“I’ll start paying attention to Musk’s talk about free speech if and when Twitter stops censoring Russian media and unbans people like Scott Ritter who were removed from the platform for questioning official empire narratives about what’s happening in Ukraine."
4/26/22, “Caitlin Johnstone: The Billionaire Savior of Twitter,“ Consortium News
“Twitter has done an about-face and sold the company to the richest person in the world for $44 billion….
Many critics on the left are responding to the news by ringing alarm bells about a powerful oligarch controlling an influential social media platform, as though Twitter was anything besides oligarch-controlled before today and
as though billionaires buying up media is some shocking new development.
Some anti-imperialists have expressed tentative hope that this new development may lead to some rollback of the
jarring escalations in censorship we’ve been seeing on the platform
in defense of U.S. empire narratives,
due to the plutocrat’s [Musk’s] comments on the importance of free speech.
From what I can see, though, the overwhelming majority of excitement on Twitter about Musk’s purchase is coming not from those who challenge power in any meaningful way....This important distinction was summed up by journalist Michael Tracey, who tweeted,
“The biggest test for Elon Musk will not be whether he rolls back the most obvious ‘woke’ content policies–that should be a given–but
whether he continues to let Twitter be used as
a vehicle for the US national security state
to ‘counter’ official enemies like Russia and China.”…
You don’t get to be a billionaire, much less a billionaire with massively influential media ownership,
unless you collaborate with existing power.
Musk has certainly been collaborating with the oligarchic empire very nicely up until this point, and
it’s a safe bet that his purchase would not be happening
if the empire felt its
narrative control machine
was in any way threatened by it.
Believing Elon Musk is going to save Twitter is as naive as believing Joe Biden was going to save America. Arguing over which oligarchs should control the media is as silly and undignified as arguing over which oligarch-owned politicians should run the government.
Billionaires coming to the rescue only happens in movies and comic books. You’re as likely to be saved by Elon Musk as you are by Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark.
How many times are people going to fall for this “a billionaire is about to
stick it to the man and save us all” schtick?
It’s very sad that we’re at a point where speech is being throttled so severely that people are
hoping an eccentric billionaire will swoop in and rescue them from oppression.
Real life is like a dumber, more boring version of Gotham City, except Batman is working with the bad guys.
I’ll start paying attention to Musk’s talk about free speech
if and when Twitter stops censoring Russian media
and unbans people like Scott Ritter who were removed from the platform
for questioning official empire narratives
about what’s happening in Ukraine.
Until then I’m going to assume he’s at most only interested in
protecting speech that
doesn’t threaten the powerful….
The billionaires are not coming to save us….The leaders of the capitalist class are not going to overturn the systems of oppression and exploitation which form the very foundation of capitalism. Superhero stories are designed to prevent us from realizing that
only we the people have the power to rescue ourselves.”
………………..
“Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper who publishes regularly at Medium. Her work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking her on Facebook, following her antics on Twitter, checking out her podcast on either Youtube, soundcloud, Apple podcasts or Spotify, following her on Steemit, throwing some money into her tip jar on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of her sweet merchandise, buying her books Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix, Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone and Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.
This article is from CaitlinJohnstone.com and re-published with permission.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.”
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