“You understand Twitter is fair when extremists left and right are equally disgruntled. Twitter aims to serve the 80% of people who are at the center.”
– Elon Musk, December 3, 2022
On the freedom of word Musk has been building his offering from the very beginning 44 billion dollars for Twitter. What is meant by “freedom of speech”, the entrepreneur explained last April in an interview during TED 2022: “Users must have the perception of being able to express themselves freely within the boundaries permitted by law”. “Freedom of speech exists when someone you don’t like can say something you don’t agree with,” Musk added.
Musk’s thought – and above all his poisoned tweets – hinted that Twitter wasn’t doing enough for the world‘s richest man ensure full freedom of expression.
Now that he’s the owner of the social network, the entrepreneur is scrapping everything that preceded it: employees, strategies but also (and above all) the alleged political imbalance of the platform, all in favor of the Democrats and more generally of the left.
From these assumptions arise i Twitter Files.
Twitter Files is yet another coup de theater that Musk has shared with his 120 million followers. And although it has nothing to do with the cult 90s series, X-Filesdedicated to UFOs and supernatural situations, the name chosen by the entrepreneur deliberately recalls something mysterious and secret.
Indeed Musk – making use of the narration of Matt Taibbifreelance writer – decided to publish and disclose secret documentsespecially mail, which would demonstrate the frequent contacts between Twitter staff and American politicians. Right and left, without distinction, they would have asked the social network to remove uncomfortable tweetsor at least to consider their removal.
In particular to a request from the staff of Joe Biden to keep an eye on some tweets, which took place on October 24, 2020, is simply replied “Handled”, i.e. “managed”.
“The Twitter Files tell an incredible story from inside one of the largest and most influential social media platforms in the world – writes Taibbi – It is a tale worthy of Frankenstein of a mechanism built by man and grown to such an extent as to escape the control of its designer”.
Musk structured these files as if they were seriously a TV series, and that is in installments. The first, as told by Repubblica, is dedicated to the way in which Twitter allegedly censored, without valid reasons, an article in the New York Post of 14 October 2020 in which some compromising emails addressed to were published Hunter Bidenthe son of the future US president.
Based on the documents made available by Musk, Taibbi writes that “Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the story, removing links and posting warnings about “unsafe” content. They have even blocked its transmission via direct messages, a tool hitherto reserved for extreme cases, such as the sharing of child pornography”.
Al thread of Taibbi on flaws in Twitter moderation, Elon Musk matches two emoticons depicting bags of popcorn. As if to say: “And now I too am enjoying the show”.
To the most inexperienced, Musk’s might appear a reckless or even suicidal move. That of an entrepreneur who deliberately discredits his company.
In reality, Musk’s strategy is clear. Pointing the finger at Twitter’s staff and lawyers who operated before his arrival, the entrepreneur wants to demonstrate – possibly to those who criticize him for promoting hate speech – that his management will be ‘transparent’ and that no one, from now on, will indulge in favoritism.