Get more news and opinions in the twice-daily Beast Digest newsletter. Don’t miss the next big story, sign up here.
Beginning a few weeks ago, anyone who emailed press@twitter.com has received an auto-reply consisting of nothing but a poop emoji.
It’s part of Elon Musk’s business-cratering, libs-owning, culture war strategy to let “the elites” know there’s a new sheriff in town. You want to ask the occasionally richest man in the world a direct question, or get clarification on one of his frequent contradictory policy edicts, or confirm reporting on the company that literally has no communications department anymore? You get the poop.
ADVERTISEMENT
“Why, exactly, does a 51-year-old man appear to be stuck in Freud’s anal stage?” asked Matthew Cantor in The Guardian.
This is the Musk conundrum. He’s undeniably financially successful and, at times, has been a bold and early backer of companies that are producing technological breakthroughs. But he’s also got the sensibilities of (and inclination to pander to) right-wing internet shitposters.
He talks a big game about nuance, non-partisanship, and good faith debate—but he tweets pablum like “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci.”
While I’m all for a thorough and honest examination of the government’s actions throughout the COVID-19 pandemic (including Dr. Anthony Fauci’s), wrapping a call for his prosecution—in the middle of “the one joke” the right just can’t get enough of—does nothing to elevate the discourse.
It’s a virtue signal to the “fuck your feelings” keyboard toughs. Like the poop emoji.
And that’s fine, if that’s your thing. It’s just irreconcilable with Musk’s high-falutin rhetoric about “encourag[ing] people of different political or other views to engage in civil debate on Twitter.”
Musk walks hand in hand with the people who use phrases like “woke mind virus” and “corporate press is the enemy of the people” un-ironically. (These are often the same self-described brave, heterodox, free thinkers who wouldn’t dare jeopardize their ability to be booked on certain primetime cable news shows by saying a thing about the revelations that Rupert Murdoch and Fox News’ top personalities knew Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen was bullshit.)
As such, Musk wants to minimize the influence of “legacy” media outlets and journalists—and he’s going after them where it hurts, right in their checkmarks.
After wildly overpaying for Twitter (to own the libs) and making the verified “blue checkmark” (which is actually a white checkmark embedded in a blue circle) essentially worthless by allowing anyone desperate enough to pony up $8 to get one, Musk the business genius has found his Twitter Blue product struggling. And Twitter is currently valued at less than half of what he paid for it last year.
So he’s upped the ante, threatening to strip all “legacy” accounts of their checkmarks unless they pay up.
Thus far, like many of Musk’s manic edicts, this hasn’t yet happened. But after The New York Times said it wouldn’t pay for the privilege, Musk made a petulant show of stripping the account of its verified status.
“The real tragedy of @NYTimes is that their propaganda isn’t even interesting…
Also, their feed is the Twitter equivalent of diarrhea. It’s unreadable,” said the billionaire civil discourse cop.
Can’t get enough from The Daily Beast? Subscribe to the twice-daily Beast Digest newsletter here.
While making Twitter a less reliable source for accurate information—and a more egalitarian place for anonymous edgelords, hoax conspiracy-mongers, racist uncles, and fascists with thesauruses—Musk has been hand-picking sympathetic journalists (apparently, no Musk-skeptical journalists can be trusted, because nuance) to disseminate “THE TWITTER FILES.”
The result has been a series of underwhelming Twitter threads about pre-Musk Twitter’s opaque content moderation policies, and attempts by politicians of both parties to lean on the private company.
The TWITTER FILES were called “worse than Watergate” by very rational people and even inspired some very silly congressional hearings, where MAGA Republicans and tech-luddite Democrats beclowned themselves throughout.
The biggest controversy related to the TWITTER FILES was the site’s brief and limited suppression of a controversial New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell.” And while I, too, think government and private collusion over the dissemination of news is a legitimate concern, I can think of a few other recent incidents regarding government censorship that warrant far greater concern.
But since we’re having congressional hearings about censoring New York Post articles, someone should tap Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) on the shoulder and let him know about Twitter’s recent censorship of the New York Post.
The Murdoch-owned right-wing tabloid reported on Twitter’s deletion of thousands of “Trans Day of Vengeance” tweets. Shocking stuff, right? TWITTER FILES material, no doubt.
But there’s more. Twitter locked the Post out of its account over tweeting a link to the story, a move the paper called “Kafkaesque.” This is literally the same thing pre-Musk Twitter did, which led to the hearings that were a waste of time even by congressional standards.
The fact is, Musk’s Twitter has content moderation policies—which include deleting tweets and banning accounts—just as it did before, and that the boss will change those policies on the fly if it feels the need to do so.
Musk has every right to run his site as he sees fit, even if it’s straight into the ground and for inexplicable and contradictory reasons he thinks are “principled.” That doesn’t mean anyone should buy into his rhetoric about free speech, transparency, and civil engagement.
A single poop emoji is worth $44 billion in words.
Sign up for the Beast Digest, a twice-daily run down on each day’s top stories. Don’t miss out, sign up here.
