{"id":6008,"date":"2024-08-21T01:13:42","date_gmt":"2024-08-20T23:13:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/?p=6008"},"modified":"2024-08-21T01:13:42","modified_gmt":"2024-08-20T23:13:42","slug":"elon-musk-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/2024-08-21\/elon-musk-free-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"First, Elon Musk made us pay for &#8216;free speech&#8217;. Now he decides who&#8217;s allowed it"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"subtitle\"><em><strong>The &#8216;saviour of free speech&#8217; is cracking down on criticism of Israel&#8217;s genocide. What he calls the &#8216;faaaaar left&#8217; is in his crosshairs. It&#8217;ll be erased so utterly, you won\u2019t remember it was ever there<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6009\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/09DC-Military-ckwz-articleLarge-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"520\" height=\"348\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/09DC-Military-ckwz-articleLarge-copy.jpg 520w, https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/09DC-Military-ckwz-articleLarge-copy-300x201.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 520px) 100vw, 520px\" \/>\n<p>Many users of X, formerly Twitter, seem deeply misguided. They imagine that Elon Musk is the saviour of free speech. He&#8217;s not. He is simply the latest pioneer in <em>monetising<\/em> speech. Which isn&#8217;t the same thing at all.<\/p>\n<p>All the blue ticks on X \u2013 mine included \u2013 are buying access to an audience. Which is why Musk has made it so easy to get a blue tick \u2013 and why there are now so many of them on the platform. If you don&#8217;t pay Musk, the algorithms make sure you get minimal reach. You are denied your five seconds of fame.<\/p>\n<p>That has particularly infuriated corporate journalists. On what used to be called Twitter, they got access to large audiences as a natural right, along with politicians and celebrities. They never paid a penny. They felt entitled to those big audiences because they already enjoyed similarly big audiences in the so-called \u201clegacy media\u201d. They did not see why they start competing with the rest of us to be heard.<\/p>\n<p>The new media system was rigged, as the old media system has been for centuries, to ensure that it was their voices that counted. Or rather it was the voices of the ultra-wealthy paying their salaries who counted.<\/p>\n<p>Independent journalists, including myself, have been some of the chief beneficiaries of Musk\u2019s X. But I don\u2019t for a minute make the mistake of thinking Musk is really in favour of <em>my<\/em> free speech \u2013 or anyone else\u2019s \u2013 compared to his own.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">A reminder that free speech in America is special and we need to do everything possible to preserve it <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/yAvX1TpuRp\">https:\/\/t.co\/yAvX1TpuRp<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1825558181839618531?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 19, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Being able to buy yourself an audience isn&#8217;t what most people understand as free speech.<\/p>\n<p>Musk\u2019s X is simply the latest innovation on the traditional \u201cfree speech\u201d model from the bad old days. Then, only a handful of very rich men could afford to buy themselves lots of hired hands, known as journalists; own a printing press; and be in a position to attract advertisers.<\/p>\n<p>Billionaires paid a small fortune to buy the privilege of \u201cfree speech\u201d. As a result, they managed to secure for themselves a very big voice in a highly exclusive market. You and I can now pay a hundred bucks a year and buy ourselves a very, very small voice in a massively overcrowded, cacophonous marketplace of voices.<\/p>\n<p>The point is this: Speech on X is still a privilege \u2013 it&#8217;s just one that you can now pay for. And like all privileges, it is on licence from the owner. Musk can withdraw that privilege \u2013 and withdraw it selectively \u2013 whenever he thinks someone or something is harming his interests, whether directly or indirectly.<\/p>\n<p>Musk is already disappearing opinions, either ones he doesn\u2019t like or ones he cannot afford to be seen supporting \u2013 most visibly, anything too critical of Israel.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">As I said earlier this week, \u201cdecolonization\u201d, \u201cfrom the river to the sea\u201d and similar euphemisms necessarily imply genocide.<\/p>\n<p>Clear calls for extreme violence are against our terms of service and will result in suspension. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/1fCFo5Lezb\">https:\/\/t.co\/1fCFo5Lezb<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1725645884409401435?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 17, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>He has threatened users with suspension for repeating slogans such as \u201cFrom the river to the sea, Palestine will be free\u201d \u2013 in other words, for calling for an end to what the judges of the World Court recently <a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/@jonathancook\/note\/c-63024711\" rel=\"\">decreed<\/a> to be Israel\u2019s apartheid rule over Palestinians. He is also against hosting on X the term \u201cdecolonisation\u201d in reference to Israel, claiming perversely that \u201cit implies a Jewish genocide\u201d \u2013 itself an implicit admission that Israelis (not Jews) have long been colonising Palestine and ethnically cleansing Palestinians.<\/p>\n<p>The Israel lobby is also pushing hard for a ban on the words \u201cZionism\u201d and \u201cZionist\u201d. It won\u2019t be long before X, like Meta, cracks down on these terms too.<\/p>\n<p>Note that banning these words makes it all but impossible to discuss the specific historical forces that led to Israel\u2019s creation at the expense of the Palestinian people, or analyse the ideology that today underpins Israel\u2019s efforts to disappear the Palestinian people, or explain how the West has been complicit in Israel\u2019s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories for decades and is currently aiding the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.<\/p>\n<p>The loss of \u201cZionist\u201d and &#8220;Zionism\u201d from our lexicon would be a serious handicap for anyone trying to explain some of the major events unfolding in the Middle East at the moment. Which is precisely why the establishment, and Musk, are so keen to see such words discredited.<\/p>\n<p>The Egyptian comedian Bassem Yousef, one of the most acute and acid critics of Israel, has suddenly disappeared from X. Many assume he has been banned. The Jerusalem Post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/diaspora\/antisemitism\/article-815585\" rel=\"\">highlights<\/a> that, shortly before he vanished from X, he had written: \u201cAre you still scared to be called an antisemite by those Zionists?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Whatever the case, you will see Musk&#8217;s X getting a lot more censorious over the next months and years, especially against what he is terming the &#8220;faaaaaar left&#8221; \u2013 that is, disparate groups of people he has lumped together who hold opinions either he doesn&#8217;t like personally or that can damage his business interests.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">From the standpoint of the faaaaaar left, this platform is far right, but it\u2019s actually just centrist <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/PUNAvdTKQS\">https:\/\/t.co\/PUNAvdTKQS<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1825768840090836999?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 20, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Billionaires aren&#8217;t there to protect free speech. They got to be billionaires by being very good at making money \u2013 by seizing markets, by inflating our appetite for consumption, and by buying politicians to rig the system to protect their empires from competitors.<\/p>\n<p>Musk understands that the only people against a world based on rapacious profit and material greed are the &#8220;faaaaaar left&#8221;. Which is why the \u201cfaaaaaar left\u201d are in the crosshairs of anyone with power in our rigged system, from the centrists to the right wing, from \u201cliberals\u201d to conservatives, from Blue to Red, from Democrats to Republicans.<\/p>\n<p>The right and the centrists disagree only on how best to maintain that rapacious, consumption-driven, environmentally destructive status quo, and on how to normalise it to different segments of the public. They are competing wings of a system designed by a single ruling cabal.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I am willing to serve <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/BJhGbcA2e0\">pic.twitter.com\/BJhGbcA2e0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1825723913051000851?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 20, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Musk used to see himself as a liberal and now leans towards the Trumpian right. Trump used to see himself as a Clintonian Democrat but now sees himself as\u2026 well, fill in the blank, according to taste.<\/p>\n<p>The point is that centrists and the right are, in essence, interchangeable \u2013 as should be only too clear from the rapid shift of free-speech liberals towards authoritarian censorship, and the rapid (pretend) reinvention of conservatives from moralising guardians of family values to the embattled defenders of free speech.<\/p>\n<p>Neither\u2019s posturing should be taken at face value. Both are equally authoritarian, when their interests are threatened by \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/@jonathancook\/note\/c-59385999\" rel=\"\">an excess of democracy<\/a>\u201d. Their apparent differences are simply the competition for dominance within a system that\u2019s been gerrymandered to their mutual benefit. We are their dupes, buying into their games.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">JUST IN: \ud83c\uddeb\ud83c\uddf7 \ud83c\uddea\ud83c\uddfa Emmanuel Macron&#39;s Liberal MEP threatens to shut down X in Europe .<\/p>\n<p>&quot;If Elon Musk does not comply with the European rules on digital services, the EU Commission will ask the continental operators to block X or, in the most extreme case, force them to completely\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/8rbt4pjSPp\">pic.twitter.com\/8rbt4pjSPp<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; BRICS News (@BRICSinfo) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BRICSinfo\/status\/1825908713435070829?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 20, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The two tribes are there to offer the pretence of a battle of ideas, of competition, of choice at election time, of freedom. They look hostile to each other, but when push comes to shove they are united in their support for oligarchy, and opposition to genuine free speech, to real democracy, to meaningful pluralism, to an open society.<\/p>\n<p>The \u201cfaaaaaar left\u201d are the true enemy of both the centrists and the right. Why? Because they are the only group struggling for a society in which money doesn&#8217;t buy privilege, where speech isn\u2019t something someone can own.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why, when Musk intensifies his crackdown, it will be the \u201cfaaaaar left\u201d that\u2019s erased so completely you won\u2019t notice it\u2019s gone. You won\u2019t remember it was ever there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The &#8216;saviour of free speech&#8217; is cracking down on criticism of Israel&#8217;s genocide. What he calls the &#8216;faaaaar left&#8217; is in his crosshairs. It&#8217;ll be erased so utterly, you won\u2019t remember it was ever there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6009,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-6008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-corporations","9":"tag-media-criticism"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6008"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6010,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6008\/revisions\/6010"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}