Journalist Glenn Greenwald took to Twitter to break down the most important part of the entire Elon Musk/Twitter saga, and how one man’s threat to obtain the social media platform sent corporate media into a tailspin.
“Yesterday was a flagship day in corporate media. It was the day they were forced to explicitly state what has long been clear: they not only favor censorship but desperately crave and depend on it,” Greenwald tweeted. “Even if Musk doesn’t buy Twitter, never forget what yesterday revealed.”
He explained how, though the word “censorship” may not specifically be used, other euphemisms for it have been, and it’s becoming clear that they are exactly the same thing.
Everyone knows they are lying. Nobody cares about Twitter censoring bots or spam. That’s not what this is about.
The social media censorship people care about is 100% ideological: banning dissent on COVID, the Biden emails, culture war debates, etc. That’s what’s at stake.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 15, 2022
He pointed out the glaringly obvious double-standard by using the election of 2020 as an example:
Let’s put it this way:
On Google/YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, you are free to say the 2000 and 2016 elections were stolen and fraudulent. You can’t say that about 2020.
Before the 2020 election, you weren’t allowed to post reporting on the Biden emails.
It’s all ideological.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 15, 2022
“Let’s put it this way: On Google/YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, you are free to say the 2000 and 2016 elections were stolen and fraudulent. You can’t say that about 2020. Before the 2020 election, you weren’t allowed to post reporting on the Biden emails. It’s all ideological,” he surmised.
He went on to provide other examples of the left cherry-picking what you are and are not allowed to talk about on social media.
You’re allowed to spread any lies, propaganda and disinformation you want if it advances the Ukrainian cause (i.e., the US/NATO cause), but will be instantly banned if you say anything that challenges that on the ground of “Russia disinformation.” This is all explicit.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 15, 2022
Social media was heralded as an innovation that would liberate individuals from centralized control by the state and oligarchical power over their speech.
It has become the exact opposite: the most powerful tool of information control and speech constraints ever devised.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 15, 2022
He concluded his thread by pointing out that journalists can’t possibly care about billionaires having control of social media, because many of them already run the world’s largest media companies.
There are many reasons to be skeptical of Musk’s motives and, even if pure, his ability to restore free speech to Twitter. Way too many powerful interests need this censorship. But the panic reveals so much. My @getcallin show yesterday covered all this:https://t.co/Tqyryl7S3R
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 15, 2022
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Sierra Marlee is a millennial whose hunger for the truth in a world of fake news has led her to write. Marlee also contributes to BizPac Review.
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