The Free Musketeers

It probably won’t have escaped your attention, but a very wealthy man bought a company. This astonishing, never before seen, act of corporate acquisition has sent shock waves throughout the world. How did this happen? How could we have let it happen? A rich man bought something. Holy crap, the world is coming to an end.

Apparently, according to many, it’s really dangerous for some wealthy entity to completely own a major social media platform because of its importance for public discourse. The entity, because it now owns this private company, might be able to do whatever it wants with it, set whatever rules it likes - and that’s just not acceptable.

This represents a 180 degree turnabout worthy of any self-respecting demon because it was, of course, perfectly acceptable before Elon (BE).

When complaints of censorship or being suspended by Twitter BE were made the standard responses were along the lines of “it’s a private company, if you don’t like it start your own”. These same people are saying something quite different for Twitter AE (after Elon). The fluidity of their apparent principles is quite something to behold. I say apparent because it’s abundantly clear these people do not have any real principles at all - other than those of control and enforcement of their own ideology.

They are behaving like children who are all smiles and good cheer when they are getting the sweeties and candies, but have a major hissy fit when they don’t get what they want.

They are basically saying : we’re OK with this wealthy person owning Twitter, or this group of wealthy people, but not these wealthy persons or these groups

You see, it’s not that they disagree with the principle of ownership at all - what they object to is ownership by someone who disagrees with their worldview and who might take the company to a place they don’t like. Elon is definitely not on their ‘approved list’ of social media company owners.

When person X owns the company it’s a private company and can set whatever rules it likes. When person Y owns the company it’s an important public resource and should not be allowed to set whatever rules are deemed appropriate.

I don’t think it’s all going to be plain sailing for Mr Musk, but I wish him well and I heartily approve of the goals he appears to be setting for Twitter AE. I hope he is able to achieve them.

In years to come I suspect a more useful classification of political disagreement than right or left will be whether you are a supporter of Twitter BE or Twitter AE.

Elon has fired his proton torpedo into the exhaust port of the Death Star of censorship and many people are not happy about it. These people actually want censorship. They want the ability to control what is said and who is able to say it. The anger isn’t really about Elon, but about the fact that he wants to limit censorship. It’s the loss of their Death Star they are bemoaning.

I’m amazed that more people don’t get just how dangerous things have become for us and how close we are to a tipping point. Let me just try to spell it out very bluntly with one example.

The response of the US government to Twitter AE was extraordinary. In short order it set up its very own Ministry of Truth (the Disinformation Governance Board). Ostensibly set up to combat “misinformation” in all its various guises, it really is nothing to do with this at all. So-called deadly misinformation (allegedly) abounds, obviously promoted heavily by those Russian bots we have been told about (of course the US and its allies never, ever, not once in a million years, no Siree, would countenance using propaganda or interfering in another country’s business - totally unthinkable - how dare you suggest such a thing!).

If only we had a government department with powers to combat this terrible threat. Well, now we do.

But let’s reframe things a bit with a hypothetical.

Today, our glorious leader, Josef Mao-Bidenskii signed into law a new act that will ensure our safety and security online now and in the future. Every online post or message on a network must be submitted to FIST (Federal Information Safety Testing) for approval where any potential harmful statements can be dealt with.

Doesn’t sound quite so great now does it? But there is no difference between something like this and an agency that can retro-actively delete messages it doesn’t like. If the agency has the power to remove ‘offending’ messages then it’s equivalent to having to submit your messages for approval. With improved AI there is no doubt that any sent message could be screened within seconds, if not sooner.

Is this what we want? We really want to have to run everything we say online past some government body for approval? Because that’s what a Ministry of Truth (aka a Disinformation Governance Board) is about. It wants to stop what IT sees as “dis/misinformation”.

Forget all the horseshit about keeping people ‘safe’ and ‘saving’ lives - these are just pretexts to make it sound like they are good people who have our best interests at heart. What they’re really saying is “don’t worry your empty little heads, just let us decide what is good for you, and good for you to read and watch”

People often say they don’t trust politicians. I do. I have a great deal of trust that they are lying to me.

Do people really think a government agency or department is the best thing to tell us what’s true and what’s not true? The very idea is such an absurdity - and yet that’s what lots of people seem to have no problem with.

And I’m not just having a go at the US here - it’s coming everywhere. It’s being dressed up in the same way, as “protecting us from online harms” - legislation in the UK and EU is going to lay waste to our ever-dwindling rights of free expression and I’ve no doubt, in due course, similar Ministries of Truth will be established here too.

I expect some serious governmental resistance to Twitter AE because the merry band of Free Musketeers can not be allowed to succeed. People might, for example, see that being called by the wrong pronoun is actually survivable - and that will never do.

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