Desperate media clings to argument against Elon Musk owning Twitter
November 22, 2022
Gizmodo is getting more than a little desperate about why Elon Musk shouldn’t be allowed to own Twitter. Apparently disaster response will be broken if all those conservatives are allowed back on social media.
No, really: The piece is headlined, “A Broken Twitter Means Broken Disaster Response -The loss of this crucial rapid-response platform could be crippling as climate change makes disasters worse.”
Just darn that free speech idea for everyone, right?
Both Engadget and BuzzFeed News are outraged that Musk allowed democracy to determine whether former President Donald Trump should be allowed back on Twitter. He held a vote. More than 15 million said yes; just under 15 million said no — the one with more votes wins, so back Trump comes. Quite why both media outlets were upset by this, well, perhaps democracy is only supposed to apply to things they agree with? Not to those sorts of horrible people they disagree with?
One English newspaper, The Guardian, came right out with it: “Elon Musk needs to learn that more debate does not mean more truth.” Doesn’t that just kill the idea of free speech? “Beneath the billionaire’s blurry vision for Twitter lies the notion that it’s good to have a ‘marketplace of ideas.’” The point made here is that good and progressive and liberal ideas should be plastered all over the general and social media and bad and nasty ideas that progressive liberals disagree with should not be allowed to be shown in public.
Then of course there’s Salon, always willing to go that one step worse: “Which is to say the government should buy and run Twitter, just as government owns and operates actual town squares. Yes, I’m talking about a ‘socialist” takeover of Twitter, just like we have “socialist” libraries, schools and museums.” Why do this? To make sure that no one can say anything on Twitter that progressives don’t agree with.
So much for diversity and freedom of speech, then.
As a major newspaper The Guardian gains 404 million visits a month, Engadget 13.5 million, Gizmodo 23.1 million, BuzzFeed News 16.7 million and Salon 8.2 million. But it’s not, particularly, the traffic or audience of any one site that is important here. It’s that they’re all making much the same point, in concert.
Non-progressives must be kept off Twitter, there must be no free speech for ideas progressives disagree with. Not even democracy about who should have free speech – like Trump. What would happen if people were exposed to non-progressive ideas and then they found that they seem pretty sensible really?