Some more notes on Twitter and Musk
🔊 Instead of introducing a fairer, more transparent system for all, the tech billionaire is operating arbitrarily from the other ideological extreme.
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First post: Time to break the Twitter habit
We’ll get back to the articles about Spain very shortly but several readers have asked this morning about my decision on Twitter as a result of Musk's behavior this week. Of course everyone is free to express their opinion and reach their own conclusions, and to agree or not, it is a complex issue, but here I explain my decision a little more.
Before, there were suspended accounts, but I think we have to differentiate between the concept of Twitter as a space for communication and information, that global public sphere for world news, and Twitter as an ideological battlefield, and then take into account the form, the process, of deciding to ban whoever it was.
Before, there were some rules and a process—a flawed, obscure, not transparent process (as we suspected and as some of the Twitter Files have now confirmed)—but an internal process nevertheless, with several people trying to apply those internal rules on hate speech or whatever it was in some way, and evaluate an account according to them.
Before, as far as I know, there wasn’t a problem with the mass banning of journalists or politicians. The flawed part of the previous opaque, inaccessible banning process, was related to the concept of Twitter as an ideological battlefield, not of Twitter as a space for communication and news.
Now, in what has been posted about the Twitter Files, what we have seen is a process among several executives to try to enforce those previous company rules on hate speech, etc. It was not a closed consensus. There are people in those messages who disagree.
Now, Musk has used the same tool they previously used to ban links about the Hunter Biden story to ban all links to Mastodon.
Now, at a systemic level, since he arrived at the end of October, Musk has not corrected this flawed, dark, opaque process, that leaned towards ideological banning (not communication and news), to re-introduce more balance for everyone. He has opted for fuedal arbitrariness, the opposite extreme.
Instead of improving the existing norms and putting in place a better mechanism to evaluate the conduct of anyone according to those improved, more balanced, fairer rules, along with more transparent decisions, he has decided to ban people according to his personal emotions. And he has become angered with a very specific group: journalists, the media.
Were they his personal emotions on hate speech or porn or children or some generally reprehensible behavior X? No, it was just because some journalists reported on him in the normal manner and asked him some normal, polite questions about his behavior. Click. Deleted. All their previuos reporting gone, all their reader relationships gone.
And the anger the other day reached such a level that he not only deleted the journalists but also closed and then deleted the audio document (the Twitter Space) in question, the recording where they asked him those normal questions in a polite manner, and immediately afterwards deleted Twitter Spaces altogether for a day.
Does all this Musk and Twitter stuff fit into the evolution and history of politics and media more broadly? Of course it does.
If before the process was tilted, flawed, towards the progressive side, or even the totalitarian communism side, depending on everyone’s interpretations and opinions, now Musk, instead of introducing more common sense, transparency, fairness and reason, which would be the liberal, centrist, Enlightenment, democratic approach, has opted for the MAGA, populist, arbitrary, feudal, even proto-fascist path, if we understand a little about the roots of historical fascism.
He now seems determined to strengthen the dynamic of ideological blockade in the opposite direction: those who buy his new blue tick, the new symbol of Musk's MAGA Twitter fanboys, will be able to vote tribally on which accounts to ban or vote down. It's not hard to guess how all that will end.
Musk's actions over the past two months make it clear that he sees Twitter as his new private reserve, as a major element in an ideological struggle, as that ideological battleground, not as an improved global communication and news sphere or public square for everybody.
So having reached that point, I reach my own conclusion and will reduce my activity on Twitter to a minimum. It is no longer a favourable place to do journalism. I have deleted the app from my phone. It will no longer be the daily news habit where I post everything instantly. I will continue to report on and analyse Spain for you as always here on Substack. Thank you for reading, and for guaranteeing this work.