Many articles have been published about the catastrophic implications of Elon Musk taking over Twitter and RW schadenfreude over pseudo liberals’ “oppari”. English is a poor language, and I simply can’t find a good word to replace the Tamil word “oppari”. Google it. If you believe this nonsense, you will think climate change has been demoted to the No 2 threat in the liberal worldview.
But in life, I have my own first law of media reality – Noise is inversely proportional to the significance of the mater.
Yes, Elon’s takeover of Twitter is likely to change nothing. The rest is drama.
To understand this clearly you must understand a few things.
- Twitter’s censorship of news that negatively impacts leftists and their narratives is by no means unique. This disease is more widespread than COVID. There is still Google, Facebook, YouTube, BBC, WaPo, NYT and so on. They will continue to censor and spin, obfuscate, and if necessary lie, to suit their political agendas.
- To give but one small example, a recent study showed Google sent most conservative campaign mails to the “spam” folder but allowed Dems to hit the inbox. Is Elon going to buy over Google? (PDF link). How about Wikipedia? Remember their vandalizing pages of Kashmir Files, Dr Sampath and many others using the left’s propaganda handles?
- Even within Twitter, the decisions to ban and cover-up Biden family corruption or assign “manipulated media” tags to criticism of looter families in India but allow their outright lies and fake narratives to “pass without let or hinder” (to quote the colonial English bureaucratese in Indian passports), is not the decision of its owners. It is a product of a fascist woke left takeover of social media and big tech. It permeates the entire organization.
- Therefore, changing owners won’t change anything unless the entire workforce is purged of leftist malcontents which is impossible and impractical. The outrage will be heard on Mars. Even if it were possible, find replacements from where? Harvard? Cambridge? JNU? See the next point!
- To fix the problem of the leftist takeover of media and academics, you must begin at the beginning. A farmer that sowed wheat doesn’t go to his field expecting to harvest rice. According to some studies, barely 10% of US college professors are conservative. In India, the situation is likely to be the same or worse. Colleges, especially the so-called social-science (oxymoron alert) ones, have today become factories that churn out leftist malcontents that go on to infiltrate every occupation where productive and honest work is unwelcome and unnecessary. Like any good pyramid scam, they often end up in academics producing more toxic waste.
- In the Indian context, the chance of someone graduating from a madrasah becoming a jihadi is almost zero as compared to the chance of someone from these degree mills turning out supporters of Stalinist mass rapist butcher left ideologies, Islamist violence, enablers of dynastic loot and anti-Hindu hatred as well as serfdom to the despot in Beijing wrapped up as secular and progressive.
Despite all that, to continue to believe that Elon is 21st century Hercules that will clear the Augean stables of muck is to live in a fool’s paradise.
It is thus important to talk about the O’Sullivans Law which tells us that any organization without a strong ideological mooring will eventually lose its way. Anything which is not expressly right will over time become Left.
As discussed, it is nearly impossible for Twitter to become a “right-wing” organization unless the entire staff is purged and Twitter starts recruiting ground up. The moorings of Elon Musk himself may be anti-Woke, if we choose to believe him, however, is by no means “right”. Therefore, the hope that Twitter will suddenly become a right-wing bastion is a pipe dream that we must not pin hopes on.
Moreover, one has to consider that the Indian right-wing’s faith in Elon Musk is widely misplaced. There are several business concerns that might stop Musk from taking the steps he might want to take to transform Twitter. Even though he is the richest man in the world and wields the power that comes with it – those riches come at a cost.
To think that the modern-day P T Barnum and carnival barker will rescue Twitter and restore fair play is to live in delusion. Nothing but heartbreak and disappointment is likely to come out of that.
Why? It’s elementary, my dear Watsons! (By the way, Holmes never said that!)
Elon prospers on government handouts. The EV subsidies, basically state mediated, legal transfer of wealth from poor and middle-class taxpayers to super-rich buyers of such vehicles, who are also, by coincidence, mostly vocally left and woke, have built Musk’s empire, and continue to do so. He will be a fool to give that up. And he isn’t. In fact, even his other businesses like Boring Co and SpaceX depend on generous government contracts. If not, they will die tomorrow.
To assume that Elon Musk will compromise his business interests simply to take on the powerful woke left lobby, which helps him with subsidies, and even advocates them in the name of saving the earth, or some such utopian slogan is nothing short of idiocy.
Elon Musk’s business compulsions are such that he has even pandered to the despotic Chinese government. Now, are we to assume that Elon Musk owned Twitter would use the “manipulated media” tag on anything that the Chinese government tweets out? For him, would that make business sense? How easy would it be for him to, for example, let the Hindus air their grievance while the entire global community is spreading despicable propaganda against them?
Already Modi sarkar is under fire for refusing to shovel more taxpayer dollars into Elon’s coffers. One more ban on a BJP supporter or RW handle, Indian left and brown-nosed (thanks Tharoor) sycophants of fascist dynasties will be dancing in joy, singing his praise. They will be eating out of Elon’s hands. A few thousand to some dubious fundraiser that ends up in Chianti bottles, peanut for Elon, will seal the deal.
Nothing much will change, there will be a lot of shadowboxing, WWF style “knock-outs” and SM versions of screaming girlfriends that rush into the arena and tear each other’s hairs.
Enjoy the drama but don’t be a fool thinking the battle is real.
