Dem
51
GOP
49
Elon Musk has made eX-Twitter into his own personal fiefdom, and along with that, the platform he uses to flog his political agenda for the benefit of a large audience. We had an item on Monday, for example, about the deepfake video of Kamala Harris he posted, in violation of eX-Twitter policies.
Musk has been doing more than that, however. It's one thing to issue forth with propaganda. It's another thing to muzzle the opposition. And yet, the billionaire has crossed that particular Rubicon at least twice in the past several days. Last week, for some period of time, users were barred from following the @KamalaHQ Twitter account. And yesterday, after the group had raised $4 million for the Harris campaign, the eX-Twitter account of "White Dudes for Harris" was permanently suspended (although Musk wants to be loved, and is sensitive to blowback, so we'll see how "permanent" the suspension really is).
Until there is legislation or jurisprudence to the contrary, eX-Twitter is Musk's property, and he can do as he sees fit with it. If he wants to block various Harris-related accounts, that is certainly his prerogative. But this gives permanent lie to the always dubious proposition that the social media companies promote Democrats and censor Republicans. On top of that, Musk is going to reap what he sows. His little toy is hemorrhaging users and money, and it's fair to wonder if it will still be around in 5 years. Meanwhile, left-leaning voters have noticed that Musk also owns a car company, and they are taking their business elsewhere.
And it's not just Tesla that's becoming radioactive. More and more, lefty types are gravitating toward Threads, even with its downsides, as an alternative to Twitter. And so it is that Musk is singlehandedly re-creating the cable news divide, with one side having its channel/microblogging platform and the other side having ITS channel/microblogging platform. (Z)