{"id":2097,"date":"2022-04-19T13:46:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-19T13:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2022\/04\/19\/twitter-and-the-war-of-the-oligarchs\/"},"modified":"2022-04-19T13:46:00","modified_gmt":"2022-04-19T13:46:00","slug":"twitter-and-the-war-of-the-oligarchs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2022\/04\/19\/twitter-and-the-war-of-the-oligarchs\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter and the War of the Oligarchs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Geoff Shullenberger at Compact<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Those fretting about the world\u2019s wealthiest man gaining control over their favorite site have scarcely objected to the fact that the media outlets, think tanks, NGOs, and universities they work for comprise a patronage network<\/a> bankrolled by a handful of other billionaires like eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and Amazon\u2019s Jeff Bezos. Musk has done a service by exposing the function Twitter performs for this alliance of oligarchs and the professional classes, which Michael Lind terms \u201cProgressivism, Inc.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

From the beginning, Twitter has been central to the agenda of this alliance, though that agenda looked very different only a decade or so ago. During the Arab Spring, for example, Western journalists, NGOs, and politicians rhapsodized about the democratizing potential of Twitter in much the same terms as Musk today. Indeed, many of the same reporters, bloggers, and columnists who now inveigh against Musk\u2019s support for free speech hailed how free expression, enabled by platforms like Twitter, could bring down dictatorships.<\/span><\/p>\n

At this earlier moment, Progressivism, Inc. saw social media as an opportunity to spread its values abroad: The free flow of information was seen as a way of attenuating the power of foreign governments in favor of a loose affiliation of Western state entities, NGOs, and media outlets that sought to expand their influence. More recently, in the face of the populist threats that emerged around 2016 at home, the same alliance has deployed censorship to reassert its hegemony. Thus, while elite ideological opinion on free speech has reversed, what remains constant is the attempt to control the circulation of information in favor of certain interests.<\/span><\/p>\n

Both Musk and those who fear him position themselves as the defenders of democracy. In reality, the episode reveals how vacuous the term has become. In the final analysis, the conflict over Twitter is a war between rival factions of oligarchs. A less censorious Twitter is desirable in itself, as is the emergence of any meaningful challenge to the conformity that stifles cultural and intellectual life. But a less censorious internet also risks obscuring how power is really exercised in a world where the so-called public square is a patchwork of privatized ideological fiefdoms.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Geoff Shullenberger at Compact: Those fretting about the world\u2019s wealthiest man gaining control over their favorite site have scarcely objected to the fact that the media outlets, think tanks, NGOs, and universities they work for comprise a patronage network bankrolled by a handful of other billionaires like eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and Amazon\u2019s Jeff Bezos. Musk has … Continue reading “Twitter and the War of the Oligarchs”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2097\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}