Lost in narcissism, an unwitting Elon Musk makes the case for censoring the Web
Twitter is not a "neutral" platform
He may not care. He may think that the protection he has brought from Donald Trump will mean he never faces the consequences of his actions. But Elon Musk’s decision to turn Twitter (X) into a propaganda site to promote his pet causes and, most notably, himself, blows apart the argument against state regulation that social media companies made for 30 years.
They have always maintained that they are platforms not publishers. As such they could not be held liable for the posts of their users.
They could argue that the law should cover traditional news organisations because editors and proprietors decided what was published.
But social media companies made no editorial decisions. They just provided a platform. To hold them responsible for what users wrote was as absurd as making phone networks responsible for what the public said. Absurd, and indeed, impossible. Facebook has three billion active users each month. How the hell can it check on all of them?
Right at the beginning of the information revolution, Bill Clinton’s administration gave a multi-billion-dollar gift to Silicon Valley with its Telecommunications Act of 1996. It provided immunity from liability for providers of an "interactive computer service" who publish information from third-party users.
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When I worked on newspapers, the privileges awarded to big tech drove my managers mad.
They had to hire editors, sub-editors and lawyers, and set them to work checking copy to ensure we did not lay ourselves open to criminal or civil action. Meanwhile Facebook and the other social media companies faced none of our costs, even as they stole our stories and our advertisers.
Conservative readers may want to point out that by the 2010s platform neutrality was not what it once was. In the US in particular, conservatives claimed that moderation policies were biased against them. Twitter and other sites were more likely to suspend conservative users than liberal users for spreading hate or fake news. Indeed, the very fact that they had policies against hate speech and fake news showed that they weren’t just neutral platforms but were making editorial decisions.
If their defences were shaky then, they are non-existent now. As the EU and the UK prepare to regulate the leviathans of social media, Musk has blown their defences apart.
Musk is not just using his wealth and power to advance his business interests and promote right-wing policies, as Rupert Murdoch did and indeed still does. Musk’s support for Trump will make him a politician, and a member of the new US administration.
And then there is the question of scale. Most people did not absorb themselves in an old-fashioned newspaper for more than 15 minutes on a commuter train or in a canteen at lunchtime.
Compare that with the finding that Americans spend on average about two hours a day on social media – and teenagers clock up more than three.
Murdoch’s reach seems trifling in comparison. Musk’s only real forebear is Silvio Berlusconi, who used his media power to become prime minister of Italy in the 1990s. Those who mocked him or thought him an aberration should have paid closer attention. He was a harbinger of a frightening future.
In true Silvio style, Elon Musk exploits his vast following of 200 million – far higher, incidentally, than the circulation of any newspaper – to peddle “disinformation” – or “lies” as we used to call them.
A study from the Centre for Countering Digital Hate from just before the US presidential election found that Musk’s political posts amassed 17.1 billion views since he endorsed Donald Trump in July this year.
“At least 87 of Musk’s posts promoted claims about the US elections that fact-checkers have rated as false or misleading, amassing 2 billion views. None of these posts featured a Community Note, X’s name for user-generated fact-checks.”
Musk’s posts deployed his own variant of the fascistic “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory. It holds that shadowy members of the elite – usually Jewish – were importing migrants – usually Muslims – to rig elections and destroy the power of white people.
“The Dem administrative state is flying millions of future voters directly into swing states,” read one. “Given that this is a sure path to permanent one-party rule, it is a very smart strategy.”
The researchers estimated that it would have cost the Trump campaign $24 million (£20m) if it had paid Twitter to run the propaganda Musk was giving Trump for free.
Once again, readers might object that no one forces users to follow or read Musk. But that is not wholly true.
Like so many media proprietors, Elon Musk is a screaming narcissist. He noticed, as only a true narcissist would, that during the 2023 Super Bowl Joe Biden’s tweets were more popular than his.
According to tech journals, Musk was furious, and demanded that his subordinates save his face or lose their jobs.
“Twitter’s CEO flew his private jet back to the Bay Area on Sunday night to demand answers from his team. Within a day, the consequences of that meeting would reverberate around the world, as Twitter users opened the app to find that Musk’s posts overwhelmed their ranked timeline. This was no accident, Platformer can confirm: after Musk threatened to fire his remaining engineers, they built a system designed to ensure that Musk — and Musk alone — benefits from previously unheard-of promotion of his tweets to the entire user base.”
If you are on Twitter, you may have noticed that Mr Musk is a hard plutocrat to avoid, however dearly you may wish to be rid of him. He is in your feed and in your face.
And his machinations worked. In October 2024, he became his own platform’s most followed individual with more than 205 million followers.
As he is using his power to interfere in UK as well as US politics, we ought to finally send the discredited notion of platform neutrality to the knackers’ yard.
Musk claims that rioters, who tried to kill Muslims and asylum seekers in the summer, weren’t murderous thugs but soldiers engaged in an inevitable “civil war”.
There are reports in today’s Sunday Times that “leading businessmen and Conservative Party officials believe that there is a credible prospect that Musk is preparing to give $100 million (£78 million) to Farage as a “fuck you Starmer payment’ with a view to transforming British politics.
“Such a move could obliterate the Conservative Party as the main challenger to Labour before Kemi Badenoch, the new leader of the opposition, has made her mark.”
I wrote earlier this week about how the support of Musk could turbo-charge the radical right in Britain as it has in the US. And I am sure this is a theme I will return to.
But for the time being it is worth noticing that Musk has left the old argument for leaving Silicon Valley alone in tatters. There is simply no reasonable way to describe X as a neutral platform, when its owner uses its algorithms to boost himself and his pet causes, funds political candidates, and accepts government sinecures.
Musk is a publisher, quite possibly the greatest vanity publisher in history.
Tech writers say that, in Silicon Valley, “there remains an incredible respect for Musk when it comes to engineering and business and getting stuff done”.
Seriously? He ought to be driving his colleagues to despair. Musk is destroying the old certainties that made so much money for the tech industry for so long.
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