Phil ably lays out the dueling hypocrisies at work in the latest brouhaha over Twitter and Elon Musk’s decision to temporarily suspend the accounts of several mainstream media reporters because they “posted my exact real-time location, basically assassination coordinates, in (obvious) direct violation of Twitter terms of service,” in Musk’s words.
There are three big lessons from this latest chapter in the story of Musk vs. the people who cover him:
- Big media institutions like CNN, the New York Times, etc. love stories where they are a character. Besides any inherent solipsism or narcissism, these institutions may well feel they are obligated to play up stories in which their own reporters are a factor, to send a message both inside and outside the institution that they’re willing to stand up and defend their own staff, like a manager who goes out onto the baseball field to argue with an umpire. Not giving prominent placement to a story about a reporter’s Twitter account being suspended could be seen as a de facto concession that a week’s suspension isn’t that big a deal or is justified. These institutions don’t necessarily need the accounts restored quickly, but they do need people to believe that they did everything they could to pressure Musk to reverse his decision.
- Every narrative needs a villain, and Elon Musk has displaced Donald Trump as the primary villain of liberals these days. While Donald Trump is selling people digital trading cards, Elon Musk is suspending big mainstream reporters and progressive activists like Aaron Rupar from Twitter for a week.
- Despite all the talk from prominent liberals that Twitter is dying and that they were leaving to go to Mastodon or other social-media platforms, they certainly aren’t acting like Twitter is dying. The overwhelming tone of the coverage this morning implies that Musk has terribly wronged these reporters — it couldn’t possibly be the other way around, right? — and that those accounts must be restored immediately. Otherwise, there isn’t “free speech.” If Twitter was indeed dying and becoming less popular, having your account suspended for a week wouldn’t be treated like being exiled to the dark side of the moon.