Tag: Elon Musk

Categories
First Amendment rights Internet controversy public opinion social media

The Mockingbird Shuttle

Twitter, Elon Musk, censorship, surveillance

“After weeks of ‘Twitter Files’ reports detailing close coordination between the FBI and Twitter in moderating social media content, the Bureau issued a statement Wednesday,” journalist Matt Taibbi tweeted on Christmas Eve. “It didn’t refute allegations. Instead, it decried ‘conspiracy theorists’ publishing ‘misinformation,’ whose ‘sole aim’ is to ‘discredit the agency.’”

Taibbi offered a droll retort: “They must think us unambitious, if our ‘sole aim’ is to discredit the FBI. After all, a whole range of government agencies discredit themselves in the #TwitterFiles. Why stop with one?”

Indeed. The federal government is full of rogue, anti-constitutional cabals.

Elon Musk’s Twitter Files release of behind-the-scenes Twitter deliberations over which political news stories and Twitter accounts to trounce upon, and what medical information to declare as “misinformation” and which to allow, yielded more than just the influence of J. Edgar Hoover’s legacy outfit.

“The files show the FBI acting as doorman to a vast program of social media surveillance and censorship, encompassing agencies across the federal government – from the State Department to the Pentagon to the CIA.”

Twitter employees referred to these other outfits as “OGA” — for “Other Government Agenies.”

There were so many that Twitter “executives lost track.”

The vastness of the operation boggles the mind. “The government was in constant contact not just with Twitter but with virtually every major tech firm.”

It is worth remembering that the lore of the Deep State includes the controversial but rarely-mentioned “Operation Mockingbird,” whereby the CIA fostered paid mouthpieces (disinformation agents) throughout the media, back in the Sixties.

Now we have uncovered an operation that dwarfs this by several orders of magnitude.

Certainly, the behavior of the FBI and these OGAs has had an effect: they directed public opinion during the pandemic and in the lead-up to the 2020 election. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with DALL-E2

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
Internet controversy social media

All a-Twitter

Elon Musk, Twitter, deal, bargaining, woke

On Friday, Elon Musk bowed out of his attempt to take over Twitter.

And Twitter stock plummeted over 10 percent in trading on Monday.

Citing the woke corporate social media company’s non-disclosure of information that he had been requesting for many, many weeks, Mr.Musk withdrew his offer.

The big issue, here, is the possibility that Twitter is over-valued because the company has allowed “bots” to proliferate. That is, accounts run by computers and AIs and scammers who create accounts and then just crank out content that have no value for advertising — which is how the company makes most of its money.

“Twitter claims that only 5 percent of its monetizable daily active user (mDAU) base consists of bots,” explains Nicholas Dolinger at The Epoch Times, “but Musk has argued that the number is much higher, and that Twitter, in misrepresenting the total number of bots, has misled him in such a way as to void the agreement.”

The best part of the story may be the “meme” Musk shared about it, “implying that Twitter would face embarrassment at having to disclose information about the prevalence of bots on the platform in court.”

Twitter user @ZanderfromNOLA offers an image that shows that bot problem: multiple accounts for healthcare professionals all saying the exact same thing, word for word, pushing the COVID vaxxes. It could be a propaganda campaign from Big Pharma. Or it could be the CIA. Or China. Or even Russia! Who knows? But the wealth of duplicate and obviously suspect content on the platform suggests that Musk’s initial offering of $44 billion was way too generous.

The humiliation that Twitter has suffered may be well-deserved.

But will humiliation nudge along any decent reforms?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
free trade & free markets ideological culture

The Woke Mob’s Capitalism

climate justice, social justice, woke, wokeism

A prominent rating system has gone “woke.”

“Exxon is rated top ten best in world for environment, social & governance (ESG) by S&P 500,” Elon Musk tweeted a few weeks ago, “while Tesla” — the billionaire’s high-end electric car company — “didn’t make the list! ESG is a scam. It has been weaponized by phony social justice warriors.”

We could quibble. Is “phony” the right word? “Social justice” has always been slippery. It’s a “mirage,” explained Hayek, really just a stalking horse for power.

What Musk is objecting to, though, is worth thinking about. The ESG standard is supposed to mean something . . . based on objective criteria. The reasons to eject Tesla from its Top Ten and place Exxon at the pinnacle are laughably transparent. It’s a woke power grab. The leftist ideology has taken over another capitalist institution, the better to create . . .

What?

Socialism? Fascism?

Michael Rectenwald, in a fascinating essay, calls it “woke corporatism.” 

The plan is, he writes, to “establish a woke monopolistic cartel.” Musk’s company has been “subjected to the S in ESG — the ‘social’ or ‘social justice’ quotient.”

Musk, Rectenwald argues, “has been deemed a deplorable, and thus his company does not pass ‘social justice’ muster.” In other words, the putatively pro-inclusion folks are excluding him from the ranks of the favored.

And all because he wants free speech on a social media platform!

Laissez-faire grew out of economists’ objections to the grinding inefficiency and over-politicization of business. Adam Smith, back in 1776, called the pre-liberal, insider-based trade system “mercantilism.”

The leftist mob now pushes a neo-neo-mercantalism, mobocracy capitalism.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
Internet controversy social media

FYI re Musk

Elon Musk, Tesla, Twitter, law, Democrats, Republicans

“Tesla is building a hardcore litigation department where we directly initiate & execute lawsuits,” Elon Musk says in a recent tweet. “The team will report directly to me. Please send 3 to 5 bullet points describing evidence of exceptional ability.”

Now a major target of the commies and Democrats, Musk has good reason to seek expert legal assistance. Indeed, he prophesied his peril in an infamous tweet, and he prophesied correctly — leading to the de rigueur sex scandal . . . and another funny tweet.

But it’s not all seedy, partisan sturm und drang:

  • Musk knows how to make stuff, like electric cars and spaceships. Of course, other hugely successful entrepreneurs happen to be very bad politically, not the sort whose legal team you’d want to join if you’re a good guy. But . . .
  • Soon after Ukraine publicly asked Musk for Starlink satellites to help maintain communications in the wake of Russia’s invasion, Musk sent thousands to the country.
  • Musk has made a deal (not yet completed) to buy Twitter, avowedly motivated by the goal of liberating tweet speech. (The FCC recently contradicted reporting that it has pondered trying to block the purchase.)
  • He opposes subsidies for electric vehicles and favors more gas and oil production, which have been under assault by the Biden administration.
  • He can no longer abide the Democrats, the party of “division and hate.”

Musk’s record isn’t perfect. But chances are that the help he’s seeking will be used in a good cause. 

Just FYI — in case you’d like to boil down your resume to pursue this opportunity. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
general freedom international affairs too much government

The Population Implosion

Elon Musk

At the risk of turning Common Sense with Paul Jacob into Common Sense About Elon Musk, consider the second best thing about Musk’s Twitter preoccupation: his own tweets.

“At risk of stating the obvious, unless something changes to cause the birth rate to exceed the death rate, Japan will eventually cease to exist,” Musk posted on Saturday. “This would be a great loss for the world.”

A very significant observation, at odds with so much of the Official Narrative of Approved Subjects and Opinions.

Recognizing that depopulation is the big problem for the developed nations of the world, not over-population rubs up against most of what we’ve been told for years.

But it’s true.

Japan is not alone, here, in showing a demographic collapse. It’s merely the most advanced in population decline. Russia is in a bad way, and many European countries’ native populations are in zero population growth. The United States, too, is growing only because of immigration, legal and illegal.

Behind the numbers, though, is a disturbing reality: the instability of our welfare state policies. In America, and in most advanced nations, government-run social pension programs require a growing population to properly service. Yet, Social Security, by removing the need to have children as a natural safety net (where we beget offspring to help take care of us in old age), actually disincentivizes the population growth that might make the system sustainable.

 Elon Musk did not offer a fix. But by pointing to a very real problem, he’s done us a great service, speaking simple truth instead of propaganda.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
First Amendment rights individual achievement social media

A Failure of Trust

Elon Musk, Twitter, free speech

Why is the Federal Trade Communication threatening to investigate Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter?

The FTC is reportedly reviewing the Tesla CEO’s takeover of the forum and will soon decide whether to conduct an anti-trust probe of the transaction.

Musk hasn’t been entirely clear about his plans for Twitter now that he is on the verge of acquiring it. But we can expect that this avowed free speech absolutist will do his best to ensure that tweet-speech is much more open than it has been. He won’t label every statement he dislikes as “hate speech” or “misinformation” and forthwith expunge it.

And this, I’m pretty sure, is the problem.

Certainly, no new “monopoly” is in the offing. It’s not as if we lack social-media alternatives to Twitter — or that Musk already owns the alternatives. His other gigs pertain to electric cars, tunnels, and space flight.

The problem must be that government officials, too, expect that Musk will be a much better friend of unfettered speech than the previous Twitter insiders.

Officials expect — but also fear — that his Twitter won’t routinely terminate the speech of persons who dispute “official” doctrines about COVID-19, elections, or what have you.

To fear the prospect of a Musk-run Twitter is to fear open debate — debates that are unavoidable and should be welcome if we value citizen control of government.

But of course, those who seek to control us worry: if the people do not agree with them about what is and is not a fact, what is and is not the highest moral and political value, they might not stay in power.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
First Amendment rights national politics & policies

Homeland Censorship Board

Elon Musk, Twitter, free speech, censorship, First Amendment

We’re in a twilight zone beyond mere “mission creep” now. 

Two months ago, creeps at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) created a new censorship board, secret until its existence was revealed in congressional testimony.

This disinformatively named Disinformation Governance Board is headed by an open critic of the First Amendment, Nina Jankowicz. The purpose of the amendment being to protect freedom of speech and other rights from governmental assault, the new board and its director are especially alarming.

The DHS was formed after 9/11 to protect national security and combat terrorism, a form of politically motivated violence. And whatever the exact definition of “terrorism” should be, we can at least agree that arguing about the origins and issues of elections, pandemics, or Russian invasions doesn’t qualify. The bitterest clashing over facts is just speech, unless part and parcel of criminal acts.

But the purpose of the Disinformation Board is to combat and “address this threat” of election disinformation.

Merriam-Webster defines “disinformation” as “false information deliberately and often covertly spread” to “influence public opinion or obscure the truth.”

The First Amendment protects dishonest and mistaken honest speech, not just infallible honest speech. But by “disinformation,” foes of freedom of speech often mean “any speech we dispute.”

If the government can repress any speech that it chooses to label “disinformation,” that portends the end of freedom of speech. 

The very existence of the Disinformation Board warrants a lawsuit on First Amendment grounds.

And since disinformation was coined to designate, specifically, government-concocted and distributed misinformation — a term of art in the “intelligence” and propaganda biz, called dezinformatsiya by Stalin  — it is especially rich to see the current administration apply it directly against the people.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
First Amendment rights Internet controversy social media

Musk’s Twitter’s Must-Do’s

Elon Musk, scream, Twitter, censorship

Twitter is selling itself to billionaire Elon Musk “for an estimated $44 billion.”

Since deals sometimes fall through at the last second, the sale may yet be thwarted. For example, the government could try to foul things up — objecting, perhaps, to the possibility that if Mr. Musk takes over, obnoxious repression of speech would be dealt a grievous blow.

So, fingers crossed. But say Musk now has Twitter. What next?

Well, Elon Musk should stick to his stated free-speech absolutism. He should unfetter speech on Twitter. He is already being pressured to keep banning “misinformation,” i.e., disagreement with people who certainly don’t want their own alleged misinformation to be censored, only their opponents’.

Others want “hurtful” speech — impassioned polemics and invectives by their adversaries — to be squelched.

Musk has said that Twitter should “just be very cautious” about imposing any bans and suspensions. This is vague. Does it not imply the wrong kind of wiggle room for dealing with controversy? Musk must make no attempt to fine-tune Twitter’s speech to appease the censor faction, for this tribe cannot be satisfied until all with whom they disagree are silenced.

Twitter requires massive, sweeping, immediate changes, including restoring the banned or suspended accounts of all users kicked off for “misinformation” and the like.

Ban terrorists and others calling for — or facilitating — criminal actions. That’s it.

Current Twitter employees who try to sabotage the more free-wheeling policies should be unceremoniously shown the door.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
First Amendment rights free trade & free markets

Elon Musk Is Serious

Elon Musk, Twitter

Billionaire Tesla and SpaceX entrepreneur Elon Musk is showing the world how capitalism reforms wayward companies — like Twitter. 

It is done from within the system.

By stock ownership.

Becoming Twitter’s top stockholder — right after Musk told the Babylon Bee he just might have to buy Twitter to reform it — surely demonstrates serious intent.

But Twitter honchos have stressed that the mere advent of Elon Musk portends no major changes, a hint of things not to come. 

Moreover, a restriction on how many shares board members may purchase meant that had Musk joined Twitter’s board, he’d have been unable to ramp up the pressure for reform by becoming an even bigger stockholder.

So Musk chucked his original plan to join the board and decided, what the heck: If I do need to buy Twitter to fix its anti-speech policies, I better outright buy it. He has reportedly offered $43 billion.

He says: “I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe.” But he now realizes that the company in its current form will never be that platform. 

“Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.”

A week ago we asked, “Will Elon Liberate Tweeting?”

We’re still asking. Maybe the current owners love banning disagreement with themselves too much to give it up. 

Someone should tell them that are worse things to sell out for than open discourse and freedom of speech.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
First Amendment rights Internet controversy social media

Will Elon Liberate Tweeting?

Elon Musk

Persons who skip social media or who spend their time on Twitter and Facebook discussing lunch or the weather may not realize how anti-speech such big-tech forums have become.

If you disagree about what’s better for breakfast, eggs or oatmeal, no problem.

But despite their putative pretense of providing open forums, the dominant social-media companies routinely ban discussion of touchy subjects like Hunter Biden laptops, pandemics, and and the politics of race and gender. As the satire site Babylon Bee discovered, even calling a man a man, apparently quite a controversial observation, can get you in hot water with Twitter censors.

We have ways of combatting the censorship. One is using alternative platforms that do regard open discussion as a value. Another is becoming a major stockholder and disrupting the anti-speech agenda from within.

Is this what Elon Musk is up to? Bee CEO Seth Dillon says that after Twitter suspended Babylon Bee for calling a man a man, Musk called him about the suspension and said that “he might need to buy Twitter.” 

Presumably in order to put a stop to such censorious shenanigans.

Now Elon Musk, who has 80.6 million followers on Twitter, has bought the company. Or rather, he has acquired a big stake in it, a 9.2 percent stake. This apparently makes him Twitter’s largest stockholder. Maybe we can dare to hope that he will eventually become the majority stockholder.

Good first step, Mr. Musk. 

Next? Get Twitter to remove the gags.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts