am I kidding?

00:06:58.400 They only know how to spend other people's money.

00:07:01.040 So, the left's next move is going to be to push further to have government controlling speech on all those platforms.

00:07:05.680 Let's hope that Elon Musk plans to push back against that too.

00:07:08.760 There's no such thing as democracy without free speech, and I only wish that leftists would learn this lesson.

Western Standard - April 27, 2022

Watching the left losing their minds over Musk.

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