Newly Wired (you switch to another service) -magazine’s editor-in-chief Gideon Lichfield made a startling observation.
A billionaire at 50 With Elon Musk and the 76-year-old ex-president of the United States With Donald Trump there are many similarities.
Both have caused numerous stirs with their social media updates in a short time, Musk as the owner of Twitter and Trump when he started in the White House.
– Once again, a narcissistic troll prevents us from having a reasonable discussion, editor-in-chief Lichfield writes.
Finally, Lichfield draws a conclusion: Twitter owner Elon Musk is “Trumping”.
In 2017, in the first months after Trump’s inauguration, journalists were faced with a difficult task: How to react to the populist messages that the leader of the White House lets out both from his mouth and on social media?
The media could not ignore the messages because of the position of the author, after all it was the President of the United States.
Now the situation seems to be repeating itself.
When a billionaire announces one day that he will close the accounts of journalists who criticize him, the next publishes from his bedside table (you switch to another service) of a picture showing toy guns and third divide the extreme right (you will switch to another service) the Pepe the Frog meme that has become a symbol, journalists cannot ignore the content, according to the media itself, because of Musk’s position.
Assistant professor of journalism at the University of Jyväskylä Turo Uskali however, sees an essential difference in Trump and Musk.
Trump had political power when he was the President of the United States. Musk only has money and the power to decide who can be on Twitter.
Musk’s influence is therefore based on media perceptions that the owner of Twitter is an influential person.
– In journalism, reporting on Musk’s tweets should be limited. Trump showed how easy it is to exploit the news media. Now it seems that Musk wants attention and therefore got himself a megaphone to shout into.
Uskali says that, for example, the ex-president Barack Obama still has more Twitter followers than either Musk or Trump.
Freedom of speech still speaks behind the curtain
American Atlantic magazine (you will switch to another service) describes that the billionaire has drifted into a kind of love-hate relationship with journalists.
The parties aim for an open discussion platform, but there is a lack of consensus on the meaning of freedom of speech.
According to Uskal, Musk’s poorly prepared decisions and the arbitrary blocking of critical voices on Twitter only show that Musk himself has not understood the importance of freedom of speech.
In Musk’s opinion, conspiracy theories, incitement to violence, death threats and hate speech fall within the scope of freedom of speech.
However, as soon as Musk’s own safety was at stake due to freedom of speech, the billionaire was ready to change Twitter’s rules on the fly.
In the name of freedom of speech, Musk also reinstated Trump’s Twitter account in November, even though Trump’s tweets have been interpreted as glorifying violence and encouraging violent acts.
Musk defended Trump in connection with the so-called Twitter revelations. According to Musk (you will switch to another service) Trump did not violate the platform’s rules, but Twitter ended up blocking the account as a result of pressure from activists.
Did an Obama supporter become a mouthpiece for the far right?
In December, Musk has been actively sharing email messages and internal Twitter documents on social media. According to the documents, Twitter employees secretly created “blacklists” and limited the visibility of Republican politicians during the 2020 presidential election.
The Twitter revelations have been reported in particular by the conservatives’ mouthpiece Fox channel (you switch to another service)saying the revelations are embarrassing for Democrats.
New York Magazine (you are moving to another service) magazine Erik Leviz writes that Musk’s political views have changed recently.
Previously, Musk was known as the man who financed the presidential campaign of Democrat Barack Obama.
Now he has emerged as a conservative who wants to fight with groups that oppose social injustice.
According to Leviz, Musk’s political views are also driven by his business aspirations.
The New York Times (you’re moving to another service) According to the report, what Trump and Musk have in common is that they value the Democratic Party’s commitment to public investment that has helped businessmen’s businesses. Workers’ rights, trade unions and tax payment seem to terrify both.
In the 2010s, the US Democratic Party strongly supported the green transition, which benefited electric car maker Tesla.
However, the pandemic that started in 2020 created a rift between Musk and the Democrats.
Musk did not accept that the California administration ordered Tesla’s factory to close in the state during the corona epidemic.
Musk called the decision fascist (you move to another service) and moved Tesla’s headquarters to conservative-majority Texas.
In addition, Musk drifted into a dispute with the president Joe Biden with when the US administration left (you switch to another service) Tesla’s uninvited White House meeting on electric vehicles.
The New York Times (you’re moving to another service) analyst Jeremy Peters does not consider Musk a Republican, but an anti-democrat. According to Peters, Musk cannot be considered a conservative because he bows to China’s industry and leader to Xi Jinping.
Jyväskylä assistant professor of journalism Turo Uskali sees that the Twitter owner’s political views change faster than Trump’s. This is also reflected in Twitter’s policy
– Musk may make decisions and reverse them the next day. His communications are really messed up. It requires ethical judgment from journalists to decide which issues are worth reporting, Uskali states.
On December 13, Musk shared a short tweet with the word “follow” and an emoji representing a white rabbit.
The tweet immediately caused an uproar in the news media, as it was interpreted as a symbol of supporters of the far-right conspiracy theory Qanon.
In culture, such as in Alice in Wonderland and the movie Matrix, the white rabbit symbolizes “descending into the rabbit hole”.
Following the rabbit hole in Quanon’s circles means becoming a conspiracy theory supporter.
Quality magazine The Washington Post (you are moving to another service) accused Musk of flirting with the American extreme right and interpreted that supporters of the Qanon movement have taken Elon Musk as their new leader.
Musk became a bully
New York Magazine’s Leviz writes that over the past two years, Musk has begun to give more and more visibility to far-right accounts whose sole purpose is to provoke and create discord.
Musk has also adopted this way in his own communication.
Among other things, Musk has joined in bullying the Democrats, sexual minorities (you move to another service) and Twitter former employees (you move to another service).
Although Musk’s individual tweets may raise suspicions that the billionaire’s political views are leaning to the right, Twitter’s policy towards open expressions of far-right views has not changed so far.
For example, at the beginning of December, Twitter blocked a rap artist Kanye West’s for repeating the account because of the presentation of the Nazi symbol. In October, the account was removed due to an anti-Semitic tweet.
Sources: Reuters, AP
Also listen to: