{"id":96514,"date":"2022-04-27T08:16:58","date_gmt":"2022-04-27T02:46:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/elon-musk-as-a-one-man-media-power-broker-is-scary-as-hell\/"},"modified":"2022-04-27T08:16:58","modified_gmt":"2022-04-27T02:46:58","slug":"elon-musk-as-a-one-man-media-power-broker-is-scary-as-hell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/elon-musk-as-a-one-man-media-power-broker-is-scary-as-hell\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk as a One-Man Media Power Broker Is Scary as Hell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Placing the power of Twitter in the hands of a single man \u2014 however smart, interesting or entertaining \u2014 is a really bad idea<\/p>\n

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Placing the power of Twitter in the hands of a single man \u2014 however smart, interesting or entertaining \u2014 is a really bad idea.\u00a0The entire apparatus of democracy is built on the bedrock of free expression, and the function of media is to hold the powerful to account by ensuring transparency.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When a single person owns that platform\u2026 you see where this becomes difficult.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"What\u2019s<\/p><\/div>\n

As a media outlet, Twitter is singular in so many ways. It\u2019s a massive network that instantly transmits information (and misinformation and invective and mean jokes about Bill Gates\u2026 all weekend) directly to millions of users. In the hands of a single owner, we cannot know all the consequences. But I predict they are not good. Not good for democracy. Not good for public discourse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

We have already seen what happens when a single\u00a0user\u00a0<\/em>\u2013 then-president Donald Trump \u2014 abuses the platform, spreading lies about our democratic process and poisoning public discourse through his Twitter feed. Professional news media could not compete with the speed and impact of that misinformation. Our democracy came through it by the skin of our teeth, and at the time \u2014 just over a year ago \u2014 Twitter decided to kick Trump out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Would Elon have done the same?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

And in the absence of shareholders or a board answering to their interests, who will hold him to account? Jack Dorsey? Jeff Bezos? Peter Thiel? His mother?\u00a0<\/p>\n

We already live with the reality of a single person, Mark Zuckerberg, as the controlling shareholder of an enormous media platform, Facebook \u2013 or rather Meta (whatever that is) \u2014 despite being a public company. As we have seen, Zuckerberg is resistant to acknowledge the consequences of Facebook\u2019s role in media \u2014 the source of news for\u00a036% of U.S. adults, according to Pew research<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

We saw what happened when Trump invited Zuckerberg to the White House in 2019 \u2014 and quietly cut a deal<\/a> to hold off on heavy-handed regulation of the platform in exchange for avoiding the fact-checking of political speech. Zuckerberg has denied the accusation of any quid-pro-quo deal, but there\u2019s no doubt that Facebook declined to fact-check political speech. And no doubt that Trump\u2019s inflammatory comments were allowed to stand \u2013 until the insurrection.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Trump\u2019s<\/p><\/div>\n

That\u2019s the kind of thing that\u00a0happens, deep in the recesses of power and money.<\/p>\n

With Twitter as a private company, there is even less opportunity for transparency.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jeff Bezos\u2019 purchase of The Washington Post rates differently for two reasons: The Amazon founder owns the newspaper but does not run it, and most importantly news<\/em> professionals are in charge of the content that appears both in print and online. That\u2019s not the case with either Twitter or Facebook. \u00a0<\/p>\n

When it comes to media properties \u2013 newspapers and TV stations, for instance \u2014 we actually have laws to prevent monopoly ownership<\/a>. That\u2019s because our republic once shared the belief that it is not healthy for a democracy to place too much power in the hands of a single owner. And we imposed oversight in the form of the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But somehow those rules do do not apply to social media platforms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the queasiness of it all: Increasingly, we are living in a world where the vast majority of us citizens are like ants going about our business, as the tech billionaires run the boards far above our heads. Building rockets and going to space. Buying and selling unimaginably huge companies over the course of a weekend. Cutting deals that do not include us, or answer to us.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know about you, but my gut says this is not good.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"What\u2019s<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Placing the power of Twitter in the hands of a single man \u2014 however smart, interesting or entertaining \u2014 is a really bad idea Placing the power of Twitter in the hands of a single man \u2014 however smart, interesting or entertaining \u2014 is a really bad idea.\u00a0The entire apparatus of democracy is built on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":94654,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,3,105,106],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Elon-Musk-Offers-to-Buy-Twitter-7-burning-questions.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96514"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}